Eve Gleichman, editorial assistant

Last thing I read that was so good, not only did it knock my socks off, it stole them forever: Tenth of December by George Saunders

Currently reading: The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

Favorite novella: Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth

Favorite libation: Earl Grey

If someone absolutely forced me to recite some poetry, I would recite: From the desk of Derek Walcott:  ”I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones/The black rain, the white hills, when once/I loved only my happiness and you.”

Melissa MacEwen, editorial assistant

Last thing I read that was so good, not only did it knock my socks off, it stole them forever: Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion. I read this in California during the summertime; I will never forget commuting an hour and a half on the train to my internship every day and daydreaming about the Santa Ana wind. My senior thesis will be partially inspired by this book, that’s how much I loved it.

Currently reading: McSweeney’s 42; Underworld by Don DeLillo. About to start The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis.

Favorite novella: I honestly haven’t read very many novellas; I’ve been meaning to read The Eye by Vladimir Nabokov for a while now.

Favorite libation: Red wine. Yes, I’m a snob.

If someone absolutely forced me to recite some poetry, I would recite: “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe (my grandfather and I are both obsessed and we’ve both memorized extensive portions of it).

Emma Bushnell, associate editor

Last thing I read that was so good, not only did it knock my socks off, it stole them forever: The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. Every time I picked up my copy I was excited to dive back into the turbulent lives of my new friends. The novel unfolds more like life than a story with a beginning, middle, and end does. It follows five friends from their meeting as teens at an idyllic arts camp in the Berkshires as they grow from their ironic adolescent selves through all the stages of adulthood into their late fifties. Wolitzer masterfully guides her characters on their own individual paths as they discover what comes of early talent and how relationships evolve with age and circumstance. It’s one of those fat books that still isn’t fat enough; you want to keep continuing and continuing so these characters can enjoy longer lives than the ones Wolitzer has given them on the page.

Currently reading: Mrs. Woolf and the Servants by Alison Light. Nonfiction is rare for me, but what’s a Virginia Woolf die-hard to do when she reads this essay on The Millions?

Favorite novella: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. My favorite novella, though it takes as long to read as a novel because of the sentences as dense and rich as a Burdick’s hot chocolate. 

Favorite libation: Now I’m tempted to say Burdick’s, but that’s no fun. I will never say no to a nice basil gimlet.

If someone absolutely forced me to recite some poetry, I would recite: I am known to get through the third stanza of Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” no matter the interest level of my gimleted comrades-in-arms.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Last thing I read that was so good, not only did it knock my socks off, it stole them forever: Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion. It’s unrelenting. Devastating, and then more devastating.

Currently reading: All That Is by James Salter. It’s very Salter-y.

Favorite novella: We Don’t Live Here Anymore by Andre Dubus. I did my full profession of awe for Novella Month last year. Also: Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx.

Favorite libation: A greyhound. I also love champagne, especially celebratory and/or free champagne, which is very different than cheap champagne.

If someone absolutely forced me to recite some poetry, I would recite: “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, though I don’t think I’d get much further than “I met a traveler from an antique land.” After that, I’d have to resort to some Shel Silverstein.

Have a better line? We want to hear it. Submit your best literary come-hither on Twitter using #LiteraryComeOns; the three best entries (picked by the Nouvella staff, as we enjoy V-day with our cats) submitted by Wednesday, February 13th will join our series of cards, and the winners get a free book (or tote bag) of their choice from our store.

Panio killing it at his Skylight reading on 11/13.

And so we find ourselves at the end of another launch!—Well, okay, this is coming about a week late, but we were busy on the road for release parties in LA and NYC this past week. A big huge thank you to all who participated in the launch and came to the release events.

If you didn’t get a launch package, regular copies are officially for sale in our store. It’s also available through our distributor, SPD, which is where you’ll want to head if you’re a bookseller. Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iTunes are all carrying the e-book (and addition to us, of course, and we’ll love you the most if you buy direct). Amazon will be carrying hard copies soon, but apparently they were having issues last week, so stay tuned if that’s your venue of preference.

