Interview w/ Lily Hoang & Stacey Levine
Lisp Service has just posted an interview with Lily Hoang and Stacey Levine, in which they discuss the writing process, creation of fable worlds, Oulipo, speculative fiction, and various other interesting topics in the form of craft of strange lit.
Levine on small presses:
My work was rejected by the big guns New York publishers. I’m with a semi-larger house for my next book, but it’s still an independent (MacAdam/Cage). Still, I’ve been happy with smaller presses. They suit me and my slow way of writing. Of course, they have their well-known downsides…. Yet with smaller houses, there’s less nonsense like the imperative to sell, sell no matter what, the crazy competitiveness and drive to promote that is discombobulating and not very real, in a way. I mean, we’re all going to die anyway, whether we have loudly and lavishly-published books or not. The most important is to have people around the book who love it.
I like the idea of pairing two writers of a similar ilk and having them interweave in the discussion… read the rest!
From Spools of Thin Wire by Kate McGill-Wyre
A new PDF Chapbook was released by Publishing Genius today, a set of really odd-in-their-own-way poems from Kate McGill-Wyre called FROM SPOOLS OF THIN WIRE.
Here are Adam’s words about the book:
It is with great pleasure that I finally introduce Kate Wyer’s new chapbook of poems, FROM SPOOLS OF THIN WIRE. Here are thirteen deceptively complex poems. By that I mean that on the face of it, Kate’s taut language and strange, sometimes religious imagery comes off as detached and passive so that it seems natural to employ some esoteric set of reading tools to the work. I think this misses what’s really happening in the poems, though, and I’m most satisfied when I take her foxes for foxes and the sins of the world as the sins of the world.
As always, you can view the book at Issuu by clicking the file below, and you can print it off in chapbook format at The PDF Chapbook website. Also at the website you can request a copy be printed and mailed to you.
Having read the first few poems so far, I really like the offset tone of them, kind of a dry reportage of really weird shit. ‘100-Year-Old House’ kicks ass.
Righteous. Read.
New Hobart WebContent and MiniBook
You probably already got this info in your email. Hobart just posted new content at their website: stories by Ravi Mangla, Lindsay Hunter, V. Ulea, and Sara O’Leary. Also, there is an interview up: our own Matthew Simmons asked questions of Michael Kimball. This new issue is the first curated by new web editor Stephany Aulenback. Hooray!
Also, the people at Hobart‘s minibooks division have officially announced their next release: Mary Miller’s Big World. Congratulations to everyone on another successful thing.
They’ll have more details soon about ordering info.
The Ultimate Game Guide to Your Life®
So, to let my secret yet rabid fanboyism spill forth like the frothy annoying bad-smelling liquid it is, I am ordering everyone who visits this site to buy Christopher Monks’ new book THE ULTIMATE GAME GUIDE TO YOUR LIFE®. I got it in the mail Monday, and it’s entertaining as fuck.
If you’re ever looked at a video game guide, and wondered if someone could write the same thing for your life, and you’re a white male living in America, without cystic fibrosis, this is the fruition of that idea. The book is even better than I imagined that one time I was in line at Gamestop buying the guide for Metroid Prime with my mother’s credit card. Also, not as depressing.
Today is the “Order My Book Extravaganza!” and if you’ve got the Alexander Hamilton to blow, it’s easily worth the money. You’ll like the book way more than Alexander Hamilton. Unless you’re a Federalist. And in that case, fuck you. No way. No how. No Hamilton.
Go here to order.
Left Hand Reading Series & Brian Evenson
I feel too tired to be mean on Mean Monday.
Will someone be mean? Be mean to me if you want, anything.
Here’s something not mean: the website for PENNSOUND (center for programs in contemporary writing), contains an archive dedicated to the Left Hand Reading Series, which goes back as far as 1998. The archive contains mp3 clips of several great people reading such as Brian Evenson, Lisa Jarnot, Jeffrey Deshell, Rikki Ducornet, and tons of others.
In particular I was excited to find Evenson’s reading of one of my favorite stories of all time:
The Intricacies of Post-Shooting Etiquette, which you can also read online in text form here.
In other Evenson news, his new book LAST DAYS is coming very soon, and is surely a thing to be salivated over. It includes the ultra-rare chapbook THE BROTHERHOOD OF MUTILATION, which I often take off of my bookshelf in the night to scratch my face with.
