Come out this summer to one of Matt Cook’s readings. You won’t be disappointed. Find out more about Proving Nothing to Anyone here.

LK Shaw is the creator and editor of Shabby Doll House, an online collective of prose, poetry and original artwork. She has a forthcoming ebook called “Find Your Accident” (summer 2013) and her most recent poetry/collage collection, “Can You Imagine” was published on Mammal in April. LK wants to fill the internet with literature and art to help the people in this world feel a little bit less lonely.

I think she is doing a nice job.

LK talks with me about literature-based theme parks, a real-life Shabby Doll House and Big Sean.

Hi LK. Here we go.

Oh Gad. Hello.

What are you excited about this week in your personal life? And what are you excited about this month in literature? Who is exciting to you?

Well, I don’t really have a separate ‘personal life’, because I don’t really do anything else, my friends are writers and I spend pretty much all of my non-office job time working on my stuff or their stuff or things for Shabby Doll…and there isn’t really anything else that I would rather be doing…

I went to da club last weekend but I kept thinking I was doing ‘research’… Should I be using proper spelling or can I be myself here?

I am excited to be organizing a bunch of readings in June. I’m excited about Mike Bushnell’s poetry. I’m excited for the Summer Edition of Shabby Doll House. I’m excited for our second mixtape (which is coming out tomorrow). I’m excited about Gabby Bess’ first book coming out in July. I’m excited that you’re editing Everyday Genius this month.

I was thinking last night as I was falling asleep, ‘I have to tell Sarah Jean that I think she’s doing a great job with Everyday Genius.’

So hello. I think you’re doing a great job. Nice work.

OK nice thanks!

Shabby Doll House publishes poetry. It also publishes prose. It has provided minutes of entertainment for me as a reader. Wow. Shabby Doll House publishes original artwork and one time there was even a collaborative rap that featured many prominent, cool rappers. What is next for Shabby Doll House? Is there something it can’t do? No really, where do you draw the line.

Minutes? Wow. C’maawn.

There’s no line.

[I think we should maybe mention at some point that we’re friends and edit Shabby Doll House together? Can’t just assume that anybody would know that…Oh, maybe you’re going to write an introduction to this…Yeah, you probably are.]

[OK at this point I will mention that we are friends and edit Shabby Doll House together. Surprise!]

So what about if we open a Shabby Doll theme park? Has there ever been a poetry theme park before? Seems like no… I want a hologram of Crispin Best reading poems in the entrance way. And a Heiko Julien rollercoaster. And a Guillaume Morissette virtual reality experience. And a Frank Hinton stage show.

And also I want a Sarah Jean Alexander bobble head doll, but that’s unrelated.

Okay, that was my semi-distant future plan.

For my near-future plan, I would really like an IRL gallery/reading space, an actual Shabby Doll House. I think there is endless potential for what we can do, to be quite honest with you. My enthusiasm is constantly growing. Shabby Doll is only one year old. Seems like we can do anything we want.

Are you with me?

Please be with me.

Do you have a major life event coming up in the next few weeks? Maybe like a move? Maybe like you are leaving the UK? Maybe like you are moving to the US? Maybe like you are moving to Baltimore? Maybe like you are moving to 307 Dolphin St. apt #3B 21217? Maybe like you are moving into the room left of the bathroom with a window to the fire escape? Who knows what you are up to next month, I clearly don’t.

If anyone wants to murder us in the night, we’ll be at 307 Dolphin St. apt 3B. 21217. I’ll be in the room left of the bathroom with a window to the fire escape, so I guess you can walk right in.

Also Sarah Jean keeps thousands of dollars in a pickle jar, so come at us.

Close your eyes. Open your eyes. You are being interviewed by Big Sean. He asks you a question. “Will you marry me?” You say, “Fuck that shit. I need to get paid.” How does Big Sean respond.

Seems obvious that Big Sean would simply say, ‘OH GAD’ and then he’d write a song about how my rejection of his proposal only encouraged him to work harder on his music.

But I guess you are referring to a line in a poem I wrote which says, ‘I want to be crying while I am kissing you, but fuck that shit I need to get paid.’

I think I was basically trying to say the same thing. I work hard to avoid depression.

Would you like to ask me a question? A question about literally anything? Who knows, maybe I will even answer it.

With regard to question 3, have you ever read In Cold Blood?

