About Me

My photo
Jessie Glenn attended Reed College and Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. Her book publicity work has been highlighted in Poets & Writers Magazine, Annie Jenning’s EliteWire, AWP, and numerous “Ask the Expert” articles. She was picked as a judge for the IndieReader Discovery Awards the Women's Fiction Rising Star Awards and in an unrelated twist, she was also a contestant on MasterChef season 3. Jessie teaches a Master's level book publicity class for Portland State University's Masters in Publishing degree. In additional to her own writing clips in NYT Modern Love, WaPo, Toronto Star and elsewhere, Jessie is a comfortable, well practiced public speaker, media coach and takes on select PR repping positions for notable clients.

Monday, March 5, 2018

The Birth of a Book

Each book is an ecosystem and each published book has a birthday: the day it is released into the world. By the time a reader is able to hold a book in their hands, years have been spent on its creation.
Happy upcoming book birthday! Established in 2006, MindBuck Media Book Publicity specializes in personalized book release campaigns starting in the year to 5 months before your book’s birthday. We dig deep into the themes of our books and the backgrounds of our authors, then connect the web of stories we find we find into pitches to our established contacts in print, radio, tv, internet and other media outlets.
Primarily, we work with authors of fiction, memoir and creative non-fiction.
Needing an agent in order to submit to larger publishers? We can help. We analyze your writing assets, write your proposal, develop your comp books list, and research target agents. Additionally, we are able to help with author websites, author and publisher social media, book events, awards submissions, cover design, interior design, editing and other aspects of the book release. We consider indy authors with terrific books but have strict requirements for editing, content, and interior and cover design. You may submit a sample of one to three chapters, a short outline, a description of your editing process and we will schedule a consult.
Please note that we do not work on books post-release and generally need at least 5 months in advance of the book release for a traditional publicity campaign.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013


The passionately written book of short stories, Flashes of War, will be released Memorial Day. 




Illuminating the intimate, human faces of war, this unique series of short stories by award-winning author Katey Schultz questions the stereotypes of modern war by bearing witness to the shared struggles of all who are touched  by it. Numerous characters—returning U.S. soldier and pragmatic jihadist, Afghan mother and listless American sister, courageous amputee and a ghost  that cannot let go—appear in Flashes of War, which captures personal moments of fear, introspection, confusion, and valor in one collection spanning nations and perspectives. Written in clear, accessible language with startling metaphors, this unforgettable journey leaves aside judgment, bringing us closer to a broader understanding of war by focusing on individuals, their motivations, and their impossible decisions. Flashes of War weaves intimate portrayals of lives affected by the War on Terror into a distinctive tapestry of emotional resonance. It builds bridges, tears them down, and sends out a universal plea for reconnection


FLASHES OF WAR is the work of a bold, ambitious, and brilliant young author who is
writing stories few others in American fiction have really yet tackled.” – Doug Stanton, author of New York Times Bestsellers, Horse Soldiers and In Harm’s Way

Release: May 27, 2013
Publisher: Loyola University's Apprentice House
ISBN: 978-1-934 074-85-5
Price: $16.95
Pages: 172
Size: 6" x 9"
*

FLASHES OF WAR
Schultz bears witness to the shared struggles of those who are touched
by war.

Katey Schultz’s Biography
Katey Schultz grew up in Portland, Oregon, and is most recently from Celo, North Carolina. She is a graduate of the Pacific University MFA in Writing Program and recipient of the Linda Flowers Literary Award from the North Carolina Humanities Council. She lives in a 1970 Airstream trailer bordering the Pisgah National Forest. This is her first book.





Word Up!


An extremely entertaining book on writing and grammar, Word Up! will be released on National Tell a Story Day, April 27th.


If you’re like me (and I’m wagering you are), you’re a good writer who wants to follow the rules, but every now and again you run into language situations that make you question whether your recollection of the rules is serving you well. You’re not alone.

Marcia Riefer Johnston’s collection, Word Up! How to Write Powerful Sentences and Paragraphs (And Everything You Build from Them), is loaded with practical advice for improving your writing by making good use of rules that matter. It does more than preach grammar. It helps you take command of words.

Each well-written lesson provides you with easy-to-remember tips for improving your prose. Johnston reveals interesting and peculiar facts about our language, including some that will delight you. She uses well-placed humor to demystify some often confused rules. She helps you decide when to abide by rules and when to break them. She looks at both sides of certain rules that even experts disagree on. You may be surprised to find that some rules aren’t rules at all; they’re guidelines that were intended to steer us in the right direction but may have done the opposite. (Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler)

Word Up! Packed with assumption-obliterating advice. Smart enough to appeal to grammar snobs. Friendly enough to appeal to those who think “grammar snobs are great big meanies.” Includes three indexes.

