Enter the human labyrinth

October is upon us. It’s time to walk bleak city streets, with our coat collars turned up against the chill and gritty wind, to find the yellow-lit window of a barely inhabited cafe, somehow dazzling in the soft blue of the evening, to step inside, remove one’s gloves, order a coffee (or similar beverage) and lose oneself in an existential mystery novel exploring the labyrinth of human identity. Fortunately, Human Pages, by John Elliott, has just been released. The story weaves its web around and within Chance Company, a pre-internet Second Life, which gives its clients the opportunity to take a holiday in prefabricated identities. One such client, Agnes Darshel, makes use of her assumed identity in her search for an errant father. And as the tagline says, “What begins as a masquerade becomes Russian roulette. This may be a game of chance, but the dice, like the guns, are loaded, and someone is marked to lose.” Pick up a copy of Human Pages here, or read on for further information:

Human Pages is a matryoshka doll of a novel, where style and characters nest one inside the next inside the next, the latter being occasionally revived with brandy and the former at once displaying and twisting the traditions of such masterpieces as The Waves and The Saragossa Manuscript.

- Brendan Connell

For those of you who missed it the first time around, the following is an audio interview with John Elliott, in which he talks about Human Pages, about his second novel (Dying to Read, also published by Chômu Press), about Philip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft, Georges Perec, and much more:

John Elliott Interview by chomuradioarchive

At this link you can also view a YouTube interview with Quentin S. Crisp in which he talks about (amongst other things) John Elliott’s work. Details of this month’s prize draw follow:

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of Human Pages

The prize this month, naturally, is a uniquely inscribed copy of Human Pages. Here are 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 ‘Why are there things in the world?’ (not forgetting the question mark) 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 ‘Why are there things in the world?’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 1st of November.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview will be with D.F. Lewis, author of Nemonymous Night.

Back from Brighton and prize draw results

Last weekend, Chômu Press were present in Brighton for FantasyCon 2012 – thank you to all those who stopped by the stall in the dealers’ room and bought books. We returned clutching something that resembled a segment of the Key to Time. This was the PS Publishing Independent Press Award for best small press, one of the categories in the British Fantasy Awards. The other publishers shortlisted in this category were Gray Friar Press, Spectral Press and Newcon Press, to whom we extend our congratulations.

We would like to thank, therefore, whoever nominated us, the special jury who finally selected us for the award, and everyone with enough curiosity, taste, etc., to have discovered Chômu books for themselves. We very much hope, with all your continued support, to go on producing quality books that are exciting, surprising, and by turns (or at the same time) difficult and accessible… and both of those things in a good way.

All God’s Angels, Beware! prize draw results

Finally, we would like to announce the winner of the All God’s Angels, Beware! prize draw. And the winner is… Dan L. from Canada. Mr. L will be receiving a specially inscribed copy of All God’s Angels, Beware! plus some Kodagain CDs. Photos may be featured in a later update.

If you signed up to our mailing list at FantasyCon, you may have won our FantasyCon prize draw, so please keep an eye on your e-mail in-box, and watch this space.

And all you judges, beware!

The summer of 2012 draws towards its melancholy end. Bathed in the red and gold rays of its dying sun is our September release, All God’s Angels, Beware!, by Quentin S. Crisp, originally a limited edition hardback (Ex Occidente, 2009), now released as a paperback for the first time. This re-release, revised and with lush wraparound cover art from Christopher Conn Askew, is Crisp’s fourth, and according to Ziesings Books, a “much anticipated” collection of shorter fiction. If this is all the recommendation you need, then please proceed to obtain a copy here. Be aware, however, that, as well as the title itself, this book appears to come with warnings attached:

Quentin S. Crisp is one of those writers whose voice is so strong that the essential features of his fiction remain constant whether the trappings are science fiction, horror, fantasy, or contemporary minimalist fiction. It’s not something that all readers will be able to bear. His characters’ awkwardness, suffering, self-pity will turn off those for whom such modes of existence are impossible to understand. But for those who are epicures of the upsetting, the degraded, and the unexpectedly numinous, he is (superlative alert) among the finest of contemporary writers.