Great question. No. I have never read any Truman Capote. I’m so sorry.

Why write, LK, why even write?

Doesn’t really feel like there is any choice, is the very short answer.

Thanks, LK.

Thank you !

We’re going to send a copy of Matthew Savoca’s road novel, I Don’t Know I Said, to three winners with trips planned. Are you going to a conference for work? Spelunking? Baseball Hall of Fame? A visit to Grandma’s before she clocks out? Just want to get away?

But wait, there’s more! We’ll also send you a mix CD of some great road songs, AND best of all: Matthew will write a list for you of what to pack.

To enter, give us some details about what you’re doing. Where are you going? What will you see? How long’s the trip? Tell us whatever cool stuff you want, but make sure you include your final destination.

Any trip you’re going to take is eligible.

You can leave a comment on this post, or Tweet an answer with the hashtag #IDKIS, or send an email to trips at publishinggenius dot com – we’ll pull all the responses together and throw some darts at a map and if one lands close to your destination, we’ll send you a book. We’ll send one to the first three destinations we hit within 100 miles. That seems like fun.

The game ends next Wednesday, May 22, at noon. We’ll announce the winners shortly after that.

Here’s a map of one of the getaways from Matthew’s book:

View “I Don’t Know,” I Said in a larger map

Tommy “Teebs” Pico writes the zine/tumblr “Hey Teebs” and is the editor of birdsong: an antiracist/queer-positive collective, small press, and zine that publishes art and writing. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now lives in Brooklyn and is working on his first collection of poetry.

Tommy has created a Kickstarter to raise money for a ‘best of’ magazine to compile some of the art and words that have contributed to the past 19 issues of his collective. The last day to contribute is today.

Tommy talks with me about chicken wings, the Brooklyn Zine Fest and artistic community.

What are you excited about in literature this month, and what are you excited about in your personal life this week?

Re: lit, at the end of the month my friend Kayla Morse—one of my favorite poets of all space and time—is releasing her first zine and I can’t wait! Her writing is funny, exciting, heartbreaking, gnarly and unbelievably smart.

Re: personal life, this week I kind of re-discovered my love of chicken wings (like it ever went anywhere?) at a Thai place with a cute boy who started calling me his boyfriend, and have begun planning this epic chicken wing eating tour of NYC. Personally, I find all that very exciting.

Last weekend, you shared a table at the Brooklyn Zine Fest with my good friend, Adam J. Kurtz. Tell me about your day, the best people you met at the fest and if you had enough elbow room next to Adam.

It was really fun and enlightening, and I sold out or traded away everything I brought! I’ve worked at fairs and fests before for lots of different magazines and publishers but rarely for myself/birdsong. This time I learned how to talk about what I’m doing very succinctly and convincingly over and over and over again for 7 hours straight… and being “on” that long is hard for me, because normally my social meter depletes very quickly (especially with strangers).

It really helped having Adam right there—he is a charming showman, though I don’t know if he’d own up to it, and that setting seemed to feed him as much as it exhausted me. I felt like I had to match his energy, and it made me better: one passerby deemed me the friendliest exhibitor at the fair! Which of course Adam took issue with, and that was really the greatest prize

In March, I sat in the backseat of my friend Adam Robinson’s (no relation to previous Adam mentioned in this interview) car as we drove from Baltimore to Boston for AWP. I sat next to a large pile of books and papers and began to finger through them because I have no sense of personal boundaries. Near the top of the pile was a copy of the most recent issue of your publication, Birdsong. There was a slight moment of confusion as I thought, ‘I don’t remember bringing this with me,’ and then excitement as I realized you had also mailed one to Adam.

Birdsong has released 19 issues to date and is more than just a magazine. Can you talk about the driving force and collective idea behind it?

I’m from an Indian reservation in southern California, and I think when I left home I was looking to replace or remake that strong sense of community somehow. I moved to New York and wanted to be part of some kind of lit/art scene like the one’s I’d read about and idealized as a teenager—New York School, Chelsea Hotel, etc.

After awhile, just being around my smart and talented friends, I started to realized I already had the thing that I wanted, I already had an artistic community—so I started Birdsong as a place where all the work being produced by my friends could live. I don’t do open submission calls, the writing and art comes from the same group of people each time.

Do you have springtime allergies, and if so, what have you found is the best medication/method of alleviating your symptoms?

