{LMC}: Beecher’s One
The first thing you will notice about Beecher’s is the design and production–clean and elegant. The spine is bound with black thread. The pages are thick, linen, creamy, the grain of it holding the ink to the page.
Introducing a video about the debut issue, the editors said, “Beecher’s One was designed to give the text inside primacy, and as well record the reader’s tactile interaction with the physical magazine. The layout is straight-forward, and the text is presented simply in a black serif font on white paper. The physical object, with a naked spine and rigid, toothy, absorbent paper is meant to show evidence of the reader by literally absorbing and recording the reading experience: the hands holding the book, the fingers on the page, the bending of turned pages, the weakening of the unprotected spine.”
Reading Beecher’s is, indeed, a physical experience that openly acknowledges and engages the reader. This is a magazine that wants to develop a relationship with readers and writers. In this, and other regards, Beecher’s succeeds beautifully. The writing showcased within the magazine’s pages is as engaging as the design and production. Contributors include Rebecca Wadlinger, Alec Niedenthal, Joshua Cohen, Rhoads Stevens, John Dermot Woods, Phil Estes, Creed J. Shepard, Lincoln Michel, John Coletti, Yelena Akthiorskaya, Colin Winnette, Dana Ward & Stephanie Young, James Yeh, Alexis Orgera, Rozalia Jovanovic, Ricky Garni, and Justin Runge as well as interviews with Stephen Elliott and Adam Robinson.
Literary Magazine Club: Beecher’s Edition (11/1/11)
The next installment of Literary Magazine Club begins on November 1 when we will be reading and discussing the debut issue of Beecher’s, the graduate student run literary magazine from the University of Kansas.
Beecher’s is selling the issue at a 40% discount for HTMLGIANT readers. Take them up on that bargain–$6.50 for a great literary magazine which is beautifully designed and produced–you can’t pass that up. To take advantage of this discount, go to http://www.beechersmag.com/
Future club selections:
January 2012: Versal
March 2012: Salt Hill
May 2012: Trnsfr
July 2012: Uncanny Valley
September 2012: J Journal: New Writing on Justice
Stay tuned for special offers and giveaways for these magazines.
If you’re interested in writing a guest post or some other feature related to Beecher’s, get in touch by e-mailing me at roxane at htmlgiant.com. Topics you might consider discussing include the design, content, overall aesthetic, whether the magazine met your expectations, if the debut is promising, what the magazine contributes to the literary scene, etc. You might also do an in-depth analysis of one writer’s work, etc. There are no limits.
There’s also a Google Group with light posting about literary magazines and club announcements. If you want to join the group or want more information about the LMC, if you’re an editor who wants your magazine featured, etc, send me an e-mail. To summarize: however you want to participate please get in touch or watch this space in November when hopefully, we’ll have a great discussion about an interesting new literary magazine.
Literary Magazine Club Never Dies
I’m reviving LMC and the first magazine we’ll be discussing is Beecher’s, the graduate student run literary magazine from the University of Kansas. We’ll feature a new magazine every two months and hopefully that lighter schedule will allow more readers to participate.
The debut issue of Beecher’s we’ll be reading features Alec Niedenthal, Rebecca Wadlinger, Joshua Cohen, Rhoads Stevens, John Dermot Woods, Phil Estes, Creed J. Shepard, Lincoln Michel, Yelena Akhtiorskaya, John Coletti, Colin Winnette, Dana Ward & Stephanie Young, James Yeh, Alexis Orgera, Rozalia Jovanovich, Ricky Garni, and Justin Runge.
I asked a bunch of writers to write down everything they remember about Pindeldyboz magazine w/o research
Pindeldyboz the web presence published a story by me titled “Susan” and then rejected something else using a terse tone in the rejection email and specifically mentioned that I had used a certain word too many times or something. I think the editor was a person named Whitney. I felt at the time that Pindeldyboz had high street cred. I think at one point I made a list of goals to achieve and one of them was to be published by Pindeldyboz. Around that time I also had feelings of confusion about their name. I never saw the print mag because they had stopped doing the print version by the time I was aware of it. Mostly I remember it thinking it had a street cred higher than internet literary magazines that were likely to publish whatever by me, and the name “Whitney,” and the story “Susan,” and the harsh rejection letter.
– Brandon Scott Gorrell
I asked a bunch of writers to write down everything they know about Glimmer Train magazine w/o research
i know it is called glimmer train. i picked one up in a barnes and noble once. i never read a story in it except for if it was republished in an anthology maybe. i submitted to glimmer train once i think a long time ago. i never got interested in glimmer train for some reason.
– Darby Larson
{LMC}: A Review of Benjamin Percy’s “The Red Balloon”
I was a lazy reader. I read too much too quickly into the title of Benamin Percy’s story “the Red Balloon.” “Balloon… Balloon… Barthleme. Ripoff,” was the thinking. I grabbed a friend. “Sit down,” I told him. “Tell me what this reminds you of.”
He sat down.
“Remember, it’s called ‘the Red Balloon.’ Keep that in mind. Okay. It’s important. ‘The Red Balloon.’”
I read the first couple sentences for the first time:
“No one knows where it came from. Some say a long car pulled up to the gas station and from it stepped a black haired, black-eyed man in a black suit, who coughed once into his fist and then gripped the pump and muddied it with his phlegm.”
My friend said, “I don’t know who that sounds like.”