- Brendan Moody, The Stars at Noonday

Crisp (Shrike) stakes his claim to the territory of existential dread with this … edition of a short fiction collection first published in 2009. The stories are largely told in the first person, touching on themes of Japanese culture, the pointlessness of everyday life, and the terrors of intimacy. Moments of unexpected tenderness leaven the relentless gloom: “Italiannetto” is a genuinely sweet reminiscence of love and inspiration, made all the more powerful by the surrounding unsettling tales of sexual dysfunction like “The Fox Wedding” and “Asking for It.” The narrator of “A Cup of Tea” may be painfully incapable of surviving in the workaday world, but is still very capable of affection even in the midst of despair. The book’s saving grace is that ability to mitigate the worst of the overwrought self-indulgence of the neurasthenic narrators with flashes of emotion, making it simultaneously deeper and more accessible than its many characters might have wished.

- Publishers Weekly

If you are one of those who will be in attendance at this month’s FantasyCon, in Brighton, please also remember that, as well as Chômu Press having a table in the dealers’ room, Quentin S. Crisp will be signing copies of All God’s Angels, Beware! and Reggie Oliver of The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale, late on the morning of the Saturday of that weekend. Details of this month’s prize draw are to follow:

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of All God’s Angels, Beware!

The prize this month is, of course, for a uniquely inscribed copy of All God’s Angels, Beware!. Here are 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 ‘I’m not afraid anymore’ 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 ‘I’m not afraid anymore’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 1st of October.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview will be with D.F. Lewis, author of Nemonymous Night.

More prize draw winners and general news

First of all, we would like to announce that the winner of the I Am a Magical Teenage Princess prize draw is John Provencher of Connecticut, USA. Congratulations! A specially enhanced copy of the book is on its way to The Nutmeg State (or has arrived), even as I type. Below are glimpses of the enhanced copy, as well as the special prize draw copies of the Dadaoism anthology and Michael Cisco’s Celebrant:

Below are the full cover and a detail from the prize draw Dadaoism anthology, the cover being decorated with stickers that feature – rather dizzyingly – the photographs of the decorated cover. Madness! The interior is yet to be enhanced:

And here is a glimpse of Michael Cisco’s signature:

Our next Chômu release is Quentin S. Crisp’s All God’s Angels, Beware!, due out very soon. For all those of you who will be in the UK this September, do remember that Chômu Press have a table in the dealers’ room at FantasyCon 2012, and that Quentin S. Crisp and Reggie Oliver will be signing copies of All God’s Angels, Beware! and The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale respectively late on the morning of the Saturday of that weekend.

Finally, the cover of John Elliott’s masterpiece, Human Pages, has been uploaded to the Chômu website here. Cover art for Anna Tambour’s Crandolin and Brendan Connell’s Lives of Notorious Cooks will be unveiled soon.

She was just seventeen…

Never been a beauty queen. But she was a magical teenage princess. Chômu’s seventeenth publication – officially released today – appropriately enough, is I Am a Magical Teenage Princess by Luke Geddes. We have been fortunate enough to work on this occasion with design megastar Rian Hughes, who has blessed us with a remarkably winsome-yet-wicked cover. Reviews are already beginning to appear on the internet, at Publishers Weekly and The British Fantasy Society. You don’t have to be a beauty queen or seventeen to enjoy I Am a Magical Teenage Princess. This is a book for the magical teenage princess in all of us. Pick up a copy here and find out for yourself. Or read this blurb explaining the book’s appeal first, and then pick up a copy:

It’s easy to sneer at ‘pop-culture detritus,’ but let’s face it—no matter how timeless and profound and unique we imagine our selves to be, we have no choice but to make them from the trash on hand. This is especially true of the teen bricoleur, that poor soul who has to cobble herself together from available materials: Scooby-Doo, drive-ins, soap operas in space, Wonder Woman, the Archies. The wonderfully playful and witty stories in Luke Geddes’ I Am a Magical Teenage Princess show just how resourcefully and delightfully that work can be done. You say whimsy and depth are incompatible? Nonsense. This is deep whimsy, is a book that employs rollicking sharp humor to explore the sad, solitary adolescent in all of us. Luke Geddes is a big talent, and this is a marvelous debut.