I do, but I haven’t gotten any attacks yet. My medication is straight up denial.

Told in monologues, speeches, soliloquies, sermons, letters, cards, and lists, FUN CAMP is a freewheelin’ summer camp novel smashed to bits. Spend a week with the young inhabitants of a camp bent on molding campers into fun and interesting people via pranks, food fights, greased watermelon relays. Along the way, you’ll meet Dave and Holly, totalitarian head counselors who may be getting too old for this, Bernadette, a Luddite chaplain with some kids to convert, Billy, a first-timer tasting freedom, and Tad, a shaggy dude with a Jesus complex. 

Advance praise:
“I read thousands and thousands of book manuscripts for Mud Luscious Press, and none were ever like FUN CAMP. Durham’s debut is a novel but not a novel, a story collection but not a story collection, witty though not all about the clever, a kind of funny rippled with sadness: FUN CAMP is the perfect amalgamation. From now on, when someone asks me what it means to grow up, to run away into our future selves, I will hand them this book.”
—J. A. Tyler, former editor of Mud Luscious Press

“FUN CAMP is a beautiful flight of tragic-comic prose, so sharply realized it would actually be upsetting, if Gabe Durham weren’t so root-for-able in every way. Come for his astonishing & repeatably funny turns of phrase, stay for his furtive romanticism. Durham is lousy with wit and soul. I loved this book and did not want it to end.”
—Julie Klausner, author of I Don’t Care About Your Band and host of “How Was Your Week?”

“A less adept writer would flatten summer camp into mere nostalgic idyll or slapstick farce, but Gabe Durham is alive to the tonal complexity of his subject. I celebrate this book for its formal inventiveness, its rich humor, its exuberant language, its genuine spirituality, and most of all for its tender and abiding regard for the oversized feelings of adolescence. Durham knows his pranks, but he is not a prankster. He’s the real thing.”
—Chris Bachelder, author of Bear v. Shark and Abbott Awaits

FUN CAMP was a semi-finalist for the Lake Forest/&Now 2011-2012 Madeleine P. Plonsker Emerging Writer’s Residency Prize, and an excerpt from the book was selected for the Wigleaf Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions of 2013.

Gabe Durham’s writings have appeared in Hobart, Mid-American Review, Quarterly West, The Rumpus, The Lifted Brow, DIAGRAM, and an apocalyptic anthology called Last Night on Earth. He edited Keyhole Magazine and Dark Sky Magazine. Gabe lives in Los Angeles, CA, and FUN CAMP is his first book.

Spencer Madsen is the Brooklyn-based writer responsible for the creation of Sorry House, an independent publishing press. He is the author of  ‘a million bears‘ (2011) and has a forthcoming book by Scrambler Books (2013 or 2014). He also runs a generally bleak and entertaining Twitter account with a great following/follower ratio.

Spencer Madsen is OK.

We talk about meritocratic presses, publishing good friends and man tits.

Hi Spencer.

hi sarah

What are you excited about this week in your personal life and what are you excited about this month in literature? Who is exciting to you?

today was good. i spent too much money though. here are things i bought:

- $19.99 stainless steel fry pan (afraid of aluminum & teflon, you know? i said to my brother the other day ‘its time to fear our pots and pans’ because i got around to reading about that stuff and it’s as scary as i thought it would be, i was just procrastinating thinking about it)

old pan vs new pan

-$4 on dumplings. the dumplings are $2 per order. i got two orders because i thought there would be like 4 dumplings per order, but there were 10 dumplings per order. she just kept piling them into the styrofoam tray. it was kind of traumatic. i got an extra fork and shared it with a friend

-$5.50 on a metrocard

went to a philip guston exhibit in midtown. was small but good.

Spencer (left) at the Philip Guston exhibit.

the exhibit was free.

went to a record store and purchased The Virginia EP by the National and Today by Galaxie 500. the two records $38

went to murray’s cheese shop. got some gouda and bread and apple butter and beer with my brother. split the costs, something like $15 each, im not sure.

it’s too much money for me but i just got a check for $87 from my internship so ALL MY PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED.

now im eating a gouda and apple butter sandwich with beer. answering this interview, listening to the national ep. it’s good, it has a lot of my favorite songs by them.

