Lit. – Vol. 1 Brooklyn

Where Software Meets Wetware: An Interview With Germán Sierra

October 18, 2018 No Comments

The Artifact, the excellent first novel in English by acclaimed Spanish author Germán Sierra, occupies a fascinating space between the scientific and the psychedelic, where the boundaries that divide humanity and technology blur and we’re asked to consider what we are in relation to the accumulated data that trails and increasingly defines us.

Sierra has published five previous novels and a collection of stories in Spanish, and has been widely anthologized. Though some of his short fiction has been translated into English, this is the first time that one of his novels has been made available to the English-language audience. This is particularly exciting because Sierra has written The Artifact directly in English, granting a new readership access to his unique narrative mind without the filtering lens of translation.

Book Review, Featured, Lit.

“Patti Smith Holding a Gun”: A Review of Jeff Jackson’s “Destroy All Monsters”

October 16, 2018 No Comments

Jeff Jackson’s Destroy All Monsters is about a band struggling to stay together after their friend and former bandmate is among many musicians murdered onstage in an epidemic of mass shootings at concert venues. It’s about the ex-girlfriend of that dead musician. It’s about the city around that dead musician. It’s about the dead musician. In ways you wouldn’t expect, it’s sometimes about the shooters. It’s about you and me. It’s about the time we live in, the times our ancestors lived in. It’s about music. It’s about burning your house down. It’s about facing the gun and being behind it.

Featured, Interviews, Lit., Six Ridiculous Questions

Six Ridiculous Questions: Kris Saknussemm

October 15, 2018 No Comments

The guiding principle of Six Ridiculous Questions is that life is filled with ridiculousness. And questions. That only by giving in to these truths may we hope to slip the surly bonds of reality and attain the higher consciousness we all crave. (Eh, not really, but it sounded good there for a minute.) It’s just. Who knows? The ridiculousness and question bits, I guess. Why six? Assonance, baby, assonance.

Book Review, Featured, Lit.

The Mundane, the Absurd, and the Horrific: On Shirley Barrett’s “The Bus on Thursday”

October 11, 2018 No Comments

Sometimes horror stories play out like puzzles to be solved. That’s not too much of a surprise: plenty of writers have done acclaimed work that falls under the header of both “mystery” and “horror,” after all, from Edgar Allan Poe to Stephen King to Elizabeth Hand. And in these sorts of stories, there’s a sense that the overarching terror might be abated if only a solution is found to something: an ancient crime unearthed, an old price finally paid. But there’s another subdivision of horror that hears a different call: specifically, that horrific events play out under their own logic, and no easy answer can be found for them.

Lit., Literary Ephemera

Behold the Textured Cover for Gabino Iglesias’s Forthcoming Novel “Coyote Songs”

October 9, 2018 No Comments

We were huge admirers of Zero Saints, the most recent novel from frequent Vol.1 Brooklyn contributor Gabino Iglesias…

Events, Lit., music

Infinite Musical Genres: An Event Celebrating Ian King’s “Appetite for Definition”

October 8, 2018 No Comments

As anyone who’s explored metadata, Wikipedia, or the hierarchies of self-created musical definitions can attest, music can be subdivided into a nearly-infinite array of genres, subgenres, movements, and styles. In his new book Appetite For Definition, Ian King delves into the history, aesthetics, and ups and downs of rock genres. As longtime admirers of King’s music writing, we’re thrilled to be co-hosting this event; Vol.1 Brooklyn Managing Editor Tobias Carroll will be in conversation with King.

Featured, Lit.

Three Excerpts from Kat Gardiner’s Collection “Little Wonder”

October 5, 2018 No Comments

We’re pleased to present an excerpt from Kat Gardiner’s new collection Little Wonder today. Influenced by music and memories, the short stories in this collection center around Gardiner’s time in the town of Anacortes, Washington, and feature numerous appearances by notable musicians like Neko Case and Tiny Vipers. Gardiner’s distinct voice and sense of timing offer a unique perspective on the quotidian, the surreal, and the creative.

Featured, Interviews, Lit.

On Oneiric Inspiration, Revision, and Family Stories: An Interview with Nicole Chung

October 4, 2018 No Comments

Nicole Chung’s new memoir, All You Can Ever Know (Catapult) is the moving story of Chung’s childhood as a Korean American adoptee with white adoptive parents, her search for her birth parents, and what she learned once she found them. The knowledge that her search yielded was not at all what she had expected or imagined; some of it was hard to take. But if we are going to entrust anyone, Giver-style, with knowledge, I nominate Chung for trustee. The overwhelming impression that emerges from the book is a portrait of Chung as a thoughtful, conscientious, compassionate, and even-keeled person who considered the feelings of others at every step of her search and, of course, during the writing of the story.