Celebrant – back to the present

Copies of Celebrant, by Michael Cisco, have already leaked out and found their way into the hands of the keen-eyed and well-informed, but today is the official release date. With lush wraparound art from Christopher Conn Askew, Celebrant is Chômu’s sixteenth release. As Publishers Weekly summarises, the novel is set in the possibly mythical city of Votu, “a fantastical realm where time runs backward, the inhabitants worship five ‘natural’ robots that formed spontaneously, and gangs of theriomorphic waifs (rabbit girls and pigeon girls) struggle to survive as urban scavengers.” Reporting intrepidly from Votu, China Miéville informs us, “With Michael Cisco doing things like this, sometimes it feels like the rest of literature might as well get up and head home.” What should you expect in Votu? Pick up your ticket to the frontiers of reality here. And before you leave, a brief excerpt from the travel guide:

In Votu, time is commonly supposed to run backward. It is insisted, however vaguely, that, everywhere else, what exists is understood to protrude from the past into the present. In Votu, what exists is understood to protrude from the future into the present. Time pours out in a stream whose current goes toward the past, although their preferred metaphor for this is a burning incense stick: the past is ashes, still retaining the shape of the stick for a time, then dispersing to dust, while the future is unground leaves, and the present is the ring of fire.

See below for details of the Celebrant prize draw, or, to find or lose yourself straight away in Votu, buy yourself a copy here.

Other news

Because of the large number of submissions already received, regretfully, Chômu is temporarily closed for submissions. The good news is that, among those submissions read so far, there is already more great material than we can hope to schedule – good news for us and our readers, of course. Sadly, there will be many submissions that we cannot take on. Many thanks to all those who have submitted, on whom we rely, for your patience and understanding.

Our schedule for 2012 is now full and looks like this:

May – Dadaoism (An Anthology) (already released)
June – Celebrant, by Michael Cisco (released today)
July – I Am a Magical Teenage Princess, by Luke Geddes
August – summer break and a chance for you to catch up with the Chômu back catalogue
September – All God’s Angels, Beware!, by Quentin S. Crisp
October – Human Pages, by John Elliott
November – Crandolin, by Anna Tambour (page recently uploaded on site)
December – (title to be announced), by Brendan Connell

There is also a new name at the bottom of the ‘Our Books’ page.

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of Celebrant

As usual, we are presenting another prize draw this month. Before we do so, however, we would like to announce the winner of last month’s prize draw, for a uniquely inscribed copy of Dadaoism (An Anthology). And the winner is… Brian Warfield of Philadelphia. The editors of the anthology will be personalising a copy to send his way soon.

The prize this month, of course, is a uniquely inscribed copy of Celebrant. We will repeat the rules here for anyone unfamiliar with them: To be entered for this draw, please sign up here to our mailing list (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘Celebrate – for all you’ve changed me’ (remember the important apostrophe) to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, of course there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘Celebrate – for all you’ve changed me’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 29th of June.