Arriviste Read

Welcome to Arriviste Read, the corner of Arriviste Press where we do our best each month to culture your cretin ass with the freshest new authors we stumble across in our monthly travels (or, if the weather's really nice, whomever a fortuitous PR flak throws our way at the right time of the month). So whet your appetite with free interviews and excerpts from folks who give you slightly more to talk about than the weather, and if you like what you see, do these guys a favor and BUY their stuff!

Win One for the Loser
With great pride and no small level of exhaustion, Arriviste Press announces its first "feature length" title -- available in popular dead-tree format from right here on this Web site or through most other book selling outlets you can think of. (Many brick and mortar stores will have to special order it though, at least for the next couple of months.)

Although we're all about ready to pass out, Will had some thoughts about his opus: “In many ways I’m proud of this book and the columns that comprise it. I’ve tried very hard to entertain and to provoke a little thinking along the way. But most of the entertainment value comes from people laughing at me, or sometimes laughing at Mattoon, so maybe I didn’t do so well after all.”

So far critics would disagree. Renowned author Tom Perrotta (“Leitch is a writer well worth reading.”) and Esquire Magazine editor Ken Kurson (“Leitch has the writer’s rarest gift – humanity.”) both praise his talent.

Pick up your copy today!

Arriviste Read: September

Why We Can't Forget
Tim Townsend was a reporter working for the Wall St. Journal when he ventured downtown on the morning of September 11th, 2001. Although faced with an incident of unimaginable horror with no preparation, he did his job and captured the events of the morning with clarity and honesty.

I have read hundreds (perhaps thousands) of news stories, op-ed pieces, and commentaries regarding the events of September 11th. As an editor, I receive upward of 25 submissions each week from free-lance writers, some of which address the topic. Nothing I've read was as moving as Tim Townsend's plain-spoken account of the morning, which originally appeared in Rolling Stone the month after the attacks. Reading it again, the first time in more than 18 months, it still made my skin crawl and my heart sink. Reading it again reminds me why we can't forget.

~ R A Miller




Arriviste Read: August

Not Your Grandmother's Fairy Tales
His characters have sex with dogs; his dogs give birth to mini humans, and Arthur Bradford delivers all of this with a straight face and a folksy tone that belies the incredibility of his stories.

Arthur Bradford
Dogwalker
Knopf, 2002
Pick this up!




Arriviste Read: July

Growing Up and Getting Lucky with Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta embodies the American dream for a lot of writers. He released a collection of coming-of-age stories to wide critical acclaim, and subsequently published a series of well-received novels - one of which became the Reese Witherspoon/Matthew Broderick cult classic movie Election. He also has taught in the English programs at Harvard and Yale.

What can he teach you? A lot. Read our Q & A with Tom, or learn by example from his short story, "You Start to Live."

For more, check out the collection of short stories that launched his career: Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies Pick This Up!