Debra Di Blasi

"In clear, resonant prose, laced with bittersweet humor, Di Blasi imparts her understanding of love's multiple ironies." -The New York Times Book Review

"Di Blasi has a mind unlike anyone else writing fiction today, and this [The Jiri Chronicles] is her finest work yet." –Kevin Prufer, editor, Pleiades

"Beware, reader, you're in for a sumptuous, hypertextual, hypercharged ride. Hyperion himself would smile." –David Hamilton, Editor, The Iowa Review

"Both Di Blasi's style and her objective distance and comprehension of her chosen subject mark her as a very psychologically driven, very talented writer." –Publishers Weekly

“With The Jirí Chronicles one gets the sense that Di Blasi saw the divide between what she wanted to do and what she’d achieved and said something like the hell with it, taking a torch to old ways of writing stories, and the result is by far the most interesting thing she’s done…. It’s a huge step for Di Blasi, and a welcome one.” –Tim Feeney, Review of Contemporary Fiction

NEW FROM JADED IBIS PRESS!
"Critical and amusing, important and engaging." –American Book Review

Davis Schneiderman and Don Meyer
Memorials to Future Catastrophes

Davis Schneiderman's and Don Meyer's extraordinary CD is the first phase of a multimedia collaboration that suggests catastrophes in a world increasingly cordoned off by the representative fears of terrorism, bio-disease outbreaks, and natural disasters.

NEWEST NEWS
Debra's innovative fiction appears in the new anthology, Forms at War: FC2 1999-2009, edited by R. M. Berry.

More of Debra's innovative fiction appears in another recently released anthology, Notre Dame Review: The First Ten Years, edited by John Matthias and William O'Rourke.

Interviewed by David Hoenigman for Word Riot.

Debra Di Blasi is the author of The Jiri Chronicles & Other Fictions (FC2/University of Alabama Press), Drought & Say What You Like (New Directions), winner of the 1998 Thorpe Menn Book Award, What the Body Requires (Jaded Ibis Press) and Prayers of an Accidental Nature (Coffee House Press), praised by The New York Times Book Review. Among her many awards are the James C. McCormick Fellowship in Fiction (sponsored by the Christopher Isherwood Foundation), Thorpe Menn Book Award, Eyster Prize in Fiction, Cinovation Screenwriting Award, Web del Sol's Best Web Fiction, Big Ugly Fiction's flash fiction award, and three Pushcart Prize nominations. Her writing has been adapted to film, radio, audio, and theatre in the US and abroad. She is president of Jaded Ibis Productions, a transmedia corporation™, and founder-producer of the vodcast channel, BLEED. Get your collectible ironic consumer products at the Jaded Ibis Productions STORE.

UPCOMING APPEARANCES:
November 12, 2008: San Diego, CA – Wreckage of Reason Reading at
University of California at San Diego.

November 13-16,2009: Charlotte, NC – Panelist and Presenter at Society for Literature, Science & the Arts Conference.
February 5, 2009: Buffalo, NY – Visiting Writer in The Write Thing Reading Series at Medaille College.
March 27, 2009: Overland Park, KS – Visiting Writer at Avila University.
June 12, 2009: Kansas City, MO – Panelist at Mark Twain Writers Conference University of Missouri at Kansas City.

APPEARANCES ARCHIVE
September 15, 2006: KGB Bar, New York, NY
October 25: Stephens College, Columbia, MO
October 28, 2006: Reading at Kansas City Voices Reception, Johnson County Library, Overland Park, KS
November 8, 2006: Visiting Writer at Kansas City Art Institute
February - April, 2007: Visiting Writer at Independence Academy, Independence, MO
March 12, 2007: Reading at Moe's Books, Berkeley, CA.
March 16, 2007: Reading at T.M.I., San Diego.
March 15, 2007: Reading at Beyond Baroque, with Vanessa Place and Sissy Boyd, Los Angeles, CA.
March 29: Reading at Lake Forest College, Illinois.
February - April, 2007: Visiting Writer at Independence Academy, Independence, MO
April 4-5: Multimedia fiction reading and Critical Presentation at "Shake Your TABOOty: A Conference of Critical and Creative Texts”, Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri.
April 28: Writing Workshop at "Write Now!" Writing Conference, Park University, Parkville, Missouri.
May 3, 2007: Visiting Writer at PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools Project, Kansas City, KS
May 12: Book Publishing Party, hosted by Anne Austin Pearce. By invitation only.
June 8, 2007: Reading at "KGB Lit Bar" East Village, New York, NY
September 14-15,2008: Omaha, NE
Omaha Lit Fest.
October 19, 2007: Kansas City, MO – Visiting Writer at Avila College.
December 2007: Kansas City, MO – Exhibition at Unit 5 Gallery.
Jan 30-Feb 2,2008: New York, NY – Associated Writing Programs Annual Conference., NYC. Two Panel Discussions: "1000 Words: Picturing Fictions" with Rikki Ducornet, Vanessa Place, Steve Tomasula; and fiction reading, "Kitsch and Pop Culture as Social Critique" with Alexandra Chasin, E.C. Bachner, Lyn Halper, Megan Milks.
April 4-5, 2008: Kirksville, MO – Keynote Speaker/Visiting Writer at Truman State University.
April 10, 2008: Sacramento, CA – Visiting Writer at Sacramento State University.
April 15-18, 2008:Orange, California – &NOW Festival of Innovative Writing & Art. Three Panels: 1. "Science In/And Literature" with Jennifer Calkins, Andrea Fitzpatrick, and Vanessa Place; 2. FC2 Flash Fiction Reading; 3. "Going Commando!" (Pop Culture in Literature) with Alexandra Chasin, Lily Hoang, Aimee Parkison, Megan Milks. Chapman University, Orange, CA
May 17, 2008: New Letters Reading at Kansas City Literary Festival.
June 27-29, 2008: New Letters Weekend Writers Conference - The Mark Twain Writers Workshop.
September 2008: Cape Town, South Africa.
October 3, 2008: The Wreckage of Reason Tour - Reading at KGB Lit Bar, New York. Wreckage of Reason: XXperimental Women in the 21st Century anthology.New York, NY

