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FUTURE TENSE BOOKS

I am here for Friends and Networking

About Me

Future Tense Books is a Portland, Oregon micropress that has existed since 1990. My name is Kevin Sampsell and I'm the editor and publisher. I publish two or three exclusive chapbooks every year along with a full-length book on my series through Manic D Press in San Francisco.
I've published everyone from Lyn Lifshin, Susannah Breslin, and Richard Meltzer to Zoe Trope, Sarah Grace McCandless, Mike Topp, and Elizabeth Ellen. Our newest books are Myriam Gurba's Dahlia Season, (published with Manic D Press), Gary Lutz's Partial List of People to Bleach, and Double Header (a flipbook with two stories) by Oregon author Suzanne Burns.
I live with my thirteen year old son in an upstairs apartment in Northeast Portland. I've been working at Powell's City of Books since 1997, where I coordinate events and run the small press and zine sections. I've also written a few books myself. And I write about books for Associated Press and other publications.
My collection of stories, Beautiful Blemish was published by Word Riot Press in 2005. I also edited The Insomniac Reader that same year (Manic D Press) and I guest-edited issue 4.3 of Spork Magazine in 2006.

My brand new book is my longest collection of fiction yet, entitled Creamy Bullets (Chiasmus Press). It is personally recommended by fine writers such as Sam Lipsyte, Jami Attenberg, and Davy Rothbart. I'm also working on an expanded book of non-fiction that will include all the flash memoir stories from A Common Pornography, a book that went out of print much too quickly. In 2009, Akashic Books will publish Portland Noir, an anthology that I'll be editing for the next few months.

The image on this profile is by Ivan Brunetti, from my chapbook, Etiquette For Evil (published by Kapow! a few years ago).
If you want to email me the old fashioned way: [email protected]
Myspace Editor
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My Interests

Books and writing, music, sports, coffee, food, comedy, old people, young people, slow movies about people, surprises!

I'd like to meet:

Christian Bale, Leann Rimes

Music:

Mates of State, Pixies, Regina Spektor, Yo La Tengo, Prince, Solex, Beastie Boys, Menomena, Kings of Leon, Holy Sons, Vic Chestnutt, Beat Happening, The Kingdom, Belle and Sebastian, Dressy Bessy, Bob Wills, Nation of Ulysses, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Robyn Hitchcock, Arcade Fire, Old Time Relijun, Queen, Uncle Tupelo, Whale, Fiery Furnaces, Dolorean, Joggers, Rainer Maria, Feist, Hefner, Peabo Bryson, The Smugglers, Caribou, The f'in Wedding Present, Reclinerland, The Go-Betweens, Public Enemy, Gang of Four, Weakerthans, Lionel Richie, Guided by Voices, Home, Black Flag, Spoon, Pavement, LCD Soundsystem, Heavenly States, The Fall, Grandmaster Melle Mell (lots of old school hip hop), The Standard, The Cars, The Hold Steady, New Edition, both Elvises, and endless others...

Movies:

Blue Velvet, Capturing the Friedmans, All the Real Girls, Children of Men, the Monty Python movies, No Country For Old Men, Ghostworld, Badlands, Faces of Death, Exotica, Karate Kid, The Iron Giant, Squid and the Whale, Highway 69, Juno, Last American Virgin, Leolo, Keane, Your Friends and Neighbors, The Brown Bunny, Stand By Me, Harold and Maude, some Woody Allen stuff, any movie with a sasquatch...

Television:

MILF Island

Books:

Too many to mention, but...Stories in the Worst Way by Gary Lutz is my all-time favorite. Runners up: A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, Homeland by Sam Lipsyte, Cruddy by Lynda Barry, Larry Brown, Gordon Lish, Kevin Keck, Mike Daily, Harry Crews, Dave Eggers, Ben Marcus, William Gay, Lewis Nordan, Barry Hannah, Derek McCormack, Kevin Canty, Beth Lisick, Mary Gaitskill, Mark Leyner, Dan Clowes, Mark Jude Poirier, James Tate, Michelle Tea, Monica Drake, George Saunders, Diane Williams, Jami Attenberg, Jonathan Ames...oh, so many... Visit my Goodreads page for a peek: ..

Heroes:

AKA Inspirations: Steven Jesse Bernstein, Devo, David Lynch...

My Blog

5/24/08: Licking Kitties

Woke up this morning with a big orange cat licking my face. Went down to where all the Pilcrow stuff was happening and went to various panels throughout the afternoon, including one about blogging an...
Posted by FUTURE TENSE BOOKS on Sun, 25 May 2008 09:03:00 PST

5/24/2008: Chicken Rings

I had my first White Castle experience today. As Elizabeth and Aaron and I drove through Indiana headed to Chicago (yeah, I didn't know you had to drive through Indiana either), we stopped for an afte...
Posted by FUTURE TENSE BOOKS on Sat, 24 May 2008 12:08:00 PST

5/23/2008: Rockin’ the Shaman!

Tonight I had to compete against a couple of things--Kanye West, the Detroit Pistons game, and...James Frey reading across the street from me! Whaaaaat? Oh well, at least I wasn't here on Tuesday nigh...
Posted by FUTURE TENSE BOOKS on Fri, 23 May 2008 10:51:00 PST

5/22/2008: Into the Michigan

The clock here in the kitchen says 3:00am which means that it's more like midnight to me. That's because I'm in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In the home of Elizabeth Ellen and Aaron Burch to be exact. I wonde...
Posted by FUTURE TENSE BOOKS on Thu, 22 May 2008 12:42:00 PST

5/1/2008: Creamy...Haiku...Season

Haiku fans! For those of you craving the return of Haiku Inferno, you can catch us at the Crown Room this Saturday night as part of the Comedy, Darling show, hosted by the awesome and funny Mary Van N...
Posted by FUTURE TENSE BOOKS on Fri, 02 May 2008 09:01:00 PST

4/11/2008: Bad Magic

Hi Friends,My new book, Creamy Bullets, is debuting this Wednesday night at the Someday Lounge at 9pm! Please come by and let me read you a story. I'll be joined by the wonderful Suzanne Burns, author...
Posted by FUTURE TENSE BOOKS on Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:18:00 PST

3/18/2008: Smallpressapalooza!

Hello dear friends,This Thursday from 5pm to 10pm at Powell’s I’ll be hosting a huge small press celebration called Smallpressapalooza.I handpicked all the readers so you know it’s g...
Posted by FUTURE TENSE BOOKS on Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:22:00 PST

2/3/2008: This Week To-Do

A couple of quick notes for the week...If you're in San Francisco, go see Myriam Gurba, the author of Dahlia Season, at Michelle Tea's Radar Reading Salon on Tuesday night. Go go go! And give that gir...
Posted by FUTURE TENSE BOOKS on Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:44:00 PST

1/26/2008: Double Header

It's a new year and there's a new book to celebrate too!I'm very excited to unleash the first book of fiction by Suzanne Burns, entitled Double Header. DH is a two-sided "flip book" with two amazing s...
Posted by FUTURE TENSE BOOKS on Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:10:00 PST

12/8/2007: Rounding Up

Hello friends!When was the last time you saw two movies in one night? Before I get to the book news I want to tell you that I did the ol' double movie action last Thursday night and saw two amazing mo...
Posted by FUTURE TENSE BOOKS on Sun, 09 Dec 2007 05:56:00 PST