Wednesday, March 5, 2014

ON SELLING OUT

SATURN officially launched at AWP in Seattle last weekend. Here is a photo of SATURN on the Spork table, at the beginning:

R3

It sold out. All 50 copies, gone.

Despite what people tell you, it feels very nice to be a sellout. If you bought one of the 50 - let me know! Like any narcissist, I'd love to hear what you think of it, or if you want to debate my facts. Since I wasn't in Seattle to endorse the copies for you, I'll propose something similar: if you let me know that you got the book, I will tear out highlighted/annotated pages of the classic 1986 David Bowie biography Alias David Bowie and mail them to you in lieu of a signature. It's definitely much more practical this way.

Right now, Spork has returned home without SATURNs, but they are always busy, and I expect that very soon there will be more books and it will be available to buy on the Spork website. This offer will stand for as long as I can manage it - even if you don't want a scrap of paper mailed to you, I'd love to hear what you think of it. Or if you have any photos or tactile descriptions (as yet, I haven't held a physical copy, so I am interacting vicariously), by all means, send them along. I would like to thank you, at least.

There are over 500 pages in Alias David Bowie. Plenty to gut.

*

While Spork continues making books and books and books, a few SATURN stories have made their way into a couple of new journals: first, online, in the inaugural issue of The Knicknackery (brought to you by the very estimable team of Sonja Vitow and Keren Veisblatt Toledano) you can find "David Bowie Sleeps with 1001 Arabian Nights Next to His Bed," which is, of course, about unending stories.

In print, Skydeer Helpking, a new journal put together by Russ Woods and Jeannette Gomes, also just released their first issue, and inside you can find both "David Bowie Approaches Tilda Swinton to Play Him in the Movie of His Life" and "David Bowie Confronts His Digital Self in Omikron: The Nomad Soul." 

Did you ever play Omikron? This is what he looked like:

Finally, in non-Bowie-related news (thank god), I have a small story called "Booties" in the last (!) issue of Fractured West, a print flash fiction journal from Scotland. It's really beautiful and full of equally tiny things.

Once again, thanks for reading,
Simon