Now Available: Revolutionary Brain
We are happy to announce that our latest title, Harold Jaffe's Revolutionary Brain: Essays & Quasi-Essays, is now available for purchase. Here is a press release.
RDSP Holiday Gift Guide
Please have a look at Raw Dog Screaming Press's Holiday Gift Guide over at InverateMediaJunkies.com. Among many fine selections is Lance Olsen's Architectures of Possibility, currently available in paperback and Kindle editions, and best read, it appears, with a glass of Snooty Fox Cabernet Sauvignon in the presence of Scarlett Johanssen.
Revolutionary Brain Press Release
Here is the press release for Harold Jaffe's upcoming GDB book, Revolutionary Brain: Essays & Quasi-Essays:
SACRED ABJECTIONS
Revolutionary
Brain by Harold Jaffe
Release Date: December 2012, distributed
by Ingram
Trade Paperback: 127 pages, 7.5x9.25, $13.95, ISBN: 978-1-935738-32-9
Publicist: Jennifer Barnes,
publicity@rawdogscreaming.com
Guide Dog Books is proud to announce the release of Harold Jaffe’s Revolutionary Brain, a collection of
essays and quasi-essays from one or our most brilliantly innovative provocateurs.
Known for his unique style of “docufiction” and “literary terrorism,” Jaffe has
made a career out of exposing the latent realities embedded in our
media-saturated consciousness, not just in the US but globally. In Revolutionary Brain, he takes his cue
from theorist Julia Kristeva, as he demonstrates how we revel in—and ultimately
worship—our chronic state of cultural abjection, which increasingly spirals out
of control as we plunge ever further into the realm of (dis)information and
simulation.
Revolutionary
Brain harnesses its critical and creative energy from an extraordinary variety
of sources and artifacts, including ethnocide, activist art, popular film,
ethical sacrifice, legislated porn, enraged elephants, and electronic hubris.
It will appeal to a wide readership, theorizing with the broad erudition of
Baudrillard, Žižek and Virilio while entertaining with the eclectic comedy of
Coover, Roth, and Barthelme.
From the Back of the Book
In this
timely collection of essays and "quasi-essays," acclaimed
novelist and critic Harold Jaffe explores the maddening chord changes of
millennial culture. Gesturing, in a philosophical shorthand, toward a kind of
pop Armageddon, Revolutionary Brain is at once thesis,
allegory, and surreal comedy, demonstrating just how far we, and the natural
world we have debauched, have fallen. Obsessed with technology, we are
incapable of reconstructing ourselves. By way of Jaffe’s elegant prose and
perfect pitch, our collective disability is laid bare at the 11th
hour. Revolutionary Brain is a powerful cry for a brave new
aesthetics that turns towards, not away, from our tormented globe.
Advance Praise for Revolutionary
Brain
“I was
transfixed in this volume by Jaffe’s incisive blows to the hypocrisy of
flag waving, nation building, and the lethal intent by our leaders
who stride the globe in bloody boots commanding the 99 percent to obey the
law and get to work in the marketplace of nightmarish dreams. Jaffe
has missed absolutely nothing in delineating our expiring Kultur.
Brilliant.” REGINA KRUMMEL, editor
of Prison Poetry by Shackled Women: The Gates Clang Shut
“The bravura
essays in Harold Jaffe's collection, Revolutionary Brain, challenge the
conscience and consciousness of their readers. This witty and explosive book is
an indictment of injustice and spurious morality and a call to art and
enlightened activism as healing alternatives.” JONATHAN BAUMBACH, author of You: Or the Invention of Memory
“Brainy and
groovy, thoughtful and post-literary, these essays on contemporary media
madness are Jaffe at his best: poignant, inventive, right between the eyes of
corporate culture.” ELOY FERNÁNDEZ
PORTA, author of Emocionese asi
About the Author
Harold Jaffe is the author of
20 volumes of fiction, “docufiction,” novels and essays. His writings have been
anthologized widely, translated into numerous languages, and the recipient of
several awards. Jaffe is editor of Fiction
International and Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at San Diego
State University.
Lance Olsen: Berlin Prize Fellow
Architectures of Possibility in ABR
"With some assistance from Saussure and the poststructuralist movement, Lance Olsen in Architectures of Possibility de-naturalizes mimetic fiction and offers innovative fiction as the way to represent life/existence in the twenty-first century, with innovation stemming from a writer allowing her presence to become a 'desirous embrace' of her contemporary reality."
