Mean
Magazine Databases: Magazine Debasers?
This evening, I got an email asking me if I wanted to add NOÖ Journal into a new literary magazine database called litmags.org. Here is some text from that email:
Dear Editor:
I’m a student working on my MFA in creative writing, and my final project for one of my classes was to construct a website through which readers and writers can more easily find literary magazines that suit their tastes and styles. This is an invitation to have your magazine listed in the site’s database.
Okay, sure. Sounds good. Like competition for Duotrope. Cool. But here’s what I wonder: do these databases really aid some earnest reader’s desire to find a new favorite magazine all about snowshoe poetry? Because sometimes it seems like they just facilitate the ability to find “markets” that “suit” a submitting writer’s “aesthetic.” Which seems–with all due respect to the people who maintain and program these databases, people who work awesomely hard on their projects–like a depressing and bullshit way to go about reading and writing.
Some right-away caveats: I’ve used Duotrope. I’ve given money to Duotrope. I update NOÖ’s Duotrope profile consistently. According to Duotrope, I’ve accepted the work of people who use their submissions tracking system and who might have, presumably, found out about the magazine only through the database. About fifteen minutes after I got litmags.org’s email, I’d hammered and delivered a bunkbed for NOÖ to their dorms. As technology, these databases are tremendously useful, and I think it’s nothing short of noble that the people who do them do them for free and work so hard. Also, it’s vital for the cultural legitimacy of literary magazines to have archives that record and describe the existence of mags currently in operation.
But I’m weirded out, I think, by the latent ideologies behind such efforts. To wit, more text from the email, which was signed “Max (I prefer to remain)”:
This project was born out of my own frustration and the frustration I’d heard from fellow MFAers over the sheer quantity of literary magazines and how difficult it is to find new ones that appeal to our own sensibilities. Duotrope is helpful, but specific searches often still deliver hundreds of results. I recognize that there is only so much a person can understand about a magazine without actually reading it, but I thought that I could do better. Litmags.org uses a points system to attempt to separate magazines from one another and deliver more meaningful search results. Magazines are given a limited number of points to assign to various tags (i.e. short story, flash fiction, science-fiction, free-verse poetry). The more points a magazine assigns to a certain tag, the higher it will show up when someone searches for that term.
The points system seems cool in a “my elf casts breakdance +78 on your orc” way, but I have no idea what it’s got to do with literary magazines. To shift mediums for a second, who calculates how much % Pop Grunge a band is then looks for bands in the same % range? Your brother tells you about the Pixies, or your friend with the long hair does. Stats don’t. Right? People share culture they’re excited about. That’s how it works. All my favorite lit mags I found by reading about them on messageboards, hearing someone talk about them (online or in fleshspace), and/or clicking around on the links page of a magazine I already liked, a links page curated by someone whose sensibilities I already sort of “trusted” — in all cases, a person by person thing.
Granted, I know about radio programs that hock new music based on you inputting favorite songs then some algorithm measuring Melody, Rhythm, and Hair Gel quotients in those songs to spin you stuff you “didn’t know you liked.” But even those programs make a big deal of how they get smarter based on people giving thumbs-up and thumbs-down to their mechanized suggestions. And even then, it’s not the robots I’m squinting at.
Rather, it’s lines and lines of thought like this: “… the sheer quantity of literary magazines and how difficult it is to find new ones that appeal to our own sensibilities.” Difficult how? Difficult like there are so many, and you’re aware there are so many because the Information Age constantly reminds you just how much there is to know and thus to miss? And it nags, that idea of “stuff you may love” just lurking, humming away undiscovered just to your left, maybe. That infinite sandwich menu.
And by sensibilities, you mean you know what you like but you are afraid that no one else likes what you like, that your tastes are intellectually malformed, callow and secret little habits that you toss into the corner when somebody walks into the room, but you’re always on the lookout for somebody who says “Hey, I’ve got a sock like that in my corner too.” That’s what you mean, right?
Or do you mean it’s difficult to find places that will publish your work because rejection is annoying and stacks of “pub credits” are sure tickets to _____: Fellowships? Babes? Tenure? A more ephemeral kind of “cred cred?” A book? Another book? Ching? Cha ching?
This is what I think at my most cynical: databases like this assume a hierarchical model of cultural respectability, where some magazines are “better credits” than others and where publication is a game of Zelda gold coins, with the most and best coins convincing the boss patrons–the folks with the power, with the staplers and the silkworms and the blank dust jackets–to validate your artistic efforts with a hardcover trophy that signals your properly handled ascension into literary respectability, so your book can be tucked onto shelves and sell less copies than Leaves of Grass reprints–you know, that weird little hunk of poems Walt Whitman self-published.
Okay: what’s wrong with that? I like Zelda. To think of publishing as a game even softens the cynicism a smidge. But the problem with this model is that it’s just not, I believe, how readers and writers function right now on a raw social level, somewhere beneath the abstractions of the Market (if there’s any such place).
Writers: When you’re a “creative” person and you hang out with other creative types whose work you like, you get excited and want to tell people about your friends. You also feel jealous and want to work harder, make your own work just as good. You publicize each other in whatever form as a natural offshoot of your collective confidence, because you like your own shit a lot but you feel like a dick trying to give your poet friend a bunch of your own poems to read, when you know hers are maybe even better. So you decide to make up for it by giving a bunch of her poems to some other friend. And pretty soon you’re all trying to out-do each other in that department too. Then the people around you are amused by all this audacity and tell other people about you and your friends, except they make you all sound even more important than you are because they want to sound good talking about you. If you all keep doing what you’re doing, making noise, it soon becomes outrageous, this insistence and “not giving up.” Eventually the culture world at large stops for a second trying to mine history for a new forgotten artist who lived with bluebirds in a Denny’s parking lot and only produced one sublime canvas of freeze-dried syrup packets, and instead they notice y’alls’ art of the now. Pretty soon, you’ve got people contacting you and saying “what a relief, this is the shit I’ve been waiting for.” They show your their own shit. Some of them are really good and make you work harder, and some of them are just really nice and make you feel like you have someone to work for. Between them and your original friends, you have a lot of people to impress. So you continue to work toward success and happiness, or more like success and crippling anxiety but success, yes, sure. You forget, maybe, to pet the chicken on Level 5. 543/25 points.
Readers: How did you find out about Bukowski? Faulkner? Pynchon? Baudelaire? Frank Stanford? Lorrie Moore? Richard Brautigan? The Smiths? Werner Herzog? Wait, you tell me. Don’t I mean who did you find out from? Don’t I mean you should tell me about the day your mother thought The Crying of Lot 49 was a title up your alley or the year that kid who sold shitty Mexican pot out of his briefcase wouldn’t shut up about the Buk?
Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean.
Q: How did Raymond Carver get his stories published in Esquire? A: He and Gordon Lish met in Menlo Park, CA, where Ray was editing textbooks and Gordon was directing linguistic studies at Behavioral Research Laboratories. They became friends, and Gordon admired Ray’s writing so much he even wrote a little bit of it himself. Q: How much did the New York School poets worry about getting famous A: Not much; they were trying too hard to amuse themselves and their painter friends.
Yes, there are tons of literary magazines. How do you know which is the best? How do you get published in the best? By realizing that in this case the “best” is not a “gold medal,” I think. The best is the magazine you are most excited about, duh, and it seems to me you can’t find that out via some points system. Markets are for tortilla chips. If you want market advice, don’t sell your tortilla chips to a sushi restaurant. If you want to find readers, find readers. We don’t read literature for the same reasons we buy things. People won’t mind buying ugly, unapproved stuff from you if they like your words. It’s true. It’s stunning. Sometimes the real Market sees what’s happening and tries to catch up, which is the staggering inevitability of the Market, also known as Moldy Peaches CD Sales After Juno, but whatever: it’s kind of cute when your Uncle $$$ tries to get hip, and it’s not like he’s going to change.
