J. A. Tyler’s Best of 2009
These great BigOther folks have already covered so many of the books I would recommend as best of 2009, so I’m going to hit this as ‘the best writers of 2009 that I am on the watch for in 2010’:
Ryan Call – his excerpt from the work-in-progress Field Guide to North American Weather published in Everyday Genius was a stunner
Kuzhali Manickavel – a new writer to me but one whose work I am seeing in more and more places – check out this one in particular – it is fantastic
Rachel B. Glaser – this piece from the forthcoming PEE ON WATER (publishing genius press, 2010) should be enough to set you on fire
David Peak – a writer finding more and more face time online and in print, one whose MUSEUM OF FUCKED will ship to readers in early 2010 and one that will be enjoyed for sure – read a little of Peak here
Michael Kimball – DEAR EVERYBODY was a read I cannot forget in 2009, and I now there is the looming american re-release of HOW MUCH OF US THERE WAS (new york tyrant books, 2010)
Matt Bell – if you have been paying attention, there is this three-name book-length project that Bell has been playing with in 2009 – here is a piece of it – and this taste is surely only a fraction of the goodness that will happen when they are all released together in some phenomenal book form
Andrew Borgstrom – another author finding a heap of work published in 2009 – check out this one – surely he has another wealth of writing to drop on us in 2010
Ben Mirov – he won the Diagram / North Michigan Press chapbook contest – read some goodness here – he is a wonder
Sasha Fletcher – still a bit underground I think – and yes, book-length coming from mud luscious press in 2010, so I am a bit biased – but the recent piece at lamination colony does not lie
Peter Markus – come on, novella length works in Black Warrior, Unsaid, and NC(3) down the road – always worth the read
ryan call, matt bell, & peter markus are my heroes. no joke. peter’s novella in BWR is stellar!!
Kuzhali is really friggin great.
I did not realize how many folks were unaware of her before her Everyday Genius piece posted, I would’ve prosthelytized a bit more actively.
That novella is amazing (Peter’s in BWR). I will send a free copy of Bob, or Man on Boat to the first person that notes the one word that is an obvious typo in that novella (not due to mis-spelling or something like that, but hte one word that defies the constraint that Peter set for himself).
Should have said to do so in this comment section. And explain why it is obviously a typo.
I know, I know (but I won’t spoil it for everyone here!)
Hopefully it will drive a few people to order BWR so they can read this and the other great stuff in it.
yes, go out & buy the new BWR. not to self-promote, but i hear that lily hoang has an excerpt from one of her forthcoming books in it too. wow.
Lily who?
ben’s going to have a piece up on everyday genius on tuesday.
it’s really good.
So here I am, reading old posts on Big Other.
So was this Peter Markus challenge issued in another post, or is this still it? At the risk of seeming ridiculous (chronologically speaking), I’d like to solve the puzzle.
The word is “waited” and it is a typo because it has one too many syllables. Markus’ restraint is what might be called “monosyllabism”
On p.77 of BWR: “Like this they waited.”
Should have maybe been, “like this they would wait.”
I think I win?
This was a fabulous story (or novella, I guess).
Uh, I meant “constraint” not “restraint.”
“Restraint” is the opposite of what this novella showed!