Deena and Emma being fancy at the release party in NYC.

If you missed out on the LA release, Panio will be reading at Book Soup for a party for the very hip Rattling Wall on December 13th. Mark your calendar.

The lovely crowd at the NYC launch party.

Lastly, the holidays are very suddenly upon us. We’ve got some neat stuff planned for holiday sales, so check back in for some Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals (by the way, does anyone else hate the word “cyber” as much as I do?).

Oh, and next on the launch pad? Derek Palacio with How to Shake the Other Man launching in late winter 2013. Start your search engines, friends. It’s going to knock your stockings off.

Thanks, as always, for being bookish and supporting our endeavors here. Happy cookie season!

-DD

In other news, while we’ve mentioned it here and there over the last few months, we’re thrilled to officially announce our next title: A Familiar Beast by Panio Gianopoulus. Our second novella of 2012 will be coming your way mid-September, so check back with us soon for more details. In the meantime, you can follow @panio on Twitter, where he keeps a Game of Thrones-centric feed (which is really the best kind of feed.)

And speaking of new things: there are changes afoot at Nouvella! We’re pleased to announce that we are now officially distributed by Small Press Distribution, which means easier access for bookstores and for the general reading public. Initially, for our first two releases, physical copies were only available here during launch week and later, at a select bookstores, but we realized that a good number of readers who found out about the release post-launch were having a heck of a time tracking down a physical copy. Which made us sad. So from here on out, launch week will work a little differently: “share” packages will be limited to 300, and for a set price, each investor will receive a signed and numbered 1st edition copy of the book, a handwritten thank-you note from the author, and an e-book. After the launch week is over, copies of the novella will be available for their list price through the site, through the SPD website, and through various booksellers. More books = more reading = more happiness. (So if you didn’t get a copy way back when, The Last Repatriate and The Sensualist can be secured through the SPD site now; booksellers, check out the booksellers tab for store discounts.)

Lastly, in case you are somehow follow us on Twitter and don’t follow Electric Literature (I think there are maybe…3 of you), we’re pleased as pie to announce that we are a partner for their new venture Recommended Reading. It’s a terrific, community-curated project that aims to deliver one incredible story to the literary masses once a week. They’re about a month and a half in, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, you’ve got a healthy archive to look through already. What this means for us is that we’ll be excerpting novellas in Recommended Reading before they’re released. It’s what the French might call “super chouette.”

Other than that, we hope you all have the loveliest summer and that it’s not too sweaty (unless you’d like it to be.) We’ll be rolling out more on A Familiar Beast before you know it, so keep your antennae turned our way.

-DD

Kartika Review

Redivider

NANO Fiction

FRINGE

MAKE

American Short Fiction

PANK

You can also send us an e-mail or a Tweeter and we can set up a special drop off, like we’re doing something illegal. Matt will also be manning the FRINGE booth on Friday from 3 pm-4pm, so go on and get your book signed.

For those of you that are curious about our next book, you can sneak a peek at Daniel Torday at least twice:

Thursday morning at 9:00 a.m Daniel will be on the following panel:

R115. A Room with a Review: The Art of Literary Criticism

(Andrew Ciotola, Mindy Kronenberg, Daniel Torday, Scott Parker, Christina Thompson)

Wiliford A, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor

Literary journal editors discuss the ethics, mechanics, and value of reviewing.

He’ll also be reading on Friday at 5:00 p.m. at the

Syracuse MFA alumn reading, GRAIN OF SALT.

Center for Book and Paper Arts

Columbia College Chicago

1104 S. Wabash, 2nd fl.

Come and acquaint yourself with the work of our next author. See him in his natural habitat. Get excited for The Sensualist.

Safe travels, friends. We’ll see you soon.

John Cusack, waiting for 2012.