So okay, what about us writers, Mikey Punkface Utopio, how do we find these readers? Well. Let’s say your friend tells you about some dude his teacher told him about. So you check this dude out. You don’t like his shit. But you read some funny anecdote about how he drove this old writer around, and this old dude smoked cigarettes with one hand and held his oxygen mask with the other. So you check out the old dude’s work, and you find an essay he wrote about Southern Gothic fiction in some magazine. You read a few stories in the fiction section of that magazine. One of them you really dig. You Google this author’s name. She has a blog. On the blog, you find a link to online litmags. You check out one with a cool name, read a few pieces. You really like the pieces: they make you feel like writing. And the site looks nice but not overly so. Some of the bios make the authors seem cool, people you’d want to eat omlettes with. But you don’t recognize any of the names, not really, and the magazine doesn’t seem to be a member of the CLMP or anything. Do you submit there? Or do you go onto a database and read stats sheets and compile rankings systems based on how many times a magazine has appeared in the Puschart Anthology and try to find a “better market?”
Well?
Forgive me for the unoriginality of this closing analogy, but this game doesn’t really doesn’t seem all that different than picking friends in grade school. Either you like people or you calculate the relative popularity of various lunch tables. Most of us insecure little spitshops do the latter. Except now we’re all grown up and we know better. Now we know that we want to hang out with the people who get us. And that no formulaic standard of authority is going to decide who gets us better than ourselves, and we know that nobody’s going to care about us in any satisfying way unless we care about them too, unless we like them beyond just using them.
We know that. Right?
Tags: depressing ideologies, literary magazine databases, literary markets, posts that are sure to make nice and well-meaning people angry or annoyed with me
mike young, you are awake very early. i like this post. duotrope is weird. but who doesn’t like lists and ranking stuff? maybe that is part of why people do it.
mike young, you are awake very early. i like this post. duotrope is weird. but who doesn’t like lists and ranking stuff? maybe that is part of why people do it.
that was wonderful! you expressed some thoughts that opened some cabinets in my mind. very helpful. the pictures were also a wonderful way to elucidate your points, as well as an exercise in food-restraint, keeping it from flying out my nose.
i have a parakeet, he also gnaws on the flesh of my brain when i am sleeping. he’s such a cutey.
thanks mike.
that was wonderful! you expressed some thoughts that opened some cabinets in my mind. very helpful. the pictures were also a wonderful way to elucidate your points, as well as an exercise in food-restraint, keeping it from flying out my nose.
i have a parakeet, he also gnaws on the flesh of my brain when i am sleeping. he’s such a cutey.
thanks mike.
Honestly, this is the best post in the history of HTML Giant, and it also reminds me of the two dominant high school football recruiting tropes in Louisiana and Mississippi. Well done!
Honestly, this is the best post in the history of HTML Giant, and it also reminds me of the two dominant high school football recruiting tropes in Louisiana and Mississippi. Well done!
Kudos and bravos, Mike. You’re just so absolutely right on. That letter you quoted from broke like seven beams in my room full of lasers, therefore triggering my silent alarm, with this line-
>> I recognize that there is only so much a person can understand about a magazine without actually reading it,<>databases like this assume a hierarchical model of cultural respectability, where some magazines are “better credits” than others and where publication is a game of Zelda gold coins, <<
Well I’ve written about that phenomenon elsewhere, and we already know we agree, but yeah- I think the trick is to push the analogy to the point where it breaks. That’s where the underlying illogic gets exposed. In Zelda (and they’re rupees, btw, Mario has the gold coins–but let’s that pass) you collect enough money and then spend it on what? A ring that limits your damage; potions to restore health; bombs; whatever. But STUFF is my point- actual currency exchanged for actual items: an economy. I’m sure you’ve all seen examples of economies, so we need not dwell on this. The question now is: what do you all your pub-credit-coins actually “buy” you? Does having had your work appear in Coconut, ElevenEleven, and hell, in NOO for that matter, really “buy” you something in particular or put you “closer” to some event/place in the distance? I’m not so sure that it does, at least not in the linear, ladder-like way that people imagine it working. It seems to me that the arts function in a manner more akin to either nuclear fusion or else a comet: that is, either there’s a sudden unexpected light screaming across the sky, or else hard work with dangerous materials eventually produces a kind of “critical mass.”
Anyway, kudos again. And thanks.
Kudos and bravos, Mike. You’re just so absolutely right on. That letter you quoted from broke like seven beams in my room full of lasers, therefore triggering my silent alarm, with this line-
>> I recognize that there is only so much a person can understand about a magazine without actually reading it,<>databases like this assume a hierarchical model of cultural respectability, where some magazines are “better credits” than others and where publication is a game of Zelda gold coins, <<
Well I’ve written about that phenomenon elsewhere, and we already know we agree, but yeah- I think the trick is to push the analogy to the point where it breaks. That’s where the underlying illogic gets exposed. In Zelda (and they’re rupees, btw, Mario has the gold coins–but let’s that pass) you collect enough money and then spend it on what? A ring that limits your damage; potions to restore health; bombs; whatever. But STUFF is my point- actual currency exchanged for actual items: an economy. I’m sure you’ve all seen examples of economies, so we need not dwell on this. The question now is: what do you all your pub-credit-coins actually “buy” you? Does having had your work appear in Coconut, ElevenEleven, and hell, in NOO for that matter, really “buy” you something in particular or put you “closer” to some event/place in the distance? I’m not so sure that it does, at least not in the linear, ladder-like way that people imagine it working. It seems to me that the arts function in a manner more akin to either nuclear fusion or else a comet: that is, either there’s a sudden unexpected light screaming across the sky, or else hard work with dangerous materials eventually produces a kind of “critical mass.”
Anyway, kudos again. And thanks.
Damn, dude. This post is a coup for Coconut Home Evening. You were wearing your cowboy hat when you wrote this one. I mean that in the best way.
I’d like to add that good sexy organic interest can sometimes spring from cold careerism. Example: I realize I am writing stories much faster than I am getting them published, so I carpet-bomb the market. A couple months later, I read a recent issue of Fugue where Anthony Varallo just nails it. I look him up, find out he’s the fiction editor at Crazyhorse, check the submission log, and sure enough, I’ve already sent Varallo one of my best stories to reject. Then, regardless, I picked up a copy of Crazyhorse.
So I think what you’re describing is the best way, but it takes time and patience, and the “haven’t checked this mag out but I’ve heard good things so here’s a story” method could be an ugly freeway drive to the same diner.
Damn, dude. This post is a coup for Coconut Home Evening. You were wearing your cowboy hat when you wrote this one. I mean that in the best way.
I’d like to add that good sexy organic interest can sometimes spring from cold careerism. Example: I realize I am writing stories much faster than I am getting them published, so I carpet-bomb the market. A couple months later, I read a recent issue of Fugue where Anthony Varallo just nails it. I look him up, find out he’s the fiction editor at Crazyhorse, check the submission log, and sure enough, I’ve already sent Varallo one of my best stories to reject. Then, regardless, I picked up a copy of Crazyhorse.
So I think what you’re describing is the best way, but it takes time and patience, and the “haven’t checked this mag out but I’ve heard good things so here’s a story” method could be an ugly freeway drive to the same diner.
Hmm, there was about a paragraph between “reading it” and “databases” that seems to have got swallowed somehow, but I dunno what happened so I guess that part of the comment is just gone. The basic gist of it was that I’m really grateful that the Agriculture Reader doesn’t get on a lot of people’s radars, because I really have no idea what we would do with a whole bunch of unsolicited submissions. Probably never read them, since we didn’t ask for them, and then people would talk shit about our response time or something. Sorry, guys!