Release: April 27, 2013—National Tell a Story Day
Publisher: Northwest Brainstorms Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-9858203-0-5
Price: $21.99
Pages: 244
Size: 6" x 9"
*

WORD UP!
How to Write Powerful Sentences and Paragraphs (And Everything You
Build from Them)

Marcia Riefer Johnston’s Biography
A technical writer by trade, Marcia first studied under Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff in the Syracuse University creative-writing program. She then taught technical writing at Cornell University. Marcia has written for many organizations, from the Fortune 500 to the just plain fortunate.

Marcia’s Website: HowToWriteEverything.com

Friday, December 28, 2012

A DRABBLE Family Christmas


A Comic Classic Syndicated in over 300 newspapers, now a book!


Humorist KEVIN FAGAN is best known as the creator of Drabble, a nationally syndicated cartoon strip debuting in March of 1979. The Drabble family, features Ralph and June, the loveable parents of three not always adorable children – Norman, Patrick and Penny. Their pets, Wally the wiener dog, Bob the parrot and Oogie the cat, along with a few wacky friends and neighbors round out the Drabble household. Drabble fans—and there are millions of them--are animal lovers, sports fans, parents, grandparents, college students and kids. But mostly, Drabble fans are people who believe in the family and all that is good about being a family.

Fagan has created an original cartoon six days a week for the last 33 years, each and every one hand drawn. He taps into what’s best in family humor by turning ordinary daily life into relatable and very funny, shared common experiences in the great American tradition of Bill Cosby, Charles Schultz and Will Rogers.

Drabble fans number some 4,000,000 daily readers in over 200 newspapers nationally and various online forums globally. To put those numbers in perspective, Drabble daily readership is the equivalent of a hit primetime
television viewership.

  • Release date: November 5th, 2012
  • Paperback: 130 pages
  • Price: $6.99/$3.99 for e-version
  • ISBN-10: 1480227153
  • ISBN-13: 978-1480227156
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5
*

A DRABBLE Family Christmas Tale

With classic DRABBLE moments, Kevin Fagan brings family friendly hilarity to the holiday season.

KAVIN FAGAN’s Biography
Humorist KEVIN FAGAN is best known as the creator of Drabble, a nationally syndicated cartoon strip debuting in March of 1979 when Kevin was 22 and the youngest syndicated cartoonist on record. After 33 years, DRABBLE has over 4 million fans and can be found in most US newspapers.

The Christmas Carol Murders by Christopher Lord

It’s the holiday season in Dickens Junction, Oregon. Local bookstore owner, Simon Alastair, is getting ready for the community’s annual celebration of Charles Dickens well-known story. But when a mysterious stranger shows up in the Junction and is murdered hours later, Simon begins to suspect that his little community has been targeted for destruction by a shadowy organization.

With the support of Zach, a dashing young magazine reporter, Simon decides to investigate the crime himself. When a second murder follows, Simon must confront the worst question of all: which of his friends and business associates is a ruthless murderer?
***
The Christmas Carol Murders is the first of an exciting new cozy mystery series combining the atmosphere of a classic Agatha Christie puzzle, the deft touch of Charlotte MacLeod, a hint of Oscar Wilde’s humor, and the literary spirit of the great Charles Dickens.

Release: September 24th, 2012
Publisher: Harrison Thurman
ISBN: 978-0-9853236-0-8
Price: $13.95
267 pages
5.5" x 8.5"
***


THE CHRISTMAS CAROL MURDERS
A tantalizing cozy murder mystery in the Dickens Junction Series by Christopher Lord.

Christopher Lord's Biography
Christopher Lord was born in Astoria, Oregon. He now lives in Portland with his partner of twenty years and their Devon Rex, Miss Corey, the inspiration for Simon’s Miss Tox. He is hard at work on future books in the Dickens Junction mystery series.




Critical Praise and Advance Reviews
For Christopher Lord's The Christmas Carol Murders




"If Frank Hardy had come out, opened a bookstore, and moved to a Dickens-obsessed Oregon small town, he might have grown up to be something like Simon, the protagonist of Christopher Lord’s charming new mystery, The Christmas Carol Murders. Full of homespun characters and curious goings-on, Lord’s mystery is a love letter to both Dickens and to the small town amateur detectives who’ve kept the peace in hamlets from River Heights to Cabot Cove. Christopher Lord's charming new mystery... is so full of love for book. Readers will eat it up.” -Chelsea Cain, New York Times best-selling thriller writer


"The Christmas Carol Murders is a smart, satisfying and contemporary twist on the literary landscape of Charles Dickens. It features a likeably urbane amateur detective, an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, and a juicy mystery that puts the trappings of Christmas Past, Present, and Future to new and grisly uses. Whether you’ve read Charles Dickens or not, The Christmas Carol Murders will delight and surprise you. -Pamela Smith Hill, award-winning author of Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life


