this ben will change your life

The mighty Tanzer pulled off the job change and blog post in the same week, and he also published a nice piece on Lavinia Ludlow's Single Stroke Seven. Thanks, Ben!

virtually from London, England. . .

London, England's summer superstar Lavinia Ludlow was kind enough to interview me for Auggie's Revenge a couple months ago. Here's an excerpt:

L^2: As an adjunct-professor, how has your perspective changed since writing Fight for your Long Day? Auggie's Revenge seems to contain more frustration and jadedness in the overall narrative.

AK: Yes, I was responding to all the pain and lament and anger I was seeing from adjuncts online, all the anguish they were expressing on social media. To be honest, although I shared offices with some adjuncts in really bad situations, I don’t think I was truly tuned in to how horrible the situation is until after I published the “original adjunct novel.” I hope there are laughs in Auggie’s Revenge—that was certainly part of the plan—but, yes, I intended to describe a world for adjuncts and many other exploited workers and indebted students as one where people are rightfully jaded and frustrated. At the same time, I can’t escape the white male as flunky or pretentious jackass, so I hope readers see a discourse of personal responsibility in my narratives, perhaps one that runs counter to other ideas explicit or implicit in the books.

interview at The Next Best Book Club

Over at Lori Hettler's The Next Best Book Club, I responded to questions from the talented percussionist Lavinia Ludlow.

An excerpt:

L^2: In your own words, what is the major dramatic question summed up in a single sentence?

AK: A death-fearing adjunct philosopher struggles to break free from his academic chains as he falls into friendship with men on the margins who lead him to murder.

my review of Single Stroke Seven

Necessary Fiction published my poignant review of Lavinia Ludlow's Single Stroke Seven.

interview w/LL on inequality in SF

Lavinia Ludlow's Single Stroke Seven drops on March 1, and I had a chance to ask her questions about the writing life, unaffordable housing, and Bay Area inequality.

From JMWW:

Lavinia Ludlow’s debut novel alt.punk (Casperian Books 2011) immersed us in a world of music, ambition, sex, drugs, and life on the margins of music and the mainstream, so much so that we were left gasping for air. Now Ludlow is back with her second novel, Single Stroke Seven (Casperian Books, March 2016). Her spunky prose packs in so much raw rich detail that I burned through an advanced-review copy. Ludlow describes a San Francisco Bay shadow world of drummers and scroungers I know little about, and her punchy prose kept me engaged in the lives of characters trying to sustain their dreams and themselves under our “new normal” of extreme income inequality, contract work, and a winner-take-all music industry. Single Stroke Seven is the stuff you read in one sitting or return to as soon as work or family allows.

In the following interview, I first asked Lavinia about surviving as a writer/artist on the margins in the increasingly unaffordable San Francisco.

Alex Kudera: You encourage people to read (or re-read) your debut novel, alt.punk, before reading Single Stroke Seven. Why?

Lavinia Ludlow: Single Stroke Seven departs from alt.punk’s extreme narrative voice and...

Follow this link to read the full interview.

signed copy of single stroke seven

Due March 1, 2016 from Casperion Books

Single Stroke Seven by Lavinia Ludlow

a review of frade killed ellen

The Next Best Book Club has posted Lavinia Ludlow's review of Frade Killed Ellen.

Review contributor @LaviniaLudlow whips up a 4 star review for @kudera's FRADE KILLED ELLEN. Check it https://t.co/eQjmjPClos

— TNBBC (@TNBBC) October 20, 2015

new review of Fight for Your Long Day

Fight for Your Long Day review from the prolific and talented Lavinia Ludlow: http://t.co/3x4kuQO5q4
— Alex Kudera (@kudera) July 15, 2014

Follow these links for complete lists of reviews, interviews, comics, videos, and more.

Please consider supporting small press by purchasing alt.punk or Fight for Your Long Day direct from the publisher.

Nathan Holic

I first learned of Nathan Holic as Lavinia Ludlow's partner in alt.punk, so this guy must be versatile. He can write fiction, edit and coach others, and draw shockingly handsome and svelte adjunct instructors with one arm tied behind his back and two fingers stuck in his mouth. But I suspect the fingers belong to his little bundle of sunshine, all he has to keep him going in this cold, relentless, backbreaking world!

Okay. Enough is enough. Here's Nathan's artistic rendering of some of the first chapter of Fight for Your Long Day. The plan is for new drawings to appear once a month at Dan Cafaro's other joint, Atticus Review.

Fight for Your Long Day, Nathan!