in transit book walk (+a river of stones)

a Saturday photo book walk:

from Karyn Eisler (via facebook): "Perplexing Repetition > Dorothee Lang's book 'In Transit' is everywhere in Keszthely, Hungary"

THANKS! this colored walk is such a beautiful door into the weekend.
+ thanks to Susan Gibb who reviewed the book online: in transit part 1 - in transit part 2

order info: "in transit" + Lulu site sale + "a river of stones" 
you can order "in transit" via Amazon.com for 9.50$, or via Lulu for 9.50$. Lulu currently has a general 20% sale (code GIANT305). if you joined "a river of stones" in January, the book is available now at Lulu, too: a river of stones, so you can bundle orders. (sale lasts - 7.3.)
PS: proper blog entry on "a river of stones" to follow next week in the blueprint book blog.

spinning / in transit / 365 stories

in transit
"One of this year’s goals is to get back into reading books–real books, whether from my overflowing bookshelves or via Kindle for Mac," said Susan Gibb, and for starters, picked up "in transit", my collection of travel stories that also includes some visuals and poems.

now Susan posted about in her blog spinning: in transit

365 stories
in her in-transit-post, Susan notes: "There is one other difference between us that’s obvious: Dorothee travels, has knowledge of foreign places that I’ve only read about."

i returned to the quote later, after reading the latest stories Susan wrote. truth is, Susan is currently on an own journey, and travels the land of writing and imagination: she is writing a flash piece per day. you can follow her journey in 365 days 365 stories.

in transit in mexico

my short story collection "in transit" now made the crossing to south america and arrived in Mexico, at the door stop of poet Rose Hunter. she took a picture, wrote a note, and then went ahead and pieced together a transit poem based on lines from the book.

it's all up here: "in transit" - in Rose's blog with the title that is a transit in itself: "Whoever brought me here will have to take me home." while there, also check out Rose's new book: "Another Night At The Circus" - a collection of interlinked short stories, recently featured in Daily s-Press (link).

and now, because it is so beautiful, and takes me to my own words in a different way, the transit poem. Rose, thanks so much for this.


The Perfect Plan
Rose Hunter

re/ visit /cycle /turn
all the spaces those
cubes have created
like flocks of ravens
a concentric wave would
run to the sides without anyone

interrupting it
the changing of
places, the changing of skies
all that is missing now
you have to pretend you don't feel how
we can learn lessons then
forget them again
they are 10 cent a piece
against expectations, this idea

of days of space this promise
to see and think and think and
see, until it makes sense -
his breath
at the edge of the ocean
this almost tenderness -

the train doesn't mind, it moves on
returning me to where I came
from, closing the circle

and I want to go
and I want to stay
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in transit in amazon

just had to share this:

in transit is up already in Amazon! i completed the registration last thursday, and the registration page then said it would take 10-14 days for the database update.. and now i just got this curious hunch and checked Amazon, not really believing it would be there.

but there it is:
Amazon.com: "in transit" by Dorothee Lang

so nice!
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in transit is on

today: happy!

my first story collection is available now - and the bookpage is now up, too.
fresh + crisp from the press: in transit

it feels a bit surreal - all the last weeks i longed for this moment to arrive. and now it's there. and it comes with white, huge, fluffy snowflakes.
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in transit in print

it's a special week. yesterday, the exciting news that one of the blueprintreview stories will be included in Dzanc’s best of web 2010. (more here: blueprintreview story selected).

and today, the proofcopy of my story collection 'in transit' arrived from the printer. imagine me, standing there with the letter, a little nervous, thinking of all the things that might have gone wrong: cover files, font, pages, you name it. so i opened the letter. and there it was. in transit. in printed pages. all beautiful.

i sat with it, on the floor, browsing the pages. such a good start to this year. just some tiny, tiny transit edits left to make. then it will be ready. so soon, now.
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in transit

where to start?

these days, i am working parallel on a couple of projects. there is the editing of BluePrintReview magazine, which comes with a new issue, and includes a book page for the second time now (here). and there is the book i am working on myself, a collection named "in transit". the first idea for it was to create it all handmade, but this didn't work out. plus, since a while, i was considering to revive blueprintpress, as a "print sister" of BluePrintReview...

somehow, this all now clicked together. the new issue of BluePrintReview is complete, and going live in joyful (dis)comfort. and in transit is on its way - the printer mailed yesterday, the test copy has shipped and should arrive in the next days.

plus, the webpage for blueprintpress is now taking shape, together with the plans for the next projects. more about that, soon. right now, i am focusing on getting in transit on the way, which will also be published under the blueprintpress label. i thought about it, the main reasons to take that way is that i want to try different publishing/distribution options, and i wouldn't feel good to try this with another author's manuscript. the process of figuring out the way includes some trial-and-error by nature, which also means: it includes a good chance that things won't exactly work out at first try. and i rather sent my own words on a detour, or see them messed up. so in transit will be the blueprintpress guinea pig, or rather: the pathfinder. (and a beautiful one, for that).

here a preview of the bookpage-in-progress: in transit.

soon, and it will be real. on paper. arriving here. and also soon now: blueprintpress. and with it, an idea for a new novel format. one that surfaced while in transit. and yes, there will be a call for manuscripts coming. soon. :)
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Travelling On / in transit

since a while, i am working on a collection, the focus theme of it is 'in transit'. and now i just came across these lines from Ajahn Sucitto, a monk who blogs, and in his recent post, wrote about being in transit:

At the airport, my identity is reduced to a few documents and a seat on a plane. I have no money - the key to the 'ordinary' world - and therefore no choice but to go with whatever happens. The helplessness has a liberating and truthful quality to it: I take note of the throng of people from all nations as we transit through all going somewhere else, and consider - well who belongs anywhere anyway?

So who, or what, do I sense myself as being? Isn't that also in transit? Isn't that estimation of nationality, value, relationships, and history just another boarding pass - like Gate K2, Economy Class, seat 43F, time 18:30 - on Kamma Air? And where is all that going?

-- Reflections Ajahn Sucitto / Travelling On
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moon halo, revisited

from sunrise solstice to a past moon:

this week, i returned to a flash installation that i put together some winters ago: 'moon halo'. back then, it was published in 'poetic inhalation'. the journal isn't online any more, but the poem is still up as a fragment of that issue, here the link: moon halo - poetic inhalation '04.

a text version of 'moon halo' and some reflections + feedback on it are up in fictionaut, here: moon halo - fictionaut '09. (actually, it was a new fictionaut group about reading / animating texts that sparked the memory of moon halo.)

it indeed is a time of returning, on many levels. and seen like this, the current issue of blueprintreview now almost seems like a forcast, with its "revisit / recylce / return" theme, both for the revisited works in fictionaut, and also for the collection that i am putting together: "in transit", which brought revisits of stories and travelogues i wrote in the last couple of years. funny that i didn't see this general theme before.
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