Weekly Roundup for 6/28/13

Every Friday, the Akashic team highlights industry news, reviews, and features from around the web. This week’s roundup comes to you from Akashic interns Melissa Bean and Gabriella Balza.

Win an original oil painting by Jonathan Santlofer created for The Marijuana Chronicles

Author and artist Jonathan Santlofer, who edited and illustrated The Marijuana Chronicles, is giving away an original oil painting (pictured here) created for the anthology—see guidelines below or visit his website to see how you can win!

Review: Ghost Moth by Michèle Forbes

Akashic intern Yaima Villarreal reviews Ghost Moth by Michèle Forbes (Bellevue Literary Press).

The Chicago Reader names Office Girl Best New Novel by a Chicagoan & Best Book for the Disillusioned Artist in All of Us

The Chicago Reader named Joe Meno’s Office Girl the 2013 Best Novel by a Chicagoan Author & Best Book for the Disillusioned Artist in All of Us!

“Lluvia, leche y sangre” by John Manuel Arias

Without realizing it, she had bludgeoned him to death with a statue of La Virgen de los Ángeles.

But how had it killed him? It was just a hollow, bronze replica of the black Madonna and child. Was it because it was filled with holy water? Or because she had slammed it like a machete into sugar cane?

Weekly Roundup for 6/21/13

Every Friday, the Akashic team highlights industry news, reviews, and features from around the web. This week’s roundup comes to you from Akashic interns Melissa Bean and Gabby Balza.

Review: Crapalachia: A Biography of Place by Scott McClanahan

Akashic’s Katie Martinez reviews Crapalachia: A Biography of Place by Scott McClanahan (Two Dollar Radio).

A Crime, a Mystery, and a Happy Ending

Housing Works Bookstore & Café assistant store manager Merril Speck approached our booth at BEA with a refreshing counterpoint to the hours of hyper-commercial meetings, greetings, queries, and conversations for which the trade show is known. His idea for an International Crime Book Group—to help engage the non-profit’s clients while securing contributions from publishers—stood out from the mundane busyness with which we were otherwise engaged. We agreed to contribute (our Venice Noir is on the group’s docket), and, in service to our International Crime Month theme, asked him to tell us more about himself, Housing Works, and the International Crime Book Group. We’re pleased to find his writing style just a little bit noir.