OVER THE TOUR RECAP DUDE

So, so, so I went on that rad three-stop tour with bookmates Christopher Newgent and Brian Oliu, along with the incredible (read: HOW DID WE GET HIM TO COME WITH US) Matt Bell. A bunch of people and entities and webfaces have posted stuff about this wacky trip, so I'm gonna pull together a bunch of that goodness and add some yapping of my own. Okay, cool:

Our days went like (Wednesday big drive to Tuscaloosa and reading), (Thursday day off in Tuscaloosa; Peter Markus/Jenny Boully reading; DJ Oliu dance party!), (Friday drive to Atlanta; incredible Vouched ATL reading with Amy McDaniel, J Bradley, and Melysa Martinez), (Saturday drive to Nashville; chill coffee shop reading), and (Sunday 16 hours on the road; drop Bell off in Ann Arbor, back to Indy/Elwood). I ended up being in a car for like 2000 miles in five days. IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.



Christopher Newgent continues to lift up my literary coolness, steady my shaky idiothead, and be a better friend than most I've ever had. He continues to write super affecting sad stories and short snappy poems. He continues to yell out windows with me and throw his hands in the air with me. He began disc golf with me. He continues to drive me cool places. He is a solid fucking writer, more importantly, dude.


Matt Bell is one of the reasons I do this silly writing thing. He was the first "small press" writer I ever read/knew/met. He gave me my first chance to help with a press/magazine, with The Collagist. Because of geography/busyness, this is the first time we've got to hang out for an extended period of time. He's is one of the most thoughtful men I know, and by far, one of my favorite readers. Cataclysm Baby is bound to be a classic on my fiction shelf (and should be on yours too!). What an honor to get to pal around with him for five days.



Brian Oliu is a legit human being, that versatile creature. He holds it down as a DJ, writes some moving lyric essays, can yap-yap (good yapping) on and on about video games, sports, music, books, etc. etc. etc., and as Matt Bell said, "I still don't know what the Crimson Tide mascot looks like, but it should look like Brian Oliu, because he Roll Tides harder than anyone." This is the second time Oliu has hosted me as a reader and as a friend in Tuscaloosa and absolutely those are some of my favorite readings/nights in recent memories. KEEPS IT REAL is what I'm saying.

All three readings were spectacular in their own way. Tuscaloosa being overwhelming with that amazing MFA program's people coming out and talking and buying books and being nice. Atlanta being incredible, seeing the amazing Laura Straub of Vouched Books ATL do here thing, meeting some rad people (Michael Straub! Melysa Martinez! Amy McDaniel! Jamie Iredell! Kory Calico! ETC!), falling in love with that scene/city. Nashville chilling us out before our big Sunday drive, getting to poemyell in a coffee shop, eating the most expensive personal pan pizza of my life.

Basically what I'm saying is, I'm rejuvenated. Basically what I'm saying is, I'm going to keep doing this. Basically what I'm saying is, my brain and body are still mush from all the fun and words and booze. Basically what I'm saying is, HOW LUCKY I AM TO GET TO DRIVE AROUND AND READ WITH THESE THREE AMAZING GUYS. Basically what I'm saying is, I needed this and it happened. Basically what I'm saying, every person who came to a reading is amazing. Basically what I'm saying is, thank you so much for helping put me back together.

Here's a bunch of stuff from around the web and such that I liked a lot and wanna archive here and maybe you will like it too:

Laura Straub's recap of the Atlanta Reading

Jesse Bradley's recordings of each reader at the Atlanta Reading

Here is my video from that reading


Patrick Trotti did a nice little recap on the Tiny Hardcore blog

My Favorite Pictures from the Over The Top Tour Twitter






My Favorite posts from the Over The Top Tour Twitter

• Matt spends as much time on the phone w/ his wife as his loving Facebook posts would suggest.
• "It's just my spirit animal: enormously cocked dragons."- Matt
• "Let's go to a strip club tonight! We'll put the loose back in Tuscaloosa!"- Me
• Rest area? No thanks! We don't rest; we ROLL TIDE.
• "15yr old girls love sleeping."- Brian
• I WAMT SNUGGLES - Christopher
• Sex Tips By Strunk & White: if you double space after the period during cyber sex, it makes you look old.- Matt

