Peculiar Pages

.

I haven't talked in this space for some time about my ittybitty publishing company, but that's not because we've been active --- it's because we've been so active I haven't had a chance. Dozens of blogposts elsewhere on the internet have I sculpted while Thutopia waited patiently.

Let's talk first about the book released on Halloween, Monsters & Mormons. Proposed to me by William Morris, we've been working on it for over a year and a half now.

It will be difficult for me to overstate how much fun you'll have reading this book. It may, I grant, be more fun for Mormons, but I guarantee that monsters of all stripes will find joy herein.

(Also: although copies of the cover are available elsewhere online, this is the first and so-far-only place where the finalized version of the cover exists. Thanks to Anneke Majors who did the bulk of the work, and Denise Gasser [who added paint] and Lady Steed [for, among other tasks, the awesome Peculiar Pages skull-logo].)

Reclaiming the pulp tradition, redeeming my people from over a century of stockvillainy, has been great fun. And not just fun --- some of the stories are also moving, thoughtful, shocking, dangerous, provocative, etc. Don't dismiss this as mere pulp fun. And, at the same time, don't dismiss the pleasures of pulp fun.

The first book that finally dropped this month has been the enormously complex enterprise Fire in the Pasture. Thankfully, Tyler Chadwick did most of the work on this one. All I had to do was come up with the idea and get out of his way.

(This cover, by the way, art by the inimitable Casey Jex Smith, design by Lady Steed.)

This is the first serious collection of Mormon poetry in over twenty years, and in that time a goodly number of serious Mormon poets have landed on the national scene. It's hard for me to overstate how I've enjoyed reading this book, myself. And I'm not, as you may know, a superhuge poetry reader. But excellence speaks for itself.

So. That's what's up with Peculiar Pages.

Go forth and purchase.