The goddess smiles upon us today and allows us to release Jane, by P.F. Jeffery, the first in a projected twelve novels in the Warriors of Love series. We are also most blessed in the wraparound art from Nimit Malavia, which forms Jane’s magnificent cover. As a standalone coming-of-age tale in a future world of Sapphic romance, or as the first unrolling of a panoramic tapestry of picturesque intrigue, adventure and frolic, Jane is a lyrical and a rollicking read with a plenitude of fine and life-affirming detail. Details of the prize draw are below, but for those who don’t want to take a chance, you may embark immediately upon the journey of discovery by picking up a copy here.

Legendary weirdmonger D.F. Lewis describes the novel thus:

…a bombardment of incidents and names, evocatively conveyed through passages of honed prose and dialogue. After a tearful farewell to Modesty, I could actually sense with many senses the sea trip, the sea battle, the sea-sickness, the subsequent ceremony. I wallowed in the emerging Imperial politics, the description of the Empress who takes more than just a simple fancy to our fiscal inspector heroine.

Meanwhile, our own Quentin S. Crisp says of Jane:

A breathless adventure, full of the gentle poetry of place and time, it manages somehow to combine pagan fertility comedy with Sapphic science fiction. Not a combination you come across every day.

In other news, the winner of our March prize draw is Ben Hostmark. A specially inscribed copy of Steve Rasnic Tem’s Onion Songs has already been sent to him, along with a limited-edition-of-one story, specially written by the author, ‘Benjamin’:

The Prize Draw copy of Onion Songs, with the very limited edition chapbook 'Benjamin'.

Prize Draw for an inscribed copy of Jane

And now for the promised details of this month’s prize draw. For the May prize draw we are, of course, giving away a uniquely inscribed copy of Jane. For anyone unfamiliar with them, here are the oft-repeated rules : To be entered for this draw, please sign up here to our mailing list (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘The Surrey girls came marching in’ to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, of course there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘The Surrey girls came marching in’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 31st of May, 2013.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview is to be with P.F. Jeffery.

Boasting wraparound art from Jessica Fortner, our first release of 2013 is Onion Songs, by Steve Rasnic Tem, a career-spanning collection of 42 short stories, representing over 30 years of work and surely consolidating Tem’s reputation as a writer of impressive scope and vision. The stories collected in this volume showcase the off-beat and experimental side of Tem’s fiction. With universal themes, such as aging, death, loss, relationships, and with imagery that is both gritty and bizarre, Onion Songs peels back the layers of human existence like no other story collection, strangeness and realism alternating until they become, ultimately, interchangeable. Sample the taste of onion soup for the soul by picking up a copy here.

A starred review at Publishers Weekly describes the collection thus:

Tem lets his characters, their situations, and their emotions creep up slowly on the reader. His style is thoughtful and poetic, and the tension he builds effectively sustains well-crafted plots. He has found a perfect balance between the bizarre and the straight-forward…

Meanwhile, Peter Tennant says:

Consistent in quality and diverse in content, as impressive as it is impressionistic… Onion Songs is the strongest collection of short stories that I’ve read in the last year.

The winner of December’s prize draw is Johnny Core, in the south of England, to whom a signed and bookplated copy of Brendan Connell’s Lives of Notorious Cooks has been sent. And now, below, this month’s prize draw:

Prize Draw for an inscribed copy of Onion Songs

This month, the prize draw is for a uniquely inscribed copy of Onion Songs. The author also promises that he will write and print out an entirely new piece of flash fiction, as a first edition of one, which he will inscribe to the winner. Here are the rules for anyone unfamiliar with them: To be entered for this draw, please sign up here to our mailing list (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘The world is just a great big onion’ to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, of course there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘The world is just a great big onion’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 29th of March, 2013.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview is still with Anna Tambour, author of Crandolin.

This will be, in all probability, the last post on the Chômu website until 2013. If you’ve enjoyed our releases in 2012, please do continue to support us. Next year will see us release books by Steve Rasnic Tem, P.F. Jeffery and others yet to be revealed. We hope that your holidays are sufficiently irreal and suffused with yuugen. And now, let us leave you with overdue pictures of some of this year’s prize draw books:

Artist Ben Baldwin won all this Joseph S. Pulver loot simply by entering the Chômu prize draw at FantasyCon 2012 (computer not included, probably).

A very elegant package put together by Anna Tambour for the winner of the Crandolin prize draw.

Part of a fragment scrawled in the prize draw copy of All God's Angels, Beware!

May you never lack yuugen, in the year ahead, or for the rest of your lives.