Christopher Newgent's FB recap

1874.3 miles, and I don't have enough space to say all I could possibly say about last week's Over the Top Tour, but a quick spattering of highlights are that Matt Bell gets Seth Rogan voice after a few bourbons, Brian Oliu can keep a dance floor going for hours without the party dropping, playing disc golf in tank tops with Tyler Gobble could easily be a new favorite hobby, Laura Straub is as fantastic a reading series host as you might expect and will climb fences she's too scared to climb if you tell her to imagine a zombie situation, her husband Michael still has one of the best laughs ever, Amy McDaniel is the consummate party host, Michael Martone's to-read shelf has to be full to collapsing and I'm so happy to have my book on that shelf, it's always great to carve out time to laugh with Blake Butler and Jamie Iredell, and the Nashville crew of Todd Dills, John Minichillo, and Chet Weise is ultimately forgiving of 4 dudes crashing into their town and slobbering tired in their coffeeshops, still willing to support our books, to buy us wine and keep a tired conversation moving. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the 3 dudes who made the trip with me, and the hundreds of people who made it what it was. I could never tag you all here.

Brian Oliu FB Post

Happy Easter from a Nashville Airport Hotel! We are singing "Hungry Eyes". 5:30am flight back to Alabama. Gonna miss these dudes. Such a great few days & some really awesome readings.

Matt Bell's FB recap

A short selection of the things I learned this past week: That being a vegetarian in the south is about three times the commitment it is in the north. That the people of Tuscaloosa are great hosts and perhaps better dancers. That Laura Straub is among the best reading series hosts I've seen. That Tyler Gobble is the best part of a tank top. That Christopher Newgent is the only person I have never seen lose at arm wrestling (three bout minimum). That I still don't know what the Crimson Tide mascot looks like, but it should look like Brian Oliu, because he Roll Tides harder than anyone. That when Amy McDaniel invites you into her home she makes a mean vegetarian chili and a meaner chocolate chip cookie. That Jesse Bradley will kindly record your reading and have it posted to the internet before you can finish breakfast the next day. That fewer people will come to a reading in Nashville, but that all of them will come drinking afterward, winning their city some kind of percentage-based prize. That being on a Greyhound and then a car and then a car and then a car and then a car is well worth it, if its with these people, or brings you to them and many more. I'm very glad to be home and awaiting Jessica's return from her own travels, but also very grateful to everyone who made this past week so much fun.

"You can see everything from where you are standing"-- Some thoughts on Brian Oliu

This is what Oliu and I do: we hold up the ends of people groups! We so strong!

Terrific is one of those words that gets shoved into the pockets with the pennies because it is like great and awesome, with their exact meanings all wuzz? and relative, but I’m here to say no no no bozo this word terrific can be used for real. For me, terrific, like stoked or bummer, has specific criteria you wouldn’t wanna mess with, man. It’s a feeling. It takes a big booyeah. Here are three things: stoked-worthy, attentive, and unignorable. Brian Oliu’s lyric essays in Come See For Yourself are terrific, absolutely terrific. Lyric essays, and Oliu if you don’t know is an the funnest instruction manual, combine the personality of connectable CNF, the lyric love of poetry, and the descriptive elements of fiction. This is where stoked comes in for me, that uncontrollable joy, feeling of wanting to talk and talk with, about, to, inside of, beside of, never instead of. Attentiveness, awareness, a lens that matters is becoming more and more vital to me, and Oliu in every piece of his that I’ve ever read is a worthy lens as he moves around the state that these places matter. The memories, the planks of a bridge, they well up. And like his other writing (The UA Rec Center one from So You Know It’s Me comes to mind), the essays I’ve read from Level End, I can’t shake these, person reading this. I return to them for that feeling of knowing someone else has it, someone else gets as caught up in moments, memories, people, places, as much as I do. How I can’t pass Cody’s old house in Muncie (those nights a year ago, sitting on his porch, drinking forties, surviving the months after Sara left) or that one swing in my hometown (where Zach slammed me down to impress a girl, leaving me in the mulch, the girl I’d later kiss after my high school girlfriend broke up with me, the kiss that Zach would bring up as he dumped our friendship, the same swing I’d see two girls kiss for the first time, and I thought Eh.). As I now bounce around between towns and beds and couches, this collection reminds me why we have places, communities, locations at all. Invisible lines on the ground where shit happens. Little boxes in the brain to store all this goodness.

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My favorite pieces from Oliu's collection:

Burlington Country, New Jersey: oh how lovely how it expands out, the body of this story growing larger, stronger, more and more into this struggle. And those sentences, they stretch and unfold, remarkable.

