Patrick DeWitt Interview

Patrick DeWitt's new novel, "The Sisters Brothers" is a great read.  It came out earlier this week, and I recommend it highly.  The dialouge alone will blow your mind.

I interviewed Pat for the Rumpus.  The whole interview is here.  I loved his answer to this one:

Rumpus: Setting is an important part of this book. Gold Rush San Francisco is such a vibrant, raucous place. How did you research that era? And more importantly, how did you write a book that didn’t draw attention to its research? Didn’t pummel the reader with peripheral facts?

DeWitt: I wrote a book that didn’t draw attention to its research by not doing very much research in the first place. I looked things up as I needed them, but scouring around for facts is not my idea of a good time. One thing I did do, which probably doesn’t pass for research, is that I used old photographs as prompts. This is how the character of Hermann Kermit Warm came about. I cut out a picture of a prospector from the yard sale book I mentioned earlier, tacked this to the wall in my office, and made up a person based on the image. Anyway, my not having firsthand experience of what I was writing about wasn’t that much of a handicap because character and personality took precedence over setting detail from the start.

I heart the Rumpus

I'm sure most of you are familiar with The Rumpus.  It's a culture website (not pop-culture) based in San Francisco and run by Steve Elliott, Isaac Fitzgerald, Andrew Altschul, and a bunch of amazing volunteers.  They pride themselves on being a productive way for people to waste time at work.  That's a pretty good thing to pride yourself on, as far as I'm concerned.

They also do a monthly reading series in San Francisco that's fantastic.  The next one is in August and features Antonia Crane, Steve Almond, among others.  All the info is here.  I can't recommend these events enough. I never miss one--except when I miss one.  But then I'm sad.

These guys have been incredibly supportive of me and my books.  Steve E sometimes lets me crash his radio show.  Here's a fun example featuring the filmmaker Alex Mar.  Another one with Nick Flynn. 

And they just reviewed my new book Termite Parade.  As they're based in the Mission and so am I, their support means a lot to me.  Thanks Rumpus for helping this local writer get the word out about his sordid little stories!

Rumpus Radio & My Birthday Reading Tonight

I like to tease fiction writer/memoirist/sexual savant Steve Elliott that he's the Mayor of the Mission District, and I'm only sorta kidding. He's got our neighborhood wired. One of the nice things about living around the corner from him is that I can show up at his apartment and harrass him from time to time.

For example, maybe he happens to be recording a broadcast of the Rumpus Radio...maybe he's all dialed in for the show...checking levels, prepping the guest...mic tests, getting in the zone...and I happen to stagger in and say, "Hey man, can I borrow some mayonnaise?" Or: "Do you have any clean socks? Mine are all, like, wet for some reason."

Just such a glorious anomaly happened last week, as Steve was preparing to chat with Nick Flynn on Rumpus Radio. Steve was nice enough to let me co-host. Check it out here. Nick has some wise words and seems like a wise person all the way around. I highly recommend both his memoirs, "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" and his latest, "The Ticking is the Bomb."

Today is my 34th birthday, and I'm excited to spend the evening reading at the Why There Are Words series in Sausalito. I also think my hair is thinning. In unrelated news, the bags I used to only have sometimes under my eyes are now always there. Getting old is cool...

This is also the last day to subscribe to the Rumpus Book Club and receive a free book. You can choose from one of Steve's ouevre, or the likes of Dave Eggers, Michael Chabon, Steve Almond, Tao Lin, and they even have some copies of "Termite Parade" if you're into that sort of thing.

Hope to see you tonight!

Video from Rumpus Reading

I read last night at the Rumpus' monthly series; it was at San Francisco's Makeout Room and the night was a total blast. Not only did Steve Almond, Katie Crouch, and Skip Horack all give solid readings, there were the musical stylings of DJ Real (his hit single "Let me rub my moustache on your shoulder" should be climbing the musical charts any day now) and also a yo-yo master (okay, in the name of full disclosure I missed the yo-yo guy because I was hungry and ran across the street for a slice of pizza but I did hear from some reliable sources that the yo-yo master was indeed a yo-yo master.).

Anyway, I recently turned my 2nd novel "Termite Parade" into my publisher and have spent my "downtime" working on some shorter pieces. The next novel will be released in June 2010.

The vid is of a new short story, entitled "Family."

Interview with Joe Meno

I recently had the pleasure of reading with Joe Meno up at Powells City of Books in Portland, Oregon. Herr Meno and I grabbed dinner beforehand, and I have to say he's a really amazing guy: smart, funny, self-effacing. We talked about his new novel:

Mohr: I just heard David Sedaris is reading across town at the same time as we are. Pre-sold 700 tickets, or something viciously ridiculous like that. Do you think anyone will come to our reading?

Meno: The formula that I use is that you want to have one person in the audience for every hour you traveled to get here. You drove?

Mohr: Recklessly. About ten hours.

Meno: I flew two hours. All we need are twelve people.

Mohr: It’s thrilling that the bar is set so low. Maybe we should have a kissing booth. That’ll pack ‘em in. How long did you work on The Great Perhaps?

Meno: I started it a couple weeks after the 2004 election. Really, the book was a way for me to ask the question why had the country made the decision it had, in reelecting George Bush. And also how that administration was defined by fear, using fear to push forward their agenda.

Read the rest of the interview here.

As an aside, who knew Portland was such a bad ass town? It was clean. The people were gorgeous and young and tattooed. And I love the rain. I take back everything I ever said, Oregon. You aren't simply chock full of no-teeth hillbilly tweakers!

Monthly Rumpus

The Rumpus launched its new reading series in San Francisco earlier this week at the Make Out Room (I'll be reading at the one in August). The night was amazing: music by Thao Nguyen, who is not only talented but gorgeous; readings by Andrew Sean Greer and Peter Orner, among others, and was hosted by Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott (the guy sure knows how to throw a party).

The highlight may have been an animated short film called "Chonto" from Wholphin DVD, in which an aging "rock star" reflects back on his experience of befriending a monkey. It was beyond hysterical. Why do I think amphetamine induced bloody noses are so god damn funny?

The Rumpus Review

Here's what the folks at The Rumpus had to say about "Some Things":

“What Joshua Mohr is doing has more in common with Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Haruki Murakami, all great chroniclers of the fantastic. He’s interested in something weirder than mere sex, drugs, and degradation.”

Read the full review here.

A Faithful Grope in the Dark

Lately people have been asking me why I decided to publish my novel, Some Things that Meant the World to Me, with a small press. Instinctively, my gut wants to lie, stammer some kind of self-justification: “Well, uh, I felt that a boutique house (note that I didn’t say “small press”) would give me more attention (i.e. answer my emails) and nurture the book in a way true to my artistic vision (i.e. not perform fellatio on the marketing department) in a manner a larger house might not be willing to do (e.g. my book dies on the vine while they hype their latest cookbook or tell-all memoir by a fallen debutante who smoked crystal meth and wrecked her Bentley but lived to tell the tale…).

Read the full essay here.