"How Great Children's Books are Born" - Salon.com

Back in 2007, my boyfriend handed me the first book in the Griffin and Sabine trilogy (see Nick Bantock's thoughts here). 


In 2008, that same boyfriend and I started our own word-and-image correspondences, sending postcard stories and illustrations back and forth between Chicago and Tuscaloosa, AL. 


Then, in 2010 that collaboration became Flying House. 


Today the beautiful Erin Morris (our bookbinder for anthology #1), introduced me to yet another glorious correspondence piece, featured over at Salon.com, "How Great Children's Books are Born: A collection reproduces the colorful correspondence between illustrator Edward Gorey and author Peter F. Neumeyer." 


It's amazing. 


Here is a taste of their collaboration: 

©The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust, courtesy Pomegranate (pomegranate.com). 

©The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust, courtesy Pomegranate (pomegranate.com).

©The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust, courtesy Pomegranate (pomegranate.com).

And those are only the envelopes! 


Everything was handwritten. I hope my now-husband (same guy as above) was right when he said he thought there would be a backlash from technology; that people would start putting pen to paper once again. I hope the closing of Borders means Mom-and-Pop shops will gain sales (it's crazy how hard it is to find a bookshop in the city these days!). 


I hope the written word continues in ink -- accompanied by pretty pictures. 


The book, "Floating Worlds," is available through Pomegranate Press.

TODAY! What's your art?

Presented by WBEZ and Sixty Inches from Center: 


"In celebration of Chicago’s rich landscape devoted to emerging artists, art education, and the opportunity to inspire and become inspired, WBEZ invites you to the Chicago Cultural Center to join us in exploring these spaces and the role they play in shaping the artist in each of us."


12-5. Fun crafts, artsy people, good times. See you there!

Another Art Event at Maes Studio!

I know, late notice, but come to an awesome art event at the Maes Studio TONIGHT!!! Decemeber 1.  

ARLENE ISENBERG

About Converge: 


"A series of events designed to bring new thoughts to the surface, Converge gathers artists, professionals, creatives, and all other thinkers for an evening of exhibition and artistic discourse. Join us in celebrating our local community and be inspired by the work of your peers. The inaugural event showcases work from local painters, printmakers, sculptors, and video artists. Take a look around to get to know our first group of artists, a mix of professional artists whose diverse backgrounds are sure to provide intriguing exchange." 


Maes Studio. 167 N Racine, Chicago, IL 60607. 6-9pm

Congrats to Pedro Ponce for his NEA

Flying Houser, Pedro Ponce, earns himself a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.

Check out his book, and read an excerpt here. 

Libraries of Inspiration

Rudyard Kipling’s study in Naulakha.

I'm not sure why, but peering into other writer's libraries makes me so happy!

Check out a collection of them here. 

THANK YOU!

Screenprint by Jay Paonessa

Flying House 2011 was a huge success, and we'd like to thank everyone who was involved in putting on the show, as well as all those awesome people who came out to see great art, listen to some amazing literature, and support our artists and writers. 

We're in the process of posting pictures, so feel free to look through our flicker stream (click on the pics at the top of the page), or go to our facebook page. 

Dresserts cakepops! photo by Randal Morris   

Thank you to Dresserts for supplying your amazing cakepops! Yea to devil's food cake! They were sooo delicious (I only wish there were more left over to eat at the end of the night!)

Artwork is still for sale! Just email us a line at theflyinghouseemail@gmail.com for details.

Artwork by Marika Paz, photo by Jerry Paonessa

Additionally, our anthologies are about to go through another pressrun (yea!), so if you didn't get a chance to buy one before, do so now! Both the 2010 and 2011 anthologies are for sale.

Flying House Fall Issue

Last, but not least, go and check out Luke Felton's video, which debuted at the Flying House show. It's just a sample of what's to come!

film by Luke Felton, screenplay by Pedro Ponce

Flying House Fall Issue by Flying House | Make Your Own Book

The 2011 Flying House Anthology has been sent to print! Get a preview here, and buy yours today! (Entrance to the Flying House 2011 gallery show is free with purchase).