Now we bring our 2012 schedule to a close with the compendious tour of culinary history and legend, Lives of Notorious Cooks, by Brendan Connell. In Metrophilias, published in 2010, Connell set about laying before the reader thirty-six tales of sexual obsession in thirty-six cities around the world. In Lives of Notorious Cooks he pulls off another such stupendous feat, this time with cuisine, presenting fifty-one fictional biographies of great and notorious cooks (some of them saints, some of them crooks) from pre-history to the last days of the First World War. Informative, sly, uproarious, Lives of Notorious Cooks is a peek behind the scenes of the kitchens of history and a claret call to season the day! Book a table at the banquet by picking up a book here.

Here are one or two comments already scribbled on the napkins of satisfied diners:

Avid foodies may exploit Connell’s fantasies as entertainment to regale fellow diners following an especially boozy repast.

- Mark Knoblauch, Booklist

Historical fantasy at its best.

- Risingshadow.net

A dessert to take to a party: loaded with chocolate edifices, secret-recipe kimchis, ortolans, the never before sighted ‘paradise in Illinois’ and a host of other surprises—this is the pièce de résistance of information and misinformation. To be scattered as clusterbonbons or consumed at your risk, in bed. Each story is packed with wit and a quite dangerous amount of erudition. I would be willing to eat a serve of Maincave’s ‘cosmic breasts’ (order by the pair) if Le Cubisme Culinaire isn’t cited authoritatively in some future tome.

- Anna Tambour

We are also pleased to announce, limited to one hundred copies, the availability of a signed edition (the standard edition but with one hundred signed and numbered bookplates). This signed edition is available from Ziesing Books, Cold Tonnage, Fantastic Literature, and Jeff ‘n’ Joys. Other outlets may be announced later. For further information, please enquire by e-mail at info at chomupress dot com.

The winner of last month’s prize draw is Jeff Matthews, of the Sunshine State, to whom a specially inscribed copy of Crandolin shall before long be making its trans-global way. In the meantime, this month’s prize draw:

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of Lives of Notorious Cooks

The prize this month is a uniquely inscribed copy of Lives of Notorious Cooks. Here are the rules for anyone unfamiliar with them: To be entered for this draw, please sign up here to our mailing list (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘No.1 Thick Soup in the Universe’ to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, of course there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘No.1 Thick Soup in the Universe’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 4th of January, 2013.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview will be with Anna Tambour, author of Crandolin.

Today we are happy to announce the release of our twentieth title, Crandolin, by Anna Tambour, a book which very much deserves the distinction. Set in Literaturnaya typeface, with a matte laminate jacket and back and front cover art from Christopher Conn Askew, Crandolin is a dizzyingly tall tale of mediaeval cookbooks, heraldic beasts, time anomalies, railways, secret recipes for helva and moustaches, music, food, maidens in towers, science, superstition… and a donkey. Please purchase your one-way ticket on the Crandolin Express here.

We couldn’t fit all the praise so far received for Crandolin on the back cover, so here are a couple of quotes that we did not manage to include:

Epicurean fantasy at its finest. Crandolin is an uncanny mating of passion and precision: that Anna Tambour is billed as ‘author’ and not ‘magician’ belies the virtuosity with which she coaxes a whirlwind of gluttonous carnality into her scintillatingly intricate narrative web.

- Rachel Edidin

For gourmands literary and culinary, Tambour is always a treat, and Crandolin is Tambour at her best. Bold and subtle, rich and delicate, this is fiction to savour, fiction to sustain the soul.

- Hal Duncan

Please note, at the time of writing, some Amazon sites are listing waiting times of up to 8 weeks to order Crandolin. This figure should go down soon. If you are concerned about receiving the book in time for Christmas, however, the Book Depository, which has free worldwide delivery, is already stocking the book and promises dispatch within 48 hours. We are also hoping to release a hardback edition of Crandolin. As yet there is no definite schedule for this, but news will follow as soon as we have any concrete details. And now, details of this month’s prize draw:

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of Crandolin

The prize this month is a uniquely inscribed copy of Crandolin. Here are the rules for anyone unfamiliar with them: To be entered for this draw, please sign up here to our mailing list (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘borscht borscht borscht’ to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, of course there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘borscht borscht borscht’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 30th of November.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview will be with D.F. Lewis, author of Nemonymous Night.

