scrambler chronicles

“This, Jones’s surreal, postmodern vision seems to say, is the role of the contemporary artist: it is not to offer an answer when confronted by unanswerable fear, but to offer escape through a surreal manipulation of reality. Facing the loss of joy and sun and light and life, facing the inevitability of fear and pain and death, Jones offers a way of seeing the world that few readers will find entirely comforting, but that many will find some comfort in.”

-read the full review here. Reviewed by Troy Urquhart

Our next book will be poetry from Matthew Savoca. The title is long love poem with descriptive title and will be released the beginning of September, 2010.

“With books from authors such as J.A. Tyler, Shane Jones, and Valerie Loveland, among others, the press is off to a flying good start.  Four poetry collections and a novella so far in paperback form, nice 6″ x 9″ books (though the Tyler is a smaller, easy to hold 4.25″x 6.875″.”

“It’s a small (or micro) press to keep your eye on.”

Very nice review mentioning Tyler with Samuel Beckett and Gertrude Stein. Aaron Copland and Stein also blurb the book at Big Other.

“I’ve concentrated much of my reading here on how Inconceivable Wilson is constructed, what the narrator’s obsessions are; and much of the pleasure I received from the book came from flowing along within its painterly atmosphere, its lyricism, its odd philosophical speculations. The novella’s incantatory qualities will sweep away attentive readers.”

The latest issue of The Scrambler #36 March 2010 is available for your viewing pleasure: http://thescrambler.com/mar10-contents.html

Check out this article about indie literature in Publisher’s Weekly mainly about Publishing Genius Press and Shane Jones. See if you can spot the Scrambler Books mention: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/450144-The_Staggering_Work_of_Publishing_Genius.php

Pre-order your copy of A CAKE APPEARED- poetry, fables, and scrolls by Shane Jones. It is only $12 + free shipping (for all pre-orders). Order here.

6″x 9″ Paperback book
90 pages ©2010
ISBN: 978-0-578-04678-5
Cover art by Morgan Blair

Kristy Logan of PANK reviews J.A. Tyler’s Inconceivable Wilson. She is honest with her opinion and we appreciate that even if it is not the most glowing of reviews:

“I’m sure Tyler is doing something terribly complicated that I just don’t understand, but it didn’t work for me.”

“When I let go and allowed the words and rhythms of the novella to wash over me, I did enjoy it; but all things considered, it just wasn’t quite enough to hold it all together. But don’t take my word for it. Go and read Inconceivable Wilson, then come back here and tell me why I’m wrong. Love it or hate it, there’s plenty to discuss.”

Buy your copy of the book here.

“I have always been very influenced by repetition, by the way we can make and break and wreck and reconstruct patterns with words, so Inconceivable Wilson automatically included those notions of texture, layering, rhythmic repetition from the beginning. The constancy of it though, and the way it often plays with tense shifting and the ideas of time and language consumption happened during the writing process, when I was starting to understand the novel(la) a bit better.”

read the whole interview here. Also, order your copy of Inconceivable Wilson here.

Guest editor Kathy Fish and regular editor Matt Bell have selected Leigh Stein’s poem “The Reckoning” (which first appeared in the June 2009 issue of The Scrambler) to be part of Dzanc’s Best of the Web 2010. Dzanc does a lot for writers/writing community so this is definitely an honor.

We are very excited.