My piece on the theme is now out. It’s a strange little cubicle-landia, ad-agency piece, entitled “Launch Night at Dante’s Ad Agency“, and in the spirit of James Frey, that pretty much happened to me exactly.

My fellow writing-group member Karen Munro had her piece on the same theme (though a different sort of launch) come out last week. It’s called ‘Flight Suit‘, and it’s a great piece. Check it out.

The Hugo House has an interview with me here.
I’m taking some fun risks and building some software specifically for the reading, just to really push the ‘how many things can fail at once’ potential as high as it can go. I’m enormously enthusiastic about the project at the moment.

The next day I’ll be teaching a class at the Hugo House, and then immediately after that I will be doing this:

Where I’ll be for several months. First to go to the wedding of my brother-in-law (yay Mark & Tati!) and then to work on a book (yay!).

If you have any Brazil advice, stories, places to see, people to meet — I’d love to hear it.

In which James Patterson got a 17 book deal with Little, Brown and Co. If I’m reading that correctly, all of those books need to be written by 2012 which is a scant two years and some change away.

Wow.

I remember getting a quantity vs. quality lecture from a family friend when I was about 8 years old. At the time, I think it was an argument about whether to eat at Dick’s Drive-in or not. His argument at the time was to favor quantity over quality (he was 16), and it made perfect sense to my 8-year old brain. Not that I’m comparing James Patterson to Dick’s Drive-in. I think their burgers were 49 cents each. It didn’t say how much James Patterson will get for his deal.

James said: “I love writing stories.”

Phew! (wipes brow), good thing. Otherwise, that’d be a nightmarish job. His books average around 400 pages, so for the math-inclined: (400 pages * 300 words/page * 17 books) / 2.5 years =  a bafuckzillion.

I’m definitely going to be asking Small Beer Press for a 17 book deal. Guys? How about we ease-in slow with a six pack?

There are a number of reasons why this promises to be a most excellent book, not the least of which is: the lead character is a bicyclist who rides with his umbrella! While Jed lives in Northampton, this book was obviously written for bikey, rainy Portland.

Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief said:

“Jedediah Berry knows magic. The Manual of Detection combines the intricacy and thoughtfulness of Borges and Kafka with the page-turning excitement of a detective thriller. . . . It made me laugh, thrill, think, and wonder.”

This book might be extremely important reading in case you accidentally find yourself a detective in a complex mystery. (no affiliation!)

There is a great website for the book (www.manualofdetection.com) built by the same guy who does a ton of great websites for books -  Jefferson Rabb.

A publisher who did not publish the book,  the curiously named ‘Small Beer Press‘ – is hosting a mystery contest to win signed copies of the book. I’ll be picking mine up tonight at Powell’s Books (I’m going to see TC Boyle read – see you there?). Here’s The Manual of Detection at Powell’s.

Best of luck, Jed!

So we went looking for examples and found this.

Hmm.. Now I love Richard Scarry as much as the next guy, but this isn’t doing it. 

It was then we realized the last essential piece of the success of a Cats Driving Cars story. It can’t be just any cat. This has got to be a cat who is at the very least aloof. More likely it’s pissed-off, mean, mischievous, has a nasty habit, or is just downright insane. Dr. Seuss understood this:

Here’s the pissed-off cat variation:

There are a number of variations that also work. Mice on motorcycles, if they’re badasses:

While there’s no vehicle involved, traveling dogs with suitcases and insatiable appetites work:

Mischievous cats on cross country skis also work:

Even Ducks on Bikes get there. In the last frame of this book below, duck ambitiously eyes a tractor with a touch of megalomania. 

I told my friends David and Lucie this about our theories and they pointed me to Bjork’s video in which she is married to a cat:

Although it gets a little weird for me at the 4:40 mark, I think it’s right on until then.