"Each chapter is comprised of a theorizing statement by Olsen discussing innovations in genre, literary history, the literary marketplace, the workshop, the imagination, beginnings, narrativity, settings, characters, temporality, point of view, endings, materiality, revisions, publishing, and literary activism. These opening statements are followed by interviews with current, innovative editors, publishers, and writers who have mostly eschewed Manhattan, who publish on small and micropresses, and who also theorize about the chapter's literary subject ... Olsen's text is a collage, consisting of interviews, essays, theory, literary criticism, reference sources, etc. And like many of the innovative texts discussed, it too has a collaborator, Trevor Dodge. Through theoretical statements and interviews, Olsen charts literary/artistic possibilities for approaching creativity that speaks to the reality of the twenty-first century."
"Whereas traditional characters assume a deep psychology, a full roundness, and a complex consciousness, Olsen argues that an innovative character can become a 'metaphor for socio-economic construction,' as he demonstrates with Acker's Blood and Guts in High School (1978). Olsen also shows how innovation in the fiction of Barthelme, Jackson, and Marcus re-envisions setting not as a 'sense of place' but as a metaphor for a 'larger philosophical or theoretical truth.' Finally, whereas a conventional ending refers to narrative resolution/closure, an innovative ending can complicate whatever came before it. In all of these examples, the innovation space is more open and fluid."
"Architectures of Possibility opens up fiction to a possibility that 'gives us more life, extends and validates the range of what it means to be a human' in the twenty-first century ... [A] wonderful book on innovation and fiction[.]"
Revolutionary Brain: Essays & Quasi-Essays
In this timely collection of essays and
"quasi-essays," acclaimed novelist and critic Harold Jaffe explores
the intricate vicissitudes of millennial culture. Gesturing, in a philosophical
shorthand, toward a kind of pop Armageddon, Revolutionary Brain is
at once thesis, allegory, and surreal comedy, demonstrating just how far we,
and the natural world we have debased, have fallen. Obsessed with technology,
we are incapable of reconstructing ourselves. By way of Jaffe’s elegant prose
and perfect pitch, our collective disability is laid bare at the 11th
hour. Revolutionary Brain is a powerful cry for a brave new
aesthetics that turns towards, not away, from our tormented globe.
“I was
transfixed in this volume by Jaffe’s incisive blows to the hypocrisy of
flag waving, nation building, and the lethal intent by our leaders
who stride the globe in bloody boots commanding the 99 percent to obey the
law and get to work in the marketplace of nightmarish dreams. Jaffe
has missed absolutely nothing in delineating our expiring Kultur.
Brilliant.” REGINA KRUMMEL, editor of Prison Poetry
by Shackled Women: The Gates Clang Shut
“The
bravura essays in Harold Jaffe's collection, Revolutionary Brain,
challenge the conscience and consciousness of their readers. This witty and
explosive book is an indictment of injustice and spurious morality and a call
to art and enlightened activism as healing alternatives.” JONATHAN BAUMBACH,
author of You: Or the Invention of Memory
Jaffe is the author of 20 volumes of fiction, docufiction, novels and essays. His writings have been widely anthologized, translated into numerous languages, and received multiple awards. Jaffe is editor-in-chief of Fiction International.
Revolutionary Brain et al
We are pleased to announce that Guide Dog Books has acquired Hal Jaffe's Revolutionary Brain: Essays & Quasi-Essays. Jaffe is the author of over fifteen works of fiction, docufiction and nonfiction. He is also the editor of the avant-garde literary journal Fiction International and a professor of English & comparative literature at San Diego State University. We're very excited to have him aboard. Find out more about Jaffe at www.jaffeantijaffe.com.
In other news, Guide Dog Books will soon merge with its host publisher, Raw Dog Screaming Press, in a new megasite built by Merge Design, who built the site for GDB author D. Harlan Wilson's upcoming novel The Kyoto Man. The new site is being funded by a grant from Wright State University-Lake Campus, who will thereafter serve as a sponsor. We hope to have it up and running by year's end.
Finally, we are currently at work on the manuscript for The Cafe Irreal's anthology of fiction and nonfiction. Publication details and a press release will be available soon.