- Michael Griffith, author of Spikes

See below for details of the Magical Princess prize draw, or, if you can’t wait that long, buy yourself a copy here.

Other news

Just uploaded to HTML Giant is an article by Julie Sokolow on Chômu’s Dadaoism anthology and the psychedelic experience. A page has recently been added to the Chômu website for our December release, Brendan Connell’s loftily demented Lives of Notorious Cooks. With that and our November release – Anna Tambour’s Crandolin, of which David Kowalski has written, “It’s like it was written by a demented chef” – it seems we can expect a great deal of gastronomic irreality from Chômu’s year end. Finally, in our mini round-up of news, don’t miss the interview with Chômu writer Justin Isis at Inter Nova. The interview was originally posted last year in German, but has now been translated into English.

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of I Am a Magical Teenage Princess

The prize draw last month was won by Gabriel Brum, of Brazil, to whom a specially inscribed copy of Michael Cisco’s Celebrant has now been sent.

The prize this month is for a uniquely inscribed copy of I Am a Magical Teenage Princess. 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 ‘I am, personally, a magical teenage princess’ 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 ‘I am, personally, a magical teenage princess’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 1st of August.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview will be with Luke Geddes, author of I Am a Magical Teenage Princess – coming to the in-boxes of our subscribers soon.

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.

Dadaoism – The Butterfly has Landed

The first Chômu release of 2012, Dadaoism (An Anthology), is something of a lepidopterous monster (perhaps not unlike Mothra). It has taken many times more person-hours than our single-author volumes to produce, featuring 26 pieces of writing (short stories, flash fiction, novellas and poems, as well as work slightly harder to categorise) from 25 authors, a killer cover design from Anil Nataly of Bigeyebrow, and what we believe to be stylish mayhem and mystery throughout. As well as authors previously published under the Chômu banner, such as Reggie Oliver, Michael Cisco, Nick Jackson, Jeremy Reed and Brendan Connell, we are also very pleased to present a plethora of authors new to us, and perhaps to the reader: Katherine Khorey, Jesse Kennedy, Megan Lee Beals, John Cairns, Kristine Ong Muslim, Peter Gilbert, and more. The full table of contents is viewable here, from where you may also pick up a copy for yourself.

Quoting the introduction from co-editor Justin Isis, the first online review of the anthology concludes thus:

“Feel free to eat this book, tear out any pages which displease you, add corrections and emendations. Feel free, as always, to write lies in the Book of Life.” A truer characterization of unbridled rebel spirit and richly attitudinal contents under pressure could not be made.

- Gordon Hauptfleisch, Blogcritics

This is the first of a projected seven books for 2012. (Although we are publishing fewer books this year than last, with the help of this anthology, we are publishing more authors.) Please watch this site for details of future titles and general news, or sign up here to our mailing list. (Speaking of general news, and for those who missed it, ‘An Interview with Quentin S. Crisp’, a short film by R.B. Russell, in which mention is made, amongst other things, of Chômu, is viewable on YouTube, at this link.)

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of Dadaoism (An Anthology)

We are presenting another prize draw this month, this time, of course, for a uniquely inscribed copy of Dadaoism (An Anthology). The prize copy will be inscribed and otherwise creatively defaced by the editors, Justin Isis and Quentin S. Crisp. The same rules apply as in previous prize draws: 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 ‘No, it’s not weird fiction’ (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 ‘No, it’s not weird fiction’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 31st of May.

Chômu in 2012

After a four month hiatus (there were no releases from January to April, but we have actually been busier than ever), Chômu is about to enter another period of production. Below we offer you the pick of recent links related to the upcoming releases for 2012, as well as some general Chômu news and information.

