Fan-favorite novelist Eckhard Gerdes is back, and this time with both barrels loaded! These two novels tackle modern life's complexities as only the twelve-gauge pen of Eckhard Gerdes can. The Unwelcome Guest is the story of one man's flight from paranoia, and Nin & Nan features a gender-ambiguous couple who take on the entire federal government. Both novels are richly humorous, but at the core of each is the pressing concern that modern concerns are pressing on us too much. Twice a top-ten finisher in the Preditors and Editors annual readers' poll of the best novels of the year, Gerdes is certain to delight his legion of loyal literati with his legendary legerdemain in this new double offering . Sit down, relax, and take off your socks-you'd laugh them off anyway as you read The Unwelcome Guest and Nin and Nan.
Fiction. THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL FICTION was founded in 1986 by novelist Eckhard Gerdes in order to gain wider attention for the incredible innovative fiction writing being done at that time. JEF has been proud to be able to introduce the reading public to many fresh, original voices in the world of literature, and it continues its ongoing quest to find and introduce such material. JEF also acknowledges the great voices of innovative writing of years past and publishes essays about those voices of innovation. We publish a general fiction issue annually, or thereabouts, and also introduce new novels to the reading public, novels that most likely would find themselves locked out by the larger presses, who have no time or interest in innovation anymore and only care about their bottom lines.
For too long, our educational system has oversimplified the practice of reading while pretending that only one method works: Read as fast as you can, from beginning to end, in a straight line, without skipping anything. The fastest reader is the best reader and gets the gold star and the certificate for free ice cream! This, of course, punishes deliberate, careful students and booklovers who delight in the process and incorporate what they read into their everyday lives. The dominant method of reading works for simple linear texts, but it is by no means the only way to go about reading and excludes many other types of texts. In How to Read, veteran novelist, editor and educator Eckhard Gerdes reveals 81 different approaches for reading, opening up new horizons that restrictive educators have been blocking from view for far too long. This innovative guidebook will enrich the experience of textuality for young and old readers alike.
With Ring in a River,the new novel by Eckhard Gerdes, one of America's most innovative novelists, Gerdes further pries “the novel” away from its subservience to 19th century literary conventions and enthusiastically flings it into the realities of modern life. When Eckhard Gerdes's Truly Fine Citizen was published in 1989, the innovative British novelist Michael Moorcock said it was "the work of a writer clearly impatient with the currently devalued conventions of modern fiction. The book is a fresh wind. I congratulate Mr. Gerdes on raising this particular storm!" With Ring in a River, the storm continues unabated. Eckhard Gerdes takes the reader into the world of Austin, Texas, circa April 1962, and transplants a newly disenfranchised Iowa philosophy professor into a life of jazz, ornithology, madness, and self-redefinition in that inimitable way which we have come to expect of this great writer.
A-way with it! Simply put, that's what this is all about. The authors in this volume of The Journal of Experimental Fiction have demonstrated time and again that they have a way with words. Literature is ultimately driven by language, and these folks understand how to use language better than most. They prod it, ply it, tweak it, fry it, sling it, smash it, caress it, destroy it, uphold it, defend it, laugh at it, play with it, split it, spit on it, cajole it, stir it, freeze it, melt it, stomp on it, and hold it up for all to see as if it were the most precious thing in the entire world. Maybe it is.
The second in Sugar Glider Press' series of smaller works, Eckhard Gerdes' "The Sylvia Plath Cookbook: A Satire" is the clever story of a writer toying with the idea of putting together a piece on the tragic poet. As his obsession seems on the verge of permanently distracting him, it is Sylvia herself who emerges from her doom to set him free.
The premier international source for literature at the forefront, The Journal of Experimental Fiction has done it again! It has collected writing by some of the bravest, most innovative and thought-provoking, most emotive authors working today. A special section features a previously unpublished essay by John Barth presented as a lecture at Macon State College and 17 narrative responses written by students. Other selections include fiction by Steven Kedrowski, Amina Memory Cain, Daniel Borzutzky, Antoinette Nora Claypoole, Lee Groban, Persis Gerdes, Todd Smith , and Kari Edwards. Famous works of experimental fiction are parodied by Thomas McCain, Dawn Hamilton and Eckhard Gerdes. Also featured are a critical essay by Tim Miller and a review of John Barth's new novel, "Coming Soon!!!" This anthology is a welcome and vital addition to the great literature of our age!
Harold Jaffe's acts of literary terrorism work to wrestle control of the future of literature away from the dominant culture. This book celebrates that effort. Jaffe is an acute observer of the painful conditions under which we are forced to live on a daily basis. And like any harbinger of ill, he is sometimes mistaken for its creator. But he is not. He is clearing out space that has been polluted for too long. His acts of literary terrorism are acts that reclaim literature and art fiction from its cooption by fast-food-wielding advocates of disposability: what has been disposed by the dominant political culture has too often been literary artists. Those who have benefited have seldom been literary artists. Jaffe has worked brilliantly to save literature from its unwitting complicity in the elimination of readers who dare question authority. The writing in this volume, whether by Jaffe, his former students and colleagues, or works inspired by his lead, helps blast us out of our complacency and reclaim space we should never have relinquished. Innovation and renovation are inextricably linked.
A-way with it! Simply put, that's what this is all about. The authors in this volume of The Journal of Experimental Fiction have demonstrated time and again that they have a way with words. Literature is ultimately driven by language, and these folks understand how to use language better than most. They prod it, ply it, tweak it, fry it, sling it, smash it, caress it, destroy it, uphold it, defend it, laugh at it, play with it, split it, spit on it, cajole it, stir it, freeze it, melt it, stomp on it, and hold it up for all to see as if it were the most precious thing in the entire world. Maybe it is.
The second in Sugar Glider Press' series of smaller works, Eckhard Gerdes' "The Sylvia Plath Cookbook: A Satire" is the clever story of a writer toying with the idea of putting together a piece on the tragic poet. As his obsession seems on the verge of permanently distracting him, it is Sylvia herself who emerges from her doom to set him free.
With Ring in a River,the new novel by Eckhard Gerdes, one of America's most innovative novelists, Gerdes further pries “the novel” away from its subservience to 19th century literary conventions and enthusiastically flings it into the realities of modern life. When Eckhard Gerdes's Truly Fine Citizen was published in 1989, the innovative British novelist Michael Moorcock said it was "the work of a writer clearly impatient with the currently devalued conventions of modern fiction. The book is a fresh wind. I congratulate Mr. Gerdes on raising this particular storm!" With Ring in a River, the storm continues unabated. Eckhard Gerdes takes the reader into the world of Austin, Texas, circa April 1962, and transplants a newly disenfranchised Iowa philosophy professor into a life of jazz, ornithology, madness, and self-redefinition in that inimitable way which we have come to expect of this great writer.
The premier international source for literature at the forefront, The Journal of Experimental Fiction has done it again! It has collected writing by some of the bravest, most innovative and thought-provoking, most emotive authors working today. A special section features a previously unpublished essay by John Barth presented as a lecture at Macon State College and 17 narrative responses written by students. Other selections include fiction by Steven Kedrowski, Amina Memory Cain, Daniel Borzutzky, Antoinette Nora Claypoole, Lee Groban, Persis Gerdes, Todd Smith , and Kari Edwards. Famous works of experimental fiction are parodied by Thomas McCain, Dawn Hamilton and Eckhard Gerdes. Also featured are a critical essay by Tim Miller and a review of John Barth's new novel, "Coming Soon!!!" This anthology is a welcome and vital addition to the great literature of our age!
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