Galleys are here.

Advance reader's copies of The Listeners now exist! Thank you to Diane Chonette and Janet Parker of Tin House for the design. This won't be the exact final cover, but the octopus direction—yes.

Art as twisted hymn

McNair Evans of The Black Harbor has made a great short film about the uncanny and splendrous inventions of Luca Dipierro:

My novel has a house!

Entrance to Tin House's main office, in Portland

I'm thrilled that the fantastic Tin House Books is going to publish my first novel, The Listeners, in 2012.

They say on their blog:

"Leni Zumas is no stranger to lovers of short fiction–her debut collection, Farewell Navigator, garnered praise from Joy Williams, Karen Russell, and Miranda July, and gushing reviews from the LA Times, Paste, and The New York Observer, among others. If she’s not a household name now, it shouldn’t be long (if there’s any justice in the world). We couldn’t be more excited to publish her debut novel..."

I couldn't be more excited, either.

Little bones, fenugreek, gray gowns

The great C.A. Conrad, author of The Book of Frank, invited me to read on his video journal, Jupiter 88. Luca Dipierro and I declaim two versions of the same story here. The doubled story has been published in the Summer 2011 issue of JMWW.

Check out The Book of Frank (a new expanded edition of which was recently published by Wave Books) and other work by Conrad. He's an incredible poet. 

C.A. Conrad

If you are in need of a (soma)tic poetry exercise or two, he offers plenty right here.

Flannery O'Connor, getting started

From the sleepy west of the wooded east

The UMass MFA program has launched a new online literary journal, Route 9, featuring work by some great writers (Heather Christle, Matthew Zapruder, Emily Rae, and more). I have a short piece in this issue called "Your spelling book has fallen into my hands."

"I hide in the velvet booth of a clear-seer..."

A new chapter of Until I Find It, the illustrated novel I'm making with Luca Dipierro, is up at Gigantic. This episode involves fortune-telling and decapitation. Some acrobats are also glimpsed.