Beat Generation

I want to advertise a $4.00 children’s e-book that I wrote when I was in college. This little book has the stamp of approval of the youngsters in my family, and so here is the info straight from Moon Willow Press. In this campaign, I’m donating 25% of the first 100 books sold to a program called Eco-Libris, “Plant a tree for every book you read.”

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Everything is the same, the fog says ‘We are fog and we fly by dissolving like ephemera,’ and the leaves say ‘We are leaves and we jiggle in the wind, that’s all, we come and go, grow and fall’ — Even the paper bags in my garbage pit say ‘We are mantransformed paper bags made out of wood pulp, we are kinda proud of being paper bags as long as that will be possible, but we’ll be mush again with our sisters the leaves come rainy season’ — The tree stumps say ‘We are tree stumps torn out of the ground by men, sometimes by the wind, we have big tendrils full of earth that drink out of the earth’ — Men say ‘We are men, we pull out tree stumps, we make paper bags, we think wise thoughts, we make lunch, we look around, we make a great effort to realise everything is the same.’

-Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

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Category: Juvenile/children’s fiction e-book
ISBN: 978-0-9813924-0-0

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1. Buy at Moon Willow Press
Price: $4.00 USD or CND
MWP method of distribution: E-mail after Paypal is recieved

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2. Buy at Smashwords
Price: $4.00 USD or CND
Get a discount with the coupon code at Smashwords, good until 3/9/2010: ET63V
Distribution: Download or read online
Sample: Available at Smashwords

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3. Buy at Amazon
Price: $4.00 USD or $6.00 CND
Distribution: Kindle download
Sample: Available at Amazon

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Non-refundable

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Mary Woodbury’s e-book The Little Big Town is Moon Willow Press’s first title. 25% of the first 100 sales will be donated to Eco-Libris.

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Description: Follow young Julie Paris’s journey from her home in Chicago to a small northern Wisconsin town on the banks of the Wolf River. Julie feels left out of an impoverished but soulful community, and, feeling vulnerable and alone, turns to the great outdoors for adventure. Here she learns about the Menominee history of the area and lets her imagination run wild. It isn’t long before the cold November snow — and an unforeseen friend — fall into her life.

The e-book will be sent to buyer within 24 hours of payment, when ordered via MWP. Please be sure to enter your e-mail address when ordering, and then make sure that you check your spam folder if you do not receive an e-mail.

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Contact: jamesjoyce2010@gmail.com
Website: http://www.jamesjoyce.cz

PRAGUE JAMES JOYCE SYMPOSIUM, 2010

On behalf of the International James Joyce Foundation, we invite you to the XXII International James Joyce Symposium in the “Golden City” of Prague, 13-18 June 2010.

Prague is at the centre of Europe as Joyce is at the centre of the tradition of European modernism, and it is fitting that the major European author of the twentieth century be honoured in the city that is the very heart of modern Europe.

In lieu of a theme, we propose that a meeting of minds such as this one should be a type of feast, a “symposium,” as Plato has it-a “drinking together.” 2010 marks the first time the International Joyce Symposium has travelled to the heart of Europe. We are reminded, as the Symposium’s odyssey continues into its XXII edition, of the need to reconsider of the universality of Joyce and the European idea upon which his work was founded, and the post-European world in which it continues to be received. A feast of nations, of cultures, of languages and literary traditions. As political and economic union brings more and more people together, nevertheless the Europe of Joyce faces the ongoing threat of resurgent nationalisms. The modernity of Europe and of the European culture Joyce assisted in imagining is one that requires an ongoing, creative intellectual vigilance. Revisionism threatens to rob Joyce’s European heritage of its universal aspirations and reinstate a type of academic provincialism. This applies equally to the ongoing project of literary modernity for which Joyce remains a contemporary interlocutor.

Proposals for individual papers of 20 minutes duration are welcome on any aspect of Joyce studies, especially those that focus on the relationship of Joyce to Prague and the heritage of Central European modernism in the arts, philosophy and theory-particularly the legacies of structuralism and the Prague linguistic circle.

All paper proposals must be submitted individually, by completing the required fields in the symposium Registration form (https://secure.cbttravel.cz/jamesjoyce10/registration-online.php).

Extended deadline for submission of proposals: 15 April 2010

Programme specials include welcoming reception at the Karolinum Ceremonial Hall, Charles University, several book launches and an exhibition opening, the Bloomsday symposium banquet (at the Pilsen Restaurant, Municipal House, Prague), and the closing Vltava River boat cruise.

Plenaries include Prof. Daniel Ferrer, Prof. David Hayman, and Prof. Marjorie Perloff, representing the academic side of the reception of Joyce´s work, and Karen MacCormack, Steve McCaffery, and Tom McCarthy, who will speak as contemporary writers about Joyce´s legacy and influence on experimental literature.

A volume of Symposium proceedings will be published by Litteraria Pragensia, before the end of 2011.

Contact: jamesjoyce2010@gmail.com
Website: http://www.jamesjoyce.cz

I recently read about how there are several people celebrating Neal Cassady’s birthday, most notoriously his Denver town’s My Brother’s Bar. Here is a rundown of the event.

