The blindingly awesome people of Pilot Books are cooking up a storm with the second annual Small Press Festival here in Seattle. Tons of readings and other literary events are booked on the calendar this week through April. This Saturday’s Potluck Social kicks things off.

All of this sounds mighty, mighty tasty.

For sure some Dark Sky folks will be bomping around. Come say hi, and get your grub on some of that sweet sweet small press pie.

More information is → HERE! ←

Today we talk with Adam Robinson of Publishing Genius about adjusting the kerning, hoping for the unexpected, and how good art can make us less self-absorbed.

BG: Tell us a bit about yourself. Where do you live? What do you hate? Love? Ignore?

AR: I live in Baltimore. I’m house sitting for a friend this year, so I’ve got a big three-bedroom place near a great big park. I grew up in central NY and lived in Chicago for 5 years and Milwaukee for 5 years. I’ve been in Baltimore for about 5 years. What do I hate is a funny question; nothing jumps out at me though I know it when I see it. Oh, I know — I don’t like nasty commenters on the Internet. They almost always seem counterproductive to me. One thing I love is being surprised by art. Another thing I love is being surprised by people. I’m sure I ignore lots of things, but that falls into the Rumsfeldian idea of, well, I don’t pay attention to what I don’t pay attention to.

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“Sons of bitches.” Lituma felt the vomit rising in his throat. “Kid, they really did a job on you.” The boy had been both hung and impaled on the old carob tree. His position was so absurd that he looked more like a scarecrow or a broken marionette than a corpse. Before or after they killed him, they slashed him to ribbons: his nose and mouth were split open; his face was a crazy map of dried blood, bruises, cuts, and cigarette burns. Lituma saw they’d even tried to castrate him; his testicles hung down to his thighs.

– Mario Vargas Llosa, Who Killed Palomino Mollero

He got in, but shoved his face out to the window and let go one. I braced my feet, and while he still had his chin on the window sill I brought down the wrench. His head cracked, and I felt it crush. He crumpled up and curled on the seat like a cat on a sofa. It seemed a year before he was still. Then Cora, she gave a funny kind of gulp that ended in a moan. Because here came the echo of his voice. It took the high note, like he did, and swelled, and stopped, and waited.

– James Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice

Then everything began to reel before my eyes, a fiery gust came from the sea, while the sky cracked in two, from end to end, and a great sheet of flame poured down through the rift.  Every nerve in my body was a steel spring, and my grip closed on the revolver.  The trigger gave, and the smooth underbelly of the butt jogged my palm.  And so, with that crisp, whipcrack sound, it all began.  I shook off my sweat and clinging veil of light.  I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of his beach on which I had been happy.  But I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace.  And each successive shot was another loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing.

– Albert Camus, The Stranger

It’s hard to kill a character. These three examples blow my mind. Llosa’s because it allows the reader to construct the murder in imagination, Cain because it’s callous and succinct, and Camus because it’s so damn other worldly.

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I want to build something out of nothing. To start with a wooden block and create an ornate city. It takes trial and error, of course. But the guitar should be waiting on my porch when I get home. The plan is to make noise until something coherent (or incoherent?) emerges. Self-publishing follows the same path. Now I’m separating the work and product here and navigating the product into success is something you need to ask Amanda Hocking about. Theodore Ross knows how difficult the world of publishing is: ask him over a drink. Publishing probably won’t lead you to any booty, and neither will the Bible. But no matter its content, it’s a pretty damn good read and won’t lead you down the neck of a bottle, right? Unlike Clarence Thomas’s sexual hypocrisies. In fact, you may want to fly far, far away. But how often? What if our cities were built around airports? Try flying to Tea Obreht’s Balkans. Or stay here and click yourself smarter.