Black Clock open to web subs
Black Clock has always been abysmally slow in their return of reading: last week I got a response from them for stuff I’d sent over a year before, and had since retracted, though this was better than the two other times I submitted, in which I received no response at all.
Hopefully that will take a swing for the better now that they’ve switched their submission policy over to include electronic subs via their website, though we’ll see.
Even despite the long slur, Black Clock has long been one of my favorite to look at lit mags, they make beautiful issues that feature really strong language and image based work, plus its edited by the masterful Steve Erickson. Give it a roll of the dice.
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October 2nd, 2008 / 12:25 pm
October 2nd, 2008 / 12:25 pm
will 2009 be the year of the post-confessional prose-poem? … ask again later
On Saturday 9/27 at Tao Lin & Nicole Spector’s reading at Solas (part of LitCrawl NYC) I sat next to Soffi Stiassni and tried to get her to write a poem with me. Soffi’s work appears in regular typeface; my contributions are in italics)
“Poem”
I hate all the noises in here… And most of the people making the noises into their fancy hats.
+
See? You see how it’s a prose-poem?
No Faces Are Safe
This morning an anonymous tip sent me to the website redesign of new and insane journal No Colony, which recently began ‘eating face’ all around the literary world.
I discovered that editors Ken Bauman and Blake Butler have moved away from the movie stills this time around and instead have settled upon the color black for their new background. The standard text blocks are still there: submissions information, ordering information, buy-in information, and Pushcart nomination purchasing information. PayPal links seem scattered throughout the page in a helpful manner.
New to the site: a neat cover shot and three online fictions by Sean Kilpatrick, Corey Zeller, and Patrick Leonard. Sean Kilpatrick’s piece is a selection from the print issue. The other two are a surprise for you to read on your own.
Some sort of facial covering is recommended.
Everyone Love
NOÖ Journal’s blog is launching a new project called NOÖ Loves Everyone. They* intend to interview everyone who has ever contributed to NOÖ Journal ever and post these interviews on the blog. The order is alphabetical by first name. First up is Alex Burford, co-editor of Pinch Pinch Press. Next up will be acclaimed poet Arlene Ang.
*Full disclosure: when I say they, I mean Ryan and me; both of us write for this site too.
Print Industry Shakeup
A while ago, I read this post by Reb Livingston of No Tell Books and thought, ‘yeah, fuck Amazon’ and ‘man, Reb is awesome.’
Then I ordered a lot of things from Amazon the next day; I binged like crazy, sent things to a friend through Amazon, those things were lost in the mail, etc. Now I am outraged again. It is probably not the kind of anger that Reb had, but it is anger, and that’s what matters.
So I am happy to see that Adam Robinson, the man behind Publishing Genius, has posted this prospectus for an article he’d like to write. He wants reading suggestions. He wants to break scholarly ground. He wants to write an annotated bibliography for fuck’s sake. Help him out.
I will not say anything smarmy about the fact I like Sam Pink’s writing
I don’t think it’s unethical to say some words about Sam Pink’s forthcoming first book on here, even though Sam writes for the site. I have been salivating for someone to release a Sam Pink book for a while now, and finally the newly fashioned and surely balls out Paper Hero Press, run by Barry Graham and Peter Schwartz.
I mention it now because they just put up a preorder link for the book. It is $12 worth spending. I would say more about what I think of Sam’s writing but my blurb on the book I think says it all:
“Sam Pink exists in all things. Sam Pink’s tremor is threaded through the dark sections of scenes in the first Back to the Future, the sections we generally think of as ‘night.’ Sam Pink gored his way to the center of the child Russell Edson and ate all the beautiful / smart / wicked / fucked / riotous / smarmy / unconditional parts about him, then went to incubate and redouble. Sam Pink absorbed the passing souls of Andy Kaufman, Anton LaVey, Klaus Kinski and Shel Silverstein and fried them in his mother’s blood. When Sam Pink emerged he wasn’t crying, but everyone in the hospital was, tears of whiskey, liquid gold and smegma, and within seconds of his first breath, all our Bibles were ripped in half, prefiguring this book here, this tumor, this thing that should not have a name. It is no exaggeration to say now, with a mouth full of blood, that Sam Pink is dire, is hilarious, is chewing up our future.”
Do yourself a favor and go prebuy the book. You will enjoy. If you know Sam’s writing, you already know this. If you don’t know Sam’s writing, go to his blog and find out.
The cover itself is worth jacking off on. As is the title of the book: I AM GOING TO CLONE MYSELF THEN KILL THE CLONE AND EAT IT.
He is also a bastard, don’t you like bastards?
NOW IT’S BUCK-DANCING TIME!
“Abner Jay, the first of the original black musicians. The only electric six string banjo you’ll ever hear. Abner says the original thirteen are dead, and he is half dead. For forty two years Abner has been playing banjo, drums, harmonica, and singing all at the same time.” I don’t know when that was written, but he died sometime in the ’90s. I don’t really know a whole lot about him, except that if you click the link you can listen to a whole LP’s worth of his rad music at the WFMU site. I prefer side one–mostly because of the opener, “The Backbone of America is a Mule and Cotton,” which explains in great detail the advantages of owning a mule rather than a horse, and also because of “Oh Susanna”–but you should really listen to the whole thing.
And PS if you were wondering- This totes counts as literary because I got the link from Ariana Reines whose new poetry collection, Coeur de Lion got some love this morning from Ben Mirov at Coldfront.
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October 2nd, 2008 / 12:44 am
October 2nd, 2008 / 12:44 am
NewPages Book Reviews & Waste
This month’s crop of new book review are live at NewPages. NewPages does a pretty slammin’ ass job of bringing a boatload of good indie press reviews every month, once again headed up by the ever present Matt Bell.
Salvation :: The End of the Straight and Narrow :: Based on a True Story :: The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli :: The Waitress Was New :: The Cosmopolitan :: Signs of Life :: Of Kids & Parents :: Waste :: Keep This Forever :: Mind Games
Among these reviews, Mr. Bell himself pens a review of one of my favorite new discoveries of the year as far as writers I needed to find, Eugene Marten, whose WASTE, new from Ellipsis Press, ate my head alive, not even shitting. That book is incredible, and Matt does it justice. You should seriously go buy the book right now, it’s about a fucked up janitor, case closed.
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October 1st, 2008 / 11:50 pm
October 1st, 2008 / 11:50 pm
shane jones writes amazing post about writing amazing story
only htmlgiant.com can bring you the rippingest, the virgin-ass rippingest, barbed wire tattooed, raw awesomeness of shane jones, who wrote an amazing post about an amazing story he wrote. his amazing post about his amazing story has spawned this amazing post about his amazing post about his amazing story. htmlgiant.com has already proven itself a contender in the small lit scene and hopefully this post will reach its already established readership.
scrape my arm and give me AIDS
i like this blog. it is by chris killen and socrates adams florou. here is a description of my first encounter with the blog:
(said ‘huh’ while noticing a link on chris killen’s blog)
(clicked the link and looked at the ground, waiting for the page to upload)
(waited and kept checking but my computer was slow)
(got really upset, like menopause upset, and just sat there)
(saw the page had uploaded)
(read the entire blog)
(lol-ed like a motherfucker)
(had nothing to do)
(pushed sexual organs back into body)
(checked email)