The current issue of the New Yorker contains an article on contemporary Arabic novels and features Mahmoud Saeed and his novel Saddam City.

From Mike Zapata, fiction editor on issue 4, commenting on Saeed: I’m very happy to see him recognized nationally, as when I met him four years ago he was struggling to figure out how to make his work known here. A novel a year, regardless of his situation, struggling, working, in political asylum, forgotten, found. A real writer.

Saeed’s story Saddam and Khamini appeared in MAKE issue 4 – Sister Cities: The International Issue.

You can read it here in its entirety.

Andrew (A to Z) by issue #2 contributor K.B. Dixon is out in the world now and available online

at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Powell’s, etc.  

For more info visit http://www.kbdixonbooks.com/

“The Chicago Publishers Gallery is a true display of the city’s diversity, enthusiasm, and determination. From the largest university publisher in the U.S. to experimental ‘micropresses’ to authors of every stripe, Chicago’s literary entrepreneurs are motivated by a do-it-yourself spirit and a fierce independence. Visitors are invited to explore the gallery in order to get a sense of the many exciting publications that are being written and published in Chicago today.

 1500 Books from over 125 Publishers  The Gallery showcases approximately 1500 books from 50 area book publishers and 75 periodical publishers. It includes selections from university presses, trade publishers, small presses, and art publishers, as well as zines, pamphlets, comic books, and book arts items. It also includes a selection of Chicago’s proliferating periodicals. The city’s newspapers and magazines are as various as the concerns of its citizens, and they prove the intellectual and artistic depths that one can plumb from a perch in the Windy City.”

Congrats to Issue #5 and #4 contributor Reginald Gibbons for the nomination of his book of poems Creatures of a Day (Louisiana State University Press)

And to Issue #4 interviewee Aleksandar Hemon for the nomination of his novel The Lazarus Project (Riverhead)

Chicago. 

Issue 5 featured the five-story feature “Five Dead Guys: A History of Chicago” by John McNally.  The many-more-than-five-guys version is now complete and being published by Jefferson Press.  You can now purchase Ghosts of Chicago via Amazon.  Head directly to his website to purchase. www.bookofralph.com

He will also begin a grueling book tour. Check the dates.

Many will be in Chicago, including October 10th (thanks Nicolette) at Chinaski’s as part of Windy City Story Slam.

Many people have moved to Portland, but few can claim to be a finalist in the Oregon Book Awards.  Issue 2 contributor (short story, Andrew (A-Z) is a 2008 finalist for his book The Sum of His Syndromes

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 ”Syndromes is funny; it’s insightful; it’s gonzo” –Willamette Week  The book will be available February, 2009.

The novel Andrew (A-Z), grown from the short story will be available this November.  More on that soon.

Morales’ newly released chapbook From Here You Can Almost See the End of the Desert is available from Momotombo Press.

And the long-anticipated Drowning Tucson is forthcoming in Spring 2010 from Coffee House Press.  A short story from the book, “El Camino,” appeared in the inaugural issue of MAKE.

www.aaronmichaelmorales.com

From MAKE 5 contributor John McNally:

My new book WHO CAN SAVE US NOW?: BRAND-NEW SUPERHEROES AND THEIR AMAZING (SHORT) STORIES, coedited with writer extraordinaire Owen King, is available now from Amazon and should be available everywhere soon if it isn’t already on the shelves. As the title states, the book features 22 brand-spanking-new stories featuring brand-spanking-new superheroes, with a few villains thrown in for good measure. (For those of you who happen to be from — or around — Burbank, Illinois, my story features a superhero who lives in Burbank.) A few of the writers included are Jennifer Weiner, George Singleton, David Yoo, Elizabeth Crane, Richard Dooling, Jim Shepard, Will Clarke, Kelly Braffet, J. Robert Lennon, Sean Doolittle, Tom Bissell, and Sam Weller. It also includes kick-ass illustrations by the wildly talented Chris Burnham.