I’d love to fill out our library (childrens or otherwise) with the Cats Driving Cars genre and its sub categories, let me know if you have any suggestions.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THIRD INSTALLMENT OF THE 1,000 WORDS READING SERIES: THE FUTURE
MAIDEN IN THE MIST, 7PM MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2008. FREE
CONTACT: MEL FAVARA 971-506-3340, mel.Favara@gmail.com
More info at 1000wordspdx.blogspot.com

In this innovative reading series, five participants each present 1,000 words of prose written for the occasion. Writers agree to produce 250 words per week for four weeks leading up to the reading; they are given a theme at the beginning (THE FUTURE, this time), and must include certain phrases and words in each weekly effort as capriciously assigned by the host. A stunning variety of fresh works result from the writers’ wildly divergent interpretations of the prompts, and the rapid-fire presentation of short pieces make for an entertaining reading. Reading:

Benjamin Parzybok: Ben founded Gumball Poetry, a literary journal published into gumball machines, co-founded Project Hamad which helped free Adel Hamad, a Guantanamo inmate, runs the treasure hunt/caper into the underbelly of the city known as Peachblow (via the Black Magic Insurance Agency), and runs a startup around walking(walkertracker.com). He has a novel, Couch, forthcoming from Small Beer Press in the fall of 2008. He lives with his wife, the writer Laura Moulton, and their two kids in Portland, OR.

Daniel Thomas: Now in the full bloom of manhood, Daniel embodies the wisdom and perspective of the formally trained philosopher, the earthy humility of the former junky, the vulnerability of the natural born aesthete, the taste and style of a foppish dandy and the inexplicable ownership of very strange purebred dog. For bread and wine, he builds houses with Hammer and Hand.

Jill Stukenberg: Fiction and nonfiction star Jill Stukenberg recently relocated to Portland from New Mexico, where she earned an MFA from New Mexico State University. She writes and teaches at Clark College and Clackamas Community College.

Series curator Mel Favara will also read. She teaches English and hosts other literary hybrid events in Portland. Her work has appeared in the Willamette Week, No Slander, Columbia Poetry Review, and in her zine, teen sleuth.

Special guest Matthew Hattie Hein, formerly of the band New Bad Things and currently performing all by his lonesome and teaching English all over town, will play the guitar and sing.

The setup is this:

The theme is ‘The Future’

Each week we get our assignment, which includes four words we must use – this week they are: granular, montage, tablecloth, and spurn and one phrase: “And the thing I most fear may come to pass, that”

Assignments are due on Sunday night (or punishable by…?). It’s awesome fun writing under these kinds of bonds. Your story is half yours, yet at the same time you look for ways to wickedly foil the assigner – can I use all 4 words and the phrase in a single sentence? What if a dog bargs and the main character thinks it’s saying “Spurn! Spurn!” etc

If you are unfamiliar with the art of word counting, it’s a sort of addiction – however in writing novels I always count in the opposite direction. A 5,000 word day is a total blow-out that needs later the tender care of black licorice and bourbon to bring the brain back from the brink. For me, 1,000 – 1,500 words is a solid day’s work. If I hit 300-400 words only, they better be well done.

Trying to write 250 words is a tremendous challenge. I’m a long distance runner, not a sprinter, I guess. And so each week after we get our assignments I easily bang out 600 or 900 or 1200 words, and then I spend the rest of the week fretting and deleting and fretting and removing ideas and removing characters and jettisoning the garbage and so on.

Secondly, it’s my first all-out 100% science fiction attempt, and it’s a blast.

The reading will be at Maiden in the Mist, 639 SE Morrison St., Portland, OR in the first week or so of March. I’ll post date, etc. when it gets closer.

Two: I have a short story, The Coder, which appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wrislet #21.

Three: Small Beer Press has purchased my novel, Couch – a book about three guys who carry a somewhat opinionated couch to South America.

Hooray! What a fantastic way to start 2008. I wrote Couch while Laura and I were living in South America in 2002. It was a magical time, and I am very excited to be working with the fantastic people at Small Beer Press.