John Hamm, James Franco compare Prop 8 fight to “Howl” ban.

At a Sundance press conference, Hamm and Franco likened that long-ago obscenity trial and fight for Ginsberg’s Beat Generation poem “Howl” to be published to today’s ongoing struggle for equality and the passage of Proposition 8, banning the right of homosexuals to marry in the state of California.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/us/18leonard1.html

Check out the Sturm and Drang’s New Orleans special at Big Bridge.

This mid-issue feature was a long one in the making: a huge special with over 100 artists, poets, essayists, fiction writers, and others who helped to renew and rebuild the artistic integrity of New Orleans after Katrina.

I’m launching Moon Willow Press on January 1. The press is starting out as an editorial service, and publication of books (other than e-books) will begin in late 2010 or 2011. The first e-book is online. It’s not beat-related, but is a children’s book, to kick off the “$4.00 e-book” experimental avenue, which I hope to eventually work into a special, periodic incentive for people to buy cheap books of good read quality that will help to fund the press as well as support forest-friendly organizations.

Editing and proofreading: My rates are low compared to all other editorial services that I’ve researched, and because this is a start-up business, I have a few incentives for people to establish client relationships with me, including a free author review second pass and discounted services for anyone publishing at Moon Willow Press. See the site for more details, including my background and experience.

Paper publishing: Moon Willow will focus publications on non-fiction books related to climate change, sustainable living, ecosystem preservation, and other environmental issues. We will also publish about 20% fiction and poetry. MWP will print on-demand, use forest-friendly and FSC-certified paper only, and offer e-book alternatives when the author is agreeable.

A new Kerouac memoir by Helen Weaver is out. See this article for more info (I haven’t read it yet).

“I rejected (Kerouac) for the same reason America rejected him,” Weaver concludes on a bittersweet note. “He interfered with our sleep.”

Shot over 11 years by renowned fashion photographer Steven Sebring, Patti Smith: Dream of Life is an intimate portrait of the legendary rocker, poet and artist. Following Smith’s personal reflections over a decade, the film explores her many art forms and the friends and poets who inspired her — William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Robert Mapplethorpe and Michael Stipe. She emerges as a crucial, contemporary link between the Beats, punks and today’s music. Shot in lush, dark tones, featuring rare performance clips and narrated by the artist herself, Patti Smith: Dream of Life is an impressionistic journal of a multi-faceted artist that underscores her unique place in American culture.

You can view the trailer here: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pattismith/. (more…)

Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Howl, starring James Franco, plays in San Francisco, California in late January as part of Sundance’s 2010 US select city competition. The film was slated as “risky” by some news agencies, since Franco is a star already. But I am happy to see him cast as Allen Ginsberg and think his performance will be great. (more…)

I enjoyed Big Sur, but not as much as Dharma Bums.

Big Sur was a look into the unraveling sorrow of Kerouac’s later prime years after the earlier escalated hope when he and Gary Snyder had climbed up the Matterhorn.

This new film travels back to the old Kerouacian haunts of NYC and SF as well as to Ferlinghetti’s cabin at Big Sur. If you’ve been up to that area of California, you might know its utter beauty, as I think Kerouac saw and was so drowned into.

See more about One Fast Move Or I’m Gone.

See a schedule for the showings here.

A journal of New Writing, Issue 15, is out.

Tom Hibbard has a political corner, in which one of my poems “Josephine” is published. This is an ecological poem, inspired by a documentary called “Waterlife” that I saw earlier this year, where a woman named Josephine Mandamin goes around thousands of miles to bless the Great Lakes, whose water quality has becoming terrible and deathly, not just to reptiles and fish, but to people.

This is a new green press initiative from Jack Magazine, offering editorial services and expanding into a small press. See the site: Moon Willow Press.

August 29
Shelldance Orchid Gardens, 2000 Highway 1, Pacifica, CA 94044
(650)355-4845
http://www.shelldance.com

Free & open to the public. 3 pm until 9 pm

Featuring ROCKPILE Pre-amble Pt. 2 with David Meltzer, Michael Rothenberg, Terri Carrion, and The Rabbles, Leah Lubin, Terry Adams, Natascha Bruckner, Camincha, Andrew Mayer, Nancy Cavers-Doughtery, Mark Eckert, Mary Hower, Jym Marks, Erica Goss, Jennifer Barone, Eileen Elliot, Toni Partington, David Madgalene & Judy Irwin

Music by Bassist Steve Shain
MC’s: David Madgalene and Christopher Luna
Visual art by Leah Lubin, Anna Teeples, and Uma Rani Iyliv

Complete schedule and bios (PDF)

Chris Hickey wrote to me saying, “I recently wrote and recorded a song, each day, for about three weeks. The result is “Razzmatazz” – 16 songs, just vocal & guitar, recorded in my bedroom on a hand-held voice recorder.” So I checked out one of the songs, “Kerouac” and like it quite a bit and want to help plug the album. You can download Kerouac for free or order the album with Paypal or a credit card.

Chris has three previous solo records, was a member of the bands “Uma” and “Show of Hands”, and has appeared on records by Joe Henry, Michael Penn, Indigo Girls, and more.

P.S. I ordered the album, and I absolutely love it.