October is upon us. It’s time to walk bleak city streets, with our coat collars turned up against the chill and gritty wind, to find the yellow-lit window of a barely inhabited cafe, somehow dazzling in the soft blue of the evening, to step inside, remove one’s gloves, order a coffee (or similar beverage) and lose oneself in an existential mystery novel exploring the labyrinth of human identity. Fortunately, Human Pages, by John Elliott, has just been released. The story weaves its web around and within Chance Company, a pre-internet Second Life, which gives its clients the opportunity to take a holiday in prefabricated identities. One such client, Agnes Darshel, makes use of her assumed identity in her search for an errant father. And as the tagline says, “What begins as a masquerade becomes Russian roulette. This may be a game of chance, but the dice, like the guns, are loaded, and someone is marked to lose.” Pick up a copy of Human Pages here, or read on for further information:

Human Pages is a matryoshka doll of a novel, where style and characters nest one inside the next inside the next, the latter being occasionally revived with brandy and the former at once displaying and twisting the traditions of such masterpieces as The Waves and The Saragossa Manuscript.

- Brendan Connell

For those of you who missed it the first time around, the following is an audio interview with John Elliott, in which he talks about Human Pages, about his second novel (Dying to Read, also published by Chômu Press), about Philip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft, Georges Perec, and much more:

John Elliott Interview by chomuradioarchive

At this link you can also view a YouTube interview with Quentin S. Crisp in which he talks about (amongst other things) John Elliott’s work. Details of this month’s prize draw follow:

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of Human Pages

The prize this month, naturally, is a uniquely inscribed copy of Human Pages. Here are the rules here for anyone unfamiliar with them: To be entered for this draw, please sign up here to our mailing list (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘Why are there things in the world?’ (not forgetting the question mark) to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, of course there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘Why are there things in the world?’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 1st of November.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview will be with D.F. Lewis, author of Nemonymous Night.

The PS Publishing Independent Press Award sits next to Adam Nevill's August Derleth Award for best horror novel.

We would like to thank, therefore, whoever nominated us, the special jury who finally selected us for the award, and everyone with enough curiosity, taste, etc., to have discovered Chômu books for themselves. We very much hope, with all your continued support, to go on producing quality books that are exciting, surprising, and by turns (or at the same time) difficult and accessible… and both of those things in a good way.

All God’s Angels, Beware! prize draw results

Finally, we would like to announce the winner of the All God’s Angels, Beware! prize draw. And the winner is… Dan L. from Canada. Mr. L will be receiving a specially inscribed copy of All God’s Angels, Beware! plus some Kodagain CDs. Photos may be featured in a later update.

If you signed up to our mailing list at FantasyCon, you may have won our FantasyCon prize draw, so please keep an eye on your e-mail in-box, and watch this space.

The summer of 2012 draws towards its melancholy end. Bathed in the red and gold rays of its dying sun is our September release, All God’s Angels, Beware!, by Quentin S. Crisp, originally a limited edition hardback (Ex Occidente, 2009), now released as a paperback for the first time. This re-release, revised and with lush wraparound cover art from Christopher Conn Askew, is Crisp’s fourth, and according to Ziesings Books, a “much anticipated” collection of shorter fiction. If this is all the recommendation you need, then please proceed to obtain a copy here. Be aware, however, that, as well as the title itself, this book appears to come with warnings attached:

Quentin S. Crisp is one of those writers whose voice is so strong that the essential features of his fiction remain constant whether the trappings are science fiction, horror, fantasy, or contemporary minimalist fiction. It’s not something that all readers will be able to bear. His characters’ awkwardness, suffering, self-pity will turn off those for whom such modes of existence are impossible to understand. But for those who are epicures of the upsetting, the degraded, and the unexpectedly numinous, he is (superlative alert) among the finest of contemporary writers.

- Brendan Moody, The Stars at Noonday

Crisp (Shrike) stakes his claim to the territory of existential dread with this … edition of a short fiction collection first published in 2009. The stories are largely told in the first person, touching on themes of Japanese culture, the pointlessness of everyday life, and the terrors of intimacy. Moments of unexpected tenderness leaven the relentless gloom: “Italiannetto” is a genuinely sweet reminiscence of love and inspiration, made all the more powerful by the surrounding unsettling tales of sexual dysfunction like “The Fox Wedding” and “Asking for It.” The narrator of “A Cup of Tea” may be painfully incapable of surviving in the workaday world, but is still very capable of affection even in the midst of despair. The book’s saving grace is that ability to mitigate the worst of the overwrought self-indulgence of the neurasthenic narrators with flashes of emotion, making it simultaneously deeper and more accessible than its many characters might have wished.

- Publishers Weekly

If you are one of those who will be in attendance at this month’s FantasyCon, in Brighton, please also remember that, as well as Chômu Press having a table in the dealers’ room, Quentin S. Crisp will be signing copies of All God’s Angels, Beware! and Reggie Oliver of The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale, late on the morning of the Saturday of that weekend. Details of this month’s prize draw are to follow:

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of All God’s Angels, Beware!