"A delicious romp through the world of Dickens wonderfully imagined in the 21st century by Christopher Lord. The Christmas Carol Murders has it all: mystery, eccentric characters galore and a touch of frivolity. You don’t have to be a Dickens fan to fall in love with this novel. -Margaret Coel, New York Times bestselling author of Buffalo Bill's Dead


“Christopher Lord has all but immortalized Charles Dickens -- his characters, his enthralling sense of story, his entire fictional universe. From the opening pages, The Christmas Carol Murders is an enjoyable contemporary spin on the lush psychological environs of Dickens’s own territory. With this story of a small town bookseller turned gumshoe, Lord emerges as a bright new voice in mystery.” -Evan P. Schneider, author of A Simple Machine, Like the Leve

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Welcoming Cooper's Promise to the US

Thrilled to announce the release of author, Timothy Jay Smith's new thriller, Cooper's Promise. Paris-based, Timothy will be visiting the US in late Oct through Nov for an east coast reading tour.

In addition to many other accolades, Timothy had a great write up in the South Floriday Gay News today: SFGN Review


Read more about Timothy or buy his book at his website http://www.timothyjaysmith.com/

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Canning Pears and Apple Sauce on teevee!



A Good Day Oregon piece... The crew came by again to talk about canning late season fruit. Next up? Winter Gardening!


Link to Canning video

Friday, September 7, 2012

Raising Chicks in the City (Good Day Oregon)

Another Good Day Oregon spot... The crew came to my house to chat about raising backyard chickens. Next month: apple sauce and winter gardening!
Link to Cute Baby Chick Video



New Podcast with Author Karen Karbo

Author, Karen Karbo spoke with me on my show, Type Cast on KZME on Sunday September 2, 2012. Karbo wrote "the Kick Ass Women" series and has a new book, Julia Child Rules, due out in 2013.
Podcast of Karen Karbo


Thursday, August 9, 2012

The Christmas Carol Murders

I'm very excited about upcoming release, The Christmas Carol Murders. This is the first in the Dickens Junction series. The Dickens Junction series is a series of 'cozy' mysteries with a gay protagonist, all based on the works of Charles Dickens. Get the plum puddingout early! Chelsea Cain says readers will "Eat it up"


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

More Masterchef Moments...

Here's an interview with Cookbook Village about Masterchef and my love of cookbooks: More Masterchef Moments...


Thursday, June 7, 2012

Cookin' up a Storm!

Hi All,

In a series of unusual events, I found myself a contestant on a FOX reality show this spring. Gordon Ramsey's MASTERCHEF was a crazy experience!

The season began June 4th and will continue Mondays and Tuesdays all summer. 



FLIPPING, Best Summer Read!


 http://www.amazon.com/Flipping-ebook/dp/B0081J0OV2/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339089066&sr=1-1

Mary Ellenton's novel, FLIPPING, was released this last month and it's exciting to watch it climb the rankings! Get your copy in print or on kindle for a mere $2.99.


Willfully seduced by the greed of the sub-prime lending culture before the catastrophic pop of the real estate bubble, Fay Famaghetti's fateful  step into the ethically murky mortgage industry pulls her into a diabolical world of predatory lenders where big cash payouts, kinky sex and double dealings are just another day at the office. Seduced by unbridled temptations,  even Fay's warm heart and tireless work ethic instilled from childhood as the daughter of restauranteurs, can't deter her from the lusty joyride her life seems to have become. All that her traditional Italian family can do is watch and pray that she sees the cliff looming ahead before she and everyone around her fall to pieces... 

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Head Off & Split: A Collection of Poetry by Nikky Finney


Head Off & Split: a fishmonger’s phrase for removing the head and other traditionally unwanted parts of a fish at market. Nikky Finney’s Head Off & Split is the power to cut and carve away; a power often abused to skew history in favor of the privileged. After all, “History does not keep books on the handiwork of slaves.”

In Head Off & Split, Finney takes hold of the blade. She keeps the glassy eyes and soft innards of American history. With a cadence that has the “strength & sway” of velvet, she retrieves details that white male dominated America would rather do away with. Situated at the intersection of race, class and sexuality, the collection comments on contemporary racial politics, explores the intimacies of lesbian relationships and interweaves the personal with history, culture and politics.

Finney uses humor to stab at the dark and disturbing racial tensions and social injustices in modern U.S. history. In “Left,” rescue efforts after hurricane Katrina seem to be guided by the children’s counting game of Eenee Menee Maine Mo while a helicopter merely circles a family stranded on a roof:

After all, it was only po’ New Orleans,

old bastard city of funny spellers. Nonswimmers

with squeeze-box accordion accents. Who would

be left alive to care?”