In other news, Guide Dog Books will soon merge with its host publisher, Raw Dog Screaming Press, in a new megasite built by Merge Design, who built the site for GDB author D. Harlan Wilson's upcoming novel The Kyoto Man. The new site is being funded by a grant from Wright State University-Lake Campus, who will thereafter serve as a sponsor. We hope to have it up and running by year's end.
Finally, we are currently at work on the manuscript for The Cafe Irreal's anthology of fiction and nonfiction. Publication details and a press release will be available soon.
New Review of Architectures of Possibility
Sue Bond has written a terrific review of Architectures of Possibility for MC Reviews. We love the way this book continues to excite people! Kudos, as always, to the author, Lance Olsen.
Possibility Spaces
The first chapter of Lance Olsen's Architectures of Possibility, "Possibility Spaces," is available to read online in issue #37 of The Dream People.
Interviews & Review
Recently Lance Olsen was interviewed a la Architectures of Possibility by the following publications:
HTML Giant
Continent
Also check out Camie Schaeffer's terrific review of the textbook in the latest issue of Quarterly West. We're very excited that Architectures of Possibility is getting so much well-deserved attention.
HTML Giant
Continent
Also check out Camie Schaeffer's terrific review of the textbook in the latest issue of Quarterly West. We're very excited that Architectures of Possibility is getting so much well-deserved attention.
12 Days of Monsters
Review of Architectures of Possibility
Hubert O'Hearn has written a terrific review of Architectures of Possibility for By the Book Reviews. Here is a snapshot:
"It has been my opinion for at least twenty years that the only two indispensable books on writing are The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White (he who wrote Stuart Little among many other wonderful works) and H. F. Fowler’s Modern English Usage. If you, dear writer, haven’t virtually memorized both, please get out of the profession and go make a YouTube video featuring cats doing mildly amusing things.
However, I am bumping those two books down the podium and crowning Lance Olsen’s book as the single best advisory to writers I have ever encountered. This is an absolutely masterful text. Oh, it can be heavy lifting in places. When on the very first page you bump head-on into the phrase ‘the Balzacian Mode’ you know that we aren’t in the land of cheery Bugs Bunny cartoons. Many references and analyses of Big Boy writers like Samuel Beckett, Roland Barthes and the like will leave anyone who thinks John Grisham is a classic novelist writhing in the dust of their opinions. That all said, this is a practical, helpful guide to turning out memorable fiction, poetry, or dare I say it journalism."
"It has been my opinion for at least twenty years that the only two indispensable books on writing are The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White (he who wrote Stuart Little among many other wonderful works) and H. F. Fowler’s Modern English Usage. If you, dear writer, haven’t virtually memorized both, please get out of the profession and go make a YouTube video featuring cats doing mildly amusing things.
However, I am bumping those two books down the podium and crowning Lance Olsen’s book as the single best advisory to writers I have ever encountered. This is an absolutely masterful text. Oh, it can be heavy lifting in places. When on the very first page you bump head-on into the phrase ‘the Balzacian Mode’ you know that we aren’t in the land of cheery Bugs Bunny cartoons. Many references and analyses of Big Boy writers like Samuel Beckett, Roland Barthes and the like will leave anyone who thinks John Grisham is a classic novelist writhing in the dust of their opinions. That all said, this is a practical, helpful guide to turning out memorable fiction, poetry, or dare I say it journalism."
New Banner
Below is a banner for Architectures of Possibilities. If you are so inclined, please link it to the textbook's website.
Architectures of Possibility Online
Please support Guide Dog Books by following, liking, and exploring Architectures of Possibility online via Twitter (@ArchPossible), Facebook and the fiction writing textbook's official website.
Guide Dog Books at AWP
We're very excited for the debut of Lance Olsen's Architectures of Possibility at the AWP writing convention in Chicago this weekend. Nearly 10,000 writers, teachers, students and artistes are expected to attend, among them Lance himself as well as D. Harlan Wilson, the author of GDB's Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction, and Stan Ashenbach, GDB's managing editor. Copies of Architectures of Possibility will be available in the dealer room at the table of independent publisher Fiction Collective 2.
The Cafe Irreal Anthology
Recently the editors of The Cafe Irreal signed a contract with us to publish an anthology of their fiction and nonfiction. We're thrilled about this project. Based in Prague, The Cafe Irreal has been around for over a decade and put out some of the most innovative writing in the twenty-first century, and in 2008, the editors, G.S. Evans and Alice Whittenburg, were nominated for a World Fantasy Award. We're happy to have them aboard the GDB train!
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