Akashic Scores Again

To me, Akashic Books is really at the forefront of delivering quality literary fiction with gorgeous and innovative presentation. So far everything I've read from them (Chicago Noir, Aaron Petrovich's The Session, Chris Abani's Song For Night and Paul Fattaruso's Bicycle) has been top-notch writing besides being beautiful physical objects. Two new Akashic projects look like they continue this trend:

Joe Meno's latest story collection, Demons In the Spring, is now out. I paged through it at the bookstore the other day, and it's a real beauty - cloth-bound with an imprinted cover (no dust jacket), heavy paper stock inside, with each story illustrated with original artwork by a variety of artists. The book has real heft to it, and in hand feels a bit like an old college textbook. I haven't kept up with Meno's books as much as I should have, and this might be the one that has me renewing acquaintances. The hardcover comes in a limited edition of just 4,000, so you might want to grab this one quickly, as I probably will.

Second, in November, Akashic imprint Hotel St. George Press is putting out Correspondences, a story collection by Ben Greenman which will somehow manage to be reader-interactive:

Correspondences provides a bittersweet glimpse at the lost art of letter-writing, and the manner and means by which emotions are conveyed in that form. The collection contains seven stories, all of which, in one way or another, speak to the disintegrating relationship between people--men and women, parents and children, authors and readers.

But the literal subject of the work is only the beginning of the discussion: Each hand-crafted, signed copy is composed of an unfolding chip-board casing built by letter-press maven Brandon Mise, which contains pockets for three accordion books bearing two stories each. The seventh story, which is written by Mr. Greenman with intentional gaps in the narrative, is printed on the casing and does something unprecedented: It invites the reader to contribute to the collection.The fourth pocket in the casing contains a postcard that the reader can use to fill in the gaps in Greenman's narrative and send to Hotel St. George Press for possible publication in future online and paperback editions of the book. This experiment, code-named "The Postcard Project," will incorporate work by authors and non-authors alike, resulting in an ever-shifting, community-created story.

The book looks fascinating and rather beautiful, but the list price of $50 (even including shipping) is frankly much too steep for me to add another inch to my to-read pile. However, I'm definitely considering writing something for a postcard submission. If you're as intrigued as I am, check out the instructions.

This, my friends, is the future and the hope of literary fiction.