Vivo is our new sponsor!

Flying House got ourselves a new sponsor! Thank you Vivo! 


Now, anyone who purchases a Flying House ticket for the 2011 show this October 15, can enjoy 25% off dinner & 1/2 off drinks, just by showing your ticket at their door. Conveniently located down the street from Maes Studio, it'd be a great spot for a pre-show dinner, or an after-show drink. So buy your ticket today and get eating!


For more info about Vivo, go here. 


To purchase you Flying House ticket for only $5, go here!

AB Gorham & BJ Hollars in Diagram!

The beautiful, amazing and talented poet, AB Gorham is in the latest edition of Diagram with her poem, THE PROBLEM CENTERS HERE.


And on top of that, BJ Hollar's brand-spanking-new novel, THIRTEEN LOOPS: RACE, VIOLENCE, AND THE LAST LYNCHING IN AMERICA, is out oN bookshelves this week--and it's reviewed in the one and same Diagram!


Congratulations Flying Housers!

Dear Diary

Collectable diaries, written by well-known writers. Sneaking into people's thoughts never gets old. 

The Flying House Invitations are out!

Save the Date: Flying House is October 15

Congrats to Tris3ct!

Work-home to Flying Housers Jenae Neeson and Brian Kemerley, Tris3ct was voted on of the Best Places to Work by Ad Age. See who else made the list here. 

David Welch Best New Poet!

Congratulations to Flying Houser David Welch! His work, "17 Movements in Spring," will be appearing in Best New Poets 2011.

(and I also see a Black Warrior Review nominee made it through - yippee!)

Thirteen Loops

BJ Hollar's book, "Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America," is now for sale!

And here's a coupon.

Yea, BJ!!

BJ Hollars and Big Foot

Flying House contributor, BJ Hollars, has an obsession with Big Foot. He's been to conventions, and they sounded scary. Check out what he has to say for himself at Ninth Letter.

Art and the Metrocard

Frida Kahlo

"For the past 10 years, New-York-based Guatemalan artist Juan Carlos Pinto has been using discarded Metrocards to create vibrant mosaic portraits of cultural icons and local heroes alike. His artwork comments on issues of social justice and environmental conservation with a visual aesthetic that emanates the expressive lushness of the ancient Mayan folklore traditions of his homeland."


Read/see more here. 

House of Books

 

So cool. A house made entirely of book shelves! Read more about this glorious house here. 

Poetry Northwest Needs Your Votes!

The Pitch, a quarterly, online writing contest thrown by Poetry Northwest, has posted their finalists––and Jane Wong is one of them! Go check her out, gauge her competition, and send her your vote!

"Intermediate" Gatsby?

Seriously??!! A new "Intermediate" Great Gatsby? How much less can we expect from our education system? How can we appreciate the poetry of writer's word choices if words are to be dumbed down to an expressionless style?

Roger Ebert writes: "There is no purpose in "reading" The Great Gatsby unless you actually read it. Fitzgerald's novel is not about a story. It is about how the story is told. Its poetry, its message, its evocation of Gatsby's lost American dream, is expressed in Fitzgerald's style--in the precise words he choose to write what some consider the great American novel. Unless you have read them, you have not read the book at all. You have been imprisoned in an educational system that cheats and insults you by inflicting a barbaric dumbing-down process. You are left with the impression of having read a book, and may never feel you need return for a closer look."

Agreed. Read more here.

The Strange, Beautiful, Subterranean Power of Fairy Tales

Illustration by Nicoletta Ceccoli

Flying House friend, Kate Bernheimer, moderates a Fairy Tale forum @The Center for Fiction. Keep it coming, Kate.

The Orange Prize & Ruth Fowler

Yikes. I read this article over a week ago and forgot to post it until now. Talk about harsh.