Several historical and contemporary figures take center stage in Finney’s poems. The story of Rosa Parks is a familiar if not overdrawn anecdote of the civil right’s movement. However, in “Red Velvet” Finney allows Rosa her identity as a woman and a seamstress. The sonnet sequence “Plunder” and “The Condoleezza Suite” are cameos satirizing George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice. These figures are portrayed as flashy and blunt as stage-daggers. Finney’s absurdist humor exposes the gap between the key players in the White House and the spectators wading through the mud. In “Concerto no. 12: Condoleezza Visits NYC {during hurricane season},” a pair of shoes in a shop watches a flood on TV and reflects on the Secretary of State:

Such a lovely arch – but after

Two terms – not much support left.

The world always wants to see blood

gush from a turnip. But not me. No sir ree.

I knew from Inauguration #1

she was not the kind to trade places

(even in her mind ) with anyone held hostage

on a roof by good old army corps levee water.

Her exquisite Saint John suits shouting into

the television screen: “Stranded bodies &

hard-headed water are not my department!”

Finney explores the human need and capacity for love through a series of poems at the heart of Head Off & Split. We are made aware of the self-reproach and danger of homosexual love in a predominantly heteronormative society. In “Aureole” she writes, “I stop my hand in midair. /If I touch here there everything about me will be true /… I will be what Brenda Jones was stoned for in 1969.” The slippery innards of queer relations in America rest within the soft stomach pouch of Finney’s fish reminding us that Head Off & Split is a collection of poems for the silenced.

Finney’s final poem is an empowering message to “Brown Poets”. She instructs them to “Be camera, black-eyed aperture. Be diamondback terrapin, the only animal that can outrun a hurricane. Be 250 million years old. Be isosceles. Sirius. Rhapsody. Hogon. Dogon. Hubble. Stay hot.” Finney encourages the poets to shatter physically and historically imposed boundaries and to be observant and aware of their world.

She demands from them: “Careful to the very end what you deny, dismiss and cast away.” This reminder serves any poet who believes in the power of words to uplift, enlighten and restore.

(This collection won the 2011 National Book Award for poetry )


A review by Anika Ledlow and Kritish Rajbhandari

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Artemis Rising (review by Brent Lightfoot)


“Oh, what’s in a name?” Apparently everything, Romeo. In Cheri Lasota’s Artemis Rising, the protagonist is a young girl looking for love when, like with Romeo and Juliet, the question of love is not so simple; in fact, the heart-shape of destiny lives or dies on the pinprick of a name. What is the name of the protagonist? Well, that’s a tough one; the entire love story hinges on the answer. In Artemis Rising, the romantic contest for power is ideological, that is, it takes place between idea systems, between Christianity and paganism, between the omnipotent Truth and various subversive truths. The protagonist, a sympathetic character originally named Eva, is raised as a Catholic by her stringent father and as a disciple of the ancient Greek goddess, Artemis, by her mother. Should the Catholic path to love fail, Eva may actually be named Arethusa, the eponymous sea-nymph raped by the river-god Alpheus and saved by Artemis, or, if that violent strategy doesn’t work out either, Arethusa will be named Isolde the Fair of ‘Tristan and Isolde’ after the doomed damsel of a white knight’s affections, the lover torn from her love and fated for death hunched grieving over a lifeless corpse. Artemis Rising amounts to a hotly contested hermeneutic pitted on the equally hot grounds of love and melancholy.

Artemis Rising is a dark southern gothic set on the Azores, a generic transplant far away from its germinal American south. The novel formally expands beyond the regional limit of the Mason-Dixon line and Faulkner’s timeless bounded south. Artemis Rising may best be described as Flannery O’Connors Wise Blood taken to its furthest fantastical extreme, without ejecting it more disturbing qualities. (Incest, sexual aggression, pagan totemic ritualism: you name it, Artemis Rising’s probably got it.) Don’t be fooled by the island setting; the Azores factor very little into the story’s flux and flow. The novel suggests that the dialogue is jumping back and forth between English and Portuguese, but we only get to see the English with a peppering of ‘native’ Azorean, like mai and pai and obrigado (helpfully defined in an easily accessible glossary for the exclusive ebook formatting). Lasota never explains the ostensibly complex politics amongst Portugal, the Azores, or the United States, where the story opens and closes. And of the intriguing rituals that Lasota uses for scene settings, including bull-fights and ballroom dances, our knowledge about the cultural significance of such practices on the Azores remains the same from the Alpha to Omega of our reading, which is to say, nilch.

