Here is an End of the Year/Beginning of the Year assessment that I stole from David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done. I came across this in 2011 and have enjoyed sharing it with people since.  I find it a very useful set of questions for  evaluating my progress and helping to set goals for the new year. I have updated it for this year. I highly recommend this exercise for any creative person.

Happy New Year!
- Rose O’Keefe

Mr. Allen says:

What have you actually finished, completed, and accomplished? If you haven’t made a list in the last year, I would highly recommend that you give yourself a treat and review the year that just passed and look forward to the year ahead.

When I go through these kinds of questions I like to consider my answers in several areas:

Physical
Emotional
Mental
Spiritual
Financial
Family
Community Service
Fun / creativity / recreation

Completing and remembering last year

Review the list of all completed projects.
What was your biggest triumph in 2012?
What was the smartest decision you made in 2012?
What one word best sums up and describes your 2012 experience?
What was the greatest lesson you learned in 2012?
What was the most loving service you performed in 2012?
What is your biggest piece of unfinished business in 2012?
What are you most happy about completing in 2012?
Who were the three people that had the greatest impact on your life in 2012?
What was the biggest risk you took in 2012?
What was the biggest surprise in 2012?
What important relationship improved the most in 2012?
What compliment would you like to have received in 2012?
What compliment would you like to have given in 2012?
What else do you need to do or say to be complete with 2012?

Creating the new year

What would you like to be your biggest triumph in 2013?
What advice would you like to give yourself in 2013?
What is the major effort you are planning to improve your financial results in 2013?
What would you be most happy about completing in 2013?
What major indulgence are you willing to experience in 2013?
What would you most like to change about yourself in 2013?
What are you looking forward to learning in 2013?
What do you think your biggest risk will be in 2013?
What about your work, are you most committed to changing and improving in 2013?
What is one as yet undeveloped talent you are willing to explore in 2013?
What brings you the most joy and how are you going to do or have more of that in 2013?
Who or what, other than yourself, are you most committed to loving and serving in 2013?
What one word would you like to have as your theme in 2013?

Eraserhead Press is happy to announce the addition of Bradley Sands to our editing team! He will be editing books for the Eraserhead Press main line as well as the New Bizarro Author Series. Bradley comes to EHP with plenty of experience in the genre, as well as extensive writing and teaching credentials. He’s a well-known name in Bizarro Fiction, authoring such books as, Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You, Please Do Not Shoot Me in the Face, and Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy as well as editing the bizarro magazine, Bust Down the Doors and Eat All the Chickens for seven years.

We asked Bradley some questions about bizarro, and what makes him right for Eraserhead. Here’s what he had to say:

1. What makes you the perfect person for this job?

I’ve been involved in the bizarro fiction community since before the “bizarro” term was coined (I even participated in the conversation when we decided what to call it long ago on livejournal). I’ve read almost every bizarro fiction book that has been published. I’m an experienced and detailed editor.  In the past, I was the head editor of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, which is a literary journal that publishes bizarro fiction. I worked on it for seven years. I’ve also worked on books as a freelance editor. I’m a huge fan of bizarro fiction and I believe my excitement as a reader will serve me well as an editor.

2. What does bizarro mean to you?

The concept of bizarro describes nearly everything I’ve ever written since first grade when I wrote my first story about my teacher’s sentient coffee stains. It describes the kinds of books I was always looking for in high school. Discovering them was like finding buried treasure because it seemed like no one else knew about them. Overall, I associate bizarro with the imagination. Bizarro books are more imaginative than nearly everything else in every medium. There are no limits to where bizarro fiction books can take you.

3. What are your top five favorite bizarro books right now?

Broken Piano for President

Sea of Patchwork Cats

The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island

Zerostrata

Help! A Bear is Eating Me!

Welcome, Bradley Sands!

Kill Ball by Carlton Mellick III

In a city where all humans live inside of plastic bubbles, exotic dancers are being murdered in the rubbery streets by a mysterious stalker known only as Kill Ball.

Die You Doughnut Bastards by Cameron Pierce

“Like William S. Burroughs on crack!” – Thomas F. Monteleone, New York Times bestselling author

The bacon storm is rolling in. We hear the grease and sugar beat against the roof and windows. The doughnut people are attacking. We press close together, forgetting for a moment that we hate each other.

In Die You Doughnut Bastards, amputees, lonely young people, and talking animals struggle for survival against the freakish whims of nature. A typewriter made of fetuses is the source of woe for an expecting couple. Tao Lin rewrites The Human Centipede 2. A girl with a glass jaw hides an otherworldly secret. A demonic loner goes to a birthday party in Hell. You’ll encounter a killer in a marsupial mask, a prison for anorexics, haunted pancakes, and a songwriter with a cult following.