Hmm, there was about a paragraph between “reading it” and “databases” that seems to have got swallowed somehow, but I dunno what happened so I guess that part of the comment is just gone. The basic gist of it was that I’m really grateful that the Agriculture Reader doesn’t get on a lot of people’s radars, because I really have no idea what we would do with a whole bunch of unsolicited submissions. Probably never read them, since we didn’t ask for them, and then people would talk shit about our response time or something. Sorry, guys!
everyone will be there when everyone else dies
everyone will be there when everyone else dies
I give this post as many thumbs up as I’m lawfully permitted.
I give this post as many thumbs up as I’m lawfully permitted.
everyone is looking at this wrong. each credit should come with points and then the database should rank the authors by points.
Then someone should program a video game online where you can use those points for cloaks of invisibility and swords and then the better authors in the game will kill everyone else and hordes of small press people will swarm the game trying to kill john updike.
everyone is looking at this wrong. each credit should come with points and then the database should rank the authors by points.
Then someone should program a video game online where you can use those points for cloaks of invisibility and swords and then the better authors in the game will kill everyone else and hordes of small press people will swarm the game trying to kill john updike.
That chick in the Slipknot shirt makes me want to put love out in the world. Love, love love. People need it!
That chick in the Slipknot shirt makes me want to put love out in the world. Love, love love. People need it!
“Does having had your work appear in Coconut, ElevenEleven, and hell, in NOO for that matter, really “buy” you something in particular or put you “closer” to some event/place in the distance?”
this is exactly why i, personally, often do think of the submissions bullshit handjob as a videogame: because the second i step away from my computer and back into the ‘real world’, i am just a dude who spends all my time staring into a computer making pixels shift inside a forum where mostly only me and whoever else happens to be in the room will see.
but, hey, it’s something to do.
“Does having had your work appear in Coconut, ElevenEleven, and hell, in NOO for that matter, really “buy” you something in particular or put you “closer” to some event/place in the distance?”
this is exactly why i, personally, often do think of the submissions bullshit handjob as a videogame: because the second i step away from my computer and back into the ‘real world’, i am just a dude who spends all my time staring into a computer making pixels shift inside a forum where mostly only me and whoever else happens to be in the room will see.
but, hey, it’s something to do.
i read about frank stanford on i think blake’s blog.
some girl i liked gave me in watermelon sugar to read.
i learned about bukowski from reading about tom waits
i learned about tom waits because my dad hates the ramones and came into my room one day and took the cd out and put in mule variations and told me to “grow the fuck up”
i read about frank stanford on i think blake’s blog.
some girl i liked gave me in watermelon sugar to read.
i learned about bukowski from reading about tom waits
i learned about tom waits because my dad hates the ramones and came into my room one day and took the cd out and put in mule variations and told me to “grow the fuck up”
re: blake and re: justin’s ‘buying’ and ‘closer’:
i disagree and agree.
having had your work published (and if it’s good enough to garner attention) does actually bring you ‘closer’ to other people, writers/editors, you admire and respect, and possibly instigate an exchange that would otherwise not have happened. in this way, publication begets the currency of interaction. you can ‘buy’ interaction with others if they accept your currency, i.e. are excited by your work. it enables a person to break out of a particular solitude in themselves (of inhabiting a place within themselves that no other person has been able to recognize, and given that recognition by an ‘other’ allows an opening out of that place of ‘one’ into a place of ‘we’, a shared recognition of ‘shit yeah!’). it’s like seeing a color that no one else sees, and then finding someone else who actually sees that color too, there is relief and joy in being able to share that experience with someone, and to know that it’s not all in your head.
but yeah, then you step away from the computer and discover that for the most part ‘fleshspace’ does not accept the currency you have so painstakingly scraped together in ‘litspace’. and you gotta go do other things in the ‘real world’ so that you can buy ‘food things’ that you shove into your mouth so you can perserve your existence long enough to sit back in front of a computer and move pixels around on a screen. because in the end, it’s all just derivatives of communion, whether in the afterworld or this world or the cyber world.
the difference between calling it communion and a game is the intention with which it is approached. either way it’s something to do. and something to be grateful for.
re: blake and re: justin’s ‘buying’ and ‘closer’:
i disagree and agree.
having had your work published (and if it’s good enough to garner attention) does actually bring you ‘closer’ to other people, writers/editors, you admire and respect, and possibly instigate an exchange that would otherwise not have happened. in this way, publication begets the currency of interaction. you can ‘buy’ interaction with others if they accept your currency, i.e. are excited by your work. it enables a person to break out of a particular solitude in themselves (of inhabiting a place within themselves that no other person has been able to recognize, and given that recognition by an ‘other’ allows an opening out of that place of ‘one’ into a place of ‘we’, a shared recognition of ‘shit yeah!’). it’s like seeing a color that no one else sees, and then finding someone else who actually sees that color too, there is relief and joy in being able to share that experience with someone, and to know that it’s not all in your head.
but yeah, then you step away from the computer and discover that for the most part ‘fleshspace’ does not accept the currency you have so painstakingly scraped together in ‘litspace’. and you gotta go do other things in the ‘real world’ so that you can buy ‘food things’ that you shove into your mouth so you can perserve your existence long enough to sit back in front of a computer and move pixels around on a screen. because in the end, it’s all just derivatives of communion, whether in the afterworld or this world or the cyber world.
the difference between calling it communion and a game is the intention with which it is approached. either way it’s something to do. and something to be grateful for.
pr:
im with you. i could not stop thinking about the slipknot girl. i think id like to fuck her a few times. maybe once with her on top and once from the back.
blake:
i really like what you said. i felt like that once right after i won this award from some university. they invited me to read and gave me a thousand bucks and everyone clapped and told me it was great blah blah blah. then i left and walked around campus and nobody cared that i was a live. it feels strange. not that i expect them to but you get the point.
everyone who reads this:
for me the question of writing is not where and how are people getting published. its not that those things arent important or worth a discussion, im just not as interested in them as the why. why are people writing and seeking publication? i think if we figured that out first, the where would become secondary.
sam:
i love everyone who reads this
pr, again:
i love you most
slipknot chick:
bgemich@yahoo.com holla.
pr:
im with you. i could not stop thinking about the slipknot girl. i think id like to fuck her a few times. maybe once with her on top and once from the back.
blake:
i really like what you said. i felt like that once right after i won this award from some university. they invited me to read and gave me a thousand bucks and everyone clapped and told me it was great blah blah blah. then i left and walked around campus and nobody cared that i was a live. it feels strange. not that i expect them to but you get the point.
everyone who reads this:
for me the question of writing is not where and how are people getting published. its not that those things arent important or worth a discussion, im just not as interested in them as the why. why are people writing and seeking publication? i think if we figured that out first, the where would become secondary.
sam:
i love everyone who reads this
pr, again:
i love you most
slipknot chick:
bgemich@yahoo.com holla.
>>publication begets the currency of interaction. <<
keith you are absolutely right, and that fact designates the functional limit of my argument. I definitely have been solicited/recognized/published by Journals D or E or F because they first encountered my work in Journals A or B or C. So yeah, that’s 100% true. And also, of course, there is a certain sense in which having certain pub-credits becomes a kind of currency. If you tell me you’ve had work in NOON, then I instantly know a number of things about you: a broad sense of your interests, people who might be your contemporaries, the fact that you’ve managed to impress Diane Williams.
So I disagree with myself–and with Mike and Blake–to the extent that I concede all this to you. BUT, here’s the rub. The only way to operate in a non-cynical, non-opportunistic, and to my mind “legitimate” way, is to understand the “currency” aspect as happy excess- the light generated by the fire you started solely for the sake of its heat, if that makes any sense.
