A lovely early review of Scattered, Covered, Smothered from Rick Kleffel at The Agony Column, excerpted here:

Let's dip right in to today's must-buy first selection: the absolutely delectable Scattered, Covered, Smothered (Two Cranes Press; December 2004; $9.99) edited by Jason Erik Lundberg. I first heard about this while poking about one of Jeff VanderMeer's discussion boards, but Jason contacted me and sent me a copy of what could easily be one of the smartest, coolest and best anthologies to show up in 2004. Scattered, Covered, Smothered is an anthology of "food and fiction" — a sort of cookbook of short stories, with a few recipes laced between and scattered within the fiction. You'll note from the cover scan the gorgeous picture and the ingenious spiral binding [though technically the binding is twin-loop wiro —JEL]. Ingenious because it both mocks a cookbook and offers some very cost-effective small-press publishing. [We weren't actually mocking cookbooks, but paying tribute to them. —JEL] This boils down to: you get a lot for your money. I frankly can't believe that Jason's selling this for ten bucks. You better run to get your copy, because it's surely going to sell out. Buy it from his website directly, or go to your local independent and make them order one up; chances are they'll order more and those who get them will quickly re-stock.

But don't think that this is a cheap-out. Scattered, Covered, Smothered sports a classy design within and the pages are nicely printed. The writers include the ever-entertaining and auto-buy guy Rhys Hughes (A New Universal History of Infamy and Bouffant Terrible), speculative fiction poet Bruce Boston, Jeff VanderMeer, Des Lewis and more than I can possibly recount in this article. Accordingly, you'll find a variety of styles within. You'll find prose-poetry reminiscent of classic Clark Ashton Smith in "The Cockaigne Poet Speaks of the Lackey King" by Toiya Kristen Finley. Rhys Hughes chimes in with a number of entertaining poems. There's oddball short speculative fiction — horror, humor, science fiction and surreal weirdness, exemplified by "The Apocalypse and Then Oyster Loaf" by Kevin James Miller, "How to Cure an Iron Skillet" by Luna Black and "Mallory's Quick-Quick Seduction Cookies" by Mark Teppo. And of course, there are recipes, both serious — "Prune Chicken" by Elizabeth A. Jasper — and not-so-serious — "Bitter Pudding: A Recipe for Women" by Dominick Cancilla. I suspect that most of my readers who even think they might be interested in such an item will find themselves utterly thrilled with the actual book. This is one of those rockin' really weird Rick-books that you simply must run out and buy. Wave it in the face of your roommate/partner/significant other/co-workers. Buy two and wear one like a hat. It's that's good.

I mean, I'm just blushing after that. We actually had four sales yesterday, one of which was specifically because of this review. Rick emailed to point me towards the link, and also to mention that he's trying to squeeze in a more in-depth review for the next issue of Cemetery Dance. I hope the other reviewers I sent copies to have such a positive reaction.

I just finished ripping all of Neil Gaiman's spoken word CDs onto my iPod, after wanting to hear Snow Glass Apples at work this morning. I need to finish ripping songs from my voluminous CD collection so that I can sell the ones I don't want sometime soon.

And now, I'm going to start back work on Off the Map, which I neglected whilst we were finishing up the anthology. Ta.

Now Reading:
What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula

Stories Out to Publishers:
9

Books Read This Year:
0

Zines/Graphic Novels/Fiction Mags Read This Year:
0