Paper Darts gets a spine

Here’s a recommendation: do not consider John Jodzio’s forthcoming book bedtime reading – for your children or for yourself.

A Minneapolis son, Jodzio’s new collection of short stories, Get In If You Want to Live, looks at sex-pot bears, chili-loving hookers and what it means to pass a kidney stone that resembles a shark’s tooth.

It is, in other words, not exactly what you’d consider light reading.

But it is probably pretty good.

Jodzio claimed a Loft-McKnight Fellowship in 2009, has been published in Rake Magazine,McSweeney's and Opium and is the author of 2010’s If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home(if none of this impresses you, consider this sample he sent us for March’s issue).

The writing isn’t the only reason to pick up the book, either.

The 19-story collection is illustrated by a host of local artists such as Jennifer Davis, Andres Guzman and Sandra Diekmann, whose Tumblr blog is a welcome interruption to any dull afternoon. 

Jodzio’s book also marks the beginning of a new era at local publishing house Paper Darts, which has concentrated on a publish-it-when-we-want magazine featuring a similarly eclectic collections of literature and art but is making its first foray into larger spines. 

It is, they say, a pioneering combination of do-it-yourself and do-it-together publishing.   

If we’ve done our job, we’ve whet your appetite. But here’s the fine print: the book doesn’t come out until Oct. 15. The only thing you can do now is go to Paper Darts website and pre-order a copy.

Well, that and mark your calendar for a release party that will be held the same day at Honey, 205 East Hennepin Ave. The releasing begins at 7 p.m.

The reading, though, you may want to begin the next morning.