To return to my “critical mass” analogy from before, the thing is that you don’t know what will cause that critical mass. You never know who is reading what, or why. Some of the pieces I’ve gotten the most “mileage” (to use a term which alludes to a metaphor I’ve already rejected) out of, were published in the least likely of venues. Others, which had much more prominent homes, seem to have led much shorter and sadder lives. There’s no way to tell what kind of life your work will live once it is published. It is for this reason that the only thing I can advise–and the practice by which I attempt to live–is to proceed with a pure heart, with integrity of purpose, and without regard for that “currency,” which, like God, never appears where and when and in the form that all your learning has led you to expect.
>>publication begets the currency of interaction. <<
keith you are absolutely right, and that fact designates the functional limit of my argument. I definitely have been solicited/recognized/published by Journals D or E or F because they first encountered my work in Journals A or B or C. So yeah, that’s 100% true. And also, of course, there is a certain sense in which having certain pub-credits becomes a kind of currency. If you tell me you’ve had work in NOON, then I instantly know a number of things about you: a broad sense of your interests, people who might be your contemporaries, the fact that you’ve managed to impress Diane Williams.
So I disagree with myself–and with Mike and Blake–to the extent that I concede all this to you. BUT, here’s the rub. The only way to operate in a non-cynical, non-opportunistic, and to my mind “legitimate” way, is to understand the “currency” aspect as happy excess- the light generated by the fire you started solely for the sake of its heat, if that makes any sense.
To return to my “critical mass” analogy from before, the thing is that you don’t know what will cause that critical mass. You never know who is reading what, or why. Some of the pieces I’ve gotten the most “mileage” (to use a term which alludes to a metaphor I’ve already rejected) out of, were published in the least likely of venues. Others, which had much more prominent homes, seem to have led much shorter and sadder lives. There’s no way to tell what kind of life your work will live once it is published. It is for this reason that the only thing I can advise–and the practice by which I attempt to live–is to proceed with a pure heart, with integrity of purpose, and without regard for that “currency,” which, like God, never appears where and when and in the form that all your learning has led you to expect.
I like nuclear fusion a lot.
I think unsolicited submissions are good because they’re like keeping an empty seat at the table or something. Many folks I’ve first read through unsolicited submissions and I’ve really loved their stuff. That said, I think we’re all free to define the scope of our projects. But I would never go away from unsolicited submissions. There are just too many good people hiding out there.
I like nuclear fusion a lot.
I think unsolicited submissions are good because they’re like keeping an empty seat at the table or something. Many folks I’ve first read through unsolicited submissions and I’ve really loved their stuff. That said, I think we’re all free to define the scope of our projects. But I would never go away from unsolicited submissions. There are just too many good people hiding out there.
Yes, I agree. The fantasy football part of our brains.
Thanks, Keith. There is a video on YouTube of a crow and a kitten being friends with each other. Alan Thicke narrates. You should check it out.
Yes, I agree. The fantasy football part of our brains.
Thanks, Keith. There is a video on YouTube of a crow and a kitten being friends with each other. Alan Thicke narrates. You should check it out.
I am the Bobby Knight of HTMLGIANT. Wait, he’s a basketball couch.
I am the Bobby Knight of HTMLGIANT. Wait, he’s a basketball couch.
Yes, it’s true, backwards serendipity can happen.
COCONUT HOME EVENING LIVE IN LONDON
Exactly!
Yes, it’s true, backwards serendipity can happen.
COCONUT HOME EVENING LIVE IN LONDON
Exactly!
I like that Tom Waits story a lot, Sasha.
I think finding out how people found out about shit is endlessly interesting.
I like that Tom Waits story a lot, Sasha.
I think finding out how people found out about shit is endlessly interesting.
Yeah, I don’t think you guys disagree with each other that much. The kind of NOON currency you’re talking about is still very based on social and aesthetic things and not received quasi-mathematical notions of authority (e.g. “oh NOON is a top tier market, this person must be good”).
Yeah, I don’t think you guys disagree with each other that much. The kind of NOON currency you’re talking about is still very based on social and aesthetic things and not received quasi-mathematical notions of authority (e.g. “oh NOON is a top tier market, this person must be good”).
i thought maybe through sheer force of will i could turn this comment thing into a discussion of that. i thought that would be fun.
i thought maybe through sheer force of will i could turn this comment thing into a discussion of that. i thought that would be fun.
also i was awake and at work when mike young was posting this.
also i was awake and at work when mike young was posting this.
hahah. i pray to god somehow she hollas
hahah. i pray to god somehow she hollas
to stretch the video game metaphor even further: there are those who play and ‘develop skillz’ inside the world of gaming to a point of renown AMONG GAMERS that gives them cred and insight others do not have, and in some rare cases, make a living off of.
but then take those ‘gamers’ out of their pasture and they are just another herd of digit-bruised dorks
i took a philosophy class once called ‘the epistemology of the hammer’ where we spent a lot of time reading hegel. the professor’s idea for the class was that any skill set developed, such as writing, was just as localized and requiring of focus and talent as any other (ie: carpentry), so that privileged art forms (like making words for books) was no more indicative of something unique in a human than someone who builds a chair.
to prove this i had to build a bookshelf for my final project, which ended up looking like salvador dali designed it, even after i cheated by having the guy at home depot cut my wood for me.
in that class we also had to take attendance by driving nails into a huge log the dude carried to class each day, and each time there was a different hammer and a different kind of nail, which he would tell us the history and usage of, all while talking shit about how shitty we were at driving nails, and occasionally screaming through the floor at the other classes how soon technology would burn and we would all be fucked behind our laptops and our books.
i dont know what this has to do with the topic anymore but somehow it seems pertinent.
books.
to stretch the video game metaphor even further: there are those who play and ‘develop skillz’ inside the world of gaming to a point of renown AMONG GAMERS that gives them cred and insight others do not have, and in some rare cases, make a living off of.
but then take those ‘gamers’ out of their pasture and they are just another herd of digit-bruised dorks
i took a philosophy class once called ‘the epistemology of the hammer’ where we spent a lot of time reading hegel. the professor’s idea for the class was that any skill set developed, such as writing, was just as localized and requiring of focus and talent as any other (ie: carpentry), so that privileged art forms (like making words for books) was no more indicative of something unique in a human than someone who builds a chair.
to prove this i had to build a bookshelf for my final project, which ended up looking like salvador dali designed it, even after i cheated by having the guy at home depot cut my wood for me.
in that class we also had to take attendance by driving nails into a huge log the dude carried to class each day, and each time there was a different hammer and a different kind of nail, which he would tell us the history and usage of, all while talking shit about how shitty we were at driving nails, and occasionally screaming through the floor at the other classes how soon technology would burn and we would all be fucked behind our laptops and our books.
i dont know what this has to do with the topic anymore but somehow it seems pertinent.
books.
blake:
i hear ya man. thats what i was getting at the other day when i was talking about defining art? what is art really, a perfectly made sandwich, a good hand job from a seasoned whore. a poem. a bookshelf.
i still say it is worth examing why people write and publish before examing where and how. but thats just my brain.
blake:
i hear ya man. thats what i was getting at the other day when i was talking about defining art? what is art really, a perfectly made sandwich, a good hand job from a seasoned whore. a poem. a bookshelf.
i still say it is worth examing why people write and publish before examing where and how. but thats just my brain.
it is definitely worth examining. i got way far ‘off task’ above. there is nothing i hate more than people who are only looking for an outlet for their peepee and really have no idea what they are even trying to get into. i guess in that way, its like playing a video game with the tv turned off.
maybe for the next issue of lamination colony i will only print the stuff that gets sent to me by those people that clearly haven’t read an issue, and then will write an essay on each, thoroughly dissecting. that would be fun.
though those people are the same kind of people who include copyright info in their submission and actually would probably sue for defamation or something.
it is definitely worth examining. i got way far ‘off task’ above. there is nothing i hate more than people who are only looking for an outlet for their peepee and really have no idea what they are even trying to get into. i guess in that way, its like playing a video game with the tv turned off.
maybe for the next issue of lamination colony i will only print the stuff that gets sent to me by those people that clearly haven’t read an issue, and then will write an essay on each, thoroughly dissecting. that would be fun.
though those people are the same kind of people who include copyright info in their submission and actually would probably sue for defamation or something.
justin: “happy excess- the light generated by the fire you started solely for the sake of its heat” shit yeah!
justin: “happy excess- the light generated by the fire you started solely for the sake of its heat” shit yeah!
