JR Round Two: Derby, Mir

Now available: the second pair of stapled pamphlets/booklets/chapbooks from JR Vansant: Matthew Derby's The Snipe, and Stan Mir's Test Patterns.

The Snipe is a story which is even funnier and stranger than it is well-written--and if you've read Mr. Derby's collection, Super Flat Times,you know he can write. Here he takes on women's friendship, loneliness, infidelity, and urban warfare--the cover's not that brilliant peony for no reason.

Test Patterns is the second of three parts of Mr. Mir's long Patterns poem--this installment is a little more open and breezy than the previous Flight Patterns, without losing any of the insight, beauty, specificity, or intensity. Whereas history and reflection took the lead in Flight Patterns, the feeling here is more abstract and impressionistic and "floaty" (um, not to get too academic on you) . . . and there's that spider that keeps coming back.

JR continues its mission of publishing writing of the highest quality in very affordable editions. These two books are $3 each, or there're signed editions (limited to ten copies, and $10 each), but please email before ordering the signed editions, as quantities are low (though there are still a few signed copies available of Flight Patterns and Chris Diken's Some People). We now have a shopping cart as well--link at the top of the page. UPDATE: All signed editions are now available in the JR store.

Coming this fall: the finale of Mir's poem, Holding Patterns, as well as a story or two from Lily Binns (making her fiction debut).

Not-JR: Stan Mir's first collection, Song and Glass, is now available from Small Press Distribution.

--JR