But cross-cultural education is not the point of Artemis Rising, nor does it ever claim to be. This is not historicized fiction, but historical fiction. What Lasota wants to do, and what she does very well, is to entertain her readers. Artemis Rising is truly a modern romance. The voices of Lasota’s characters, aristocrats and orphans both, sound like the people in our living rooms. More or less narrated as the protagonist’s stream of consciousness, Artemis Rising holds us
fast in the vortex(t) of an emotional consciousness. In mad throes of desperation, we see Arethusa/ Eva/ Isolde lose sight of what she was doing not just a moment before, and O God we cringe at the thought of her foolishness, her girlishness, we love her for it but oh how it hurts to watch sometimes!!! But it holds my attention fast, anticipating the narrative’s next turn with the touch of a hand or, if we are lucky, a kiss. It kept me reading, and it will probably keep you reading, too. Like a box of girl-scout cookies you just can’t put down, Lasota’s novel promises immediate gratification, without the calories. By Staff Writer, Brent Lightfoot

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper by Geoffrey Gray

“I think of the Pulitzer Prize committee again. Are there acceptance speeches?”
In Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper, Geoffrey Gray chronicles the investigation for D. B. Cooper, the lone criminal to have successfully hijacked a commercial airplane. In 1971, a white male flying under the name D. B. Cooper carried a bomb onto a commuter flight from Portland to Seattle. Immediately after liftoff, he took everyone on the plane hostage and demanded $200,000 in cash and a parachute. The plane touched down at SEA-TAC and the passengers were let off. The plane was refueled and took flight again, this time with money and parachute on board. Somewhere over the forests of southern Washington, the hijacker jumped from the plane with a duffel bag full of cash tucked between his knees. No one expected it. The police were caught on their heels. D. B. Cooper got away.
Four decades later, D. B. Cooper still has not been found. By way of a tip from a private investigator, Geoffrey Gray begins to investigate the unsolved mystery of D.B. Cooper. Gray becomes obsessed with the story. The writer-detective persists for two years. He drudges through the case-files, dwelling upon eye-witness testimony and police records. He researches all the prominent characters and contacts those still living. He becomes profoundly disturbed by the case, driving him to the brink of insanity. By this point the case has turned into a ghost hunt. No resolution is possible because there is no person at the center of it all. The open investigation of D.B. Cooper, like most old and unsolved criminal cases, by definition cannot close. But the narrating Gray does not see this. In the final scene, at the behest of a preferred suspect’s widow (or maybe it is just that she agreed to entertain his delusions?), Gray begins to investigate the origins of a hand-written recipe for cherry cheesecake that could have belonged to a stewardess on the flight that D.B. Cooper may have stolen out of pure habit because he might have been a kleptomaniac… The investigation extends ad nauseum and we can only be glad that Gray does not insist that we continue on with him for this narrative hijack of a story. (And that is not necessarily a bad thing - a narrative hijack can be heroic if successful, but most attempts fail.)
Skyjack does not represent the first try at telling the story of D.B. Cooper (though it may be the first novel). As a semi-historical fiction, the form of the novel well-reflects the nature of its subject. Like many of its predecessors, Skyjack posits D.B. Cooper as a folk hero akin to Jesse James, John D. Dillinger, and other popular anti-establishment American folk heroes. D.B. Cooper was not Robin Hood: jaded by a government who ignored him, corporations who manipulated him, and people who misunderstood him, D.B. Cooper figures as a self-interested and supremely independent Northwestern legend (apparently, it’s not just the rain that messes with your head in the NW).
At its best, the story impresses itself upon you and keeps the pages turning. At its worst, Skyjack becomes bogged down in cultural conjecture and garbled logic, offering such absurd suppositions as, for instance, when explaining the historical moment of Cooper’s hijack, Gray “reasons” that after Boeing lays off a large percentage of the Seattle workforce, all social order dissipates, cops are placed on unpaid leave, and “Dope is sold outside drive-in restaurants.” Wait, does Boeing sell drugs? Such instances beg the question: is Skyjack satirical? Is this just Gray’s ironic joke on himself and his own Pulitzer-crazed descent into the madness surrounding D.B. Cooper? I think so, authorial intent is often a laughable thing, and certainly the read was mildly entertaining, but I can’t get away from the fact that this book would have been a lot better on an airplane.

By Staff Writer, Brent Lightfoot

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

ArtclecticPDX: How did you first get published? Type Cast asks some terrific established NW authors


Listen to Elissa Wald, Dale Bayse, Kevin Sampsell, Bart King and David Michael Slater explain how they first got publishing contracts whether it was through stripping, or sending out a zillion pitches....

ArtclecticPDX: Type Cast Interviews Jody Seay


I have a new radio segment on KZME's ArtclecticPDX called, Type Cast. Type Cast features writers, readers, publishers, editors, book sellers and book buyers (among others) who are part of the cast of type-loving characters.

This episode features Jody Seay, who recently released Dead in A Ditch, Growing up in Texas and Other Near Death Experiences.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Accolades!



