THANX AND A HAT TIP to the thirty-or-so-ish folk who attended our Myrtle of Venus book release party on Friday. Pictures from the event will be on this site soon.

Print copies of the novel can now be had at M Coy Books (Pine near Second) and Confounded Books (East Pine near Boren). They’ll be available later this week at Ola Wyola (First near Bell). The online ordering page should be up, in one form or another, by Wednesday.

The splendiforous release party for our novel The Myrtle of Venus occurs this very evening, 7-10 p.m., in the Rendezvous Jewel Box, 2320 2nd Ave. in Seattle. DJ Superjew will spin retro-lounge and Europop tuneage. Be there or be rhomboidal.

The fab release party for our novel The Myrtle of Venus occurs this Friday, April 2, 7-10 p.m., in the Rendezvous Jewel Box, 2320 2nd Ave. in Seattle. DJ Superjew will spin retro-lounge and Europop tuneage. Copies of the book WILL be available for purchase.

The following day, copies of the book will be available for purchase on this site and at a few select local retail outlets.

…comes from none other than Waterburglar John Dean himself, alleging that the current administration’s putting “a cancer on the Presidency.”

IT’S OFFICIAL: Titlewave Books has closed. The jam-packed li’l used book store on Lower Queen Anne, where I and many other writers gave readings, lasted 20 years. Since the average lifespan of such a business can be roughly figured in cat years, you can do the math for yourself and be even more impressed by Titlewave’s longevity.

(It can now be told that owner Nickie Jostol asked me to buy the place. I had to decline, but felt flattered that she would mistakenly think I had money.)

The store’s demise makes even more poignant the last thing read at the last live reading event there. Our ol’ pal Doug Nufer, who’d run the Titlewave reading series for the previous nine or so years, closed the last edition by reading a piece he’d created out of the final sentences of several dozen classic novels.

And I’m looking to talk to people who’ve worked in local television, here or elsewhere, for research purposes. Email me to set up the details.

IN CONTRAST to yesterday’s linked essay about the suckiness of corporate publishing, here’s a quick ode to self-publishing as the book industry’s savior.

A PSEUDONYMOUS “Jane Austen Doe” has supplied Salon with a rather standard complaint about the trying times facing authors of non-bestseller books. It’s nothing I haven’t heard all my adult life; yet I’m re-entering the book biz this month.

Why? (Besides the whole quixotic bravery/foolishness of it all)?

Because I believe things don’t have do be as darned bleak as Doe says they are.

I believe in independent publishing. I believe in the success (within ups and downs) of Fantagraphics, McSweeney’s, Cometbus, and the like. So-called “midlist” books perhaps shouldn’t be marketed by conglomerate publishers, if the conglomerate publishers no longer know how to market them. They should be marketed by those who know how to nurture and build niche audiences for them.

The ebook version of The Myrtle of Venus is now available! The print version will be here in two weeks.

NOVEL NEWS #2: The fab book release party’s taking place on Friday, April 2 (the day after the old Roman feast day for Venus), 7-10 p.m., at the splendid Rendezvous Jewel Box on Second Avenue north of Bell Street. DJ Superjew will spin retro-pop tuneage for your exquisite enjoyment. Be there.

…modern fiction is “more punk rock than music will ever be again.”

I NOW HAVE an official publication date for my sprightly funny novel The Myrtle of Venus. It’ll be April 1. Not just because it’s April Fool’s Day but because it’s the historic date of Veneralia, the Roman festival of Venus.

On or before that date, the free HTML version of Myrtle will disappear from this site. You’ll then be able to buy the ebook version and preorder the ultra-limited first print edition.

There’s also gonna be a release party, Friday April 2 at the lovely Rendezvvous, with diverting entertainment provided by our ol’ pal DJ Superjew. More details later.

…in domestic mainstream media, has a cogent long review of the Paul O’Neill and Kevin Phillips anti-Bush books.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE ex-employers, Lake City’s own Fantagraphics, has announced what may just be its crowning achievement (at least in the repackaging department): The Complete Peanuts! All fifty years of Charles Schulz’s masterwork, in twenty-five deluxe volumes to be issued over the next twelve and a half years; including many early episodes never before anthologized. And yes, it’s already on my Amazon.com wish list.

Seattle Weekly’s had two strong cover stories in a row.

This week’s piece by Tim Appelo wondering why Ken Kesey ceased to be a great writer expressed (and, thankfully, didn’t try to fully answer) all the questions I had when Kesey died and all the obits ran paragraph after paragraph about his drugging and drinking and only a couple of sentences about his writing.

Appelo’s piece followed Philip Dawdy’s long, haunting pontification about last summer’s suicide by beloved KUOW personality Cynthia Doyon. We’re just a couple of months away from what will probably be a string of media hype pieces marking ten years since Kurt Cobain’s death. We seem not to have learned a damned thing since then about taking care of ourselves or one another.

Some readers have told me they’ve only read the first chapter of my online novel, because they couldn’t locate any links to the subsequent scenes. I’ve now redesigned the whole thing, so you should now have no trouble navigatin’ your whole way through. (This revision is also about 15 percent shorter, and hence tighter and funnier.)

So start readin’ it already!