IMPORTANT SEMI-AMUSING NOTE: I have NEVER, NOT EVER taken a Scientology course, though a web search of my name indicates I have.

Debra Di Blasi was born Debra Pickens in Kirksville, Missouri, and was raised on a cattle farm in Unionville, Missouri.




NEWS:


Interview with Jeff Hansen at Experimenal Writing/Exploratory Music

Debra's mixed media story, Quell the Mayhem Night, won the Diagram's innovative fiction award and will be published with the seven other finalists in a forthcoming issue. Kelly Link, author of Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners, was this year's judge. The annual prize awards $1000 to the winner, and Diagram apparel to finalists. Next year's judge is Brian Evenson.

Debra's mixed media fiction, "Sprung Up in the Years Since," appears in the anthology, Wreckage of Reason: XXperimental Women Writers Writing in the 21st Century.

New mixed media fiction, "It's Okay To Stare," appears in the resurrected Exquisite Corpse.

Excerpt from Drought appears in a new anthology of poetry about rape: The Why and Later, edited by Carly Sachs (Deep Cleveland Press).

Debra interviewed by Dr. Kent Gustavson on Sound Authors.

Debra Di Blasi received an Inspiration Grant from The Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City. The $900 grant will help pay for expenses to attend the &NOW Festival of Innovative Writing & Art.

An essay about fairy tales by the real Jirí Cêch appears in Brothers and Beasts: An Anthology of Men on Fairy Tales.

LISTEN to Laura Spencer of NPR discussing the exhibition "Beasts," with comments by artists, including Debra Di Blasi.


October 2, 2006 review of Drought & Say What You Like now at Ron Silliman's Blog.


Common misspellings & mispronunciations of my name:
Debra Diblasi
Debra DiBlasi
Debra Di Biasi
Debra Di Bossy
Debra Di Blase
Debra Di Blonski
Debra Blasi

Books, Visual Art, Video, Music, Multimedia and Blogs
1. Books by Debra
What the Body Requires
Erotic thriller (Kindle version) What the Body Requires was one of four finalist in the Heekin Foundation Novel-in-Progress Award.
Drought & Say What You Like
Award-winning novellas
1.b. BLEED
BLEED Channel
Vodcasts interviews with innovative writers and artists.
1.a. The Blog
Gertrude's Basket
Debra anatomizes the avant-garde
3. Interviews
Interviewed by Dr. Kent.
Interview on Sound Authors, hosted by Dr. Kent Gustavson - December 7, 2007
Interviewed by Steve Paul of The Kansas City Star.
Talks about The Jiri Chronicles & Other Fictions.
Madhatters Review
Madhatters' Review; interviewed by Marc Lowe
Interview with Debra Di Blasi.
Influences, experimental writing, publishing, at writester.net.
2. Fiction online
Personal Effects
In Mad Hatters' Review, with audio excerpt
"What the Crow Delivers"
featured in sleepingfish.net.
"Seed"
Winner in Big Ugly Review.
"Machine Ghosts"
finalist in Drunken Boat's Panliterary Awards
"King of the Jungle and Rock & Roll"
Short-short story at zygoteinmycoffee.
Bridge: A Story for the Season
Winter season story commissioned by The Kansas City Star
6. Nonfiction online
CONCEPTUAL WRITING
Definition and examples of conceptual writing by preeminant U.S. writers
Gass Pain
A humorous and informative analysis of William H. Gass's novel, "The Tunnel".
Music & Audio
Download music.
CDs and DVDs of music, interviews and weirdness by Jirí Cêch, Ümlaut, et al. Also get a list of sites from which you can download music.
Poetry
"Petroleum / God"
"Petroleum / God" in The Melic Review
"Ways A Father Dies"
Prose poem published in The Melic Review.
Visual Art
Paintings & Drawings
Paintings and drawings from the series, "muons, gluons, pions & strings: Homage to edward Witten."
Translation
A multi-media installation
4. Screenplays
DROUGHT
Watch a clip of the award-winning film.
5. Art criticism
Art Columns
Link to all art reviews by Debra Di Blasi
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