Roll up, roll up — it’s very nearly here! So It Goes: A Tribute to Kurt Vonnegut is available for pre-order now. What’s it all about?

Kurt Vonnegut was a man who pushed his imagination off a cliff and followed it for the whole drop; a man who was able to write the most cynical material, yet make you die of laughter at the same time. We have been enjoying his brilliance for over 50 years now, and it’s time we showed how he’s affected us.

The website for the anthology is live, too. There you’ll find the pre-order link, the table of contents, a list of the authors and their other publications, and essays from the contributors about Vonnegut’s influence on their lives. They’ll be rolled out over the coming days.

Best of all there are going to be contests to give you the chance to win a copy of the book. Here’s the first one:

If you are a fan of Kurt Vonnegut, then you already know who Kilgore Trout is. To those without a clue, Kilgore Trout was a character frequently used in Vonnegut’s works; a fictional science fiction author who basically served as Vonnegut’s alter ego, much in the same way as Chinaski was Bukowski, only with that trademark Kurt creativity. Throughout the years, Vonnegut mentioned many, many books that Trout was the author of. Scroll below for a complete list.

But first, the contest:

We are giving away three copies of the So it Goes tribute anthology (one hard copy, two digital) to whoever can come up with the best (or worse) Kilgore Trout novel excerpt [credit goes to Joseph McKinley for the contest idea].

You must mention the title of the work in question, and the fictional chapter/page number. Extra kudos if you title the chapter, too. This can be anywhere from 100 to 2,000 words long. Submit to pmmpublishing at gmail.com with the subject line reading TROUT EXCERPT_LAST NAME.

You must have your entry in by March 25th.

Editor Max Booth III encouraged us all to doodle our author photos á la Vonnegut’s; here’s mine.