my novel could be your life

I got the (not un-expected) word that Iron Diesel Press is calling it a day. So it goes. Three years is a pretty good lifespan for a DIY venture. This means that Harvitz is going out of print, as of April. If you wanted to buy a copy, but never did, this is your chance. After it is out of print, I will still be selling back stock at readings for a while, but once those are gone, it's done.

It's a weird feeling, because I've spent the past fifteen months hawking my books (products, let's be honest), but now that the chapbook is sold out (a good thing! sold out the run!), and the novel is becoming unavailable, I have nothing left to hustle right now.  I feel good about what I put out, and I had a really fun year doing readings and meeting people.  And as a wise man named Joe Riippi told me when Harvitz came out, "Focus on what's still to come--be a writer writing, not a writer who wrote something, and you'll feel better about it all."

That being said, my girlfriend and I both lost our computers in a break-in last week, so I haven't been getting a whole lot of writing done.  It ain't my first time being robbed in my life, and I doubt it will be the last, but this means I've spent all week trying to salvage files and notes, rather than writing new stuff.

As a nice coda to the Harvitz Publication run, I have a new essay about the reading and writing of punk literature up on the Philadelphia Review of Books.

That essay discusses my youth in Philly a bit, in what I think is a more or less accurate manner. For a completely fabricated look at my life in Philly, check out PeterBD's story, "ben in philly."  I think my experience with PeterBD is a bit atypical, because I actually encountered him in person before I encountered him in email. Really nice guy.

I had a fun time reading at the first Bushwick Sweethearts event last weekend, and I had a fun time reading at the Keep This Bag Away From Children chapbook  event the other night. I probably should have have posted about those events before they happened...

OK. Keep the faith.