In an attic in Riverwest, a Milwaukee neighborhood that is my favorite neighborhood anywhere, brothers John and Joe Riepenhoff founded the Green Gallery. At its start, the gallery was a regular-sized room where they showcased their friends’ work. That was around 2001. Now the Green Gallery has expanded to two buildings, and John is active with art happenings across the globe, with Milwaukee International.

Recently the Green Gallery bros have started putting out books, with their recent offerings: Nicholas Frank’s The Sound of the Horn and Paul Druecke and Claire Readig’s The Last Days of John Budgen, Jr. I read Frank’s short novella in one sitting and loved it. At first I wondered if perhaps the tone was overly-formal, or too “Kafka-esque,” but there aren’t any holes in Frank’s serious prose. It’s a good story (about an accident that results in a car horn that won’t shut off) and it has stayed with me. I recommend grabbing one – if you can find a copy. That isn’t easy because the books are meant to accompany art exhibitions and there’s no web presence (remember that?).

Are these the only two books? Are there more in the pipe? READ MORE >

The death-by-suicide of Kevin Morissey is sad. It is also complex, and I’m not sure there is a lot to pin on VQR or Ted Genoways. But reading the Hook article about it is halting more for the operational procedures of VQR than for the details about Morissey’s death, which is speculation and arguably the sort of connect-the-dot journalism that creates its own dots.

This isn’t a disclaimer I make to extend any credit to Genoways. If I could punch one person in the nose, it’d be him. The fact that his management is more interesting than suicide really just shows how bizarre VQR’s business is.

The article is worth a read, but here’s the outline: READ MORE >

THE FREE COPIES ARE ALL GONE BUT YOU SHOULD STILL JOIN THE CLUB BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME THANK YOU.

The logistics are still being worked out but the first magazine we’ll read for the Literary Magazine Club is New York Tyrant 8. Editor Gian DiTrappano has generously agreed to donate 30 copies of the magazine to the first 30 people who join the club. If you’re interested, e-mail me at roxane at roxanegay dot com with your name and mailing address. If you do not e-mail me your mailing address I will not chase you down or hold your place in the queue for the free copies. I’ll update this post when all 30 copies have been spoken for. You might consider paying it forward and sending someone a subscription to New York Tyrant, I’m just saying, but we hope this contribution allows more people to participate regardless of their financial circumstances. If you were one of the people who joined yesterday, e-mail me your mailing address, please.

In early October, Gian will chat with us online about this latest issue of New York Tyrant and we’ll have other activities planned to make the most of the tyrannical reading experience.

For November, we will be reading an online magazine to be chosen by a club member. Each month a new member will choose the magazine we read for the following month, alternating each month between online and print magazines so we can best appreciate the range of literary publications doing such great work.

Compelling format from BookThug’s new literary journal, The Coming Envelope:

The Coming Envelope is BookThug’s new publication of experimental prose fiction edited and designed by Malcolm Sutton. Every issue features work from five writers. It accommodates hard-to-classify work by those already treading various precipices: uncomfortable here, courting the perverse, typographically observant, exposed to the elements, politically not unaware, falling alongside language.

Issue 1 features work by: Jacob Wren, Sheila Heti, Lily Hoang & Debra Di Blasi, John Goldbach, and Lee Henderson.

$10, on sale now.

(Photo by Daniel Wolfe)

isReads 7, the haiku issue, is now live, featuring work by Stephanie Barber, Colin Bassett, Dan Brady, Jimmy Chen, Sarah Eaton, Fred Ecenrode, Molly Gaudry, Jamie Iredell, Chris Killen, Tao Lin, Megan Martin, Sam Pink, Audri Sousa, Bianca Stone and Della Watson.

This issue was posted around Baltimore, Chicago, LA, Indianapolis, Louisville, Minneapolis, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Providence and Seattle.

We’re now accepting work for the 8th issue. Poems should be clean and fewer than 10 lines. Send them to editors@isreads.com.

A note on the brand new issue of NYT from editor Giancarlo Ditrapano:

New York Tyrant 8 (Vol.3, No.2) is available for preorder. The book went to press today and will be back and ready to ship in two weeks. Not to blow my own horn (and I can do that, you know), but this is a pretty solid issue. Sam Lipsyte, Ken Sparling, Noy Holland, Breece D’J Pancake, an interview with Padgett Powell, Daryl Scroggins, two beautiful pieces by Brandon Hobson, Andy Devine, Ken Baumann, Sean Kilpatrick, Michael Kimball, more drawings (one sampled below) from Atticus Lish, and a shit ton of other great writers. The theme of this issue turned out, unintentionally, to be knives. Lots of knives in these stories. I swear I don’t do this shit on purpose.