2nd paragraph. killer idea.
2nd paragraph. killer idea.
Gordon Lish and Raymond Carver did not meet in southern California, but when they were both science textbook editors in Menlo Park, in Northern California.
Gordon Lish and Raymond Carver did not meet in southern California, but when they were both science textbook editors in Menlo Park, in Northern California.
blake and barry:
art, in any form, has the capacity to be the incarnation of another presence. a chair has the capacity to be the incarnation of the impression of your ass. which might be nice too, given the right ass.
except for van gogh’s painting, or when meditating on the formless radiance of all things manifest, i don’t think a chair has the capacity to alter another person’s life. a book, a movie, a conversation, another person and so forth has the capacity to fundamentally alter a person at the very core, or at least transport them beyond themselves. i believe that’s what separates craft (mad skillz) from so-called ‘art’, or as i like to call it, good shit.
yeah sure, a great hand job will transport the hand-job-ee beyond himself, quite immaculately for a few minutes, but i’ve never heard of a person being transformed by one (unless it was their first sexual encounter). anything manifest has the capacity to rearrange your mind and molecular structure, but art and language has the unique quality of abstraction, that when the sensations of the revelatory moment has passed, the outward form is nonetheless embodied in something that persists, it is the stored potential of imminent transformation. it is a ubiquitous and impersonal free-floating body waiting only for the moment of contact with a mind so possessed of saturated charge, a mind unknowingly prepared for the right serendipitous catalyst upon which to explode.
all things, hand jobs included, have the potential to serve as that catalyst, but, to draw a parallel from quantum wavefunctions, there is a range of probability within which the unmanifest catalyst will appear, some states are more likely than others. perhaps art simply has a higher likelihood of serving as a catalyst than say a sandwich or the impression of a beautifully shaped ass.
blake and barry:
art, in any form, has the capacity to be the incarnation of another presence. a chair has the capacity to be the incarnation of the impression of your ass. which might be nice too, given the right ass.
except for van gogh’s painting, or when meditating on the formless radiance of all things manifest, i don’t think a chair has the capacity to alter another person’s life. a book, a movie, a conversation, another person and so forth has the capacity to fundamentally alter a person at the very core, or at least transport them beyond themselves. i believe that’s what separates craft (mad skillz) from so-called ‘art’, or as i like to call it, good shit.
yeah sure, a great hand job will transport the hand-job-ee beyond himself, quite immaculately for a few minutes, but i’ve never heard of a person being transformed by one (unless it was their first sexual encounter). anything manifest has the capacity to rearrange your mind and molecular structure, but art and language has the unique quality of abstraction, that when the sensations of the revelatory moment has passed, the outward form is nonetheless embodied in something that persists, it is the stored potential of imminent transformation. it is a ubiquitous and impersonal free-floating body waiting only for the moment of contact with a mind so possessed of saturated charge, a mind unknowingly prepared for the right serendipitous catalyst upon which to explode.
all things, hand jobs included, have the potential to serve as that catalyst, but, to draw a parallel from quantum wavefunctions, there is a range of probability within which the unmanifest catalyst will appear, some states are more likely than others. perhaps art simply has a higher likelihood of serving as a catalyst than say a sandwich or the impression of a beautifully shaped ass.
you made me feel a burst of pleasure for a while:
http://blakebutler.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-you-find-out-about-shit.html
you made me feel a burst of pleasure for a while:
http://blakebutler.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-you-find-out-about-shit.html
I think this is all good and fine for you and certain people. I come to things late and maybe because of a certain debilitating social anxiety. I live in an area, work in a profession, was raised in a home, where literature is as foreign as 4N. But I’m not interested in making friends necessarily, I don’t think, but it makes my dependency on the internet that much stronger and that’s a bummer and that’s maybe not a bummer but also? I’ve never met in person another writer other than a workshop I took five years ago so I don’t really understand how lit circles function offline. I don’t know that I want to now that I am comfortably living inside the me of who I am.
The first fiction that wasn’t best-selling grocery-store-stocked I ever read that wasn’t an assignment was A Confederacy of Dunces. I was 22? I picked it from a list I found online of every novel that had won a pulitzer and the title sounded interesting enough.
I guess maybe I am saying that for people like me, if it weren’t for the internet and lists and attempts to organize our interests in whatever way we can think of, I am absolutely sure I wouldn’t be writing today, or even aware that there are books out there that are better than whatever is on the nyt best-seller list.
A couple things I was reading yesterday and today in William Gass’s A Temple of Texts, the piece he wrote on Gaddis and that he didn’t participate in the social aspects of being a writer, the public appearances, etc. and attributes it to maybe why his 2 don’t get remembered as often.
I think this is all good and fine for you and certain people. I come to things late and maybe because of a certain debilitating social anxiety. I live in an area, work in a profession, was raised in a home, where literature is as foreign as 4N. But I’m not interested in making friends necessarily, I don’t think, but it makes my dependency on the internet that much stronger and that’s a bummer and that’s maybe not a bummer but also? I’ve never met in person another writer other than a workshop I took five years ago so I don’t really understand how lit circles function offline. I don’t know that I want to now that I am comfortably living inside the me of who I am.
The first fiction that wasn’t best-selling grocery-store-stocked I ever read that wasn’t an assignment was A Confederacy of Dunces. I was 22? I picked it from a list I found online of every novel that had won a pulitzer and the title sounded interesting enough.
I guess maybe I am saying that for people like me, if it weren’t for the internet and lists and attempts to organize our interests in whatever way we can think of, I am absolutely sure I wouldn’t be writing today, or even aware that there are books out there that are better than whatever is on the nyt best-seller list.
A couple things I was reading yesterday and today in William Gass’s A Temple of Texts, the piece he wrote on Gaddis and that he didn’t participate in the social aspects of being a writer, the public appearances, etc. and attributes it to maybe why his 2 don’t get remembered as often.
keith –
very nice. well crafted nonsense.
keith –
very nice. well crafted nonsense.
Thanks for the correction, M. I’m from a far northern area of Northern California, so I’ve tended all my life to think of everything south of Sacramento as Southern California, which is weird, I know. I’ll fix the post.
4N??
Thanks for the correction, M. I’m from a far northern area of Northern California, so I’ve tended all my life to think of everything south of Sacramento as Southern California, which is weird, I know. I’ll fix the post.
4N??
24N2U?
24N2U?
Darby, I’m about as pro-internet as one can get, and I am with you in the feeling that certain aspects of “socializing” are, for me, far easier online.
And am I’m not anti-lists, anti-list-sifting, or anti-records-of-accomplishment. It just seems to me a rather loopy idea to aim toward those lists as a method of finding readers, or to aim toward an idea that someone will want to read your work if your “bio” has a certain shakedown of “the right” credits.
