Christian Kiefer's Crowtown

On Book Trailers

xian@christiankiefer.com (www.christiankiefer.com) — Sat, 12 May 2012 11:27:26 PDT

At long last, The Infinite Tides book trailer. Take a look. Comes out (officially) in July but you can get a copy starting June 19.

Albuquerque

xian@christiankiefer.com (www.christiankiefer.com) — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:45:29 PDT

New gig booked (a book gig, not a music gig) in Albuquerque on Aug. 11. Check the EVENTS tab. This one, like all the Rocky Mountain dates, is with my dear pal and mega awesome writer lady Pam Houston (and, likely, one of her giant wolf hounds).

Swofford’s Hotel

xian@christiankiefer.com (www.christiankiefer.com) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:38:32 PDT

New news: I booked a reading with Anthony Swofford in June. I’ll give a brief (very brief) glimmer of The Infinite Tides and then he’ll read from his excellent new memoir while I back him up with his guitar. Seriously. It will be great. Click on over to EVENTS for more info.

Here’s some material on Swofford’s new book: Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails.

Lots more readings / events in the works including (gasp) some music. Stay tuned.

Diderot!

xian@christiankiefer.com (www.christiankiefer.com) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:04:11 PDT

Played hooky today and it was totally worth it. Found a double volume hardcover of Diderot’s L’Encyclopedie in Berkeley for $60 which is well worth it–an abridgment, of course, but what you want with the Diderot is the engravings, not necessarily all the text. Also scored Gass’s On Being Blue, the new edition of the Strugatsky brothers’ Roadside Picnic, Rilke’s The Inner Sky (an interesting new collection), and a couple of things on the free will debate (one by Dennett, one by Searle). That’s a good day’s worth of hooky-playing. My children were beasts the whole time but my wife is excellent all the way around and was even more so today. Go team! And while we’re at it: so many amazing arts & crafts homes in Berkeley I almost ripped my own head off looking around. An architectural dream-spot.

2012 SPC Spring Writers Conference

xian@christiankiefer.com (www.christiankiefer.com) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:53:41 PDT

I’m happy to be giving a talk and a reading at this year’s Sacramento Poetry Center Writers Conference. Information can be found on the SPC website. In brief, the event is being held on Saturday April 14 from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM at the SPC, 1719 25th Street, Sacramento, CA. A steal at $30 non-members / $20 for members. With Michelle Bitting, Tim Kahl, Kate Gale, Steve Gehrke, and Christina Hutchins. I’ll be talking about setting in literature around 10:30. Planning on bringing in some work by Stephen Shore, Frank Golkhe, Richard Adams, Faulkner, Flaubert, Barthes, and Philip Levine and having a general discussion on the relationship between self and environment, and extending that into how that manifests itself in literature. This is something of a preview of a more formal version I’ll be giving at American River College’s SummerWords at the end of May / beginning of June.

Tweet tweet

xian@christiankiefer.com (www.christiankiefer.com) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:53:55 PDT

I’ve been remiss in much posting. Truth is, I’m doing more tweeting than anything else these days. If you’d care to follow, it’s @xiankiefer. There’s a facebook page too. If I were smarter about these things I’d have direct clickable links here but I’m not all that.

In more better news, The Infinite Tides, will appear on the 4th of July (officially) from Bloomsbury in the US and in mid-September from Bloomsbury UK. This is good news. If you poke around the Internet you’ll find both covers, which are beautiful. I hope to feed the first chapter or so on this here website in the future but as of yet, you’ll have to wait. It’ll be worth it, I promise.

Hard at work on the next book, which is something I’ve been working on for nearly a decade in one form or another. The images won’t leave me alone and so it needs to be properly finished. I have 9 drafts and am working on number 10. The Infinite Tides took me 41 drafts to get right. I guess that’s how I’m wired.

Bloomsbury

xian@christiankiefer.com (www.christiankiefer.com) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 22:41:33 PDT

I’m quite pleased to announce that I’ve accepted an offer from Bloomsbury, who will publish my novel The Infinite Tides in spring of 2012. This is a big deal for me. A really big deal. Thank you to my super agent, Eleanor Jackson, for her awesome stewardship of the manuscript.

The Infinite Tides

xian@christiankiefer.com (www.christiankiefer.com) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:04:45 PST

It is official. My novel, The Infinite Tides, is out making the rounds of publishers. Super agent Eleanor Jackson has the reins now and I am trying to have the patience of a zen master. A dear mentor / famous writer friend wrote a nice blurb about how good the book is, which helps matters a great deal (and is quite the ego boost for yours truly).

Incidentally, if you’ve been paying any attention to the novel writing/editing as it has unfolded here, you might not recognize the new title. The working title had been Gravity but I’d never been that fond of that as a title. The clincher was reading that George Clooney and Sandra Bullock have a movie in development called Gravity (about astronauts too). And so, yes, The Infinite Tides, a title I like a great deal more anyway. I would have called it The Remains of the Day but Ishiguro took that one. Ishiguro has all the good titles.

In other news, perhaps related to the above, I’ve been pondering making a new record and have been demoing a few pieces in that direction. These are somewhere between the slow funk of War, the weird swamp grease of Dr. John’s Gris-Gris, and some kind of minimal folk experiment. It has a groove to it but is all slow and, I hope, spooky. Having said that the current song I’ve been working on uses Icelandic poetic eddas as its source material. Sometimes I wonder what’s going on inside my own mind. How can one not write a song that starts with the line, “Give rede now, Frigg, as to fare me listeth”? That’s as good an opening as I’ve ever heard. (From “The Lay of Vafthruthnir,” the Hollander translation of The Poetic Edda, in case you’re wondering.)

Meanwhile, something I played on a while back is out in the world and it’s worth seeking. Jefferson Pitcher’s fine minimal ambient acoustic project, Now the Deer, is out on tapedrift and is excellent. If you much enjoy Eno’s Music for Airports or the Mori/Frith/Hideki project Death Ambient I’d wager you’ll enjoy this one too. Click on to Tape Drift to order a copy. Each CD is packaged with a unique photo taken by Pitcher in N. Africa. Bad ass.

Poetry in Davis

xian@christiankiefer.com (www.christiankiefer.com) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:54:08 PDT

In case you find yourself in Davis, California this week, my buddy Michael Spurgeon and I are reading from our recent writings at Bistro 33 on Thursday night. Click the link for the info:

http://poetryindavis.com/archive/2011/01/christian-kiefer-and-michael-spurgeon-read-at-the-john-natsoulas-gallery-on-january-20th-at-8-p-m/

Eleanor Is Swellanor

xian@christiankiefer.com (www.christiankiefer.com) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:54:21 PDT

I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve signed with Eleanor Jackson of the Markson Thoma Literary Agency. Eleanor will be handling my new novel, Gravity, and whatever else comes out of the pen in the future. Pretty goddamned awesome if I do say so myself. Go team!