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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

We are proud of each of our releases and are gratified to know that our titles are now enlivening bookshelves and enriching readers’ lives around the world. Therefore, first of all, please allow us to introduce a small selection of links here relating to those titles and/or their authors:

Reggie Oliver was featured in Suvudu’s Take Five series, telling us five fascinating things about The Dracula Papers. Signed copies of The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale are available from the Aldeburgh Bookshop.

Chômu authors Michael Cisco and Brendan Connell were interviewed together by Jeff VanderMeer for the Amazon blog Omnivoracious.

Gestalt Mash features a characteristically lively interview with Justin Isis, author of I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like, and the review blog of stalwart Theaker’s Quarterly features a review of Revenants by Daniel Mills.

Musings on the cover of The Man Who Collected Machen and Other Weird Tales, by Mark Samuels, are to be found at Grim Reviews, and Quentin S. Crisp talks about “Remember You’re a One-Ball!” and other things, at Matt Cardin’s Teeming Brain.

In other news, we now have winners for the Dying to Read and The Great Lover prize draws, and can announce that inscribed copies of the books will be sent to Jérôme-Luc Paulin and Steve Poupard respectively. The winner of the prize draw for Link Arms with Toads! by Rhys Hughes will be announced soon. Please look out for prize draws with our future releases.

Speaking of which, those following developments on the site will have noticed that after Nemonymous Night, we have also scheduled releases for two very different (to each other and to just about anything else we’ve encountered) novels, Jeanette, by Joe Simpson Walker (July release), and The Orphan Palace, by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (October release). The former is in the transgressive tradition of Pauline Réage, with a gritty British sixties setting. This will also be the longest work we have so far published. The latter comes from one of the rising stars of the weird, for whom, we believe, the stars are now right; a novel of madness, written in poetry, or perhaps a novel of poetry, written in madness.

Those awaiting news of the Dadaoism anthology should also rest assured that gears are invisibly turning, and we are working hard on making this something special. However, it should be noted that, due to the high number of submissions, it is taking us some time to sift out the very best. We are excited, however, to have already found a considerable quantity of gold in our prospecting. We will release more information on the contents, scheduling and so on for the anthology when it is available. At present, we are still carefully sifting.

Other things to look forward to include mini-interviews with our authors. Interviews with Brendan Connell and John Elliott have already been conducted, and will be sent out in the near future to everyone on our e-mail list. Please note, you must subscribe in order to receive the interviews and other planned exclusive content. Please also subscribe or keep watching this site for news on further releases and developments.

Thank you.

We have had quite an overwhelming response so far, with most of the submissions coming in this last month before the deadline. From the variety and volume of the material we have received, we hope we can choose the right pieces to make a truly outstanding anthology. Thank you to everyone who has submitted, and thank you also for your patience in waiting to hear back from us. If you have submitted, we will try to get back to you with the verdict on your piece or pieces as soon as possible. Please bear in mind, though, that we have a lot of material to sift through.

We will be posting more news about the anthology here on the website, too. Announcing names of those included and giving further details. Please check the website for new posts and pages, or sign up to our mailing list for updates and exclusive material.