The One Thing The Story Somehow Forgets To Mention Is That I've Got Mad Hits Like I Was Rod Carew

When I was a kid, one of my small thrills consisted of reading Starlog and Fangoria articles written by my brother while standing next to the newsstand inside B. Dalton at the Sun Valley Mall. What I pictured was happening around me was that people saw I was reading the articles and immediately made the connection that I somehow knew the famous writer who'd done the interview with, you know, Sulu or whatever, and were waiting for the right moment to approach me with some questions. Looking back, it seems stupid, of course: a byline in Starlog isn't exactly fame, but, hey, I was 10 and Lee was 19 and that was pretty cool. Anyway, the point of this story, which I assume you're now wondering about, is that today I was reading Jessa Crispin's column in Book Standard in sort of a middling way -- kinda going back and forth between it and waiting to see if my fantasy football trade was approved by my league -- when I realized about half way through that the story was talking about me and my book.

I immediately took a look around to see if anyone noticed and realized that while my dog Minnie was sitting in the corner over there, she didn't seem all that excited or compelled. So, I bring the platitudes here for you, my virtual audience:

The magazine Other Voices has been around since 1984. I recently spoke with Frangello about the late-breaking move to books. “I began to seriously explore it only after it became clear that the magazine itself could survive—financially and in terms of time issues for the staff—if we pretty much doubled our operation and branched into book publishing.” Other Voices the press—which will take the name OV Books—found Goldberg’s book through a contest, a method that has recently become controversial thanks to a few publishers holding contests, charging entry fees and then never announcing a winner. Frangello wanted to make sure that would never happen with Other Voices. “The money helped with things like funding a book tour, but we had already ensured that we could pay for the winning book's publication and had signed a contract with the University of Illinois Press to help us distribute the book appropriately, so even if we had made less than anticipated on our contest, we still would have published a winning title. As it turns out, we raised about $7,000 on the contest, which was a wonderful ‘cushion’ beyond what we already had saved.”

Simplify will be a strong introductory book to announce Other Voices’ presence as a new publisher. “[Goldberg] has two novels published [Fake Liar Cheat and Living Dead Girl], which were both great, but the short story is, I truly believe, his best medium, and this is the book I think his fans have been waiting for. It's a perfect OV Books launcher because it represents a lot of our sensibilities—Tod intermingles very edgy, dark material with very funny material, and he also blends gritty realism with the surreal. His prose is sparse and clean and really powerful, and the book is also highly masculine at a time when short-story collections are increasingly falling under the domain of ‘chick lit,’ so everything about it appealed to us.” Goldberg’s book will be published at the end of August, but it wasn’t the only book Other Voices will be publishing from the crop of entries. Kate Blackwell’s My First Wedding will be published next year. “We all loved Kate's collection so much that we were kind of freaking out about letting it go, letting someone else have it.”

You can read the rest of the story here. You can buy the book here. You can see a picture of me that my sister took sometime around 1986, judging by the hat and white shoes and the overall somberness of the model right here (not to mention the graffiti), just to show you all that I've been keeping it rock steady on the gritty realism tip since way back.   

Comments

[Danny Barer]

Yeah, I was a pretty steady reader of Starlog back in the early '80's, when I lived in Walla Walla, and I realized that articles in it were written by a "Lee Goldberg," who coincidentally had the same name as my cousin from California. Then my parents told me it in fact was my cousin. Lee came by the bookstore where I was working in the summer of '83 to say hello, and I felt inappropriately star-struck. Then he got me a free sub to Starlog -- until they stopped comping subscriptions.

[Harry Connolly]

"Highly masculine," huh?

Very nice!

[Karen Scott]

You have a Leo Sayer look about you...actually, you could be Bruno from Fame...

Sorry I digress, congrats on the nice man saying nice things about your book.

[Stephanie]

What a darling dog! How precious!

[Clair Lamb]

That's a great picture -- androgynous in that uniquely mid-80s way. I think I had that exact same haircut, probably that same year.

[Peter]

you're such a stud, I knew it all along. And there is some nice quote stuff to pull which I will, IF I get the job.......

[Bob Sassone]

Tod, if you think I'm not going to write about that pic in my blog, you are sadly mistaken.

[Angela]

Tod--you make the hat look so fashion-friendly. And yes, like Clair, I think I just might have had that hairdo since my mom made her hairstylist friend cut our hair in their laundry room and it always looked the same. A version of that to be sure. Happy for you, though:)

[mernitman]

The photo is priceless: helium-hilarious, and I think we've all learned a little something from the experience. (I think I'm getting a handle on which kid you were in high school...)