I Am Stupid When It Comes To Politics – Ignore Me
A few days ago, Shane Jones threatened to write an essay about the ‘politics’ of online writer’s blogs and the online lit scene in a recent post on his blog. For the record, Shane Jones does not link to my own personal blog, but I link to him from my own personal blog. Co-Editor of The Cupboard, Adam Peterson, links to my own personal blog but I do not link to his personal blog. Darby Larson links to my personal blog, but I have not linked to his personal blog. Jereme has linked to my blog, but I have not linked to his. I have linked to Sam Pink’s blog, but he has not linked to me. Fuck Sam Pink.
In good news, I have linked to Matthew Simmons, and he has linked to me. I have linked to Kendra Grant Malone and she has linked to me. Congratulations, everyone.
Nowadays, there’s just so much out there! So many blogs to read! The internet is so busy! Look here and here for proof. Wow! And it’s so hard to copy and paste a web address and add it to your list of links on the side of your minima-black-themed blog. Who reads all of them anyhow? What’s the use? Eventually you just get overwhelmed. Laziness interecedes. Some people just type stupid shit and publish it. Sometimes it’s not even worth your time to click on or link to certain people. And sometimes you just want to show that asshole Blake Butler that you’re more picky than he is (Blake Butler links to EVERYONE!!!). Why not try to limit your scene? Save some time? Tao Lin is famous for this: he links to twelve people and is very picky as to who he links to based on some ‘life-affirming’ philosophy, I think. I could be wrong though. I recall a post he wrote about it. You’d have to dig it up. Google it or something.
But, really, who can we count on to back us up? Does this matter? Does linking to people matter?
Probably not. This is a lame post. I forgot what I really meant to type here. Politics and something. I don’t know. I am drunk.
I don’t think that I should link to Mark Sarvas. He won’t back me up. And I haven’t read Harry, Revised, nor do I plan to, but man, that guy must get a lot of hits…if only he could send some of that my way. Although, maybe he isn’t cool enough, and besides, his readers might not understand my waste-paper-throwing-game. Or maybe I’m not cool enough.
I’m bored with everyone. I want to read new things. I want to find new blogs and literary sites that I can read. What am I doing wrong? Why is my blogroll so lame?
Give me some links.
instead of going to lunch i explode to lunch
Do you care about static electricity? How can you not? Recent polling shows that particles of static electricity are the final undecided voting bloc. Luckily, this invaluable constituency is now addressed by a new online journal of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and photography/visual art: Rain Fade. Bryan Coffelt and Wille Ziebell edit Rain Fade. In their words:
Rain Fade is interference and degradation of a signal.
Rain Fade is the barrier between words and objects.
Rain Fade is the space between your eye and my eye.
Rain Fade is a new journal of interesting and innovative writing and visual art. We are interested in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photography, painting, and much more. Send all submissions and inquiries to submissions@rain-fade.com
There’s a lovely video at rain-fade.com that features the two editors introducing the video and interviewing each other, wherein Bryan explains what would happen to him if he turned into Kurt Russell.
NO OTHER JOURNAL IS ADDRESSING THE KURT RUSSELL FACTOR. TAKE THAT, BITCHES.
Web Hype / Comments Off on instead of going to lunch i explode to lunch
October 22nd, 2008 / 6:03 pm
October 22nd, 2008 / 6:03 pm
Mean Week vs Puppies and Rainbows Week
Darby Larson has posted about Mean Week over at his blog. I like Darby. He is good at arguing things, and he thinks hard about things. Many of his comments on blogs are very thoughtful, and I usually read them and think I should make my brain smarter in order to respond to them.
Darby on Mean Week:
I don’t think mean week has been mean, by my definition of it. The problem is that if it were mean, then there would be consequences. Friendships would end, would have to be mended over time, would depend on a puppies and rainbows week just to heal.
Maybe we could learn a thing or too from Gridskipper, a travel blog, that had its own Mean Week back in 2007. Apparently, they traveled places and were mean to babies.
Where is everyone?
CNF’s Best of the Blogosphere
Right now Creative Nonfiction Magazine is putting together their next volume of Best American Creative Nonfiction, which is a print annual honoring, well, creative nonfiction.
This year they are looking to include a series of ‘best blog writing,’ which seems like a cool idea, and they are seeking nominations for good posts for their consideration, which anyone can nominate with a small amount of effort by putting in a couple of lines of info at their website.
