By Monday the moon has stopped glowing. One moment it is the singularly most important shape in the nighttime sky and then it is gone...BULL SPEC is pleased to announce that BULL SPEC BENEFIT SHORT #1 will be Joe Meno's "The Architecture of the Moon:"
In lesser hands, these unconventional forms and outlandish leaps of imagination would feel like empty concepts, but Meno fills each of these stories to the brim with heart. There is true emotion hiding behind every trick mirror, and it comes across in spades. As I finished each story, I found myself looking forward to the next, wondering what Meno would surprise me with. But what sets this collection apart, and moved me the most, was that his characters consistently choose hope over despair. Meno brings great skill to every line, and proves, as in his story, ‘The Architecture of the Moon,’ that human connection can be the small light used to illuminate a great darkness."The Architecture of the Moon" (and other of Joe's works) is available in your local and favorite online bookstores and libraries as one of the stories included in his collection "Demons in the Spring," available in various formats and in various places as described on Joe's website, a summary being hardcover and Kindle versions at amazon.com, and in audiobook format on Audible.
Joe's newest novel is The Great Perhaps, a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice and the winner of the Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction 2009, and which the Chicago Tribune describes as "Laugh-out-loud funny but frequently sad, Joe Meno's new novel runs the gamut of emotions and techniques as it depicts a Chicago family in turmoil." It is available wherever quality books are sold.
Note: There will still be an English e-book version of this story, though it would be difficult indeed to improve on featherproof's in terms of art and origami stylings, we're hoping some e-book formats made for device and online viewing will help get this story into as many hands as possible.
Look for BULL SPEC's production of "The Architecture of the Moon" online, in e-book, and audiobook as BULL SPEC BENEFIT SHORT #1 in December, with 100% of donations going to benefit DURHAM LITERACY. Thanks very much to Joe for bravely being the first author to grant BULL SPEC license to produce his work under these terms, and we hope to be able to start contributing to the Durham communities in the way Joe (and featherproof) do to Chicago's. Another special thanks to featherproof for graciously allowing us to use the cover art from their awesome production of the PDF, credited to Bleached Whale Design.
Update: Due to some scheduling concerns, we may not be able to produce this at the quality level we'd like by December, in which case it would fall back to February. We'll keep everyone posted. We'd love to see comments on whether people would like to see simultaneous release in all formats/languages, or have these trickle out as they are available.
Hi folks,
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I don't understand at all how you will be publishing these stories. Do they dribble out, a language at a time, overlapping with other versions of other stories? Is there a central page to access all this content? Will the content be "published" for a long time?
Unless there is a very clear launch of every story, it might get too blurry, especially as each reader will be only interested in one version of each tale. How long will, say a spanish speaker have to wait in between each new read? How often do you plan to publish? You don't want the gap to stretch too long.
Ooooh, many questions. Are you publishing e-books in each language, too? It seems an immense amount of administration. Good luck with it.
D. Shaw
Thanks for the comment - this blog is mostly targeted to prospective writers for now. In other threads we're openly soliciting input as to whether folks would like to see translations come out as they are available vs. all in one shot, meaning delaying until all the versions are ready. We have a more 'for readers' site in development for the the January launch.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the each language: yes! E-books and audiobooks in each language, though not every language and format for every story. Basically instead of doing 6 or so stories in 1 or 2 formats a month, we're trying to do 1 or 2 stories in 6 or so formats a month, give or take. Luckily much of the team is familiar with multi-lingual document preparation and, while I'm sure we'll make mistakes as we get going, we're hopeful that experience keeps our heads above water as far as the amount of administration and bit-mangling we have to do.
And thanks for the good luck wishes! We'll need it.