Next week, we release Dadaoism (An Anthology), a book that has been absorbing a great deal of our energy for some time. A review of the anthology has already gone online here. Gordon Hauptfleisch describes the book as:

…an often challenging but ultimately rewarding collection of angst, anxiety, and alienation as conveyed in whimsy, wit, and wordplay.

In June and July, we return to single-author volumes, with the novel Celebrant, by Michael Cisco (a work of which China Miéville, has said, “With Michael Cisco doing things like this, sometimes it feels like the rest of literature might as well get up and head home”), and a debut collection of short fiction – I Am a Magical Teenage Princess – by the inestimable Luke Geddes. This latter features a cover design from special guest designer, Rian Hughes. Both books have been reviewed favourably by Publishers Weekly. And here are the links of the Publishers Weekly reviews for Celebrant and I Am a Magical Teenage Princess.

Christopher Conn Askew, who produced beautiful wraparound cover art for Celebrant, will also be producing another lush wraparound cover for the September paperback reprint of Quentin S. Crisp’s collection All God’s Angels, Beware! (previously an Ex Occidente limited edition). October, November and December willl bring work from John Elliott, Anna Tambour and Brendan Connell. Please watch this site or subscribe to our mailing list at this link (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) for further details.

For a more in-depth view of what is happening at Chômu, and greater detail on some of the books mentioned here, as well as some of those not mentioned here, please read Jason Rolfe’s interview with Quentin S. Crisp at Bibliomancy.

Finally, Chômu would like to congratulate Reggie Oliver and Michael Cisco for their nominations in the novel category for the 2011 Shirley Jackson Awards (thank you for entrusting your novels to us), and to thank whomever nominated Chômu Press to the shortlist for the PS Publishing Independent Press Award. Thank you, and get suavée!

Dadaoism Contents and New Year Update

This is the first post of 2012 and we have for you a round-up of 2011 Chômu links, some news, the table of contents for the Dadaoism anthology, and the results of the Secret Life of the Panda prize draw.

First, for those who missed them last year, a selection of Chômu-related links. Chômu was named best UK small press, and I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like, by Justin Isis, joint best collection with Ralph Robert Moore’s I Smell Blood, in Peter Tennant’s pick of 2011, over at the Black Static website. Also at Black Static, an in-depth interview with Quentin S. Crisp about Chômu Press. Chômu was also named best small press of 2011 at Johnny Mains’ Occasionally Horrific. And Weird Fiction Review, naming Michael Cisco’s The Great Lover as the “weird book of the year”, had the following to say in their 2011 round-up:

As for who is taking the most chances, that’s also clear: Chômu Press.

2012 promises a more relaxed schedule than 2011, but with the help of the Dadaoism anthology, we will still be publishing more writers this year than last. And on that subject, we can now reveal the table of contents, as follows:

1 ‘Portrait of a Chair’, by Reggie Oliver
2 ‘Autumn Jewel’, by Katherine Khorey
3 ‘Visiting Maze’, by Michael Cisco
4 ‘The Houses Among the Trees’, by Colin Insole
5 ‘Affection 45′, by Brendan Connell
6 ‘M-Funk Vs. Tha Futuregions of Inverse Funkativity’, by Justin Isis
7 ‘Spirit and Corpus‘, by Yarrow Paisley
8 ‘Timelines’, by Nina Allan
9 ‘Jimmy Breaks up with His Imaginary Girlfriend’, by Jimmy Grist
10 ‘Body Poem’, by Peter Gilbert
11 ‘Testing Spark’, by Daniel Mills
12 ‘Noises’, by Joe Simpson Walker
13 ‘Romance, with Mice’, by Sonia Orin Lyris
14 ‘Grief (The Autobiography of a Tarantula)’, by Jesse Kennedy
15 ‘Orange Cuts’, by Paul Jessup
16 ‘Instance’, by John Cairns
17 ‘Kago Ai’, by Ralph Doege
18 ‘Fighting Back’, by Rhys Hughes
19 ‘Nowhere Room’, by Kristine Ong Muslim
20 ‘Koda Kumi’, a Justin Isis re-mix of ‘Italiannetto’ by Quentin S. Crisp
21 ‘The Lobster Kaleidoscope’, by Julie Sokolow
22 ‘The Eaten Boy’, by Nick Jackson
23 ‘Poppies’, by Megan Lee Beals
24 ‘Abra Raven’, by D.F. Lewis
25 ‘Pissing in Barbican Lake’, by Jeremy Reed
26 ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicides’, by Jeremy Reed

Beyond the Dadaoism horizon, please keep a look out for announcements regarding exciting new work from Michael Cisco, and the sparkling debut collection from Luke Geddes.