Surreal prose poems give way to personal accounts of alienation and modern love. Vegetarian narwhals are sold at the supermarket. And in a city that might be your own, zombie doughnuts are rising up. Kill yourself before they kill you. Or just kill yourself.

Featuring original illustrations in the style of Daniel Johnston, Die You Doughnut Bastards is the latest way to drown, brought to you by Wonderland Book Award-winning author Cameron Pierce.

Unicorn Battle Squad by Kirsten Alene

“Somewhere between Kafka and My Little Pony, only even weirder than that sounds.” – Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day”

Imagine Terry Gilliam directing from a script written by Jack Vance channeling the ghosts of Kafka and Calvino, and you’re closing in on the essence of Alene’s latest novel. A bold fusion of grounded surrealism, unfettered filth, and wit as dry and dark as a strip of unicorn jerky.” – Jesse Bullington, author of The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart

Mutant unicorns. A palace with a thousand human legs. The most powerful army on the planet. A first world city on the verge of collapse.

In a city where teetering skyscrapers block out the sky, a city populated by lowly clerks, rumors have been circulating of a terror in the east. When Carl, the lowliest clerk on the negative twelfth floor, discovers that the city is indeed in grave danger, he sets out to warn the city’s protectors: the Unicorn Riders.

Although Carl’s missing father has left him a unicorn of his own, it is a small and sickly creature. Even worse, there is a crab claw growing from its side. But the Unicorn Riders need as much help as they can get, and soon every able rider sets out for the city’s flooded perimeter in a steam-powered Spanish galleon.

An epic journey that spans desert and sea, through the bedchambers of a fearsome Eastern queen, and into the devastation of a conquered city, Unicorn Battle Squad is the story of a boy and his unicorn at the end of the world.

Eraserhead Press is a supporter of DIY. Here’s a brilliant way to make stickers for FREE:

Don’t have a laser-jet printer? Schools do. So do some libraries.

Nothing to make into a sticker? Here’s our logo:

Have fun!

Today marks the one year anniversary of Troy Chambers working at Eraserhead Press! We are grateful to have Troy as part of our team. We may call him our “office bitch” but in one year’s time he has made some very significant contributions to the company including overhauling our website BizarroCentral and bringing us into the digital age by heading up the creation of our line of ebooks including Kindle, Nook, and ePub versions of many of our titles.

Troy is also a fantastic copy editor, cake decorator, artist, and resident Necromancer. He practices Vodou, mummifies animals and talks to demons in his spare time. He is an absolute joy to have around the office and is constantly entertaining us with his crazy stories.

And recently, Eraserhead Press published Troy’s first novella through our New Bizarro Author Series that is like The Little Mermaid meets Hellraiser. It is titled Seven Seagulls for a Single Nipple.

To learn more about Troy and his work you can follow him on Facebook .

Thank you for everything Troy! I look forward to year 2.

Love,
Rose

Here’s a video where Rose (from the movie “Rose: A Bizarro Zombie Musical“) interviews four bizarros from Eraserhead Press including myself (Rose O’Keefe), Jeff Burk, Cameron Pierce and Carlton Mellick III to see what we’re up to during the zombie apocalypse. It’s like Space Ghost Coast to Coast meets Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

This will be the first official bizarro fiction movie to be made, but we can only make it happen with your help!

Please donate to the ROSE kickstarter campaign, a film written and directed by Eraserhead Press author and editor, John Skipp.

In these remaining 42 hours, every dollar counts! We will only get the money if the goal is met.

It is currently at 97%. So close!  Then the bizarro zombie musical magic can happen for real! So help a filmmaker out!

Go here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1676362079/john-skipps-rose-the-bizarro-zombie-musical

It gives me immense pleasure to introduce the newest member of the Eraserhead Press Team, John Skipp.

Writer/editor/longtime literary troublemaker John Skipp helped invent splatterpunk, inspire Bizarro, launch modern zombie fiction, and turn on generations of readers to exciting alternative prose.

Skipp is one of the most enthusiastic, infectiously cheerful, vivacious, hard working people you’ll ever meet and he’s been a supporter of Bizarro since before it even existed.

If Bizarro is the literary equivalent of the “Cult” section in a really cool video store, then Skipp’s new Eraserhead imprint, Fungasm Press is the equivalent of the Coen Bros., Tarantino, Jeunot’s AMELIE, Michel Gondry’s THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, Alex Cox’s REPO MAN, or the David Lynch of TWIN PEAKS.

Where most Bizarro takes place in an entirely Bizarro world – Pancake Island, for example – Fungasm Press grounds its weirdest ideas in contemporary realities, meeting at the freaky juncture where genre and mainstream collide with indescribable strangeness.

Fungasm will feature “short, intensely alive books with all the boring shit left out,” Skipp says. “With giddy momentum and a shameless desire to both provoke and entertain, they’re fun-to-read modern stories about sad, beautiful, horrifying things.