A couple issues ago, we made the Tyrant 300 pages long. We are now back to a better length, less than 200 pages. I hate when journals get all bulky and are just too intimidating to even get through half of the stories. We’ll be having a launch party within the next couple of weeks so I’ll keep you updated on that. But until then, please go get your copy of the new Tyrant. Buy a subscription. Okay, here’s a deal. If you buy a 4 issue subscription or the larger 8 issue, we will throw in a copy of Brian Evenson’s novella Baby Leg. And if you buy a copy of the new Tyrant in the next 5 days, we will include a copy of Tyrant Books’ latest release, Firework by Eugene Marten. I’ve never done this discount/sale thing before but it feels good and right. No it doesn’t. It sucks and it hurts.

READ MORE >

1. Ken Sparling. 2. Stace Budzko. 3. Kim Chinquee 4. Elysia Smith. 5. Shya Scanlon 6. Aimee Nezhukumatathil 7. Mark Ehling.

8. Damian Dressick. 9. Jac Jemc. 10. Peter Gradbois 11. David Shumate. 12. Jesse Goolsby. 13. Caroline Zilk. 14. Molly Gaudry.

Artifice Magazine is just too good to give things away. Like, okay if you’re mediocre it’s not a bad idea to offer an incentive. But when you’re Artifice, one of the best on the block, people come knocking on your door with wads of cash and apologetic looks. You beat them off with a stick, or deign to serve them.

Not blowing smoke. This is a great magazine design-wise and editorially — the first issue has an embossed matte cover, black on black. The writing — by people like Butler, Rooney, Schneiderman, Walsh, Yelvington — is as writing in journals ought to be: on the forefront, compelling, and with a range of mystery. And wait. WAIT. It’s cheap! Already it’s cheap: only $7.

Get out of town with your seven dollar embossed covers and Jessica Bozek poems.

So, but, cool, y’know. Good for Artifice. What else is going on here at this stupid htmlgiant website, any good fights? WAIT! Before you scroll down to Lovelace’s erupting hangnail or weigh in on Lily’s consideration of wtf is next with paper, just wait a sec. Let me catch my breath.

Because what the editors there, Adcox and Silverman, are proposing to do in July is sign up 50 new subscribers. I’m all like, only 50?!

No sweat. HTMLGIANT gets like 90,000 unique hits every second, so this post ought to bring them to their goal by 2:15est. And if it isn’t my appreciative bombast that sells you — yes, you, reader — on the subscription, let it be this: READ MORE >

My mother’s output, starred and pseudonymous, appeared regularly in one of those little, irregular periodicals so limited in readership that they might be called incestuous. Subscription was by invitation only, and contributors would go into a rage over a misplaced comma and brood for days if their poems were understood. All this called for constant and voluminous correspondence between my mother and the editor, about what I never knew, because the whole system was built along the lines of a secret society whose secrets were kept from everybody, including the membership.

- Millard Kaufman, Bowl of Cherries

I used to think this was bold. Now I wonder if it isn’t bitter? Maybe it’s both? Question mark?

READ MORE >

East of the Mississippi? You won’t want to miss the Glaser/Lyalin/Young tour that’s ravaging the right side of the map.

6/16 – Philly
6/17 – DC
6/18 – Richmond
6/21 – Atlanta
6/22 – Durham
6/24 – Baltimore

Get all the dates and links and stuff from Mike’s blog.

That DC reading is an exciting one – it will be the first in the new series from Barrelhouse. The concept is to feature presses/journals, not just individual writers. That is a sensible way to create a good reading; if the publisher has a good aesthetic, the reading will showcase their authors and the event will make good flow. Future presses with Barrelhouse readings coming up include Dzanc, Rose Metal, and Artifice. This one on June 17 (this Thursday) features Publishing Genius and, now in their 7th year, Narrow House (click for a SICK 7th year special offer — 7 things for the price of 1).

Presented by The Agriculture Reader, in celebration of the release of issue #4, which is now available for purchase.

I love what Adam’s doing with IsReads now:

bearing the cross -- for you

I just got finished with Annalemma Six (with the Sacrifice theme), which just came out.  It’s fucking awesome, and not just because it features Giant familiars like Roxane Gay, Ryan Call, Jimmy “the gangbang took place in Unit #209” Chen, J.A. Tyler, Brandi Wells, and others.

READ MORE >