Spencer sent me this picture of his bedroom. Maybe this is where he listened to The National.

it’s not cool to like the national right now, because there are a lot of more interesting bands and they are maybe at some kind of peak. they played the new barclay’s center here in brooklyn, which is an enormous venue, and tickets were like $80 or something insane. they’re really popular. but they’ll be cool again in like 20 years or something, so i decided in the shower yesterday that i’m not going to be abashed about liking them.

feel like there was a second part to this question. not sure if i answered the first part correctly. we good? lets move on

Your publishing house, Sorry House, recently released Mira Gonzalez‘s first book, i will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together. What has it been like working with and publishing a close friend, did the experience strengthen your friendship or did it ruin it, are things weird now or are the completely the same, will you continue to publish work you believe in that is being produced by your friends or would you prefer to branch out to people you have no personal relationship with?

wow this is a lot of questions. its all wrapped up in one question, but its deceptive. i dont want to publish people i don’t know. right now i feel zero interest in publishing someone im not already friends with or interested in becoming friends with. most presses (at least) appear to operate on a meritocratic basis. submit something good enough and they’ll publish it (as long as its within their vein, etc) so that’s available to writers, and those writers are available to those presses. sorry house doesn’t work on that meritocratic basis. sorry house is 100% founded on my self-interest. there are writers i like. among those writers are ones who don’t have books. because i like them, i want their books. it’s a simple problem with a really time consuming solution: start a press and publish those books.

did i answer the question, there were so many.

oh yeah. so yeah. i wouldn’t publish anyone i didn’t want to be friends with, if i wasn’t friends with them already.

and as for mira, right, it was really good, i think, working with her. because we were friends we weren’t afraid to tell each other when we disagreed. we had the kind of trust you can only have among friends that even if you say ‘no that idea is shitty’ your relationship won’t become irreparably uncomfortable. that trust, the kind that allows for total honesty, made editing a seamless process. i gave her final say on all changes, as a rule, and so if i suggested something and she disagreed, i’d make my case, and then if she was still opposed to it, i’d just drop it and probably say something like ‘fine, have your shitty book the way you want it.’ it was fun. her book went through about three hard edits, then some final edits at the last moment, the day before sending it to print. there’s a poem near the end called “what i think about when i think about the zombie apocalypse” that was originally a full length poem, but now just says “i would kill myself immediately.” that kinda thing was fun to just slash out at final hour. i wouldn’tve been able to suggest that to someone whom i work with in a purely professional context. yeah. okay. we good? gonna keep going.

If you could apologize to your younger self about one thing that you’ve done as an adult, what would it be?

i’m sorry you were so insecure about your man tits sophomore year.

You’ve changed the lives of almost 200,000 people with your sad cat poem.

Spencer’s sad cat poem

On the Huffington Post article that features the poem, a woman who lost her husband 2 years ago recalled the time that the neighborhood cat comforted her and how it has stayed with her ‘ever since’. This is very touching. If I arranged a meeting, what would you like to spend the day doing with this widow?

i’d flake on that meeting

Why write?

the real question is ‘why bother’

there isn’t a real answer though

Thanks Spencer.

no hey thank you.

The next day, Spencer emailed me this appendix/post script:

can you add, as an appendix or post script or footnote or whatever that i also spent $8.99 on generic-brand cvs pore strips, the things that you put on your face then peel off. i’ve never used them but i like the idea of pulling shit out of my face. i also bought my first toenail clipper. was a double deluxe set for $2. toenail clippers have always seemed like a luxury to me. i’d think of getting one when my toenails get long and then think ‘i can’t afford that’ even though i buy records and nice food and stuff. it just seemed like a non essential, i don’t know. but my toenail got so long it was hurting in my shoe, pressured against the top part of the shoe, so i buckled and bought one. double deluxe set. two dollars.

Sure can.
And if that wasn’t enough, here are two more pictures Spencer sent me of his apartment. Seems neat.

ADVANCE PRAISE
David Cross: “The thing about Matt’s writing, ‘poetry’ if you will, is that it’s funny. Not ‘funny for poetry’ but straight up funny. And thoughtful. And human. You won’t have to dig deep into layers of metaphorical self-indulgent word play to enjoy it either. It’s all right there for you. I enjoy Matt’s work on the same level that I do Daniel Clowes or Jack Handey. In fact he’s kind of the poetry version of their baby. If Daniel and Jack had a baby. I’m not sure that Daniel Clowes and Jack Handey have even met. But also they aren’t capable of having a baby so never mind. But you get my point.”

