DZANC Books‘s new online literary magazine, The Collagist, has just posted its debut issue. Edited by steam-train-among-men Matt Bell (pictured at right, the totally casual one), The Collagist features plenty of big hitters right out of the dugout, including Chris Bachelder, Kim Chinquee, and Kevin Wilson.

The work in The Collagist‘s first issue—stories, poems, essays—covers everything from router anxiety to sinkhole champions; from snowman-inspired carnality to Eastern Oregon; from thoughtful video reviews to thoughtful verbal reviews (including a review of Brian Evenson’s Fugue State by our own Ryan Call); from an essay about being in some dude’s workshop by David McLendon to a story by the dude who ran that workshop, some dude named Gordon Lish, this Lish dude, dude Lish, Gordotron, named a story, ran a shop, worked.

There is also, of course, the clean-as-a-jeweler’s-glasses presentation that we’ve come to expect from DZANC. Kudos to all involved, and do please readers give The Collagist your face, now and deeply. Press release from Matt Bell, with full contributor list, after the jump.

In this debut issue, we’ve got new fiction by Chris Bachelder, Kevin Wilson, Kim Chinquee, and Matthew Salesses, plus an excerpt from Laird Hunt’s forthcoming novel Ray of the Star. Charles Jensen, Oliver de la Paz, and Christina Kallery each contribute several new poems apiece. In non-fiction, Ander Monson provides an innovative personal essay in the form of an “assembloir,” while David McLendon’s essay relates his personal experiences with the master teacher, editor, and writer Gordon Lish, exploring the impact of Lish’s mentorship on both his own writing and his everyday life. Lish’s story “I’m Wide” (which originally appeared in his collection What I Know So Far) is also reprinted in this issue, which I hope you’ll consider first as its own unique piece and then again, in tandem with McLendon’s essay.

The Collagist’s first book review section includes coverage of Terry Galloway’s Mean Little Deaf Queer, Michal Ajvaz’s The Other City, and Brian Evenson’s Fugue State (written by Dawn Raffel, John Madera, and Ryan Call, respectively), as well as a video review of Jonathan Baumbach’s You, or the Invention of Memory by Anna Clark.

Thank you for reading, and for doing whatever you can to spread the word about The Collagist. We’re very excited to have this first issue to share with you, and I hope you enjoy reading it!