Joel Schalit

October Surprise

This week, the final proofs of my book were approved and sent to the printer. The culmination of six years of research and hundreds of pages of draft writing, Israel vs. Utopia is finally done. Forthcoming this October in the US, (and November in the UK), my publisher, Akashic Books, is now in the process of piecing together an American tour to support the book’s publication.

I can’t even begin to explain how gratified I am by all of this. From proofing the final draft to reviewing the book’s packaging, the entire process has been immensely rewarding. My second full-length book (not including the three collections I’ve both edited and co-edited), it comes the closest to approximating what I always wanted to write in book-length form. And it also, despite how exhausted I am, allows me to think about moving on to related subjects I’ve been increasingly interested in exploring as of late.

Being in Europe this past year has been immensely rewarding in this regard. It allowed me to conclude the writing I did about Israel’s relationship with Britain and France in IvU, as well as consider possibilities for future research. Living in immigrant neighborhoods such as Brixton, in south London, and the Piazza Loreto/Via Padova area in Milan has only served to clarify such interests. I’m not quite ready to talk about where I intend to go from here, except to say that it will be a natural consequence of what I’ve been witnessing.

In the interim, if you’re interested in learning more about Israel vs. Utopia, Akashic has put up a promo page announcing its October release. Amazon UK and Powells (for US readers) are already offering preorders, too.

Coming to a Conclusion

In 2008, I edited three books, an international news portal and a Jewish cultural periodical, led the design of a leftist publisher’s website, and completed the last two revisions of my own book, Israel vs. Utopia. It was an incredibly exhausting year. Nevertheless, I put to use every conceivable kind of editing skill, in every publishing context, that I’d ever acquired, and somehow, got it all done.

This past week, the website I designed finally launched, and I received physical copies of two of the three edited books in question: Martin Bull’s Banksy Locations and Tours, and Naoki Inose’s A Century of the Black Ships: Chronicles of War between Japan and America. Bull’s book is already out in the US. Black Ships is forthcoming in April. The third title, James Horrox’ A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement, will be out in June.

It is enormously gratifying to see these long-term projects slowly being released. As tempted as I am to share it, yesterday I got a chance to look at a very advanced draft of my own book’s cover too. In preparation for my publisher’s catalogue, after five years of steady work on IvU, I was positively thrilled to have this labor of everything, for lack of a better term, moving to its design phase.

I’ve been absolutely fried these last two weeks, and have been doing very little personal blog writing, shy of entering a link here and there. There’s more news yet to come. In the meantime, check out my first entry for the Religion Dispatches blog. It was written on my friend Evan’s suggestion, and published Tuesday night.

Milestones and Memories

Milestones

I delivered the first chapter of Israel vs. Utopia on Tuesday, and received the first feedback about the book today. Everything was absolutely right on, and extremely helpful. I can’t over-emphasize what a different experience it is being edited again after the last three years of being the so-called editor. Very cool. Instructions are all systems go: continue writing and sending in the chapters.

A big shoutout to my longtime publisher and friend, Johnny Temple. We first met by email in the Fall of ’99, over an article in Punk Planet about indie labels and health care which, as a member of Girls Against Boys, he’d been interviewed for. I’m not sure what occasioned this first exchange. Here’s to banging out more dissenting product together. I can’t think of a better editor to be working with – as always.

Memories

In 1996-1997, I formed incredible friendships with two extremely gifted and inspiring individuals: Dan Sinker, the publisher of Chicago’s Punk Planet magazine (and now, Punk Planet Books, which Dan runs in collaboration with Johnny), and Rich Jensen, who was then the COO of Sub Pop records in Seattle, and the co-owner of Up Records, which put out the first Modest Mouse and Quasi albums.

For nearly seven years, I served as Dan’s second, in the capacity of PP’s Associate Editor, in addition to producing copious amounts of copy as a contributor. For a little over three years, I put out Christal Methodists records with Rich on our own little stealth imprint, Kolazhnikov after the band was dropped from a manufacturing and distribution deal by Sub Pop over sample clearance concerns.

Over the course of the past two weeks, I managed to spend two of the best days in recent memory with both gentlemen. Dan came over last week, together with his two year-old son, Roosevelt. Visiting the Bay Area for personal reasons, it was the first time we’d seen each other since the spring of 2002, when I spent a week in Chicago giving book readings and worked out of the Punk Planet office.

Yesterday morning, I met Rich at the 24th street BART station, and spent the day walking around San Francisco together. Stopping over here for a few hours en route to a business event in LA, it was the first time we’d seen each other since November 2003, when Rich curated a series of readings and events in the Bay Area on behalf of his publishing house, Clear Cut Press.

Very special to have had the opportunity to hang out with both Dan and Rich after all this time. Things are changing so much in our cultural end of the world. Its beyond poetic to spend time with these two specific folks at such a significant juncture. Even better, given what a tremendous sense of community connecting with all three of these guys continues to provide.