Leigh Stein: Matt Cook’s poems are very funny, but they are also little love notes from a man to his wife “who can’t find any of her socks,” to his best friends who “all have rocks in their heads,” and to his mother, who holds his hand “like it’s the last swordfish burrito on earth.” I would like to drink beer with Matt Cook and learn his secret to writing the fucking best sestinas.

Sommer Browning: “Matt Cook sings the unsung—the restaurant supply store, the backs of paintings—while teasing our unexamined lives. His poems point to our emotional slippage, revealing the Spanish Cement Mixer to be much more than the Spanish Cement Mixer. You’re all like ‘Nuh uh’ and these poems are all like ‘Uh huh’. I love this book.”

Sampson Starkweather: “Matt Cook is a walking Imagination, and naturally, the imagination has perfect comic timing and speaks with an amazing Midwestern accent. Matt Cook makes me want to move to Milwaukee. Now that is powerful poetry.”

Matt reading a poem:

One thing Publishing Genius authors are doing over the course of the year is interviewing each other in a chain. In this installment, Megan McShea talks to Matthew Savoca about his new book.

MEGAN: To start in an obvious place, I love the title of your book. I loved it more when I was reading it. It seemed like a kind of home-base for the narrator. Somewhere in there he muses that it’s his fallback position. Did you know the title from the start? Or did that come later?

MATTHEW: I don’t know.

Hah. Just kidding. I say “I don’t know” too much, but it’s even worse with this narrator guy. Don’t you want to just kick him sometimes? Yeah, I knew the title from very early on. It was just sitting there. Most of the time I start with a title. Like I start every day with the name Matthew. And then I go from there.

MEGAN: The only times I really wanted to strangle the guy were times when he was overly accommodating, like when Carolina’s in the bank and he’s waiting outside but he won’t go get a soda because he’s afraid she’ll come out and wonder where he is. What kind of magical leash does she have him on?! But really, it only bothers me because it reminds me of myself at my most servile in relationships. I have to say, your novel had a real squirm-factor in terms of remembering some of the more pathetic moments of past relationships.

MATTHEW: He’s just afraid of being a bad guy. He doesn’t want to do anything that could put him in the wrong, and that’s messed up. Because it’s fake goodness. The kind thing to do for another person is let yourself be the fuck up half the time.

Jean Rhys always talked about wanting to “get things right” and that’s what I had in mind with this book, which is maybe what that squirm-factor is all about. But I figure if I can make you squirm a little this time around, then I know you’ll be back next time.

MEGAN: Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of art that makes me squirm. I figure it’s doing something right if I’m a little uncomfortable. Your story manages to do that in this really quiet way, without resorting to the grotesque or melodrama. It just follows the thoughts of the narrator into all these places he hits his own walls. At which point he generally says, “I don’t know.” It’s very honest.

Despite lack of melodrama, there’s some vivid, memorable scenes in this book. Did you start with a collection of scenes and then map them out into a story?

MATTHEW: That’s a great description of the book. I like that. Most of the stuff I wrote down in order, while it was fresh in my mind. Scott McClanahan talks about how when he sits down to write, it’s game time. There’s no exercises or practices. It’s just sit down and go. I didn’t start with a collection of scenes or even anything in my mind, really. I try not to think about it too much. I just start telling it and then fuss with it a little bit later, but not too much. I used to play ice hockey when I was in high school and most of the time when you’re out there on the ice you’re just going on your nerve. You grab the puck and race down and score and then you think to yourself, Who just did that? That’s how I feel about writing things down. Frank O’Hara said the thing about going on your nerve. He said when someone’s chasing you down the street with a knife, you just run. You don’t turn around and yell, “Give it up, I was a track star for Mineola Prep!” (from “Personism: A Manifesto”)

MEGAN: I love that piece. My favorite line is the one about form: “if you’re going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you.”

I like this idea of Rhys, getting things right. I can see how it worked its way into this book. The way the interactions and thought processes of the characters are spelled out so plainly, nakedly. There were so many moments that felt true to me, with all your detail about those spaces in between the big things that happen or get said between two people. The body language and the talking about nothing. And there are flourishes in there, too, but they aren’t grand. They’re very small, but beautiful little payoffs the readers gets for following the nuances.