“Our first title – Laura Lee Bahr’s debut, HAUNT – is kind of like HOUSE OF LEAVES, only fun (laughs), or a slightly less high-toned McSweeney’s. It’s a stunning puzzle box, a delicious soul-scrambler, and the perfect book to kick off the imprint.”

In addition to publishing 2-3 Fungasm titles a year, Skipp will also serve as an Acquiring Editor and Cunning Elder Strategist for both Eraserhead Press and Deadite Press. And with his feature film ROSE: THE BIZARRO ZOMBIE MUSICAL, he’s taking Bizarro to new multi-media heights.

Below is a short interview I conducted with John Skipp.

Why are you the perfect person for the job?

I absolutely love editing, and creating a showcase for writers that knock me out. My tastes are promiscuous as fuck itself, and I really love work that doesn’t fall into easy categorical constraints. Finding ways to market strangeness is one of Bizarro’s great strengths, so I feel like I’m in precisely the right place here.

What does Bizarro mean to you?

Great joy, immense provocation, and incredible opportunity.

What were your first few days working with Eraserhead Press like?

My first few days were as a writer, when Eraserhead gave THE EMERALD BURRITO OF OZ its fantastic new edition. Working closely with Carlton and the team on the cover design and sales copy, I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm, dedication, and most importantly, the freedom to say FUCK on your covers (laughs). You guys work the way I like to work: with honesty, whole-hearted devotion, and near-constant hilarity.

What are your five favorite Bizarro books right now?

Aside from HAUNT and THE EMERALD BURRITO OF OZ? In alphabetical order, as of this moment:

APESHIT by Carlton Mellick III

THE FAGGIEST VAMPIRE by Carlton Mellick III

THE MENSTRUATING MALL by Carlton Mellick III

PERFECT UNION by Cody Goodfellow

SILENT WEAPONS FOR QUIET WARS by Cody Goodfellow

That said, I’m really loving THE CANNIBAL’S GUIDE TO ETHICAL LIVING by Mykle Hansen right now. And could name easily a dozen more writers I’m really excited about.

For more information about Skipp and his thoughts on Bizarro Fiction, check out the following video interviews:

In a city ridden with prostitute furries, cannibal cops and warehouse-sized mob bosses, I’ve got my work cut out for me. My name is Jimmy Plush. I’m a private detective. I’m also a teddy bear.

It all started when the original Jimmy Plush entered my life, offering to take my gambling debts away if I agreed to switch bodies with him. But I didn’t know that being a three-foot-high plush toy would be such a living hell, especially now that everyone in town wants a piece of me. All I’ve gotten out of this deal is a faithful Chinese chauffeur, a custom teddybear .45, and a girlfriend who won’t take off the fox suit she turns tricks in.

Now I’ve got to keep this town clean and try to track down the real Jimmy Plush without losing my stuffing for good. Only one thing is for sure: Life is hard when you’re soft.

Jimmy Plush, Teddy Bear Detective is a high octane pulp satire. In the tradition of Sam Spade, The Shadow, Dick Tracy, Hellboy and Howard the Duck comes a new kind of hero, a hero that reminds us that the measure of a man is in his guts and his gun.

Now available at amazon.com

Please join me in welcoming the newest member of the Eraserhead Press Team, Kevin Shamel.

We knew Kevin Shamel would fit in perfectly with our full-time team because he’s been volunteering his time with us during special events over the past year and a half. He’s attended local conventions with our crew and helped us sell books, he’s assisted us at the last two BizarroCons and has been a part of the New Bizarro Author Series. So, Kevin Shamel is already a part of our bizarro family.  Last fall he signed a five book contract with Eraserhead Press, after the success of his New Bizarro Author Series book, Rotten Little Animals (which is now also available in German). His next book, Island of the Super People, will be released later this month, which is extra exciting because this is the book he wrote during Bizarro Boot Camp.

After having so many unique experience with Kevin already, he’s like a brother to us and we are thrilled to have him by our sides. I am certain that everyone who already knows Kevin will be excited for the happy news and I am delighted to introduce him to those of you who haven’t met this charming, smart, fun, enthusiastic dude.

Kevin’s job duties will be:

Super General Commander at Large—Leader of the Bizarro Brigade, an army of fans

Editor—New Bizarro Author Series

Agent of Intra-Office Affairs– Assisting With Secret Plans, Psychic Messages, Mischief, and Merrymaking

Here’s a short interview I did with Kevin where he shares more about his intentions:

What makes you the perfect person for this job?

It seems to me that I’ve been working toward this job for years. It’s my dream job. Every single duty and project that I’m working on at Eraserhead Press is exactly what I should be doing with my life. My jobs here were tailor-fit for me. And EHP is my family.