"I'd rather pluck my own pubic hairs than read this fawning idiocy written by fools..."

Ruth Fowler is not too keen on MFA Creative Writing programs, nor the "bland" writers who graduate from them.

"The Creative Writing MFA is the singularly most devastating occurrence to hit literature in the 20th century, churning out writers of utterly indistinguishable competence."

Just read it. It's short. Your jaw will drop.

Book Covers That Got Away

Designing book covers was my dream job coming out of college. Maybe it still is––if I only had to do it part time, of course. Here are a few samples of book covers that were never quite produced:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/15/books/review/15covers-gallery.html

Spotlight on D.O. Letz

Gerhardt's Eyes by Jay Paonessa
photography, ink, resin on wood

June's Spotlight is live on House Talk. Fiction writer, D.O. Letz, was a participant in Flying House 2010. Stop on by and hear what he has to say about comic books, Salmin Rushdie, and collaborating with artists. 

Lit Mag Pairs Art With Writing

Coming out of Brooklyn, The 22 Magazine is a new lit/art journal, online here. To quote,"The magazine’s mission is to publish art, music and writing as integrated 
structures that play off each other and enhance the whole."


There's a Bloomsday contest going on there today, so submit your work for a chance to win $50. 

Printer's Row Lit Fest––LOVE.

What a great weekend for the Printer's Row Lit Fest (ignoring the monsoon that swept through on Saturday afternoon).

It was our first time at the festival and it was a great feeling, walking down long rows of booths, stacked high with books––a dream. We listened to poetry, sat in on panels, and even waited, hearts racing, at Pitchapoolza in order to give a schpeel on a new book Megan's completed (sadly, she wasn't picked).

Best of all, it was great to put names with faces as we stopped by Dancing Girl Press, Featherproof Books, Rhino, and Another Chicago Magazine, and we even picked up a couple WWII postcards, and an incredibly detailed etching for our home.

Already looking forward to next year!

On Being and Artist & Keeping the Faith

Read this comic, then go here for an Interview with the creator, Paul Madonna.

Got a Logo? Submit it!

How Magazine wants to reward your design skills. So if you've created a logo in the past year––whether for work or fun––you have until June 15th to submit it to their competition. 10 winners will be featured on the HOW website, get $150 worth of HOW books, and receive a 1 year subscription to HOW magazine. You will also receive a graphic to post on your website announcing your winning status. 


Good Luck!

So You Know It's Me

Flying House contributor and friend, Brian Oliu, has been getting some great press on his new book, just out by Tiny Hardcore Press, entitled So You Know It's Me.


I read it––in one sitting––and agree, It Was Awesome. (It gave me some funky dreams too).


So go buy it here. Or read some reviews at Vouched or Codex, and then go buy it here. 


And, we can't help but mention, Betsy Seymour's beautiful photography skillz are featured as Oliu's bookcover. See more of her work at Photosomething. I don't know which I like better––Betsy's fiction, or her pictures. 

An Artist's Assembly Line?

I love that Emily Dickinson hand wrote her poems. I love how you can find fingerprints in Van Gogh's oil paintings. I love opening worn down, yellowed-page books and finding notes in the margins. I love the tangible. So I do not appreciate art house sweatshops like the one's described in this Wall Street Journal article.

Printers Row Lit Fest, June 4 & 5

Schedules for both days and a map of the festival grounds have been posted! 

Liking:

A new lit mag on the scene that's interested in the interdisciplinary. 

Jane Wong in Versal!

Brand-new participant, Jane Wong, has a poem up in the new Versal. Go check it out!

(Did we mention BJ Hollars is a guest editor there too!?)

Flying House Contributes to SSM 2011

In the spirit of Short Story Month, Flying House has contributed a review of Katherine Vaz's story, Below the Salt, (as featured in Ninth Letter) to Matt Bell's SSM blog. Go read it here. 


