Click here for details on AUTHOR TOURS AND NATIONAL EVENTS (Information updated daily.)

Julie Smith, editor of New Orleans Noir, recently appeared on NPR's nationally syndicated Morning Edition program. Listen to the seven-plus minute broadcast here as Julie delves into New Orleans' secrets.

Mike Farrell, author of Just Call Me Mike, just finished an 8,000 mile cross-country driving tour in support of the new paperback edition of his book. Check out his daily travels on his Huffington Post tour blog.

Akashic in the New York Times: Check out this amazing review of Preston L. Allen's All or Nothing in the Sunday Book Review. Here's an excerpt: "Allen takes his place on a continuum that begins, perhaps, with Dostoyevsky's Gambler, courses through Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, William S. Burroughs's Junky, the collected works of Charles Bukowski and Hubert Selby Jr."

Trinidad Noir coeditor Lisa Allen-Agostini defends the diversity of the island's literary culture in this excellent letter to the editor.

And Brooklyn Noir series editor Tim McLoughlin is quoted at length in John Straughbaugh's examination of crime photographer Arthur "Weegee" Fellig in the Times Arts Section.

Akashic wins two 2008 PEN Beyond Margins Awards! Chris Abani (author of Song for Night) and Amiri Baraka (author of Tales of the Out & the Gone) have both been announced as winners of the 2008 PEN Beyond Margins Award, presented to "outstanding books by writers of color published in the United States during the previous year. They will be honored in October at the Beyond Margins Celebration, a lively evening of readings and discussions featuring this year's recipients and very special guests."

Kwame Dawes has just been named a finalist for the 2008 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards for She's Gone in the Debut Fiction category. The winner will be announced in November; until then, check out Gomer's Song, Kwame's recently published and critically acclaimed entry in Chris Abani's Black Goat imprint.

Susan Straight's story in Los Angeles Noir, "The Golden Gopher," has also won a 2008 Edgar Award in the Best Short Story category. The Edgar Awards were presented at the 62nd Gala Banquet, May 1, 2008 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City. Congrats, Susan!

High Life, Matthew Stokoe's classic noir masterpiece, is finally back in print! This revised edition, presented here with a brand-new introduction from Dennis Cooper, has been described by Ken Bruen as "the greatest neglected masterpiece of true noir." The book is available exclusively through Akashic's website until it hits bookstores this summer. Order your copy today!

Four stories from the Akashic Noir Series have been selected for inclusion in the prestigious Best American Mystery Stories 2008 anthology: "At the Top of His Game" by Stephen Rhodes (Wall Street Noir), "Hothouse" by S.J. Rozan (Bronx Noir), "Mulholland Drive" by Michael Connelly (Los Angeles Noir), and "The Hour When the Ship Comes In" by Robert Ferrigno (Los Angeles Noir). This year, George Pelecanos will serve as the editor of the volume.

Additionally, two other stories from Wall Street Noir, "The Enlightenment of Magnus McKay" by John Burdett and "A Trader's Lot" by Twist Phelan, have been selected as finalists in the Best Short Story for the 2008 Derringer Awards.

The Duppy, by Jamaican comic master Anthony C. Winkler, was recently featured on the Today show (NBC) as part of its new "Cover to Cover" segment. Follow this link to watch an excerpt from the program. Just how funny is this social satire? Akashic Books' pledge to our readers: Laugh out loud at least once or your money back. Seriously. According to the New Yorker, "Winkler has a fine ear for patois and dialogue, and a love of language that makes bawdy jokes crackle."

Now available: dark tales of sex, addiction, and violence from the New York to Vegas and back! South by South Bronx, the latest novel from American Book Award winner Abraham Rodriguez, exposes the seedy underside of the borough with haunting prose that has left the New York tabloids wanting more. And check out the latest entries in Akashic's acclaimed Noir Series: Brooklyn Noir 3 edited by Tim McLoughlin--the first true crime entry in the series; Las Vegas Noir, edited by Jarret Keene & Todd James Pierce; and Toronto Noir, edited by Janine Armin & Nathaniel G. Moore.

And Nina Revoyr's latest novel, The Age of Dreaming, has been receiving enormous critical acclaim: Publishers Weekly calls The Age of Dreaming "an enormously satisfying novel," while Library Journal says it's "fast-moving, riveting, unpredictable, and profound; highly recommended." Check out this great interview with Nina from The Elegant Variation and this recent profile on her from the Los Angeles Times.

An exhibition of Pat Graham's photographs is now ongoing at the Needles & Pins Gallery in San Francisco. This retrospective features Graham's iconic prints of the likes of Fugazi, Bikini Kill, and Modest Mouse, taken from his new book, Silent Pictures. Click here for more information. And check out this great interview with Pat, replete with many of his photographs.

Signed books available from Akashic! A limited number of autographed copies of several of our new books are available directly from Akashic. Go to the individual book's web page to order via PayPal: The Swing Voter of Staten Island (signed by Arthur Nersesian), Tales of the Out & the Gone (signed by Amiri Baraka), American Visa (signed by Juan de Recacoechea), Bronx Noir (signed by editor S.J. Rozan), Just Call Me Mike (signed by Mike Farrell) in both hardcover and paperback editions, and three autographed books from Joe Meno--Tender As Hellfire, The Boy Detective Fails, and How the Hula Girl Sings--are all available while supplies last!

Help Tom Hayden End the War in Iraq! Bulk discount rates are available for antiwar organizations and activists: Orders of 20 copies or more receive a discounted rate of only $9.00 each, and serve as the ideal fundraising and organizing tool for political and community groups. Please contact johanna [at] akashicbooks [dot] com for more information or to place an order.

Check out Akashic on MySpace! Please visit our new corner of cyberspace.

The Glenlivet Salutes Akashic Publisher Johnny Temple! Take a look at this full-page profile of Johnny in the winter fiction issue of The New Yorker. And the International Herald Tribune also recently profiled Akashic's ubiquitous publisher.

Click here for ordering information on first edition, out of print, autographed novels, plays, and poems by Arthur Nersesian, (author of The Fuck-Up, Manhattan Loverboy, dogrun, Chinese Takeout, Unlubricated, East Village Tetralogy, and Suicide Casanova.)