Somerset County, New Jersey: "There's the woman who tried to cut her wrists into ribbons with the fragments of a soul disc, and so now there's no songs except the ones we try to sing to make the days go faster"; this essay one beauty hunk of a sentence brings beauty out of the sad, out of the unfortunate. I'm mesmerized by how it twinkles in the strangest places.

Warren County, New Jersey: I keep looking at this one, less than a page, the last one of the collection, and re-reading, perplexed at its weight, how far it travels on that tiny hardcore page. It goes from opening "According to this logic, everywhere we are is a gap in the water..." to ending "I should have never tried to put you behind me, and yet I have--the errors of my youth are here and you carry them graciously, hopefully, while I spin wheels in the mud hoping that the mystery never finds me." This is what Oliu does better than most people writing today: he both thinks and feels on the page at such a remarkably high level, a trait that is both inspiring and touching.

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It’s an honor to have my poems housed next to Oliu’s essays. He’s an absolute champion of the genre, the small press scene, and a lovable dude as well. I met him last winter when he visited Ball State with some Alabama students, and saw him again when I visited Bama with some of the Ball State crew. Whether in person or online, he is a stellar supporter and true-to-self human. I’m so stoked to see him again, to read with him, to see him DJ in Tuscaloosa.

THE FULLNESS OF EVERYTHING THAT IS GONNA HAPPEN WHEN WE GO OVER THE TOP

My chapbook, Goodness is a Fine Thing to Chase, is in an anthology of sorts called The Fullness of Everything, accompanied by a rad short story chapbook by Christopher Newgent and an awesome collection of lyric essays by Brian Oliu. It is out now(ish) from Tiny Hardcore Press.

To celebrate, we are heading out together on a mini-tour next week, along with Matt Bell, whose newest book, Cataclysm Baby, is out now(ish) from MudLuscious Press. We will be hitting Tuscaloosa, Atlanta, and Nashville. GUESS WHAT IM STOKED.

Christopher and I will also be lugging the Vouched Books table along with us, equaling more books which equals more fun, duh!

Also, we want to arm wrestle. I'll also regular wrestle or maybe even fight you if that is what you want. I'm a people pleaser.



Here is more info on each of those dates:

April 4th - Tuscaloosa, AL
Green Bar, 2209 4th Street
w/ Marsha McSpadden & Ashley McWaters
7pm

April 6th - Atlanta, GA
Goat Farm, 1200 Foster Street
w/ J. Bradley & Melysa Martinez
8pm

April 7th - Nashville, TN
Portland Brew East, 1921 Eastland Avenue
w/ Todd Dills
6pm

If you're in the area for any of these readings, I really hope you can make it out. We can laugh and talk about words and probably be pals (at least for a night! Maybe longer!). We will have copies of our book for sale.

If you can't make it to a reading and would like to help out, buy a book, share the Facebook events/flyer, or just say what's up on the web. WE ARE REALLY APPRECIATIVE PEOPLE SO THANX.

In the next week, I'll be blogging here about the two other chapbooks in the collection, my own contribution, and Matt Bell's writing, as well as a mass interview where I've been letting anyone who wants to ask me a question on FB/Twitter do just that and I'll answer them (Also, leave a question in the comments, if you want; it can be about the book, my writing, my life, nothing at all!). Other possible posts include videos of me reading poems from the book in awkward places, picture updates, and other weirdo proof of living.

I LIKE YOU A LOT.

The Fullness of Everything

So stoked that my chapbook, Goodness is a Fine Thing to Chase, is being released by Tiny Hardcore Press in an anthology featuring a chap of rad stories by Christopher Newgent and a chap of awesome lyric essays by Brian Oliu. The book drops in April but you can preorder it now. Looking at that page over and over throughout today has me still shockedhonoredsmileecstatic. Big woots to those two dudes for letting my words hang beside theirs. Big thanks to Roxane Gay for believing in us.

MORE INFO HERE

SOME THINGS I FORGOT TO TELL BLOGWORLD ABOUT

Here are some MEMEMEMEMEME links:

I have three poems in the new issue of Country Music.
I have a poem in the new issue of Mat Black.
I did an author interview for the PANK Blog to go along with my poem in the May issue.
I wrote a single-sentence review of The Book of Freaks by Jamie Iredell and a full review of So You Know It's Me by Brian Oliu over at Vouched.
With the help of a bunch of cool people, I made this summer reading list over at Smalldoggies Magazine.
Also, Shaun Gannon interviewed me for his Human Contact series.