My favorite scene, though, is when he encounters the streetlamp in the rain. It sort of seems like a moment of enlightenment. Elsewhere you mention Zen. Am I imposing something on the book, or is there a path to enlightenment story in there that you meant to tell?

MATTHEW: For a while there, back around 2007-2008, I was pretty into Zen so I’m sure it made its way into the book, and I think Arthur probably views himself as some kind of Siddhartha, but I never meant it that way. I mean, I never meant to tell anything. I just sat down and wrote the things out that were in my head. I think most of the time I saw it as scenes in my head, like in a movie, and all I had to do was describe what I was seeing. It must have worked too because I don’t have any of those things in my head anymore. But, yeah, the streetlamp is my favorite character in the whole book. I love the streetlamp deeply, like that lady who married the Berlin Wall.

MEGAN: Yes, the streetlamp is a great character! Especially when it returns later like some lost love.

I’ve been assuming this is at least partly memoir, although I’m never clear why that matters. Am I right? And if so, do you think it matters?

MATTHEW: You know what I think is funny? Adam never once asked me that. I heard this great joke the other day: Why’d the chicken cross the road? Because the road crossed the chicken. Never cross a chicken, man.

I don’t even know what memoir is. I guess it’s someone saying here’s a true story about a thing that happened to me. I don’t think I ever tell the truth. I’m always trying to make myself look better. But, here we go, here’s a true story of something that happened to me the other day: I was on the New Jersey turnpike and I stopped off to get gas, which you’re not allowed to pump yourself in Jersey, and this guy in front of me at the pump didn’t want to wait for an attendant, so he just started pumping the gas himself and then an attendant yelled Sir you can’t pump your own gas here, Sir! SIR! And the guy just ignored him and went right on pumping his gas and the attendant eventually came over but just stood there and told the guy he wasn’t allowed to do what he was doing. Over and over again just telling him until the guy was finished and then drove off up the highway scott free. And I sat there the entire time just watching this scene and thinking about the guy and I went from hating him for being a total jerk to almost admiring him for seeing it all the way through, even though he was still a jerk. I mean, what crazy hurry was this guy in? And then just a few minutes later, I passed by him on the highway and he was parked on the shoulder, just laying on the hood of his car with his arms crossed behind his head staring up at the sky.

But, see, that’s not even true. I just made that story up right now.

Actually, it is true. That really did happen. Didn’t it?

MEGAN: I really want that to be a true story. In fact, I look forward to a time when I’ve sort of gotten dislodged from the source of that story by the passage of time and can adopt it as my own, telling someone who I think might appreciate it that it happened to me.

I think that dispenses with the whole memoir question very nicely.

The verse from Ecclesiastes at the end is pretty spot on. At what point did you come across it? Or did you just happen to know it?

MATTHEW: Yeah, I know a lot of Ecclesiastes by heart. It’s such a great damn book. I have been reading it for a real long time, so it’s always kind of been in my head, but it was a real late addition to this book. I think Adam and I added it in there like a month or two ago. I wrote him an email one day after listening to an audio recording of Ecclesiastes in my car, and I said what do you think about putting this at the end of the book. And he liked the idea. I love Adam.

MEGAN: Tell me more about what it was like to work on the book with Adam.

MATTHEW: Adam is so goddamn great. I feel like he made I Don’t Know I Said ten times better. I really mean that. He must have read it through a dozen times from a dozen different perspectives and he continually offered his suggestions, 99% of which I took. All kinds of things from cutting unnecessary sections, to just clearing up parts that were unclear, to making sure grammatical and dialogue issues were consistent, to rewording parts. Adam is the one who came up with the idea to divide the book into three sort of sections to help make the book’s timeline a bit more clear, since there are so many starts and stops and restarts to this story. Adam came up with the titles to the three sections as well: The United States. The Ski Lodge. I Don’t Know. Just that little addition right there made the book instantly a lot better and have such a better flow to it. Adam is really thoughtful and also just damn good at putting out books the way he wants to. We had a lot of fun with it. That’s one of the best things about Adam is that things are always really fun. At one point he was staying at my place and we sat at the kitchen table at two in the morning, drunk, and talked for a long time about whether or not we should change the book to have Arthur kill Carolina at the end by poisoning her drink, and what that would do to the story. I could go on and on. I can’t say enough good things about Adam Robinson. I just love the guy all around.