Monday, December 7, 2009

Rounding out the year

The press is approaching the fulfillment of a goal. In this our third year of operation we will have published five books, making eleven altogether in print. So far this year the very ambitious and gratifying project of publishing Karen Mulhallen's Acquainted With Absence: Selected Poems. Then two fine short novels, Eric Schachter's Dry Bones, and Jason Schneider's Philip Snowcroft's Finality. (Eric and Jason made us hugely proud with readings at our November Bookstravaganza in Waterloo, held jointly with Coach House and House of Anansi.) All of these books may be purchased of course through our Blaurockpress website (worth visiting anyway to admire Penny Winspur's elegant new design.)

The new books, due to appear within the next week or two, are Colin Fullerton's Like a Road, and S.K.Johannesen's The Yellow Room. Watch for the covers to appear on our website. In the meantime, here are the advance blurbs.


Like a Road, by Colin Fullerton

"My name is Jerry Carson." And so it begins. All Carson men leave home early, and between departure and return, between flight and reconciliation lies the journey. Trial by water and by fire, trials of betrayal, imprisonment, loneliness and loss. As in all fairy tales there are Helpers and Instructors: canny old men, carny freaks, a pair of hoboes, a miner, a shaman, a fortune-teller, Mary of the yoga class, Marie of the hot-air balloon. New Orleans, Hawaii, Alaska, Montana, Florida, by truck, boxcar, ship, horseback. The final trial, however, is back home in the trailer park, in a letter from the dead.

Colin Fullerton lives and writes in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This is his first novel.


The Yellow Room, by S.K.Johannesen

The final days of Jørgen Mikkelsen. Artist, drifter, reluctant Resistance fighter, a man with intolerable burdens of memory and regret. Alone with his thoughts, a curiously lucid madman imprisoned in an attic, he conjures out of his past, in Europe and in America, an unforgettable parade of characters. Dominating Jørgen's disjointed narrative, however, is the demanding, imperious, tragic figure of Anna Hauge, whose circuits ran up and down the seamy streets of Vesterbro in wartime Copenhagen.

S.K.Johannesen is editor of Blaurock Press

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In other news, Blaurock Press have expanded to the point we feel the need for wider distribution and publicity of our books, and so we are exploring a new partnership to this end. We are grateful for the loyalty and patience of our authors and readers. Stay tuned.