SHELLEY JACKSON'S INERADICABLE STAIN


WINTER/SPRING 2009


Upcoming Events:

Monday, March 9, 7 PM
FENCE magazine reading
Shelley Jackson reads with Joe Ashby Porter, Carolla Dibbell and Ranbir Sidhu.
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, 126 Crosby Street, New York, NY 10012 :: 212-334-3324


New & Recent Work:

Just out: "Consuetudinary of the Word Church, or, the Church of the Dead Letter," in McSweeney's No. 31.

"Mars, Marred, Married," in FENCE vol 11 #2.

"Early Dispatches from the Land of the Dead," in Conjunctions #50, The Death Issue.

"King Cow", a short story, appears in Conjunctions # 50: Fifty Contemporary Writers.

"'n'", a short story, appears in Wreckage of Reason, an Anthology of Contemporary XXperimental Prose by Women Writers

Mauve, an essay on the color, for Cabinet Magazine.

 The Long Relay, a long-distance collaborative writing project for London's Serpentine Gallery.

Half Life, a novel about conjoined twins, chosen as one of the Village Voice's favorite books of 2006, and winner of the Tiptree Award.

The Cat's Meow, Guernica Magazine

A belated fanfare: The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County, by Janice Harrington, with illustrations by SJ, has been honored by the following distinctions, among others:
CCBC Choice (Univ. of WI), 2007
Children's Books: 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing, New York Public Library, 2007
Parents' Choice Award Winner, 2007
Charlotte Zolotow Award / Highly Commended, 2008
Booklist Editors' Choice, 2007
Horn Book Magazine Fanfare List, 2007
Kirkus Reviews Editor's Choice, 2007
Illinois Monarch Award: K-3 Children's Choice Award Master List, 2007
Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award Master List, 2007
CYBILs award


SKIN

...grows slowly. Full information here.

What's the SKIN project? SKIN is a mortal work of art: a story tattooed on readers' bodies, one word at a time.

The call for participants first appeared in Cabinet Magazine, issue 11 (Flight); you can also read it here. The title and first word were published in sequence on Monday September 8 at Bowery Tattoo. See here for documentation. In a surprising turn of events, this project has been covered in The New York Times "Year in Ideas" 2004, Newsweek, the New York Post, the Village Voice, USA Today, The London Observer, The Sunday Telegraph, The Toronto Star, The LA Weekly, The Seattle Times, Print, Step, Res, Black Book, Decode, Tattoo Highway, German Glamour, Italian Elle, the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, the Swedish Dagens Nyheter, the Argentinian Clarin, and on CNN, NPR's All Things Considered, BBC radio (twice), BBC Scotland, German public radio, Canadian public radio, Canadian book television, Swedish national television (see "Ett dödligt konstverk" and click on "se reportaget")  and Polish news radio. It has been blogged, parodied, and spawned a Yankee Pot Roast competition and a sermon. Most recent count of participants: over 1780, approximately 315 to go. Applicants should expect major delays: SJ is doing this all by herself.


Older Stuff:


Shelley Jackson Talks with Vito Acconci, The Believer, Dec/Jan 07

9/11 and the Numberless New Yorks, an essay on Jenny Holzer's 7 WTC installation, The Poetry Foundation

MuTT (Mutant Typology Test)

"The President's Mouth," The Brooklyn Rail, September 2006

"Songs for Mouth-Listeners," Moistworks, June 27

"The Original Death & Burial of Cock Robin," a long essay about literature and taxidermy, appears in Conjunctions #46.

"The Short-Term Memorial Park" is included in Paraspheres, ed. by Rusty Morrison and Ken Keegan.

"The Marquis de Wonka" appears in Sex and Chocolate, ed. by Richard Peabody and Lucinda Ebersole.
A story called Hangman (yes, its title is a picture) appears in Conjunctions #45, Secret Lives of Children.
 
"Here is the Church," a ghost story about Nina Simone, appeared in Black Clock #2, and was also selected for The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. In "Life in a Glass House" SJ mouths off about the Sims for the Village Voice. A longer version of this essay appears in the anthology Gamers, published by Soft Skull. In "Gross Anatomy": SJ reviews the wonderfully strange books of David Ohle for Bookforum. The amazing Kelly Link's new collection of stories, Magic For Beginners, has art inside and out by SJ, and you should also buy her first collection, Stranger Things Happen, and her anthology Trampoline, which contains SJ's "Angel." The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies published SJ's "Musee Mecanique"--a sort of an essay on writing, wind-up toys, Pinocchio, Philip Dick, and voice recognition software. Yet another incarnation of the essay/rant "Stitch Bitch" appears in the hardcover anthology edited by Thorburn and Jenkins, Rethinking Media Change, from MIT Press. Check out Rebirth of Roy, a time-travel story by SJ and Matthew Derby (author of the great Super Flat Times). SJ answers some questions about books as physical objects, and so do a whole lot of other people, for Fantastic Metropolis. Read about "Vitriol," or bile, in The Dictionary of Failed Relationships, edited by Broussard. SJ's latest children's book, Sophia, the Alchemist's Dog, is available from Atheneum. Last but not least:

The Melancholy of Anatomy
Anchor Books, April 2002

SJ's first story collection has ineradicably stained a large amount of wood pulp (apologies to the world's forests). We recommend you ask your local independent bookstore to order it. Of course, you can also get it online. Interestingly, we have found that if you do a search for "The Melancholy of Anatomy" (by Shelley Jackson), Amazon will helpfully offer you "The Anatomy of Melancholy" (by Robert Burton). Of course you already have that, so keep looking. (Or you can just click here.) Sooner or later you will come across SJ's book, which we would like to point out is both shorter and cheaper. (Read about the Shelley Jackson / Kelly Link 2002 book tour, including a high speed blow-out, House On The Rock weirdness, and an ode to the van, on Bold Type. Illustrated!)

IS


HALF LIFE
Winner of the James   Tiptree Jr. Award!


The Melancholy of Anatomy

Read about it: