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!

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.

A previously secret cache of documents concerning the shadowy figure known to some as Count Dracula has now been unearthed. In this year of Our Lord, 2011, on the 19th of January, those documents are released to the world, for good or ill.

Be among the first to know for yourself the secrets uncovered here.

The learned Dr. Abraham Van Helsing writes in the Foreword:

“I must solemnly warn readers not to scan these pages in a spirit of idle curiosity. I place this work before them to shed some light on the darkness which hides in every human breast…”

The first volume of four to be disclosed, The Scholar’s Tale treats of the early life of Prince Vlad Dracul, as told by Martin Bellorius, a doctor at the University of Wittenberg in the year 1576. It takes us across Europe to the wilds of Transylvania, and beyond, taking in its purview sorcerers, bandit queens, great battles, passionate liaisons, a mechanical tortoise, and much more.

Playwright, actor and theatre director Reggie Oliver resurrects from history’s tenebrous and legend-haunted grave the living Dracula as his terrible destiny takes shape before him – a stormy road of adventure, horror and heartbreak whose twists have till now been shrouded in darkness.

A tale of origins like no other, this book promises to enthral both admirers of Bram Stoker’s original work, and those who have yet to sample its chill delights.

“[The Dracula Papers] has blown away every novel I’ve read this year so far.”

Johnny Mains, writing in December, 2010.

Praise for Reggie’s previous fiction:

The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini (Haunted River 2003)
“Oliver’s sharp eye for character and ear for dialogue never desert him…. Reggie Oliver rediscovers many if not all the qualities which make the English Ghost Story classic.”

Ramsey Campbell, Dark Horizons 2003

A brief and adapted extract from The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale, entitled The Wounds of Exile was published as an Ex Occidente limited edition, now sold out. Of it, the writer, publisher and editor D.F. Lewis wrote: “Poignancy in love, farcical and dream-consistent, this novella is a masterpiece…”

The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale, is available here. Don’t forget to sign up to our mailing list for further news on this and other titles.