After all, Gass talking about Gaddis in his book has nothing to do with anything besides Gass’s desire to share Gaddis with others and talk about Gaddis,which is a social impulse, right back down to the basic idea of writers and readers being people who show each other things and look at things shown, however convoluted that process gets.
Darby, I’m about as pro-internet as one can get, and I am with you in the feeling that certain aspects of “socializing” are, for me, far easier online.
And am I’m not anti-lists, anti-list-sifting, or anti-records-of-accomplishment. It just seems to me a rather loopy idea to aim toward those lists as a method of finding readers, or to aim toward an idea that someone will want to read your work if your “bio” has a certain shakedown of “the right” credits.
After all, Gass talking about Gaddis in his book has nothing to do with anything besides Gass’s desire to share Gaddis with others and talk about Gaddis,which is a social impulse, right back down to the basic idea of writers and readers being people who show each other things and look at things shown, however convoluted that process gets.
blake:
i like that, that writing is like chair-building, that it’s just another skill set learned and not necessarily something ‘special in a writer’ or something. that is an extremely funny story.
i sometimes think my liberal arts education is utterly useless but then i think that everything is useless unless i learn to farm or i become a doctor, like my writing has no tangible effects other than making people grin or nod their heads and have some minor emotional reaction, which is i guess all i can ask for. also i was in the boy scouts awhile back and i was terrible at hammering so i quit the boy scouts and read a lot of fantasy novels instead.
i don’t know how this relates to the post at all honestly, so in regard to the actual content i have this to say: i don’t use duotrope, i much prefer finding new magazines thru other writers’ blogs that i respect and thru links that magazines i already enjoy carry, so yes, i think you’re right there that’s probably a much more ‘organic’ method, but at the same time duotrope is really convenient, oh well.
blake:
i like that, that writing is like chair-building, that it’s just another skill set learned and not necessarily something ‘special in a writer’ or something. that is an extremely funny story.
i sometimes think my liberal arts education is utterly useless but then i think that everything is useless unless i learn to farm or i become a doctor, like my writing has no tangible effects other than making people grin or nod their heads and have some minor emotional reaction, which is i guess all i can ask for. also i was in the boy scouts awhile back and i was terrible at hammering so i quit the boy scouts and read a lot of fantasy novels instead.
i don’t know how this relates to the post at all honestly, so in regard to the actual content i have this to say: i don’t use duotrope, i much prefer finding new magazines thru other writers’ blogs that i respect and thru links that magazines i already enjoy carry, so yes, i think you’re right there that’s probably a much more ‘organic’ method, but at the same time duotrope is really convenient, oh well.
And me commenting at all was a social impulse and one I’m already regretting.
Anyway, I like ideas like these. It presents us with a new way of thinking about how we approach the things we will become interested in. Like a new kind of library we can sort according to a new condition. Your alternative is that we should make more friends and engage in a haphazard, chanceful scenario by which we come out with new recommendations, and are those recommendations any less shaky? Whether the thing works, I don’t know, who cares. But let’s try it.
And me commenting at all was a social impulse and one I’m already regretting.
Anyway, I like ideas like these. It presents us with a new way of thinking about how we approach the things we will become interested in. Like a new kind of library we can sort according to a new condition. Your alternative is that we should make more friends and engage in a haphazard, chanceful scenario by which we come out with new recommendations, and are those recommendations any less shaky? Whether the thing works, I don’t know, who cares. But let’s try it.
I love you Barry.
I love you Barry.
quitting the boy scouts to read fantasy books. exactly what i did.
drew is a man after my own heart.
quitting the boy scouts to read fantasy books. exactly what i did.
drew is a man after my own heart.
Gaming in this way is the least productive thing ever. You want to make a dent in the culture, play big-time college football. You want to make a dent in literary culture, you publish in the New Yorker, Granta, VQR, Harper’s, Tin House, Ploughshares, or the Georgia Review. You want a small chance at the big time, you play for Louisiana Tech. You want a small chance at literary fame, you Crazyhorse, Yale Review, or AQR. You want a one-way ticket to paying your own way, you play Division III football. You want a one-way ticket to paying your own way, you publish on the Internet. The NFL scouts don’t troll for prospects at Otterbein College or Oswego State, and the literary gatekeepers don’t troll for prospects on Elimae. Maybe it ain’t right, but it be true, my friends.
Gaming in this way is the least productive thing ever. You want to make a dent in the culture, play big-time college football. You want to make a dent in literary culture, you publish in the New Yorker, Granta, VQR, Harper’s, Tin House, Ploughshares, or the Georgia Review. You want a small chance at the big time, you play for Louisiana Tech. You want a small chance at literary fame, you Crazyhorse, Yale Review, or AQR. You want a one-way ticket to paying your own way, you play Division III football. You want a one-way ticket to paying your own way, you publish on the Internet. The NFL scouts don’t troll for prospects at Otterbein College or Oswego State, and the literary gatekeepers don’t troll for prospects on Elimae. Maybe it ain’t right, but it be true, my friends.
I like duotrope. I give them money. I always feel so badly that they never are out of code whatever. I worry about them.
I go through many wierd phases in re: to writing, socializing and so forth and I have never built a chair, but I did fix the toilet upstairs. I gave myself the most amazing hand job this morning and it was a bit transformative (and helped cure a bad hangover, which was a bit transforming, but not as transfoming as 100 proof absolut last night..oh boy), maybe not as much as reading Parker’s Back for the first time, but maybe as good as reading it for the third time.
I like Justin’s whole idea about having a pure heart. I think that was the gist of Mike’s discussion. Not everyone in the “game” does have that. But- that goes for every aspect of life. One of the weirder things- much wierder to me than being impure in our goals as writers- are parents who seem to be in it to get somewhere. How can you take something so gorgeous and humbling as being a mother and turn it into – a competition, a way of social advancing, a way of being a soulless fuck? I don’t know, but it happens.
I used to have a thing about writing that it was work “Just work” like any other work. Frankly, I got a lot of work done then. Not all bad, either. But now I am in a different phase. Where I respect the thing I disresepected so much in the past ” inspiration”, the mystery, the magic of it. I have no doubt I’ll be switching gears again. I’m not loyal to theories. Just Barry.
I like duotrope. I give them money. I always feel so badly that they never are out of code whatever. I worry about them.
I go through many wierd phases in re: to writing, socializing and so forth and I have never built a chair, but I did fix the toilet upstairs. I gave myself the most amazing hand job this morning and it was a bit transformative (and helped cure a bad hangover, which was a bit transforming, but not as transfoming as 100 proof absolut last night..oh boy), maybe not as much as reading Parker’s Back for the first time, but maybe as good as reading it for the third time.
I like Justin’s whole idea about having a pure heart. I think that was the gist of Mike’s discussion. Not everyone in the “game” does have that. But- that goes for every aspect of life. One of the weirder things- much wierder to me than being impure in our goals as writers- are parents who seem to be in it to get somewhere. How can you take something so gorgeous and humbling as being a mother and turn it into – a competition, a way of social advancing, a way of being a soulless fuck? I don’t know, but it happens.
I used to have a thing about writing that it was work “Just work” like any other work. Frankly, I got a lot of work done then. Not all bad, either. But now I am in a different phase. Where I respect the thing I disresepected so much in the past ” inspiration”, the mystery, the magic of it. I have no doubt I’ll be switching gears again. I’m not loyal to theories. Just Barry.
This may be true, but publishing somewhere isn’t like playing football somewhere. You play college football at Oswego State and that is where you play. Period.
You publish in elimae and you can still publish elsewhere.
In fact, it probably helps you (going back to the “currency” debate above) publish in bigger journals to publish in smaller ones first.
This may be true, but publishing somewhere isn’t like playing football somewhere. You play college football at Oswego State and that is where you play. Period.