The prize this month is, of course, for a uniquely inscribed copy of All God’s Angels, Beware!. Here are the rules here for anyone unfamiliar with them: To be entered for this draw, please sign up here to our mailing list (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘I’m not afraid anymore’ to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, of course there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘I’m not afraid anymore’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 1st of October.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview will be with D.F. Lewis, author of Nemonymous Night.

Bricolage-customised copy of I Am a Magical Teenage Princess for our prize draw winner.

Deeper inside the customised book, a tantalising glimpse of the continuing bricolage.

Below are the full cover and a detail from the prize draw Dadaoism anthology, the cover being decorated with stickers that feature – rather dizzyingly – the photographs of the decorated cover. Madness! The interior is yet to be enhanced:

The world-within-world magick sticker enhancement of the Dadaoism cover.

A close up of one of the stickers. Either that, or something the nature of which we don't understand.

And here is a glimpse of Michael Cisco’s signature:

Michael Cisco's anagrammatic signature.

Our next Chômu release is Quentin S. Crisp’s All God’s Angels, Beware!, due out very soon. For all those of you who will be in the UK this September, do remember that Chômu Press have a table in the dealers’ room at FantasyCon 2012, and that Quentin S. Crisp and Reggie Oliver will be signing copies of All God’s Angels, Beware! and The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar’s Tale respectively late on the morning of the Saturday of that weekend.

Finally, the cover of John Elliott’s masterpiece, Human Pages, has been uploaded to the Chômu website here. Cover art for Anna Tambour’s Crandolin and Brendan Connell’s Lives of Notorious Cooks will be unveiled soon.

Never been a beauty queen. But she was a magical teenage princess. Chômu’s seventeenth publication – officially released today – appropriately enough, is I Am a Magical Teenage Princess by Luke Geddes. We have been fortunate enough to work on this occasion with design megastar Rian Hughes, who has blessed us with a remarkably winsome-yet-wicked cover. Reviews are already beginning to appear on the internet, at Publishers Weekly and The British Fantasy Society. You don’t have to be a beauty queen or seventeen to enjoy I Am a Magical Teenage Princess. This is a book for the magical teenage princess in all of us. Pick up a copy here and find out for yourself. Or read this blurb explaining the book’s appeal first, and then pick up a copy:

It’s easy to sneer at ‘pop-culture detritus,’ but let’s face it—no matter how timeless and profound and unique we imagine our selves to be, we have no choice but to make them from the trash on hand. This is especially true of the teen bricoleur, that poor soul who has to cobble herself together from available materials: Scooby-Doo, drive-ins, soap operas in space, Wonder Woman, the Archies. The wonderfully playful and witty stories in Luke Geddes’ I Am a Magical Teenage Princess show just how resourcefully and delightfully that work can be done. You say whimsy and depth are incompatible? Nonsense. This is deep whimsy, is a book that employs rollicking sharp humor to explore the sad, solitary adolescent in all of us. Luke Geddes is a big talent, and this is a marvelous debut.

- Michael Griffith, author of Spikes

See below for details of the Magical Princess prize draw, or, if you can’t wait that long, buy yourself a copy here.

Other news

Just uploaded to HTML Giant is an article by Julie Sokolow on Chômu’s Dadaoism anthology and the psychedelic experience. A page has recently been added to the Chômu website for our December release, Brendan Connell’s loftily demented Lives of Notorious Cooks. With that and our November release – Anna Tambour’s Crandolin, of which David Kowalski has written, “It’s like it was written by a demented chef” – it seems we can expect a great deal of gastronomic irreality from Chômu’s year end. Finally, in our mini round-up of news, don’t miss the interview with Chômu writer Justin Isis at Inter Nova. The interview was originally posted last year in German, but has now been translated into English.

Prize Draw for uniquely inscribed copy of I Am a Magical Teenage Princess

The prize draw last month was won by Gabriel Brum, of Brazil, to whom a specially inscribed copy of Michael Cisco’s Celebrant has now been sent.

The prize this month is for a uniquely inscribed copy of I Am a Magical Teenage Princess. We will repeat the rules here for anyone unfamiliar with them: To be entered for this draw, please sign up here to our mailing list (or using the ‘Free updates’ widget on our home page) and send an e-mail with the subject heading ‘I am, personally, a magical teenage princess’ to info at chomupress dot com. If you are already on our mailing list, of course there is no need to sign up again – simply send an e-mail with the ‘I am, personally, a magical teenage princess’ subject heading to the address mentioned. Only one entry allowed per person. Deadline for draw, the 1st of August.

Those on our mailing list can also expect exclusive interviews from Chômu authors. The next interview will be with Luke Geddes, author of I Am a Magical Teenage Princess – coming to the in-boxes of our subscribers soon.