If you are interested in nominating, here is some info, I nominated the best recent post I could remember from a friend’s blog, you should as well:
BEST OF THE BLOGOSPHERE
This may come as a surprise to some, but here at CNF, we consider
narrative blogs an extension of the creative nonfiction
genre–they’re innovative, exciting, honest, and popular. Blogs are
so popular, in fact, that it seems as if everyone has one:
politicians, movie stars, even the Godfather behind Creative
Nonfiction <http://www.leegutkind.com/blogs/>
.
As some of you may know, CNF has been collecting and publishing the
best of the blogosphere since the the inception of our annual The
Best Creative Nonfiction series. And while Volume 2
<http://www.creativenonfiction.org/cnfshop/product_info.php?products_id=122>
makes its way to bookstores and subscribers, CNF is already fast at
work compiling blogs for Volume 3–due out Summer 2009. But this
time, we’re doing things a bit differently.We want you, the reader, to nominate the blogs you love.
We re looking for: Vibrant new voices with interesting, true stories
to tell. Narrative, narrative, narrative. Posts that can stand alone,
2000 words max, from 2008. Something from your own blog, from a
friend s blog, from a strangers blog.The small print: We will contact individual bloggers before
publication; we pay a flat $50 fee for one-time reprint rights.
Deadline: October 31, 2008.To nominate, click here
<http://www.creativenonfiction.org/blog_nomination.html>
Internet Writing Advice
1. Don’t do anything. Don’t send stuff to people. Don’t write. Don’t think there are words. Don’t say words. Guess what about what you typed? Ieurnadbussum. I have $50,000,000 in my anus if I could just get it out, tomorrow we’re getting in the Wheat Thins. Don’t type to me if you’re just going to type.
2. Don’t type to me if you’re just going to type. Do you have a forehead? Are you sad? Yeah, that’s sad. I am hungry. If you can feed me, feed me. Look at the internet screen. How many times a day do you refresh your browser looking at Duotrope, or the website of that place that is running that contest that you paid $35 to get into. You could win. Did you know you could win? I am tired. Are you going to mail me the raisins soon? There are a fucklot of books. Masturbation done right takes at least an hour. Don’t type to me if you’re just going to type.
3. ‘Oh you have a story at Tom-n-Jerry Monthly? That’s cool. I have a story at Publish Barn, it’s sick, it’s about the universe. I write a lot and I like beer. Beer costs $4.50 a pint a lot of places, maybe if I write the bartender a poem he can give his girlfriend he’ll let me drink one free. No, he doesn’t give his girlfriend poems, his girlfriend doesn’t want a poem, his girlfriend wants to get beamed up the B, and he’ll give it to her. When is the new Night Train coming out?’
4. Vanna White turned the lit up letter and found a full-fledged character development decision wedged in between the light and the box turn space, she snuck it into her pocket between her alter-tits, and turned the letter and smiled really white, and after the show she went home and hid in the closet and vibrated the developed character into an arc against her systematically decimated hymen.
5. All my best friends are people I don’t see enough to hate.
6. ‘Oh you’re a writer? What’s your novel about? Have you read Christopher Moore? Have you read All the Sad Young Literary Men? Are you sad? Dude you are just so sad and jealous.’
7. ** HTML GIANT IS CURRENTLY RUNNING OPEN CASTING CALL FOR REALITY TV SHOW BASED ON THE LIVES OF INTERNET WRITERS, THE SHOW IS UNDER CONTRACT ALREADY WITH MTV, THIS IS NOT A JOKE, YOU MUST HAVE PUBLISHED ON ELIMAE, DOGZPLOT, BACON BEEP, LAMINATION COLONY AND ANAL DESIGN MAP TO BE CONSIDERED. FWD YOUR RESUME TO SOME EMAIL SOMEWHERE, WE’VE GOT IT SET UP TO FALL INTO OUR LAP AT THE DINNER TABLE, GENE’S GOTS A KID, I HAVE AN IMPENDING GOITER. **
8. ‘Will there be free booze?’
9. Suntrust Mortgage. Bye stock market. Part time work. Grading papers. Word count. Cover letter. New book day. Grease buffet. Dong farm. ‘Shark Sandwich? Shit Sandwich.’ Anal mission. Zachary German.
10. Bye.