City of Roses is a serialized epic firmly set in Portland, Oregon: an urban fantasy mixing magical realism with gonzo noirish prose, where duels are fought in Pioneer Square, and union meetings are beseiged by ghost bicycles.
Miyazawa Iori
It’s true that I don’t want to say anything... I think there’s this mutual understanding among yuri fans, “don’t talk about yuri, make yuri.” If I accidentally blurt something out, it’ll provoke a flame war, and I don’t want to have what I say here spread around with a totally different meaning. And if it does, I’ll have to slice you all in half. I’ll be talking today with these feelings in mind.
The first of these aims will result in his being “kissed” or praised by the reading public and his courtly audience, but at the same time can only result from being “kissed” or touched by critical contact. If the poet remains unnoticed by criticism (“vnkisste”) he will always remain obscure (“vncouthe”) in the twin senses of unheard-of but also invisible, unavailable to the consciousness of his potential readers. The one who can provide him not only with fame but, at one level, his very existence, is the already knowledgeable EK.
Actually, having gone back to volume 5 already, I’ve finished the first draft of no. 47, and I’m a couple-thousand deep in the first draft of no. 48, which means I’m back again in volume 6, but today, today we’re doing the cover reveal for no. 47, which is in volume 5—thus, the title.
Anyway: the cover for no. 47, June 29th:
Want to make carnitas without all the fat? Bolognese without the wait? Why? Why when there are so many pork dishes that are not confited, so many Italian pasta sauces that don’t require hours of simmering. If “that” is to be avoided for whatever reason, it feels like a failure of the imagination to stay stuck on “this.” We, editors and readers alike, are all drinking the same very contemporary, very American flavor of Kool-Aid, keeping up the charade that we can have everything we want and nothing that we don’t, even as our lives feel harder and tighter.
Crash the glass and splintering wood she’s through and falling, swaddled in curtains ringing ripped and twisting snap through cracking branches thump and rolling down the slope below, Marfisa finds her feet bat in hand and white hair ghostly in the darkness, leaping down the hillside away from the back of the house to the shadows under the trees, curtains left sprawled on the grass, and from the broken window high above a howl of anguish, of terrible, heart-cracking rage, and Herwydh, arranging flowers, blinks in wonder at her hands, pale among the blossoms on the counter, then looks up to see Powys at the sink in a blue-shadowed apron, paused in the act of wiping out a pan, “Something’s happened,” he says, and slap and rustle from the hallway strung with yellow lights come running Costurere and Aigulha, aprons and mob caps, tape measure fluttering about Costurere’s neck, “We fell out!” she cries, and “What’s happened,” says Aigulha, glumly, as a dozen pianos play at once, astringent ringing, sludgy rumbles, skittering trills and scales and maybe even chopsticks in there, hearts and souls
“Our reviewers loved the world-building and well-drawn characters.”
“Long, complex with a lyrical rhythm to it that’s intoxicating.”
