In gearing up for promotion of his upcoming novel Damned, Chuck just did an interview with British weekly mag Shortlist.com.

Interview with Chuck Palahniuk on Shortlist.com

How the hell have none of you tried something like this before?  For as long as it became 'a thing,' I've been a fan of the fake Criterion covers fans have designed.  Not only are many of them hysterical (one of my favorites being Days of Thunder), but some of the artwork is damn good and clearly tops the shitty, uninspired DVD covers studios sleepwalk through.  (example: Scott Pilgrim vs. Scott Pilgrim).  These fans could be working for Criterion with these skills.

But alas, I've never seen a fake Criterion for Fight Club.  Until now...

This was designed by S. L. Jackson.  Here's what he had to say about the design: read more »

Good news for you canucks!  Chuck is taking a trip north of the border to British Columbia for two big reading events for Damned.  Here's the scoop from his Canadian publishers:

British Columbia audiences have been some of the most enthusiastic of Chuck’s past tours so [we're]really excited about these events. In Vancouver he’s returning to the Frederic Wood theatre on UBC campus where he had a now legendary night five years ago sharing the stage with Doug Coupland. And it has been over four years since he has been to Victoria (for RANT) so [we] can’t wait to see what he has in store this time.  Chuck emailed [us recently] and said he was stockpiling some interesting prizes so he could give his Canadian events the “full treatment.”  I didn’t dare to ask…
 

 So without further ado, here are the two dates:

• November 28th - Victoria, BC - *Tickets go on sale 10-18-11 w/ purchase of 'Damned'
• November 30th - Vancouver, BC - *Tickets go on sale 8-26-11!

*For more info, check out our Tour page.  And for pictures from past tours, check out  our Flickr Group!

...or "Tiffanys," as Kenny Cantor affectionately calls them. Not that it makes the idea any less offensive.

Kenny is a successful CPA in a Brooks Brothers suit on holiday in Rio de Janeiro. He isn't there for the food or the beaches or the nightlife- he's there to pay for pussy. The man is a veteran sex tourist on the prowl, and he's heard that the streets of Rio are paved with the stuff. Lucky for him, in Levy's version of the notorious South American city, the rumors turn out to be true. read more »

Buy Seven Days In Rio From Amazon.com

Cain, Jose Saramago's final novel, is another of the author's attacks on religion in general and especially the Abrahamic faiths. Saramago showed how deeply he could cut with his 1991 masterpiece, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, a troubling, fascinating retelling of the gospels. In that book, biblical contradictions became a source of delight. With Cain, the source book is the Old Testament, but instead of delighting, Saramago chooses to bully and preach at us. As a sort of prequel to his earlier novel, Cain is unnecessary; as a work in itself it is a mess; and as a conclusion to an important literary career, it doesn't seem to fit.  read more »

Buy Cain From Amazon.com

For three years, Chuck Palahniuk contributed to our ground breaking online Writers Workshop (which he also helped conceive, btw) with 36 writing essays.  These are lessons from a best-selling author on how to improve your craft as a writer... the types of lessons they teach in $20,000+ MFA writing programs.  

To look back and celebrate these exclusive essays, each month we are "unlocking" one and offering it for free on the site.  Normally you would need a Workshop Membership to view these essays, but until you're ready to make that important commitment, we'll offer you one of these a month. 

For August, we have Nuts and Bolts: "Big Voice" Versus "Little Voice."  An interesting character has strong opinions, and voicing them can lend mood and texture to the work, but you can't allow these "Big Voice" rants to eclipse the "Little Voice" needs for descriptive physical action. In this essay, you'll learn to strike that balance.

Read 'Nuts & Bolts: "Big Voice" Versus "Little Voice"

What would happen if an intelligent, sensitive, literate man suddenly found himself filled with savage instincts?  —Roger Ebert, on Wolf (1994)

Just as vampire stories are always about seduction—the long tease; the will I? won’t I?—and just as zombie stories are always finally about a loss of self, be it through infection or actions, so are werewolf stories always about sex. Granted, there’s two kinds of werewolf/sex stories. There’s the I’m-going-through-changes-all-this-new-body-hair kind and there’s The Howling ‘indulging our animal natures’-kind, but either way, it come down to sex. Glen Duncan knows this. His The Last Werewolf is very aware of what it’s doing. There’s sex to go around, and it’s properly graphic, and done just really well. For a model of how to render sex on the page, you could do worse than some mid-point between The Last Werewolf and, say, Amelia Beamer’s The Loving Dead. Or just either by itself.

Anyway, all the cons I hit, the question that’s always circulating is What’s the next big thing? We all saw the vampire fall to the zombie, I mean, and, as we get closer and closer to living through Roland Emmerich’s 2012, I think we all have a sense that, in spite of how much they’re going to continue to be marketed at us, the zombie’s going to be on the wane. So: what next? Mermaids, centaurs, Norse mythology, aliens? Werewolves? Will The Last Werewolf—along with Mtv’s Teen Wolf reboot—kick off a werewolf renaissance? read more »

Buy The Last Werewolf From Amazon.com

When I think of cities that inspire noir, Cape Cod is certainly not at the top of that list. I think of New York, Chicago, Baltimore even, but never would I have thought of Cape Cod. In the ongoing series by Akashic Books, they’ve visited almost fifty cities across the United States, and around the world. It’s a compelling series to say the least. Once I started to get into this collection, though, I understood the appeal of Cape Cod. Any place where you have the rich surrounded by the middle and working-class, the permanent residents dealing with entitled tourists, there’s bound to be a simmering pot of angst and violence waiting to overflow.

Editor David L. Ulin speaks to the concept of noir in the opening of this book, and the reasons that Cape Cod came to mind. What is noir to him?: read more »

Buy Cape Cod Noir From Amazon.com

Earlier this week I got an update from Cameron MacLaren, the producer who owns the option on the Invisible Monsters movie adaptation.  Today, Cameron made the news public by way of a newsletter blast.  Check out below for some updates on the production, including someone officially sitting in the director's chair. read more »

Released as part of the Massey Lecture series with a minimum of fanfare, I missed this sneaky aperitif of a novel upon its initial release. I'd blame Canada, but despite taking place there, the Masseys aren't inherently Canadian in nature. The annual event has featured its share of non-Canadian luminaries, such as Noam Chomsky and Martin Luther King Jr., to name a recognizable two. Americans tend to get a bad rap for ignoring other people's culture, but Coupland is popular enough in the states that his involvement should have gotten more attention south of the border, especially considering the form said involvement took. Player One: What Is To Become Of Us, was the first Massey Lecture to be presented as a fictional work, each of the book's five chapters being delivered as a one hour lecture in a different Canadian city. read more »

Buy Player One: What Is To Become Of Us From Amazon.com