Congrats to client, Deborah Reed for making it to the bestseller list TWICE in 2011. Once, for A Small Fortune and once for Carry Yourself Back to Me. She then upped this by making it to the top 100 books of 2011 with Carry Yourself Back to Me!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The Daughter's Walk


"The Daughter's Walk" is a spectacular story, and a mundane one. Jane Kirkpatrick bucks literary tradition by beginning with what would seem to be a climax--the epic journey of two women--a mother and her daughter, setting out to walk across the country to save their home and family. Kirkpatrick suggest that life does not usually follow the standard novel plot, and thus, this novel should not, either. The beginning is somewhat typical. A lovely, old fashioned, coming of age story. Clara, the narrator, is a nineteen-year-old girl, infatuated by a local boy. She is wrested out of her home, however, by her stubborn, courageous, and indomitable mother. As they journey, they both gain strength, and a closer understanding of themselves and each other. The walk, however, is only the beginning of the story, and the novel quickly becomes more complicated and troubling.
The historical context is extraordinarily rich and varied. It is not overemphasized, however. The place is always secondary to the people. And the time, and cultural context is crucial to the novel, but it is gently assumed, never forced. Kirkpatrick doesn't force the reader into the world of the novel. Instead, she constructs it seamlessly around them. Her writing is flawlessly natural. Not to imply that this is a flawless novel. I believe it is a worthwhile one, though. It compelled.
The most striking thing about this story, and the characters is that Kirkpatrick refuses to sugar coat it. It is a fascinating story, but a painful one. I thought that was reassuring, in a way. Such is life. Kirkpatrick makes her readers look unflinchingly at a fictional world that mirrors reality very, very convincingly. The reader feels as lost and in the dark as Clara does. There doesn't seem to be a right choice, a wrong choice, or a happy ending. There is only growth, possibility, diminishment, and tragedy. And a few fleeting moments of joyous triumph.

- By Staff Writer, Sarah Hoffer

Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Terror of Living by Urban Waite


A drug deal goes bad resulting in a triad of chases. This in turn will involve a psychotic hit man as one of the central actors. Sound familiar? If it does, the question of why Urban Waite created a work so derivative of McCarthy’s “No Country For Old Men” will haunt the reader for the rest of the novel.

The novel in this case concerns Bobby Drake, a sheriff deputy who intercepts Phil hunt, a local drug runner picking up a large heroin shipment twenty miles from the Canadian border. An arrest and seizure of the heroin leaves Hunt on the run, Drake in pursuit, and the novel, along with its parallels to the above mentioned work, sets into motion.

Things do move along swiftly. The events trigger one another as the higher-ups in the drug trade move to remedy the initial mishap, much in the way No Country works. The primary villain is Grady, a psychotic prep cook and hired hit-man who’s fortunately quite skilled with his knives which he uses to slash his way through much of the novel. His presence is rather unremarkable however, more of a collection of bad-guy killer clichés than a figure the reader fears. When
Grady himself is pursued by some other killers (much as in the earlier novel) we root for Grady since we know nothing about the others. The net effect, though not enough to salvage Grady from his leering B-movie cheesiness, does flesh out an interesting matrix of reader sympathy, which glides from Hunt to Drake to Grady and back again. This mixes well with the conflicts throughout the narrative and marks the strong points of the novel.

In general the reading experience is a lively one. The bottom line, however, is the puzzle of why Waite created a story so similar to McCarthy’s. In the absence of an answer to justify this, one is better off reading the McCarthy novel.

~By Staff Writer Benjamin Boyce

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yaknavitch


Bodies, they say, are made up of water. Human bodies, I mean. In The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch tells the story of her extraordinary life surprisingly naturally. She shies away from exploiting the huge shock potential of her experiences. Instead, she downplays them, leaving them slightly murky and only obliquely referenced. She plays with time, and water, and language. And she is fascinated by bodies. Bodies as sexual, bodies as expression. Love, and violence, and sorrow are all impressed upon the physical bodies of held within her pages. Although she explicitly writes about how water envelops her experiences, the sheer physicality of her writing suggests that her overt theme is not the most pervasive one. I think the best word to describe The Chronology of Water, cliche as it may sound, is compelling. I wouldn’t call it beautiful. It can be, at times, but Yuknavitch doesn’t mind being ugly, either. And although much tragedy occurs, she lets it flow in and out of the narrative, without dwelling on it. It is inspiring, perhaps. And realistic, certainly, although it is only one individual perspective on reality. But I would choose the word compelling because of the intimacy with which Yuknavitch writes. Her narrative comes close enough to matching my inner monologue that I have to listen. I might just learn something about myself.

