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I can’t promise I won’t clean this up and repost it tomorrow, but I‘ve been getting quite impatient to post a new one.

Attention makes me uncomfortable

I never really know how to react to praise. Generally I respond by mumbling and looking at my feet. Nevertheless, I really appreciate the generous comments and words of support I’ve received about my project from blogs and websites. It makes a big difference to know that the time I’m spending on this, time which could be otherwise spent rewatching Battlestar Galactica and eating chocolate hob nobs, is valued by people that I’ve never even met. So I want to extend my sincerest thanks (in many cases long overdue) to those sites that have mentioned me. And from now on, I’ll be keeping track of them on the site’s “About” page. I know I’ve forgotten some, so please let me know if you don’t see yourself and I’ll add you!

Thanks to:

Biblioklept Daniel Silliman In Someone Else’s Dream Weaver of the Wind A Piece of Monologue De Contrabas James Joyce Quarterly Ron Silliman Languagehat Harriet Staff, Poetry Foundation The Rumpus The Millions Shannon Hubbell Black Book Jonathan Shipley John Coulthart Read Eat Slip Passiontask No Pun Intended A Building Roam

Astrid Wittebolle, Knack.be Largehearted Boy Hello World 3:AM The New Inquiry @ Open Salon Scamp.ie The Glass-Bottom Blog Coudal.com Sean McGrath Behemot.si Who Killed Lemmy Caution? Wordnik Too Gallant Stan Carey Parislist Paris Weekends

I’m also excited to see that I’ve been listed in the University of Texas at Austin’s online Joyce bibliography, The James Joyce Checklist!

Technology 1:0 Stephen

I just fixed a problem with my email. If you sent me a message and I didn’t respond, please send it again!

Pictures from Bloomsday and After

Last Thursday was Bloomsday. It was also the night that the winners of the Paris Literary Prize were announced at the Société des gens de lettres. And (as I’ve been repeating over and over like an excitable child) my work was exhibited at the event! Here are some pictures to prove that I didn’t make up the whole thing. Many thanks to Sylvia Whitman and everyone at Shakespeare’s, and to the de Groot Foundation, sponsors of the prize. Being invited to display my work at your event made me feel honoured to the point of discomfort (as I’m sure they could tell. If you think I’m self-deprecating on this site, you should see me in real life). And thank you, Haejin, foundation polyvalente, whose skills at matting and hanging are spoken of in hushed tones by primitive peoples who mistake them for magic. Congratulations also to the winner of the prize, Rosa Rankin-Gee, and the two runners-up, Adam Biles and Agustin Maes! I look forward to seeing your books in print! Afterwards, the pictures were taken to Shakespeare and Company bookstore, where they will be on display until June 30th. You can see some more pictures from the award ceremony and the reading on Friday here.

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I changed it again! Indecision is a curse.

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All of these foreign texts are somehow relevant to their context, by the way. However, I have no memory of what they say.

Bloomsday Show UPDATE

THE DETAILS ARE IN! From June 16th, Bloomsday, Wake in Progress will be on show at Shakespeare and Company bookstore, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005. On Bloomsday itself, there’ll only be five pictures displayed. The rest are going to show at the awards ceremony for the Paris Literary Prize, which is sadly not open to the public! However, from Friday 17th, the rest of the pictures will go up at the store (covering as few of the books as possible) and remain on display for an undisclosed period. Until people decide they want to get at the books, I suppose.


ALSO! At 6pm on Friday 17th, the winner and two runners-up of the novella prize will be reading from their stories. I advise all of you to come, stare at my pictures in unique, non-pixelated form, and listen to extracts from some great novellas.

ALSO ALSO! I offer this solemn vow: that if there is nothing to drink at this event, I shall provide some.

My sincerest thanks go to Sylvia and everyone else at Shakespeare’s!

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Doing some spring cleaning for the show. I’ve completely gone off the traced look. Sorry, Henry.

Bloomsday Show

The debt I owe to historic Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company is utterly incalculable. Among so much else, without this institution some of my greatest friends, the most formative experiences of my life, and my wife would be unknown to me.

So when the owner, omnipotent goddess Sylvia Whitman, offered to host an exhibition of my Finnegans Wake illustrations, I knew it could only mean one thing: that she intended me to incur a moral debt so great that I should be forced to offer myself in indentured servitude, after the style of Man Friday.

But whatever the reason, I am very happy to announce that a selection from Wake in Progress will be on display on June 16th, to coincide with Bloomsday! Which all seems amazingly apt, since Shakespeare and Co. is named after the bookstore that published the first edition of Ulysses, and Sylvia is herself named after the owner, Sylvia Beach.

The venue and other details are not settled yet, so watch this space!