David David Katzman

I was interviewed about The Kickstarter Letters as part of the summer podcast at WordPlaySounds. I read the first letter from my collection. Play it here.

My publisher, Jason Pettus of CCLaP, interviewed me about many topics including Death by Zamboni, A Greater Monster, The Kickstarter Letters, the Chicago lit scene, self-publishing, and more. You can hear it here.

Also, I have been invited to be a finalist judge for the Chicago Writer’s Association Book of the Year writing contest.

Just a brief post today to call out two podcasts. I was interviewed for about 15 minutes about The Kickstarter Letters as part of the summer podcast at WordPlaySounds. I’m the first one in the session, and I read the first letter from my collection. Sounds quite nice, I think. Play it here. This interview was arranged for me by Lori Hettler, the publicist for the Chicago Center for Literature & Photography (CCLaP). Thank you, Lori!

My publisher, Jason Pettus of CCLaP, also had an hour long rambling conversation with me that covered bits about Death by Zamboni, A Greater Monster, The Kickstarter Letters, the Chicago lit scene, self-publishing, and more. You can hear it here.

Oh, here’s a tidbit of news, which was quite a pleasant surprise. I received an email from a Board Member of the Chicago Writer’s Association. (Check out their blog here: http://windycitywriters.com/) They have an annual Book of the Year writing contest, and she invited me to be a finalist judge of the competition. She said that she reached out to me because she had read A Greater Monster and thought it was “pretty awesome” and “such a good read!”

If you’d like to pick up the beautiful hardback edition of The Kickstarter Letters, it’s available at bit.ly/THEKICK. Or the ebook is “pay what you want” at the same location. Lastly, if any of you would like to follow me on Facebook, the page is facebook.com/DavidDavidKatzman. I primarily post pictures of street art and pop surrealists that interest me.

After a successful Kickstarter project, my third book, The Kickstarter Letters is available to the public from my publisher, the Chicago Center for Literature & Photography. The Kickstarter Letters is a beautiful handmade book that collects 52 of my stream-of-consciousness emails and handwritten letters written to supporters of my Kickstarter project for A Greater Monster. The book features psychedelic cover art, four color illustrations, 16 black and white illustrations and three fold-out handwritten letters. The letter design by publisher Jason Pettus is reminiscent of the groundbreaking music magazine Raygun from the 80s.

The Kickstarter Letters is also available as a pay-what-you PDF or as an ebook without the artistic layouts. The cover art is available as a poster from Cafepress.

After what feels like decades of hard work The Kickstarter Letters is finally available to the public from the Chicago Center for Literature & Photography. What is The Kickstarter Letters? Why, my third book of course. The entire story of how it came to be and what it is is best told in song.

Just kidding. In video. Watch the one I created for our successful Kickstarter project.

The Kickstarter Letters is available for purchase on the Chicago Center for Literature & Photography (CCLaP) website at http://bit.ly/THEKICK. The response so far from those who have received the hardback book via Kickstarter is that it is beautiful. It’s the most deluxe book Jason Pettus, owner of CCLaP has ever released, and that’s why it has taken so long to produce the 65 copies sold via Kickstarter to launch it.

To have some fun with the awesome cover art created by my friend Mike Wilgus, I designed a photo album of cover art remixes that you can view on my Facebook page.

I’m so thrilled to be published by CCLaP, an up-and-coming indie press that has received some major press, being featured in both Poets & Writers magazine and The Chicago Tribune.
Please take a peek at the video and if you like what you see–the ebook version is “pay what you want,” and the handmade hardback version is truly a work of love. Visit the Chicago Center for Literature & Photography page here: http://bit.ly/THEKICK

In other news, I was shortlisted for another literary prize entitled The Time & Place Prize whose award was travel and room & board for a month in France at a small cottage. The purpose is to allow a writer time and space to write. I submitted a 5000 word selection from A Greater Monster as my entry. I didn’t win, but it was nice to be a finalist.

Lastly, I was interviewed by “Authors Showcase” at the Empty Bottle Pop Up Book Fair a few months ago, and I finally tracked down the video. My portion is from 1:40 to 3:39.

This week I launched my third book on Kickstarter. This one is a truly collaborative effort with Jason Pettus, owner and editor-in-chief of the Chicago Center for Literature & Photography (CCLaP) and Mike Wilgus, designer extraordinaire.

I launched A Greater Monster with a Kickstarter project that can still be viewed here: http://kck.st/daviddavid As a reward for all my contributors, I wrote each person a stream-of-consciousness email or a handwritten letter (at higher contribution levels) inspired by their name or a suggestion they wishes to make. I wrote 125 letters, and I spent anywhere from one to four hours on each one. So, roughly 300 hours of work! It was quite a task, but it was enjoyable as well.

I came up with the idea to select the fifty most interesting and unusual letters and publish them as a collection. Jason loved the idea and wanted to release it through CCLaP. What made me so excited about this is that Jason hand binds each hardback edition. All of Jason’s author’s books are beautifully handmade.

Mike was my book designer and cover artist for A Greater Monster. He came onboard to do the amazing cover art and 20 interior illustrations, four in color and 16 in black & white. I’m so happy with how the book came out. And I believe the letters will be entertaining even for those who don’t know me at all.

For my Kickstarter project, we shot a rather amusing video. Please take a look. I would much appreciate shares, Likes, and if you do find it intriguing, your support, of course.

http://bit.ly/KICKLETTERS