Publishing miscellanea

And by "miscellanea" I mean "have nothing to do with each other except are vaguely about writing and must be purged from my mind/inbox."

Simon Spotlight Entertainment is publishing MMA fighter Matt Hughes's memoir. (via Tucker Max's message board) - They're also looking for other top MMA fighters, see Tucker Max posting for details.

Amazon is listing Made in America with a pub date of January 2, 2008 but that may or may not be accurate.

I know nothing about the subject, not being a UFC junkie, just a silly girl whose new "type" seems to be Jewish guys into martial arts. So hot, so not dad or even boyfriend material for this girl. Alas. Note to self: find new type.

Since that pretty much exhaustes my knowledge of and interest in the topic, save for very esoteric ridiculousness, I will move on to something that I actually know something about.

Christen Clifford, who I posted about yesterday, has a blog and just announced that she won the New School 2006 Nonfiction Chapbook series and this is what the judge said about her "Baby Love" essay:

"I greatly admire the writer's risk-taking, honesty, willingness to lay bare her injuries and humiliations. It's a gutsy, smart, funny, and discomfiting essay."

Rejuvenile author Christopher Noxon reviewed Neal Pollack's Alternadad in the Los Angeles Times last Sunday. He also linked to a review of his review (which strangely didn't link to the actual review. Odd.)

I'm currently absorbing/being awed by the mesmerizing language and story of David Matthews's memoir Ace of Spades. WOW. Every time I read it I find myself rushing to the dictionary, and so far (about halfway through), he's used two words/phrases I'd only ever encountered while reading my grandfather's memoir in progress: hail-fellow-well-met and cynosure. It's that kind of book, but also stunning in its descriptions not just of race, but childhood, family, school, sex. You have to really read every page, and my copy is littered with stickies. I'll be interviewing him for Memoirville, and considering I have questions about nearly everything in it, narrowing that down will be tough. But it's one of the best, most challenging, most thought-provoking books I've ever read and there are turns of phrase in it that continue to blow me away.

Matthews had a piece in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, "Pick One," is also on MySpace, and recently engaged in an online bulletin board debate over the one drop rule (and that was what I meant as an example of a dedicated author, like Noxon linking to the review of his review - you can't just sit back and think publicists are going to do your work. That's your job as an author who cares, not just an author.)