What's this all about? Matt explains:

"This May, I'll be posting about 31 stories in 31 days, with all the stories coming from the pages of recent literary magazines. There will also be guests posts from other writers and editors, sharing some of their own favorites."


Feel free to share you own favorites!  

Tuscaloosa Runs This

If "inspired" felt like the right word here, I'd use it... but due to the havoc that recently whipped through the South, Tuscaloosa writers have compiled a book full of amazing Alabama stories, poems, and remembrances––and the wonderful Brian Oliu has bounded them all together. Go here to download the eBook, and please donate (if you can) to the Tornado Relief Fund while you're at it.

Tuscaloosa Runs This includes Flying House contributors Megan Fink, Jeremy Allan Hawkins, BJ Hollars, and, of course, Brian Oliu. Plus, there's a whole lot more Flying House friends in there to check out. Plus, plus! Jeremy Allan Hawkins has written a review of it here. 

Goodbye, Tuscaloosa by BJ Hollars

Flying House contributor, BJ Hollars, looks back on the day Tuscaloosa was devastated by tornados––online now at TriQuarterly.

I haven't asked, but I'm wondering, will this make it harder or easier to leave Tuscaloosa behind? BJ will be a professor of nonfiction next year in Wisconsin. 

Megan Fink live on Red Lightbulbs

Flying House contributor, Megan Fink, has a new short story published online at the new-ish lit journal, Red Lightbulbs.

Announcing the 2011 Flying House Participants!

Expect great work at this year's Flying House gallery event and reading on October, 15––because this new group of artists and writers will blow you away. Introducing Flying House 2011:

Artists:
Luke Felton
Brian Kemerley
Marika Paz
Andrea Rettig
Clare Torina

Writers:
S. Whitney Holmes
Anne Paterson
Alexis Pride
David Welch
Jane Wong

For more on these artists and writers, go here. 

The Month of May is Short Story Month

We'll be following Matt Bell's blog and reading all the short stories he and his guest bloggers can throw at us. Maybe we'll suggest a story or two ourselves. What will you be doing?

Our thoughts are with you, Tuscaloosa!!

Flying House is Reading

Reviewing all our applications today and realizing that almost 50% of the writers who applied have last names that start with the letter W... coincidence?

LAST DAY TO APPLY

You have until midnight tonight to apply for Flying House 2011!! We've already received some amazing submissions, and we can't wait to start reviewing all the work!

Participants will be announced May 1. 

Daniela Olszewska @delirious hem

Olszewska writes a lyric essay, "White Dresses, Red Soles + Oil Painting: Some Notes on Emily Dickinson, Christian Louboutin + John Berger," up on delirious hem today. Is it a poet's job to make their work glamorous? She makes an interesting point... 

A (Late) March Feature Article, Sort Of

Inspired by ideas in Jeremy Allan Hawkins' piece, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Interstate, and the House: a Romance, I asked Brian Oliu to write something for our next feature. He did. Something unexpected. A new, creative trail he's blazing down. The piece says some interesting stuff about houses, and homes, and putting things in houses and homes, and how, even by putting things inside houses and homes, and trying to show possession of our houses and homes, we can never really own them.

Go read it here. 

Literature as the “wild west” of the arts today, by Steve Tomasula

Says Tomasula, “But what distinguishes literature from other kinds of writing is how it’s written. So one of the things I do in a class is get students to think of text as a medium—such as clay to a sculptor or sound to a composer—and ask, ‘How are you going to work this material?’” 


To read the whole article, go here.

Thursday! An Evening of Modern Fairy Tales

Come out to the Harold Washington Library tomorrow evening, and hear Kate Bernheimer and Lydia Millet read from their modern fairy tale collections. Bernheimer, once a professor of mine, is an expert––and enthusiast––of all things Brother's Grimm. She founded Fairy Tale Review, a delightfully dark literary journal, she edited three anthologies, including the more recent My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales, and she has a plethora of short stories, essays, novels and other words all swirling around once upon a time.

