But no, really: why submit to magazines you don’t read? Are you a prostitute? What will it gain you in the end?

Unsaid Magazine online

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The monolithic Unsaid Magazine has just relaunched their website, with online content from each author in every issue, including the latest #4, with work by: ANNE CARSON, BRIAN EVENSON, BLAKE BUTLER, DAVID OHLE, EVELYN HAMPTON, PETER MARKUS, ALEXIS ALMEIDA, ROBERT LOPEZ, BEAR KIRKPATRICK, MICHAEL KIMBALL, MEGAN LAYTON, DAWN RAFFEL, EUGENE MARTEN, DAVID HOLLANDER, OTTESSA MOSHFEGH, SHELTON WALSMITH, JASON SCHWARTZ, RUDY WILSON, SARAH MANGUSO, PAUL MALISZEWSKI, RICHARD ST. GERMAIN, SAM MICHEL, EMILIA A. PHILLIPS, BRIAN KUBARYCZ, SVEN BIRKERTS, RICK POINSETT, ALYSON JANE, BIANCA GALVEZ, JOE WENDEROTH, M SARKI, JOANNA HOWARD, WILL ENO, JESSICA NEWMAN, PATRICIA O’CONNELL, MATTHEW THOMPSON, CAROLYN ALTMAN, PETER CHRISTOPHER, ANDY DEVINE, DANIELLE BLAU, RACHEL B. GLASER, PATRICK EHLEN, M.T. FALLON, JONATHAN CALLAHAN, LAUREN MCCOLLUM, KRISTINA BORN, JULIA HOLLEMAN, TRIA ANDREWS, VIRGINIA KONCHAN, BJORN VERENSON, MICHAEL STEWART, TRENT ENGLAND, DYLAN T. NICE, BRIAN SCHORN, RYAN MURPHY, SAM PINK, BENJAMIN LANDRY, EMILY MAHAN, SHANE JONES, THOMAS LAVERTY, A. MINETTA GOULD, COOPER ESTEBAN, LINDSAY ANDERSON, JOSHUA KORNREICH, SCOTT GARSON. If you don’t have this yet, it’s 500+ pages, and brain-eating on every one of them. A true mechanism of new tongues.

Uncategorized / 22 Comments
October 6th, 2009 / 11:46 am

Craft Notes with Peter Jackson

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I just finished watching the director’s commentary track on the re-issue of The Frighteners, a movie I truly love despite the fact that it’s deeply flawed, wildly uneven, and basically a failure. (It’s like the Philip K. Dick of horror-comedy crossover movies; though not like a Philip K. Dick movie). Hearing Peter Jackson discuss what he feels went right about the film, what went wrong, and how it all came together–or didn’t–was fascinating. I wasn’t much of a Peter Jackson fan going in–in fact I didn’t realize he had directed this movie until I netflixed it this most recent time–but something about his candidness, coupled with his obviously fan-boyish enthusiasm for cinema in general, really won me over. Plus I learned that he made a FOUR AND A HALF HOUR documentary about the making of this film, which apparently I need to netflix separately. As of this writing, it’s already on the queue. Does anybody else have favorite failed work of art, be they literary, musical, or filmic? I’d be interested to hear what, and why.

Craft Notes & Random / 50 Comments
October 6th, 2009 / 11:35 am

Mark Leidner is funny

from his Trembyle blog:

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His chapbook Night of 1,000 Murders is really smart and good, too.

He also wrote this really good story ‘Snow‘. And these poems. And stuff.

I like Mark.

Author Spotlight / 14 Comments
October 6th, 2009 / 10:43 am

The Electric (Literature) Slide: Boogie Woogie Woogie

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixel_addict/ / CC BY 2.0

Whenever a new literary magazine debuts I am intrigued because it means there’s one more group of people in the world who support words, writing and writers. I have found Electric Literature particularly interesting because they actually pay (and quite well) their writers. They have a slick, aggressive advertising campaign with ads like this and this and others suggesting that their magazine offers “reading that is bad for you.” I’m not sure what that means. The writing in the first issue didn’t feel dangerous.

READ MORE >

Random / 100 Comments
October 6th, 2009 / 9:00 am

Unfortunately, making physically nice books will only be a niche within a niche. Publishers are more likely to resort to expedients like selling autographed copies, or editions with the buyer’s picture on the cover.

from Post-Medium Publishing.

Thoughts?

An excerpt of Eugene Marten’s next novel, Firework, forthcoming 2010 from Tyrant Books, is up now at the Brooklyn Rail.

This seems calming, and not calming

From the archives at Dalkey Archive, John O’Brien interviews Coleman Dowell, who eventually threw himself out of the window of his 15th floor apartment:

COLEMAN DOWELL: There are writers who can tell you precisely what they do, but I am not one of them. There was a lecture E. M. Forster delivered called “Inspiration” which concerns the mind turning turtle. I put a piece of paper in the typewriter and, if I’m colemandowellgoing to write well, the mind turns turtle. Out comes the person at the typewriter, the writer, whom I do not carry away from the typewriter. I talk about writing with other writers in this sort of desultory manner but I’m not really eager to do it. So there is that thing that belongs to the typewriter and the piece of paper. This turning turtle occurs, but as Forster says in his lecture, this one can also produce gibberish. This element of mystery is there for me. I’m not very articulate about writing, as you can see. If I could sit here and tell you everything that happens and why I do it—aside from a compulsion and an absolute love for writing, I don’t think I’d write. I don’t think I’d do it all because it’s a lonesome thing. When I start a new book I feel as though I’m going into a cave that I can’t come out of until the book is finished. I have a routine of getting to bed early and then getting up early so that I’m at the typewriter by no later than seven. It’s very lonesome, and nobody is really willing to share while you’re going along and writing. dowellcolemanI can tell you why anything in my books is there and why something happened, but aside from that, I probably can talk about somebody else’s writing better than I can my own. When a work is finished, I can talk with you about it, every section and every word, but that is when it’s finished. At the time I am writing, I can’t talk because the process is not known to me. For me, the writing is enough. I don’t need to discuss it. When I write, I want to look at something as closely as I can. I have old notes stuck in my journal. One of them is very old now, it’s from about 1968, and it says, “Examine the essence of shunning.” That interested me at the time, and some day I might write about it. But that’s the way it comes about; I said that I want to look at that as closely as I can.

Excerpts / 18 Comments
October 5th, 2009 / 8:48 pm

Explain Yourself: Peter Berghoef in ROBOT MELON #9

explain-yourself[I’m starting a new weekly feature, in which I scour my favorite journals and pick something that I like and want “explained” (I will accept anything for an explanation). I won’t be alerting people when I make the selection though, so it’ll be interesting to see who has their ears on. If I pick you and you respond before the post scrolls off the page, I will contact you (if contact info is provided) and send you a gift in the mail. Like a book or something.] [PS: When the words, “EXPLAIN YOURSELF” appear, everyone has to clap. Like a game show.][PPS: Some weeks there will be extra challenges, like “The Apologist” and “The Rebuttal,” in which random commenters can steal the gift . . . but that will come later. This being the first week, I want to keep it simple.]

So what the heck is this awesomeness:

the first time I believed I had Cadillacs running for office in my veins
freshly anointed with new headdresses
hats the neck can’t support
stop signs on top of stop signs

It’s good, right?

If Peter Berghoef is reading, would you please EXPLAIN YOURSELF! [applause!]

Web Hype / 33 Comments
October 5th, 2009 / 4:51 pm