I’m going to be heading up the Bizarro Brigade, a full-on force of bizarro fans. It’s a finely-tuned international, mobilized battalion, ready to spread the word of bizarro to the world. I’m pretty sure I’m the right person to build and lead that army. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to assemble this force. I finally get to put my years at military school to good use. I’m also joining Kevin Donihe as another editor for the New Bizarro Author Series. I’m proud to have that job. It’s perfect for me because I went through that process. I know exactly what it’s like to BE a New Bizarro Author. I’ve come out the other side with experience that I’m certain will be put to good use in helping aspiring writers find their place in the bizarro community. The word, fulfilling, comes to mind. I can’t WAIT to introduce the world to the talents of new authors, and to show those authors the world that’s waiting.

Perfect.

What does Bizarro mean to you?

Bizarro is my life. It really is. It was my life before I found Eraserhead. I AM bizarro. I’ve always leaned toward the weird things in life. Weird books, movies, situations, and pursuits. I like movies like Night of the Living Dead, Flash Gordon, Evil Dead and Holy Mountain. I was reading sci-fi masters by the time I was eight and then discovered horror. My pursuits are varied—herbs, nature, horror, punk rock, photos of the sky, anti-religiousness, sexuality, mental control, psychic healing, being a dad, writing whatever my imagination spawns, being wild, philosophizing, doing magick, changing consciously and constantly, drinking good beer, ancient history, trying to think of things without adding a state of being to them, cryptozoology, stuff like that. My history is bizarro. If you catch me sometime, I’ll tell you stories about my life that you probably won’t believe. But I don’t have to exaggerate them. I write fiction. The best kind. I spent years taming my stories to fit into mainstream magazines because they were too crazy. Now I’m encouraged to think even beyond what I thought was weird.

Finding this talented, weird and wonderful group of people out there was like coming home. They are so much like me! I met them in a black-painted house owned by an infamous Satanic dentist, where they were performing. I saw Cameron Pierce’s second Meat Magick performance (the vegetarian version). It was amazing. I won a signed can of Porn ‘n’ Beans. Carlton Mellick III and Jeff Burk also performed, and I was simply enthralled. I thought, the bizarros are my people!  Since then I’ve had such fun and amazing adventures with the EHP crew. From Bizarro Bootcamp to a retreat with the crew at their annual Sylvia Beach writing marathon, and all the totally insane conventions in between, I have had the most thrilling, life-advancing, odd, new, and bizarro times I’ve ever had. And they create amazing, interesting, bizarro books for everyone in the world. I believe that bizarro fiction is well on its way to world domination. It’s the most vibrant, alive, entertaining thing out there. It’s exciting.

Two years ago I decided to only read bizarro fiction for one solid year, to see how it affected me. It’s really my favorite form of fiction. I haven’t stopped reading only bizarro. My year came up, I announced it, but couldn’t bring myself to anything else. Actually, June 15^th marks my second year of reading only bizarro fiction. And NOW I read more of it. That’s fine by me. In fact, it’s perfect. I love being so immersed. The bizarro scene is filled with some of the most intelligent, outrageous, interesting, kind, loving, crazy people that I’ve ever met. It’s one big, weird, happy family. Bizarro is life—beautiful, weird, honest, hilarious, celebratory life.

What were your first few days working at Eraserhead Press like?

Fun and amazing. It still really hasn’t hit me completely that I’m actually doing this job. I spent my first days beside Rose, copy-editing and working with Amazon.  There was a party for the entire building on my first day—that was a nice welcome. It’s great to be in the EHP offices. There’s a happy, creative vibe that we all swim in and perpetuate. It’s really one of my favorite places to be in the whole world. Rose and Carlton went over what I’ll be doing for Eraserhead, and I’ve spent the first few days jumping into work. It’s been fabulous.

Also, there aren’t many places where your boss turns to you and asks, “Do you think butt-fur should be hyphenated?”

I knew I was right where I was supposed to be on the very first day. I’m so happy to be here.

What are your five favorite Bizarro books right now?

I’m glad you asked, “right now”. I have some ultimate favorites, but not only do I pride myself on changing my favorites up (in every aspect of life), bizarro fiction also gives me a steady stream of “the best book ever!” to choose from.

At the moment:

APESHIT—by Carlton Mellick III

ANGEL DUST APOCALYPSE—by Jeremy Robert Johnson

STARFISH GIRL—by Athena Villaverde

WARRIOR WOLF WOMEN OF THE WASTELAND—by Carlton Mellick III

THE EGG MAN—by Carlton Mellick III

I know this list is Carlton-heavy. But he is my favorite author of all time. I’d imagine that ZOMBIES AND SHIT would be on there if my kid would have gotten his shit together and finished it so that I could have read it before now. I’m just going to read my roommate’s copy.