You publish in elimae and you can still publish elsewhere.
In fact, it probably helps you (going back to the “currency” debate above) publish in bigger journals to publish in smaller ones first.
‘d’anthony’: if i said something that ignorant i’d stay anonymous too
‘d’anthony’: if i said something that ignorant i’d stay anonymous too
i quit cub scouts to play soccer
and because church basements scared me
and i was only in it for the pinewood derby anyway
i quit cub scouts to play soccer
and because church basements scared me
and i was only in it for the pinewood derby anyway
This is all fine and good, but can we talk about the submersible Koi fish with the little man inside up top there?
This is all fine and good, but can we talk about the submersible Koi fish with the little man inside up top there?
We almost bought those koi fishies to help our dirty pond.
We almost bought those koi fishies to help our dirty pond.
take that
http://anicecoldcocacola.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-am-going-to-write-blog-now.html
take that
http://anicecoldcocacola.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-am-going-to-write-blog-now.html
hey blake broke his vow of silence.
mike young should post more.
this is much more meaningful than anything i’ve written.
good job.
hey blake broke his vow of silence.
mike young should post more.
this is much more meaningful than anything i’ve written.
good job.
d’anthony seems like he is TTB.
i get a ttb vibe out of him.
d’anthony seems like he is TTB.
i get a ttb vibe out of him.
I read this post shortly before leaving for work this morning and have been thinking about it all day.
I felt it speaking directly to me, in a certain extent, because I’ve definitely found myself at times in the past thinking, man, I wish there were resources out there that made it easier to gauge what kind-of “reputation” or “credibility” or “legitimacy” a particular unfamiliar pub has, but I think the question you very rightly raise is credibility in whose eyes, and for what purpose, toward what end?
…I think this question of “how people find out about stuff” is also interesting… I think the super-organic process you’re describing is true and is good, but then I think people… like all people everywhere need to be super-conscious about pushing themselves beyond whatever their respective comfort zones are, because social groups can become insular incredibly quickly and when you’re not even looking, and I think that’s particularly toxic for art.
I read this post shortly before leaving for work this morning and have been thinking about it all day.
I felt it speaking directly to me, in a certain extent, because I’ve definitely found myself at times in the past thinking, man, I wish there were resources out there that made it easier to gauge what kind-of “reputation” or “credibility” or “legitimacy” a particular unfamiliar pub has, but I think the question you very rightly raise is credibility in whose eyes, and for what purpose, toward what end?
…I think this question of “how people find out about stuff” is also interesting… I think the super-organic process you’re describing is true and is good, but then I think people… like all people everywhere need to be super-conscious about pushing themselves beyond whatever their respective comfort zones are, because social groups can become insular incredibly quickly and when you’re not even looking, and I think that’s particularly toxic for art.
TO a certain extent. (“in” a certain extent? What the fuck?)
TO a certain extent. (“in” a certain extent? What the fuck?)
oh… one other thing I was going to say….
does this student think they’re going to keep this thing going past the class project stage? I feel like people are are constantly starting projects like this as students and then dropping them, and as a result the internet is riddled with useless, out-dated information.
Also have mixed feelings abt people always thinking they need to address an issue by starting something new rather than by at least attempting to in some way engage with/change what’s already out there. ….I see this a lot in social justice stuff in Chicago. “We have a problem with x, so we’re going to start a new group.” “Great… do you realize there are already 3 groups locally already working on x? Have you talked to them? Have you done any research too understand what’s already out there?” …maybe that’s not a fair comparison to make, but it just raised my flags a little… (like do we really need ANOTHER database?)
oh… one other thing I was going to say….
does this student think they’re going to keep this thing going past the class project stage? I feel like people are are constantly starting projects like this as students and then dropping them, and as a result the internet is riddled with useless, out-dated information.
Also have mixed feelings abt people always thinking they need to address an issue by starting something new rather than by at least attempting to in some way engage with/change what’s already out there. ….I see this a lot in social justice stuff in Chicago. “We have a problem with x, so we’re going to start a new group.” “Great… do you realize there are already 3 groups locally already working on x? Have you talked to them? Have you done any research too understand what’s already out there?” …maybe that’s not a fair comparison to make, but it just raised my flags a little… (like do we really need ANOTHER database?)
That’s a really good point, Tim, and I think it’s another good thing to be super-conscious about.
That’s a really good point, Tim, and I think it’s another good thing to be super-conscious about.
Well I dunno about this project in particular, but I don’t think another database is a bad thing… I mean what else is there other than duotrope? It isn’t like we are awash in literary databases.
Well I dunno about this project in particular, but I don’t think another database is a bad thing… I mean what else is there other than duotrope? It isn’t like we are awash in literary databases.
Absolutely agreed on the comfort zones, which is why I think if you’re in the position of running an outlet like a magazine, having valves like unsolicited submissions is so important. Also, I think, though, there is a natural instinct that takes care of this, that nagging feeling that you’re always missing something, which I know haunts me and which leads me to always seek out new stuff and sometimes even seek out new stuff to the detriment of “nurturing” my old stuff (okay, now I am just talking about music blogs versus listening to the records I already have, but you get the idea).
Absolutely agreed on the comfort zones, which is why I think if you’re in the position of running an outlet like a magazine, having valves like unsolicited submissions is so important. Also, I think, though, there is a natural instinct that takes care of this, that nagging feeling that you’re always missing something, which I know haunts me and which leads me to always seek out new stuff and sometimes even seek out new stuff to the detriment of “nurturing” my old stuff (okay, now I am just talking about music blogs versus listening to the records I already have, but you get the idea).
I want to submerse myself in your Koi fish, Jensen.
I want to submerse myself in your Koi fish, Jensen.
i found mike young by searching “those gold coins in zelda prize-winning internet sex essay”
i found blake butler by searching “ryan’s steakhouse helping son shit baby-biting”
i found htmlgiant by something other than search
i found mike young by searching “those gold coins in zelda prize-winning internet sex essay”
i found blake butler by searching “ryan’s steakhouse helping son shit baby-biting”
i found htmlgiant by something other than search
Shit, I’ll come back and read all these comments some other time, but this was great. I see so many people complaining about lit mags not having proper submission guidelines (when most of them do, if you just look beyond the front page) and there’s a horrible culture of online of people who are just looking to be published, it should be natural.
Like everything. Like dating. Like figuring out what to make for dinner. Like what time I should leave for the library based on how much coffee I want to drink here compared to there (mine is better). Never force it.
Shit, I’ll come back and read all these comments some other time, but this was great. I see so many people complaining about lit mags not having proper submission guidelines (when most of them do, if you just look beyond the front page) and there’s a horrible culture of online of people who are just looking to be published, it should be natural.
Like everything. Like dating. Like figuring out what to make for dinner. Like what time I should leave for the library based on how much coffee I want to drink here compared to there (mine is better). Never force it.
This was a great post!
This was a great post!
d anthony smith:
the problem with what you are saying is that kobe bryant exists and for the most part is better than everyone else. so there will continue to be more and more and more and more kobe bryants until eventually nobody gives a fuck about duke or north carolina or ucla. or the people left caring about them are the people with their heads and noses in other people’s asses, i.e. the type of people who only care about publishing in the new yorker, tin house, and ploughshares. that bullshit too shall pass.
pr:
how was brunch?
d anthony smith:
the problem with what you are saying is that kobe bryant exists and for the most part is better than everyone else. so there will continue to be more and more and more and more kobe bryants until eventually nobody gives a fuck about duke or north carolina or ucla. or the people left caring about them are the people with their heads and noses in other people’s asses, i.e. the type of people who only care about publishing in the new yorker, tin house, and ploughshares. that bullshit too shall pass.
pr:
how was brunch?
its mean monday for god’s sake. someone tell someone else to fuck off.
its mean monday for god’s sake. someone tell someone else to fuck off.
the pinewood derby, oh man i forgot about that.
i think my father had more fun with that than i did. but in retrospect it was pretty awesome.
the pinewood derby, oh man i forgot about that.
i think my father had more fun with that than i did. but in retrospect it was pretty awesome.