I've been telling you for years to get stoked...

We are proud to announce the release of our first issue of Stoked Journal. The issue features new work from Amber Sparks, Brian Oliu, Daniel Bailey, J.A. Tyler, Mike Young, Ryan Ridge, and Sarah Carson, as well as reprinting of stories by Roxane Gay (originally published in Gargoyle 56) and Matt Bell (originally in Drexel Online Journal). Big thanks to all these authors for making this first issue such an excellent and enjoyable one. Please check it out and spread the word; we are sure you'll be just as stoked as we are.

READ THE FIRST ISSUE HERE

I WENT TO ALABAMA AND ALL I GOT WAS SLASHED

Since I am the last of the group to post about this trip, what can I say much original? NOTHING. Here is a list of really cool things I remember from the student exchange trip to Alabama and the Slash Pine Festival:

Some seriousgood reading time in the van: all of When All Our Days Are Numbered Marching Bands Will Fill The Streets & We Will Not Hear Them Because We Will Be Upstairs In The Clouds by Sasha Fletcher and Smiles of the Unstoppable by Jason Bredle, as well as parts of books by Tim O'Brien, Chuck Klosterman, Bob Hicok, and the April issue of Poetry Magazine.

Something like 6 (OKAY OKAY I SKIPPED ONE) readings featuring 50+ readers in two days. People say, MAN I WOULD HATE POETRY and I shook in my poetry shoes (boating loafers?), but smooth execution Slash Pine people. Nice work.

Meeting and seeing my online pal Brandi Wells read. We had matching black tank tops and we didn't plan it. She apparently doesn't like dudes in tank tops. I'm a dude in a tank top. We didn't fight. She was like, I WAS NERVOUS and I'm like, YOU RULED.

Seeing cool people like Oliver de la Paz (his new book was sold out :( ), Christopher DeWeese (THIS GUY IS FUNNY IN A GOOD I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING WAY), Brian Barker (PERSONA POEM WITH GORBACHEV), and Amber Nelson (NICE FEELING OF THE WEEKEND: She is the Alice Blue editor and said, You're Tyler Gobble, and I said, I guess I am. She said, I liked your submission. I said, thank you.) read.

Watching my fellow trippers rip it up and stuff. Jeremy brought THE BEERS in a way I can't rip it off the page. Elysia said something silly about wearing cowboy boots because she's in the south, and people liked her poem that started, I WANNA FORCE FEED YOU A PIGEON or something like that. Layne was loud and people want to be here when they grow up. The cursing/vulgarity score was like BSU 19 Others 0.

Meeting some sweet new people like Parker, Shea, and Stacy.

Seeing the always awesome Brian Oliu. This guy does the robot to Salsa music, writes awesome lyric essays, has a voice like I SUPPORT YOU, and was woahelpful in getting us to the fun and goodness of the town.

BREAKFAST. FREE AT THE HOTEL. First day: turkey sausage and cheese omelets. And they didn't suck. Also, donuts and apple juice. Also, mints. Last day: french toast and sausage patties. THANX HAMPTON IN. Oh yeah: Cookies and milk FOR FREE every night.

My reading was a little jumbled. I got nervous and the cool outside air shook up my contacts. But I recovered when I read On Friendship and people didn't go GROSSSSSSSS. Nice folks wanted to know me or say good job or just hug me drunkenly in a bar. Sounds good to me. I said, TYLER GOBBLE, a lot.

TANK TOPS. Beautiful weather/beautiful campus. Layne was good company lotz. We have similar goals in life and on the trip and with each other and with poetry and etc. etc. etc. WE ARE ADVENTUROUS.

DANCIN' was pretty awesome. One of the readers on Friday dj'ed at this nice little bar called The Green Bar, so Layne and I boogied down with Oliu, Parker, and others. YES.

Tuscaloosa's disc golf course whooped me, smacking my disc into creeks and shrubbery and snakepits. I hit more trees than chains. Cool seeing Lovelace tear it up and hearing his stories about his early days as a golfer there.

Overall, I'm so stoked to have these memories wiggling in my brain. Thanks people who helped like donating money like dancing with me like asking me to go like keeping me from being lonely down south like setting me next to booze like clapping and laughing at my poems like saying GOOD JOB and YOU MATTER A LITTLE. That's all I can ask for and you ruled it.

