Flatmancrooked’s blogs will return on January 4th, 2010 with brand new content from the authors at Big Other. We anticipate that this partnership will bring a more fruitful crop of articles to Flatmancrooked.com. We’re excited, so you should get excited, too.

We made our official announcement about the Zero Emission Book Project on Tuesday over at Word Hustler. Then, this morning, The Nervous Breakdown put our first commercial in the TNB TV section. It’s right there on the front page! Also, J. A. Tyler over at Big Other interviewed James Kaelan about the ZEB Project, and a bunch of other wheelings and dealings. There’s a bunch more press forthcoming, and we’ll keep y’all abreast of it.

After five long months of suspense and careful deliberation, Flatmancrooked is proud to announce the winners of the Flatmancrooked Prize For Excellent Writing Done During a Period of Great Fiscal Renewal. Our esteemed judge, Aimee Bender, hand picked the top three stories. The order is as follows:

Grand Prize:

“Un-Love Letters” by Kevin Walsh

Runner-Up:

“Cleave” by J. David Stevens

Second Runner-Up:

“Boundaries” by N.A. Jong

All three stories, in addition to the subsequent eight top contest entries, will appear in Flatmancrooked’s third print anthology. And for the next two weeks, the second and third runners-up will be featured on the website. We’d like to express our sincerest gratitude to everyone who entered; the contest was a tremendous success, and we’ve discovered some great literature because of it. We look forward to sharing it with you.

Never has the Flatmancrooked editorial staff been so overwhelmed with amazing work. Selecting the top ten entries was insanely difficult, but the judging is out of our hands, now: we’ve sent the final stories to Aimee Bender for judging. Aimee will read the stories. In mid-October we will announce who she’s selected as the recipient of the Flatmancrooked Prize (for Excellent Writing Done During a Period of Great Fiscal Renewal), as well as the 1st and 2nd runners-up. All ten of these authors will be featured in the next print anthology, due out in early November. Here’s the list in alphabetical order:

Sean Adams

John Christy

Daniel Grandbois

N.A. Jong

Charlene Kwon

Sara Levine

Josh Peterson

J. David Stevens

Kevin Walsh

Joel Willans

Flatmancrooked is pleased to present the top fifteen authors from the Flatmancrooked Prize For Excellent Writing Done During a Period of Great Fiscal Renewal. The contest opened on May 15th and closed on August 15th and was a tremendous success! The following fifteen names represent the editors’ picks, and all of their stories will be featured on the website over the next year. Next week, we’ll announce the top ten that we’ve sent to the inimitable Aimee Bender for judging. She will announce the winner (and recipient of 1,000, real, American dollars) on October 15th. We want to extend our gratitude and appreciation to everyone who entered; the pool of talent was remarkable, the decision-making difficult. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements on forthcoming Flatmancrooked writing contests. We’ve got a great one brewing.

And now, without further ado, our top fifteen, in alphabetical order:

Sean Adams

Liz Anderson

John Christy

Benjamin Henry DeVries

Daniel Grandbois

John Jodzio

N.A. Jong

Charlene Kwon

Sara Levine

Valerie O’Riordan

Josh Peterson

Tom Stacey

J. David Stevens

Kevin Walsh

Joel Willans

This morning, half the copies of Fly-Over State arrived at Emma Straub’s house. Just look at that darling book! She’s signing and hand-numbering all of them. Then she’ll send them to us, and we’ll send them out to shareholders. If you haven’t helped LAUNCH Emma, you have, like two weeks left. There are only 16 shares remaining of the original 200, so get on it!

A week ago we shot a commercial for Emma Straub’s book, Fly-Over State. Today we release it. Miles Kittredge both filmed and edited this little gem. We had a blast making it, and we hope you all have a blast watching it. Should it compel you to invest in Emma Straub’s career, go LAUNCH her!

On Sunday, the Flatmancrooked crew, with help from the cinematographer and editor, Miles Kittredge, shot a little commercial endorsing the “launch” of Emma Straub. We’ll release the film next week, but in order to get you all excited, we’ve leaked the following pictures. Enjoy and disseminate. And if you haven’t invested in Emma’s career, check out her LAUNCH page.