DMBSTRCK update

Well, Dark Sky Books is no longer. This is a great loss to the indie lit community and to publishing. I'm bummed because they were doing such great work. Everyone loved them, both their books and magazine (journal). 

Admittedly, I pulled DMBSTRCK from Dark Sky about a month before I heard they folded. I got the feeling something was up when communications were spotty. But the main reason why I pulled the book was I felt it just wasn't good enough. I think it was a project I needed to write, not just for personal, autobiographical reasons, but to see if I could create something like that. Some of DMBSTRCK is great, for sure. There's deeply sensitive material in there and the prose is sad and solid and sonically weird.

I am also really afraid it's too close to Ben Marcus's A Flame Alphabet. In DMBSTRCK, all the children loose their ability to read. In Ben's novel, all the children create their own language and if an adult hears it, they die. So yeah, there's a lot of overlap. I just need to read Ben's novel and figure out if my novel is far enough away from his.   

Depending on the success of my new self publishing project, I might revisit DMBSTRCK and see if I can make something valuable out of it. My main rule right now is, if the world doesn't need it or if it's not highly entertaining, then don't put it out in the world.