While we are here we would also like to announce the winner of the prize draw for a specially inscribed copy of Nick Jackson’s The Secret Life of the Panda. The winner is Caroline Callaghan, of West Yorkshire, who will be receiving a copy of the collection shortly, with an inscription and some illustrations added by hand.

The next exclusive interview to be sent out to our e-mail subscribers will be with author Rhys Hughes. If you have not already signed up to our mailing list, and would like to receive interviews and updates, please sign up here.

An Imaginary Menagerie

We come to the thirteenth and final Chômu release of 2011, The Secret Life of the Panda, by Nick Jackson, a collection of exquisitely realised short stories that forms a fitting(ly unusual) cap to an exciting and rewarding year. So, what can you expect to find between the mysterious covers of this volume, with its beautiful and evocative artwork from Suzanne Norris? Many things as rare as the titular panda: a perfect mastery of the short fiction form that is both unmistakably contemporary and authentically beautiful, a fusion of realism and dream-like fantasy that is seamless, an ability to summon potent emotions with small details and show the internal through the external, and the spreading of a large imaginative canvas on which the characters remain vivid. A disappearing world of strange and private visions is here for you to discover.

Here are rumours of the secret life that have already reached us:

“With exquisite delicacy and a keen eye for the bizarre, Jackson (Visits to the Flea Circus) creates a series of moody vignettes taking readers from religious strife in 16th-century [Germany] to a jungle camp of [Cuban] guerrillas and the mundane hallways of a contemporary British school. … The spectacular “Boys’ Games” intertwines the confused cruelties of children in the schoolyard and men at war. And the otherworldly dedication involved in studying or recreating nature comes to life in “The City in Flames” and “Shell Fire,” respectively.”

- Publishers Weekly

“In romanticizing the uncanny, the fantastic and the horrific, Nick Jackson’s fiction emulates that of the great 19th century writers of suspense, Poe, Wilde and Shelley. With his unique marriage of subtlety and decadence Jackson is able to minimise the carnal horror whilst preserving the spine-tingling fear. Whether unleashing his ghosts or exorcising his demons, Jackson’s is an almost ethereal voice in a literary world of bloody over-abundance.”

- Rachel Kendall

“Nick Jackson’s fertile imagination is matched by his skill with the English language: writing about both mundane matter as well as fantasies made real seems so natural to him that the reader is left wondering why this shamanistic mind has not bloomed around the world – so many stories are here that suggest that his fount of inspiration is bottomless. He has perfected the art of short story writing (no mean feat): he makes us long for a novella or novel that would allow us to explore his talent even further.”

- Grady Harp

On Monday the 19th of December, there will also be a book launch for The Secret Life of the Panda at Olives in Norwich (40 Elm Hill, Norwich, Norfolk, NR3 1HG). The event will take place between 7.30 and 9.00pm. Nick Jackson will be reading extracts from the collection, and from 8.30 there will be a musical set from singer-songwriter Kimberley Moore. If you’re anywhere near Norwich, or if you’re a travelling kind of person, please do drop in.

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of The Secret Life of the Panda

The winner of last month’s prize draw for an inscribed copy of Here Comes the Nice is Thomas Strømsholt, who will be receiving his prize in the post soon.

We are presenting another prize draw this month, this time, of course, for a uniquely inscribed copy of The Secret Life of the Panda. The same rules apply as before: 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 ‘Secret Life’ to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, naturally there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘Secret Life’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 30th of December.

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