I decided I’d better read the whole piece before assuming its contents.
{LMC}: A Conversation with Terrance Hayes, Parts 3 & 4
Earlier this month, we enjoyed Parts 1 & 2 of Terrance Hayes, the guest editor for the current issue of Ploughshares, and here are the final two parts of the great conversation when he visited Emerson College. While we’re on the subject, what do you think of the guest editing approach at Ploughshares? How do you think that such an editorial approach shapes the magazine over time?
Part 3:
{LMC}: A Conversation with Terrance Hayes
Ploughshares has conversations with each guest editor. Below are two parts of the conversation between Kim McLarin and Terrance Hayes, the guest editor of the issue we are currently reading. Some highlights are Hayes discussing not expecting to win the NBA, how he enjoys his own company, universality and more. Terrance Hayes is a great writer, National Book Award winner, human being and all but I think we also have to talk about his fineness. Good lord. Enjoy. Also, later this month, I’ll post an interview with Ploughshares editor Ladette Randolph. In the meantime, what is your favorite piece, so far, in the Winter 2010/11 issue?
Part 1
{LMC}: January’s Selection: Ploughshares
Our third selection for Literary Magazine Club is Ploughshares, a literary magazine based out of Emerson College in Boston, MA. Ploughshares has been publishing since 1971 and is widely considered one of the most pre-eminent literary magazines in the country. Pre-eminence, is of course, a relative concept but many great writers have been published by Ploughshares and they’ve been publishing continuously for 40 years, which in literary magazine years, feels quite a bit older. Published in April, August, and December, each issue of the magazine is guest-edited by a prominent writer. The issue we are reading this month, Ploughshares 36.4 or the Winter 2010-11 issue, was edited by National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes. In his introduction, Hayes writes, “Some say imperfect lines don’t belong in a museum, but I think a sentence’s shortcomings make it human. And anyway this museum is not after perfection. Perfection is not only oppressive, it’s boring.” The writing he has selected for this issue promises to be imperfect in really interesting ways. Each week this month, starting this coming Monday, I’ll post a question that has come to me as I start reading through this issue so we can generate some discussion.
Why are we reading Ploughshares? Why the hell not. After announcing this month’s selection, one member voiced the concern that a magazine like Ploughshares doesn’t really need the extra attention it might get by being one of our selections. He felt our attention would better be directed to lesser known magazines rather than one with a higher, national profile. I understand that concern but at the same time, there’s a lot to discuss about and learn from a magazine like Ploughshares that is well-organized, well-funded, and well-regarded. In the realm of literary magazines, that combination of qualities is rare. You often have excellent magazines that aren’t well-funded or well-funded magazines that aren’t necessarily excellent. I also think there are interesting things to talk about when talking about a high profile literary magazine. Is the reputation deserved? Why? How much does reputation matter? How does it influence as both as readers and writers? Is the guest editor structure a useful one? What do those different perspectives bring to the magazine that a single editor cannot? In what ways does using guest editors, perhaps, detract from a unified voice for the magazine? What can new or lesser known magazines learn from more well-established magazines? How can independent magazines achieve a Ploughshares like reputation without university support? Is such a thing even possible or desired by the editors of independent magazines? There are countless other questions but more than anything I feel that success does not inherently make a magazine less interesting. The notion that it does feels short sighted.
The content from this issue that’s available online rotates each day so you can sample the offerings and participate that way. The best way to get the magazine though is to buy it. Even magazines like Ploughshares need reader support. Information about ordering (well worth it) is also available on the issue’s main page. As always, if you’d like to write a guest post about any aspect or piece(s) in this issue, or if you would like to join the Google Group, please e-mail me at roxane at htmlgiant dot com. I would love to hear from you. I look forward to our discussion this month! In February, we will be reading Unsaid 5. If you haven’t gotten ahold of this magazine, get on it! You will be blown away.
{LMC}: Considering The Collagist as Collage
I decided to take a look at The Collagist as a whole—or, rather, a whole created by the sum of its parts, the magazine as collage that lives so smartly up to its name. It’s true that perhaps any literary magazine could be considered a sort of collage, as it layers story and poem and visual and sometimes sound to produce a bigger picture. And yet not many literary magazines choose their pieces with the consideration a collagist uses to cut out his shapes, to determine the colors of the paints she’ll layer. The Collagist is one of my favorite literary magazines because the choosing is intentional, is meticulous, is precise. The chosen few pieces generate an intentionally tight edit. The name of the magazine, I’d guess, was not chosen on a whim, but as a sort of statement of purpose. The Collagist’s contents are widely varied in style and substance but are not random; like the best collagists, I believe editor Matt Bell uses every story, every review, every poem and excerpt and reprint and even the bios as a layer to build, to create something greater than the pieces themselves. The magazine as the work of art.
Many of my favorite artists worked with collage at some point. Georges Braque, Robert Motherwell, Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Nevelson, Marcel Duchamp—they all created work that was layered, that intensified as it grew and spread and collected and fragmented and shifted meaning from piece to piece and space to space. With wood, with paint, with newspaper, with found objects, with paper, with photos—and in the case of The Collagist, with words. Like collage artworks, each issue of The Collagist seems to swell and grow, the consequence of addition. The thread running through is not a theme per se, but a meaning you build yourself. A customizable puzzle. Deliberate yet obscure, fuzzy as close-up pixels in its larger clarity.