Busy, Busy, Busy

First, book news! Martian Lit has announced Watching People Burn, my fictional account of the Bath school disaster. It has also announced my novel, Nira / Sussa, which took over a decade to write. Both couldn't mean more to me. Here are their covers:

Second, Martian Lit published the second chapter of my The Many Lives of Yelena Moulin today, accompanied by art by Doug Smock (see image at right). It's punchy sci-fi, where every chapter has a twist or a mind-bending idea of some sort.

Finally, my second article on Frank Miller's Holy Terror is up on Sequart. It focuses on the introductory sequence as a key to understanding the text.

Thanks for reading! And please, if you like anything, consider sharing them through social networking sites. Many thanks!

Julian Darius Defends Frank Miller

Today on Sequart, I have a piece going up in which I defend -- and try to explain -- Frank Miller.

This isn't something I've chosen to do lightly. My politics and Miller's seem to be rather diametrically opposed. Fervently so, at this trying time in American history. But having said that, I continue to find Miller's work -- including Holy Terror -- tremendously vital. And I think that it's being judged in ways that ignore his own stated intentions, not to mention a good century of rules about what constitutes appropriate artistic criticism.

I struggled very much with the piece, and I ended up cutting thousands upon thousands of words, in which I found myself going off about politics, because that wasn't my intent nor my thesis. It's hard, because I'm so conflicted: I admire Miller's boldness and artwork, yet I'm disgusted by his politics. But surely, there must be a place in criticism for such conflicted responses. And surely, there must be some place for Bold... however offensive and repugnant.

In Martian Lit news, today marks the first non-Julian Darius post, the excellent poem "En France" by David W. Pritchard, with art by Mingagraphy.

Martian Lit Launches Weekly Content

Martian Lit, a new company that publishes offbeat fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, has gone live with weekly content.

The internet's got a lot of literary magazines, and it's easy to get lost in the shuffle. Martian Lit is dedicated to publishing quality work that's different. It has a great team behind it, great web design, a bizarre "About Us" page and backstory, and original art to accompany every piece that's not non-fiction.

This last point makes a huge difference in terms of making literary content visually pleasing and accessible. Online, we're used to reading quickly, and the kind of focus that literature requires can be hard to achieve, especially with email and games and everything else just a click away. Artwork is one of the few remaining ways of providing online readers with a beautiful, immersive experience. And we couldn't have better artists working for us.

The website will be running content weekly. My own serialized novel, The Many Lives of Yelena Moulin, will run biweekly. Its first chapter is up right now, with art by the immensely talented and professional Doug Smock (art at right).

We're also going to be publishing books. In fact, we have already announced our first book, my own Watching People Burn.

Let me close by saying that Martian Lit is very dear to my heart. It's something I've been working on for half a year -- and conceptualizing before that for (no kidding) a year and a half. Of course, Sequart's incredibly dear to me too, and the bulk of my time goes to Sequart. But I (and many involved with Sequart) also have a creative side that doesn't fit with Sequart's mission statement. Martian Lit's there to provide that, and I'm crossing my fingers and hoping against hope that if we run Martian Lit with the same concern for quality that we've brought to Sequart, we just might buck the trends and create something that's both literary and successful. Thanks in advance for being a part of that dream, even if it's just reading or forwarding a link now and then. It means the world to me.