~By Staff Writer, Sarah Hoffer

Friday, May 13, 2011

A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism, by Peter Mountford

Peter Mountford has written a novel which deals with a subject matter under-represented in fiction: the world of finance. This opens up a Pandora’s box of motifs, including segues into economic theory, the figure of an anti-hero who at times is thoroughly unlikable, and a curious fictional landscape where morality depends not just on who is speaking, but on who wants what.

The novel is a sort of Bildungsroman, charting the psychological and moral development of its young protagonist, Gabriel de Boya who finds employment with The Calloway Group, a shady hedge fund. Enticed by a colleague into the world of international finance and pressured by the successes of his peers, Gabriel takes an assignment in Bolivia, also his mother’s native country, to prove his worth to the hedge fund managers. The job entails operating undercover as a free-lance journalist, and this initial deceit sets off a web of lies which unfold as the story progresses. Gabriel finds himself quickly over his head in this new world as the boy toy of an older and jaded journalist for the Wall Street Journal, Gloria, and as he gropes about in search of the illusive insider information his employers are seeking to increase the funds dividends.

This search entails seeking out information about Bolivia’s president elect, Evo Morales, and the political leaders surrounding him. While he bumbles around the world of journalism, and Gloria, Gabriel finds himself hopelessly groping for information amongst more experienced journalists while striving to maintain a sense of competency to his hedge fund manager, Priya Singh in New York. The quest begins with the question of whether or not Morales will keep good on his campaign promises to nationalize Bolivia’s major industries, a question promising large profits for the hedge fund if known. From here he serendipitously meets Lenka, Morales’ press attaché, and begins dating her. A feeling of mutual distrust- but also attraction shapes the remaining story and leads to its denouement.

A narrative flashback reveals that Gabriel had studied in Bolivia while attending Brown University, and the younger protagonist notes that “The United States was actually a very bizarre place. Elsewhere in the world, the unattainability of great fame and fortune was more readily accepted, and so life was less driven by grandiose fantasies.” This observation arises out of the contrast between life in Bolivia and back home, and though it sparks a revelation in the young economics student, he soon finds a tentative justification to these fantasies in economic theory. Following the study abroad episode is a brief discussion involving the concept of utility, the economists working term for joy, which is maximized by the intake of money. This connection between utility, and hence joy, and money, becomes the philosophical foundation to the figure of Gabriel: “people want to be pleased, and they do not want to be displeased.”

These apparent digressions serve interesting aesthetic purposes. They illuminate the mind of our protagonist and also the not so fictional world he inhabits. They are also well timed. At a crucial moment in the story, Gabriel’s web of lies threatens to become unmanageable. He is on the brink of getting fired from the Calloway group for failing to produce anything of worth, his budding love affair with Lenka is in peril from cheating with Gloria, and he has lied about his true employer to his mother who has come to Bolivia to visit him. This moment is marked by a discussion on game theory and the prisoner’s dilemma, a schema meant to be prescriptive of how a rational agent should act. In a situation where two inmates are being interrogated and encouraged to rat the other out, a table can be drawn up as a sort of spread sheet of the pay offs or outcomes: if prisoner A rats out prisoner B, prisoner A will get off with a light sentence, but the catch is that if prisoner B also rats out prisoner A they both will get heavy sentences. Such lines of reasoning then become the blueprints for Gabriel’s paranoid induced calculations on what dangers he is facing if he gets fired, his mother finds out abut his real job or Lenka blows his cover which she might do if she finds out he has cheated on her, and so on- which serves to show not only Gabriel’s sticky situation, but the status of rationality itself in a world that is itself quite sticky.

The figure of Gabriel himself is interesting in that he manages to revolt and interest the reader at the same time. Gabriel is obnoxiously un-charming with his lady friends- he manages to turn every flirtatious episode into an awkward embarrassment, and by the narrator’s own admission, is attracted to women who are simply stronger than he is- since he is so completely emasculated and ineffectual this would seem indeed to be a requirement, if for nothing more than the alternative being hard to picture.
In almost every situation Gabriel fumbles- he is wimpy before the Bolivian machismo on display at lenka’s home on Christmas, he sees through the American dream on an intellectual level but caves into the desire to keep up with his ivy-league peers, he is so utterly lacking in virility his passion is expressed by his desire for money- which he finds, as a sin, greed, is simply a passion like gluttony or lust- but more pure- or in Gabriel’s case what amount to his version of purity- abstract.

In Mountford’s hands, however, Gabriel’s lack of appeal seems justified in light of the novel’s superb construction. Like Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov, Mountford’s Gabriel is more of a man of the idea, who in testing it, sacrifices his love life, possible jail time, and even his mother’s respect. The novel makes use of theoretical ideas in economics to create a richly satisfying portrait of post modern living and the whimsical nature of society and morality. Perhaps the ultimate achievement of this work is as an examination into the impossibility of reconciling the demands of those around us as loved ones, employers and family members, the illusory nature of human desire, and the inevitability of cold hard (quantifiable) cash in the absence of rationality.