Read Lovelace, Elysia, Layne, and Jeremy's accounts of the trip.

BRIAN FREAKING OLIU

As part of the BSU-Alabama student exchange, four Alabama undergrads and faculty member, Brian Oliu, visited our campus for the last few days. Their visit was capped by a reading last night. All four students are really nice people. Brian is a nice guy, too. BUT MAN HE IS ALSO A STELLAR LYRIC ESSAYIST.

He read two from his missed connections series and three from his Nintendo video game series. The first missed connection one was from the gym, and holy cow, talk about ringing bells. I love the way those pieces stretch and fold within themselves, wrapping emotional talk around some tight images. Just a pleasure to listen to.

Speaking of ringing bells, he read his Nintendo essay about Punch Out!. Talk about a hard-hitter: WOAH OH JOKE OH. But really, the morphing this essay does within the theme set out by the title and situation is incredible. The words flexing themselves into strong sentences, meshing and mushing with other sweet sentences, and at the end, I truly just went "OH."

It was a pleasure to be able to talk to these people, finally meet Brian (who was one of my early Vouches), to hear about a different awesome CW school, to hear them read, and to spend some time afterwards getting to know other human beings. I'm truly looking forward to heading down there at the end of March, reading at the Slash Pine Poetry Festival (which these cool people are putting together), and seeing some CW life outside of Muncie.

OH YEAH HELP US GET TO ALABAMA PLEASE

WORDS WORDS WORDS

A wackyweirdstressfulconfrontationaladjusting week weaved with good words is nice.

Tuesday, a few of my friends--Ryan Rader, Ashley Ford, and Cody Sean Davis--read at one of my favorite bars, Be Here Now.

Cody read a few things including his poem "Virgin," which is gonna be in the 2011 Broken Plate, and a short story, which I saw an earlier draft of and man his edits blew me away. LANGUAGE TIGHTENED IS LANGUAGE USED.

Among other things, Ashley read this powerful story about her brother wearing her clothes. I'm stoked that Ashley will be reading at the next Vouched Presents... reading on March 26th. It'll be nice to see her get an outside-of-Muncie audience for her strong personality.

Ryan released two chapbook, one of which I've blogged about before, and another, First Rodeo, that features himself, Shaun Gannon, Jeremy Bauer, Joe Betz, Joe McHugh, and Daniel Bailey. I read First Rodeo on the bus this morning; having read/heard several of these pieces before, it was awesome to see them packed together in this nice-for-reading-on-the-bus collection. Ryan's poem "Self-Portrait at 21" is killer associations and images. I WAS IN AN ODD MOOD THAT NIGHT BUT IT WAS FUN.

I haven't read in a while and I miss it.

Last night, super pal Layne got to open for a Faculty Reading here at Ball State, featuring Cathy Day and Matt Mullins. Of course, she ruled. She'll be reading again, for longer, as the winner of last Fall's Writers Gala, at the Gala Winners Reading on March 1st.

I'd never seen Cathy or Matt read, but they were both excellent readers. Matt read a mix of poems and short stories, some stories which will be in his forthcoming book from Atticus Books, as well as showing a poem/video thing he's been working on called Highway Coda. Really dug the feel of the video. Also, his reading approach matched his content so well. Excited to be going to read with him (AND LAYNE) at the Slash Pine Festival in Alabama later this semester.

Cathy Day's approach, like RESEARCH HEAVY and mashing lives/stories/etc., is so impressive. The book she read from seems more Sara's style, but definitely an interesting writing project.

Odd writing related thing of the day: My former professor Michael Meyerhofer just walked in here, I'M AT WORK SHHHH, and had me sign as a witness for his contract in which he won ANOTHER book contest. I won't give details. I don't know if I'm allowed, but SWEET.

I've also been doing a good deal of reading. In addition to the Dickman book (see previous post) and First Rodeo, I had the pleasure to read Come On All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder. While sometimes, my eyes pulled away in the middle, a little loose at times, the tightest moments were emotional associations and cool images. Take Dobby's Sweatshirt. OH MY GOODNESS.

Also, I Vouched Brian Oliu's story in the new kill author. WOAH-WEE the pile of sentences buried me a little then I was all hugging it with my lit-reading arms to never let it go. Also also, Oliu is coming to Ball State in two weeks for the Alabama-BSU exchange. SWEEEEEEEEEEET.