Neddal Ayad, Interviewer of Doom: Jeff VanderMeer is the award-winning author of the novel VENISS UNDERGROUND and the short story collection CITY OF SAINTS AND MADMEN. He runs Ministry of Whimsy Press, a division of Nightshade Books, which has published such authors as Jeffrey Thomas and Steve Tomasula, as well as the LEVIATHAN and ALBUM ZUTIQUE series of anthologies. When I caught up with Mr. VanderMeer back in early January, I was down with the flu and Jeff was hard at work on his new novel SHRIEK: AN AFTERWORD. What follows is a quick Q & A about the anthology ALBUM ZUTIQUE # 1 (reviewed last issue).

DEAD ANGEL TALKS ABOUT THE UNDERGROUND WITH JEFF VANDERMEER:

DA: What was the genesis of the ALBUM ZUTIQUE anthology? Was it something you'd been thinking about for a while? Did it come to you out of the blue?

JV: It's based on the Libraries of Thought and Imagination, which I contributed to. I loved the format. Then I read about the Album Zutique created by the Decadents -- a kind of open journal at a cafe that everyone could contribute to -- and the idea too off.

DA: How did you define Surrealism and Decadence?

JV: Work that uses surrealism and / or decadence as a springboard to somewhere new. Or work that simply renovates some surrealist or decadent approach.

DA: How did you approach rounding up submissions?

JV: I only had one spare month to create a new project, so I emailed everyone I thought might have some surreal or decadent fiction on hand. It wasn't very scientific, my process.

DA: How has ALBUM ZUTIQUE # 1 been received?

JV: Bookmunch and The Washington Post both hated it. Locus liked it very much. Booklist liked it, too. Really, it's not the kind of project I anticipated being a critic's darling. Just look at the history of the Decadents' Yellow Book and you can kind of tell that if you're pleasing everyone, you're not really pushing any boundaries.

DA: What do future volumes have in store?

JV: All future ALBUM ZUTIQUEs will come out as regular Ministry hardcovers for now. The ALBUM ZUTIQUE idea will be revisited in a year or two. It doesn't fit the publisher's normal business model, so we need to rethink it a bit. It did fine in terms of sales, but the cost of producing it is higher.