
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.






going 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.
I 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.
[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.]