Scenes from KGB

The KGB Fantastic Fiction showcase on Interfictions last week went smashingly -- and thanks to KGB co-host Ellen Datlow, you can see tons of pictures from the reading!

The latest reviews

Our newest biggest fan: "If you like literary fiction, weird fiction, or more simply, to read; then pick up this anthology." So sayeth Rick Kleffel at The Agony Column!

The Baltimore City Paper devotes some in-depth attention to Interfictions and its premise in an outstanding review by Adrienne Martini: "This idea of playing with genre conventions is interstitiality's charm and what makes it a movement for the hypertext age. We want words to do more now and for our time not to have been spent with just one idea. Make a list of what the earmarks are of any genre. Can you have something you can call science fiction if it doesn't have any notion of technology? Can you have traditional fiction without a sense that the writer's world is recognizably real? Can you label a text fantasy if it doesn't involve magic?"

A view from inside

In the days leading up to the official publication of Interfictions, contributing writer Michael J. DeLuca ("The Utter Proximity of God") undertook the bold task of reviewing each story in the book one at a time, his own included, on his blog. In his fascinating final post, he links back to each review and ponders how his perspective on interstitial fiction has changed — not just since writing his own story, but since reading the others.

A new Dora & Delia interview...

...is online at the blog Yatterings. The Interfictions editors continue to delve into the whys and wherefores of interstitial art in general and literature in particular!

Interfictions reading at the KGB

This month's installment of the Fantastic Fiction reading series at the KGB Bar in Manhattan presents several writers from Interfictions! Co-editor Delia Sherman joins regular hosts Ellen Datlow and Gavin Grant to introduce readings by Rachel Pollack, K. Tempest Bradford, Veronica Schanoes, and newly minted Tiptree Award winner Catherynne M. Valente.

The reading takes place on Wed., June 20 at 7pm. The KGB Bar is located at 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave.), upstairs. Admission is free! So come out, buy a couple drinks, kick back, and enjoy the strange stories. Note: Arrive early. It's a popular event and a modestly sized room.

Playing Around on the Borders

Alex Dally MacFarlane talks about Interfictions and Text:UR, The New Book of Masks in the same review.

It made sense to me to review these two together, considering what they have in common: they both play around with the borders between genre fiction and mainstream fiction. Interfictions does it explicitly -- the purpose of the anthology is to examine the borders, to cross them and to blur them -- whereas Text:UR just does it anyway. That said, they are very different anthologies, a reflection of the difference in taste between the editors.

Of Interfictions, she "tended to enjoy most the stories that leaned closer to the fantastical."

"A Dirge for Prester John" by Catherynne M Valente, a fictional origin for the Letter of Prester John, was probably my favourite; "A Map of the Everywhere" by Matthew Cheney I liked for its strangeness and its touching love story, "What We Know About The Lost Families of ---House" by Christopher Barzak" I liked in particular for its collective and slightly creepy narrator, "A Drop of Raspberry" by Csilla Kleinheincz" attracted me because what's not to like about a love story between a lake and a person, "Black Feather" played excellently with fairytale bits and pieces and the idea of past lives.

She concludes: "The anthologies are both good... I will happily read Interfictions 2 and Text:UR 2 if they come into being."

"Buy this book."

That's reviewer Sean Melican's prescription for Interfictions in the newest issue of Ideomancer. "Various editors attempting to collect and define slipstream, or fabulist, fiction fall into the trap of simply clothing genre fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror) with a new term, not for the sake of defining or inventing a new genre, but attempting to make genre palatable to mainstream readers, writers, and critics. But ... Interfictions is the most successful anthology thus far, both defining its terms and presenting stories that function on those terms."