Happy New Year, Nouvellaers. Twenty-twelve has arrived and so far our year has set out skipping. First case in point: we are absolutely thrilled to announce the release of our next novella, The Sensualist by Daniel Torday. We don’t want to divulge too much too soon, but we’re busy behind the scenes right this very instant, getting ready for a mid-March release. In the meantime, read up on this Dan fellow (web hint: Five Chapters and 52 Stories). You’re going to want to get in on the ground floor on this one, believe you me. Stay tuned for more details.

And now for a bit of news from the Flatmancrooked vault: In celebration of selling out of the second edition of Edan Lepucki’s If You’re Not Yet Like Me, we are offering the very last of the first-edition copies (we came into a few extra copies after a shipping mishap during the October 2009 launch.) Head over here for more details and to get one of the 15 remaining signed copies.

Lastly, I wanted to reiterate my thanks for all the support this last year. The release of our first Nouvella title, Matthew Salesses‘ The Last Repatriate, went terrifically. Some great write-ups have gone up at The Stage and at Ethel Rohan‘s blog, and it appeared on “best of” lists at Big Other and NANO Fiction. If you’re still itching to see Matt read and/or pick up an illusive hard copy, you’re in luck: he’ll be reading at Brookline Booksmith on Wednesday, January 18th at 7pm, along with Elizabeth Searle, author of Girl Held in Home. The following week, on January 23rd, he’ll be at “the sexiest reading series in Cambridge” at Literary Firsts, 7pm, Middlesex Lounge. Precisely one month later Matt will be doing the Writers Series with Margot Livesey at Salem State University (that’s February 23rd, 7:30pm). And finally, the web’s coolest fiction contest (so says I): “My Protagonist is Matt Salesses.” It’s essentially exactly what it sounds like, and it’ll be judged by Matt Bell (How They Were Found), Laura van den Berg (What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us) and Steve Himmer (The Bee-Loud Glade). The winner will be announced at/around AWP, and prizes include various books.

Thanks for checking in. As always, more exciting news soon.

-DD

Perks include:

-Your name on the masthead!

-Weekly, mostly morale-boosting e-mails from the editors

-Drinks, if we ever meet face to face

-A killer letter of recommendation reflecting your killer work ethic

Thanks in advance to all applicants; we look forward to hearing from you.

-DD

If you missed the launch or else if you are a Matt superfan, the e-book version for Kindle, iPad and Nook will be released in a few weeks, so stay tuned. In the meantime, Matt will be having his release party at Newtonville Books in Boston on November 16th at 7PM. The very next evening he will be fighting the good fight at Literary Death Match at what appears to be a very cool club. That’s November 17th at 7PM as well. Come shake the man’s hand and enjoy all the awesomeness that LDM has to offer.

Thanks again for all your support so far. More news of the best variety coming very soon.

-DD

NYLON is on the stands now, available at most fine purveyors of news and media—even at Wholefoods, we hear. Go out and get a copy. You’ll be cooler for it, promise.

-DD

If you make your way over to the About page, you will find some basic information, including submission guidelines and a place to sign up for our mailing list. In the Books section you’ll find e-books from the Flatmancrooked novellas If You’re Not Yet Like Me by Edan Lepucki and Your Rightful Home by Alyssa Knickerbocker, available for your immediate electronic purchase and perusal. A limited number of physical copies of Edan’s second edition novella are also available.

Presently, we are getting ready to debut our first novella The Last Repatriate by Matthew Salesses in a few weeks. We’ll be posting some links to fiction by Matt and an excerpt from the novella in the beginning of August, a week before his LAUNCH, so you can get a general idea of what we’re so excited about.

Thanks again for coming by. It’s a pretty gorgeous website, right? I can say this with impunity, because I had almost nothing to do with making it look this way. I’d like to thank my graphic designer Daniel D’Arcy and web developer Greg Mathews, without whom this website would be a Geocities page. Thanks to my editorial staff and our authors for their support, and to everyone who has sent messages/drinks/pastries/kicks-in-the-pants my way, reassuring me that pretty soon, this is going to be a real thing. Today it feels pretty real.

Sincerely,

Deena