Brunch was OK. Thanks for asking Barry.
Brunch was OK. Thanks for asking Barry.
i just bought a dartboard from dartboards.com
i just bought a dartboard from dartboards.com
Mike Young, you need to post here a hell of a lot more. I think I have more to say, but I want to let this simmer.
Mike Young, you need to post here a hell of a lot more. I think I have more to say, but I want to let this simmer.
Now that would kick some serious ass.
Now that would kick some serious ass.
It might be that there is a bit of confirmation bias here about the importance of online publications. If the vitriol extended in this part of the thread is any evidence.
It might be that there is a bit of confirmation bias here about the importance of online publications. If the vitriol extended in this part of the thread is any evidence.
it was amazing.
and if you want to talk about an education that prepares you to in no way contribute to society, try getting a bfa. in ceramics.
the pinewood derby was fantastic.
it was amazing.
and if you want to talk about an education that prepares you to in no way contribute to society, try getting a bfa. in ceramics.
the pinewood derby was fantastic.
Great post, Mike.
Great post, Mike.
i lost all my coins
i lost all my coins
Well I’m a little late to the ball game here, but since I am the person who made litmags.org, I feel obligated to respond.
First of all, I understand that your article isn’t an attack on the site.
Second of all, I pretty much agree with what you’re saying. It should be a social thing. Ideally, Litmags.org, like blogs, friends, stories that are passed along, is another part of the web of information. That is why I built in the ability to comment and the social bookmarking (“good mag!”) thing. Ideally, if the site gets enough traffic, the social aspect of sharing thoughts overtakes the whole points/stats thing.
The points system thing is more of a psychological gimmick than anything. It is sort of for your Zelda coins, although I think the better video game analogy is to give people a feeling, like in the world of video games, there is a right thing, a way to score points. People have to get past that initial animal anxiety (will people like me more if i read this and talk about ?) before they can get comfortable and think and enjoy something new for real.
As far as the email I sent goes, I appreciate that it’s hokey. If you could read all the various anxieties I’ve heard from editors about small things on the website being offensive or misleading, you’d understand why it comes off as a kind of standardized pitch (hopefully they aren’t reading this). Not that I think it was wrong of them to be anal. It’s their product, and they have every right to want it represented in a way that matches up with their intentions.
Anyway, perhaps I’ll submit something to NOO. It does have a circulation of 2100. That’s, what, 30 Zelda points? I only need 15 more to get an upgraded sword.
Well I’m a little late to the ball game here, but since I am the person who made litmags.org, I feel obligated to respond.
First of all, I understand that your article isn’t an attack on the site.
Second of all, I pretty much agree with what you’re saying. It should be a social thing. Ideally, Litmags.org, like blogs, friends, stories that are passed along, is another part of the web of information. That is why I built in the ability to comment and the social bookmarking (“good mag!”) thing. Ideally, if the site gets enough traffic, the social aspect of sharing thoughts overtakes the whole points/stats thing.
The points system thing is more of a psychological gimmick than anything. It is sort of for your Zelda coins, although I think the better video game analogy is to give people a feeling, like in the world of video games, there is a right thing, a way to score points. People have to get past that initial animal anxiety (will people like me more if i read this and talk about ?) before they can get comfortable and think and enjoy something new for real.
As far as the email I sent goes, I appreciate that it’s hokey. If you could read all the various anxieties I’ve heard from editors about small things on the website being offensive or misleading, you’d understand why it comes off as a kind of standardized pitch (hopefully they aren’t reading this). Not that I think it was wrong of them to be anal. It’s their product, and they have every right to want it represented in a way that matches up with their intentions.
Anyway, perhaps I’ll submit something to NOO. It does have a circulation of 2100. That’s, what, 30 Zelda points? I only need 15 more to get an upgraded sword.
I hate this essay. This is all about the insular world of MFA “writing.” And if the author was at a “top tier” journal, he wouldn’t have written it. But his own journal isn’t even third-tier so he has to come up with this essay to defend it.
Truth is, most journals are full of sloppy writing, soft ideas, poor thinking, and all manner of third-rate junk.
I hate the MFA world. I am an independent: no degree, no connection to universities. I am a writer and I am published.
Here’s my criteria for submitting to a magazine. It’s simple. I just look at how much they pay. That’s number one. Second is the audience. I look at their circulation (if it’s print) or their hits / ad rate (if it’s onine). I’d sacrifice a little pay for more eyeballs, sometimes, but it’s all about the money.
In other words, 95% of those “journals” are immediate nos for me, since they don’t pay squat.
But that’s how writing should be. It’s how it used to be. If more writers went independent, and avoided the MFA schoolteacher CV “credit” world completely, then there would be less of these lame journals and maybe more real outlets that paid.
Remember, a magazine pays its writers because the magazine is professional, the writers who work for them are pros, and above all they have *readers*. These lamebrain unpaying journals don’t have any of that. Who want them? Not me.
I hate this essay. This is all about the insular world of MFA “writing.” And if the author was at a “top tier” journal, he wouldn’t have written it. But his own journal isn’t even third-tier so he has to come up with this essay to defend it.
Truth is, most journals are full of sloppy writing, soft ideas, poor thinking, and all manner of third-rate junk.
I hate the MFA world. I am an independent: no degree, no connection to universities. I am a writer and I am published.
Here’s my criteria for submitting to a magazine. It’s simple. I just look at how much they pay. That’s number one. Second is the audience. I look at their circulation (if it’s print) or their hits / ad rate (if it’s onine). I’d sacrifice a little pay for more eyeballs, sometimes, but it’s all about the money.
In other words, 95% of those “journals” are immediate nos for me, since they don’t pay squat.
But that’s how writing should be. It’s how it used to be. If more writers went independent, and avoided the MFA schoolteacher CV “credit” world completely, then there would be less of these lame journals and maybe more real outlets that paid.
Remember, a magazine pays its writers because the magazine is professional, the writers who work for them are pros, and above all they have *readers*. These lamebrain unpaying journals don’t have any of that. Who want them? Not me.
please read me and try again
thank you for the cliches
please read me and try again
thank you for the cliches
congratulations and good luck with your professional writing.
congratulations and good luck with your professional writing.
something here smells like the ocean!
and its not anonymous.
something here smells like the ocean!
and its not anonymous.
[…] comment came late to Mike Young’s ‘Magazine Debasers’ essay. I wanted to post it here, because it is […]
Coming to this very late, but thanks. This was a fantastic read. And you are SPOT ON, brother. Sure, places like Duotrope.com are a great start, but like you said, sometimes the best finds, the best places to hang, and hang out our dirty laundry, come from friends, cruising the internet, and the bookstores. Very cool.
Peace,
Richard
Coming to this very late, but thanks. This was a fantastic read. And you are SPOT ON, brother. Sure, places like Duotrope.com are a great start, but like you said, sometimes the best finds, the best places to hang, and hang out our dirty laundry, come from friends, cruising the internet, and the bookstores. Very cool.
Peace,
Richard
[…] blog ‘Dragonfly On a Dog Chain’* Mike Young’s lit. zine NOO Journal* Essay: ‘Magazine Databases: Magazine Debasers?’ by Mike Young* Logan Ryan Smith interviews Mike Young* 12th Street interviews Mike Young* Mike Young reviews Tao […]