Deeper inside the customised book, a tantalising glimpse of the continuing bricolage.

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:

The world-within-world magick sticker enhancement of the Dadaoism cover.

A close up of one of the stickers. Either that, or something the nature of which we don't understand.

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

Michael Cisco's anagrammatic 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.

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.

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!