~By Staff Writer, Benjamin Boyce

Saturday, May 7, 2011

prismACTIVISM!


Synthetic. Collaborative. and perhaps divisive. That's how I think I would describe prismACTIVISM!. At the opening Friday night, at Launchpad Gallery, I was struck by the artwork, but mostly, I was intrigued by the people. The opening night was also the CD release party for "Actually Happening, " from DMLH. And you could feel that this event was fueled by a whole lotta love and enthusiasm.

These artists were united in this collection by the songs on the album. Which is why there was a dizzying diversity of medias and styles. Sam Arneson's comic-book like ink drawing, "Stream of Consciousness," lodged itself firmly in my subconscious. Partly because of the imaginative, malicious character it represented, partly because it reminded me of someone I love. David Walker's work "Unfinished Businesses" was also cartoonish, yet sinister. In fact, the overarching theme was a mixture of the innocent and the corrupt. The artists played vice against innocence, nature against construct. And themes of death, toxins, and corrosion ran underneath.

DMLH, who is complicit in all these works, was previously unknown to me. I'm not quite sure how I feel about him. I wouldn't call him brilliant, yet. His lyrics have a stark sincerity--without ornamentation, sometimes mundane. And it's not super catchy, dancy, or driving. But intriguing. And his approach--blending visual and performance and oral and aural art--complicates matters just enough.


~ By Staff Writer, Sarah Hoffer

New Doings Around the MindBuck Media Blog

Hi All,

For the next several months, I will be having some guest staff writers reviewing lit and the arts for MindBuck Media. I'm really looking forward to reading what they have to say. Suggestions for a newly released book or art show to review? Feel free to send them on to me at mindbuck@ymail.com

xoxo

~J

Monday, October 4, 2010

Literary goings on...


Happy Fall!

It's book release season, for sure. Viva Las Vegas has a new release coming out at the end of October, 2010, "The Gospel According to Viva Las Vegas." Viva will be doing several panels at Wordstock, as well as hosting the Text Ball on Friday, October 8th.

David Michael Slater's highly anticipated 3rd book in the 5-book Sacred Books series, "Book of Maps", will be released December 5th. Despite threats, no book banners will stop his fans from reading their favorite YA series.

Deborah Reed (pseudonym, Audrey Braun) will be releasing the first of 3 books with Amazons publisher, Encore, starting this spring.

Portland photographer, Cheyenne Glasgow, just landed the cover of Stephen King's new UK release! See pic...

MindBuck Media friend, Peter Mountford, will have his first novel published with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the spring of 2011.

Friday, November 6, 2009

New email address!

mindbuck@gmail.com is no more.... It is now mindbuck@ymail.com

Thanks, all

Thursday, October 22, 2009

D'Merde Salon at The Woods!

Hello All-
D'Merde Salon is moving to The Woods for a gathering on October 29th, 2009 at 8pm. Here's the release:

UNDERGROUND SECRET SOCIETY, D'MERDE SALON IS BACK. Now at The Woods!


UNDERGROUND SECRET SOCIETY, D'MERDE SALON, MOVES TO 'THE WOODS' FOR OCTOBER 29th EVENT

Portland, Ore. – September 21th, 2009 – While best known as the secret absinthe party where you could meet rock stars, mingle with film directors or get publishing deals; D'Merde Salon has a new space. After finally growing out of the tiny garage in which it resided for a year, D'Merde is moving to Portland's newest popular venue: The Woods, for a flagship event October 29th, 2009.

"I couldn't have found a more perfect home for D'Merde," says creator and host, Jessica Glenn. "The otherworldly, funeral home atmosphere is the kind of secret society meets clubhouse vibe that's essential for D'Merde Salon's mix of geniuses, patrons and absinthe whacks."

As with previous D'Merde Salons, guests will be treated to a mix of mediums including four bands, a one night only art show with notable Portland artists, readings from celebrity writers, and the crazy feeling that no one will ever believe who you ended up talking to last night...

Sponsored by KZME, this evening's participants are some of Portland's most eccentric, flamboyant artists: Death by Doll (with Dame Darcy), The MoonShriners (with members from LSD&D, Slack, Peter Pants and The Freight train Casanovas), Judson Claiborne (from Chicago), and local shoe-gazers, Josh and Charlotte. Painters include Miss Mona Superhero, Private Mike Albano (of Chariots of Rubber), Dame Darcy and more. Readings by Monica Drake (author of Clown Girl as well as the intro to Chuck Palahniuk's new release), Jessica Glenn (of MindBuck Media), Viva Las Vegas (from new release, Magic Gardens) and Dame Darcy (of Gasoline, Meatcake and more).

What genre are you reading?

Translate