I've also had the pleasure of meeting Kate's dear friend, Lydia Millet, and she too enjoys the fairy-word. Watching these two women together is an event not to be missed. Hope to see you there!

Loving Fine Line Magazine

While wandering at the Chicago Zine Fest, I ran across Fine Line Magazine's booth and grabbed a card––and today I finally got around to looking up their website. I love it! A well-designed, independent magazine that merges text and image. They have work from emerging artists worldwide, and they aim to create a magazine that will revive the printed page. 

Take a look at their website and dabble inside the magazine's pages. They've been written up here and here too, if you want to see more. 

Indie Booksellers' Choice Awards

Indie Booksellers’ Choice Award gets new co-sponsor, announces longlist. 

What do we think about performance art in the Flying House show?

Though it is an art form I, personally, am not too familiar with, performance art seems to have a large following. How does performance art fit in with other visual and textual representations of the world? 

Chicago Zine Fest

Flying House is headed out to the Chicago Zine Fest for a look at other independent self-publishers. It's open and free to the public, so stop on by!

And, in case you're wondering, zines are those little hand-drawn, photocopied and folded up books/pamphlets that you may have seen sitting at awesomely independent bookstores, or being passed around at college campuses, or, really, anywhere in between. It's what people did before this thing called the World Wide Web made self-publishing platforms like Kindle.

Spotlight on Jason Watts

March's Spotlight is live on House Talk. Painter, Jason Watts, was a participant in Flying House 2010. Stop on by and hear what he has to say about technique, iPhone applications, and collaboration. 

AB Gorham live on The Rumpus!

Flying House contributor AB Gorham has written a review of Taller When Prone, by Les Murray, posted on The Rumpus online. She speaks of the ways landscape meshes with memory and the personal history of an individual passing through it. Read more here. 

Story Week Starts Sunday!

Starting Sunday, March 13th, Columbia College Chicago will be hosting its 15th annual Story Week Festival of Writers, meaning Flying House will be sitting in on six days of readings, interviews, performances, workshops, Q&As, and panel discussions, all aimed at exploring class issues and how they “manifest themselves in creative works and the rapidly changing world of publishing.” There’s a ton going on, and we’re excited about it all. We’re especially excited about these following free events––and hope to see you there!

Sunday, March 13: 2nd Story––a storytelling performance at Martyrs’ | 6:30pm

Monday, March 14: Grad Reading/Open Mic at Sheffield’s | 9:30pm

Monday, March 14: Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad) reading, conversation, signing at Harold Washington Library | 6:00pm

Tuesday, March 15: Audrey Niffenegger (Time Traveler’s Wife), Gerard Woodward (Nourishment), and Karen Tei Yamashita (I Hotel), reading, conversation, signing at Harold Washington Library | 6:00pm

Wednesday, March 16, 6:00pm: Literary Rock N’ Roll, an event featuring readings and signings by authors Irvine Welsh (Crime), Preston L. Allen (Jesus Boy), and Gina Frangello (Slut Lullabies); short comedy by Stephanie Shaw; and music by DJ Dream Team (Joe Shanahan, Irvine Welsh, and Don De Grazia). Metro | 6:00pm

Thursday, March 17: Make Ready: Manuscript to Book, a panel discussion featuring Sam Weller (Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews), Johnny Temple (Akashic Books publisher), Katie Dublinski (Graywolf Press Managing Editor), Scott Miller (Trident Literary Agency Vice President), and Keidi Bell (freelance editor). Hosted by Sara Dodson. CCC Film Row | 11:00am

Thursday, March 17: Story & The Arts Panel, a discussion featuring Rod Slemmons (Museum of Contemporary Photography), Philip Hartigan (visual artist), Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler’s Wife), Tony Trigilio (poet), Darrell Jones (poet), Darrell Jones (dancer), and Bruce Sheridan (Film & Video). Hosted by Patricia Ann McNair. CCC Film Row | 4-6:30pm