New from Publishing Genius’s ‘This PDF Chapbook‘ series, what is now probably my favorite of all of the releases thus far, a new one from the megabrained Chris Higgs:
Mary Gaitskill on Slate’s Open Book
The amazing Mary Gaitskill has a new book out. I like all of Gaitskill’s work, but her stories especially, and so I’m very excited about this new book, which I don’t own yet, but hope to very soon. Slate reviewed the book the other day, and they liked it. Gaitskill also appeared on Slate’s Open Book series, which they produce in collaboration with the NYU creative program program. Gaitskill sits down with Meghan O’Rourke and Deborah Landau, to talk about her new book and read from it. One of my favorite things about Open Book is that they post two versions of each interview: the ~10 minute version that gets spotlighted on Slate, but also the extended (ie complete) version of the conversation, which can last upwards of a half hour.
Gaitskill Open Book, abridged version. For harcore fans: uncut version here.
Previous episodes of Open Book have included conversations with John Ashbery (abridged here; uncut here) and Junot Diaz (for some reason I can only find the short version of that one).
Welcome Back
Please welcome back from the dead, dispatch litareview.
Mike Young’s story ‘Ball of Dooshie Levitation’ makes up the first dispatch.
Remember magic tricks? Those are fun.
You can read the story here.
Payment is $10 per piece. Submission guidelines pasted below:
-checklist
- Fiction or meritorious non-fiction between 1,200 and 3,000 words
(multiple yet cohesive flash/micro fictions are fine)- Cover letter with author photo and biography of less than 75 words
- Simultaneous submissions allowed, multiple submissions not
- Submissions go to moonpunter+dispatch@gmail.com as attachments in RTF, ODT, or DOC format.
Enjoy!
Uncategorized / 18 Comments
April 1st, 2009 / 9:44 pm
April 1st, 2009 / 9:44 pm
Haut or Not: Giancarlo Ditrapano
Finally — a rejection letter to (instead of from) the editor of New York Tyrant.
Dear New York Tyrant,
Thank you for submitting your book shelf to Haut or Not. Unfortunately, it’s not what we are looking for right now. We’re tying to go in a ‘maybe life doesn’t completely suck’ direction, and all your books have a ‘life completely sucks’ feel to it. Sartre was nauseous; Faulkner’s mother was a fish; Kafka’s Czech was never in the mail; never let naked boys hang out on an island; never let an alcoholic hang out under a volcano — yada yada we get the point. Cheever and Saunders offer jestful energy and enthusiasm, but then you go fuck it up with freaking Johnny Got His Gun — what every Metallica fan just had to read, huh? Grim-face Nietzsche is a redundancy, and what’s up with the Banville – O’Hara – Bowles ‘middle-aged man discontent’ trio? You too can stick your face at some foreign wind, but it’s not gonna help your hair situation. It would’ve been funny to see Isaac Babel next to Racial Hygiene, but you had to restrain yourself didn’t you? Also, you didn’t double-space your books, include a self-addressed stamped crate, or give us your BEST THREE BOOKS. Simultaneous submissions are not allowed, and you’re simultaneously being a prick and a pansy. Feel free to submit again, after you get some hope for the human race (which includes the Jews you Nazi).
Rating: Not
Tao Lin wins Cave Canem First Book Prize & I talk to Prize Judge Yusef Komunyakaa
********UPDATE: APRIL FOOLS’********
The announcement isn’t up on their site yet, but after I heard from the source himself, I called Yusef Komunyakaa–who is judging the contest this year–and asked for clarification. “I wish you wouldn’t post about this conversation,” Komunyakaa said, “but I’m not telling you that you can’t. Anyway, if you don’t break the story, one of our interns–or Tao’s–is probably going to.”
Here’s a bit of info about the Cave Canem prize:
Established in 1999, this first book award is dedicated to the discovery of exceptional manuscripts by African American poets. The participation of distinguished judges and prominent literary presses has made this prize highly competitive.
As you can see, this is an incredibly audacious choice for Komunyakaa and Cave Canem to have made, since Tao Lin is neither a first-book author or an African American. “We thought about that,” Komunyakaa told me, “but after last year, when the judge declined to even award the prize, I thought it was time to shake things up. If Tao Lin had the courage to unironically enter a contest for which he was entirely unqualified at every conceivable level, then maybe we should try and reward that courage, as a message to other young African American writers out there.”
I asked Komunyakka if it had occurred to him that perhaps Lin’s entry was not, in fact, unironic at all. “Yes, that did occur to me,” he said. “Some people on the Graywolf board were especially concerned about this, but I finally just said, ‘Listen, what does it matter? A good book is a good book, and this kid’s stuff actually sells.’ It’s the name of our prize–and your press–that will be on the cover of his book, which we expect he will promote with the same machine-like relentlessness that is his trademark–which of course is how he ended up entering our contest in the first place. I said to them, ‘you want to see Cold-Pressed Organic Virgin Coconut Oil come out with that little Melville House logo on the spine instead of your wolves, be my guest. But this is the book I’m writing an introduction for.’
I’m a little baffled by all this, but I have to go start preparing for teaching this afternoon, so I can’t really give this thing the attention it deserves, but anyway, congrats, I guess.
Previous winners of the Cave Canem Prize include Major Jackson, Natasha Tretheway, and Tracy K. Smith. Tao Lin finds himself, as usual, in good company.
NEW LAM-COL DEPLETES HEMORRHOIDS WITH A WARM PIN
there is a new lamination colony. lamination colony is by far my favorite online journal. the new lam-col was edited by michael kimball, who i’m assuming is the brother of detective john kimball from kindergarten cop. so far i liked the work by michael bible, adam robinson and gena “thug life” mohwish.
Uncategorized / 29 Comments
March 31st, 2009 / 11:18 pm
March 31st, 2009 / 11:18 pm
The classical education I never had: Hekabe
Thus was Hector smote. Smoten?
After reading Herakles, a play in which a man-god returns from hell only to savagely, accidentally kill his beloved wife and children, I figured I had seen the worst that Euripides’ Grief Lessons had to offer. I was wrong.
I have had for some years on my computer a file called “unpleasantness of Euripides,” in which I place at random thoughts on this subject, in hopes that the file will someday add up to an answer to the question, Why is Euripides so unpleasant? Certainly he is. Certainly I am not the only person who thinks so. Not the only person whose heart sinks at the prospect of reading, teaching or attending one of his plays.
Nice introduction. Anne Carson will translate Euripides, but she doesn’t have to like him. I respect that. In the second of four Grief Lessons, Carson introduces us to Hekabe, who bore many brave sons to Priam, the slain king of Troy (she also apparently “knew” some other fella and consequently popped out some “baggage” named Polydoros). After the sack of Troy, the ghost of Achilles shows up and demands a blood sacrifice. Hekabe’s daughter Polyxena pulls the short straw, and compounded as it is with news of her son Polydoros’s death by betrayal and drowning at the hands of the thrice cursed goat of a Thracian, Polymestor, you know Hekabe is gonna get pre-medieval on some poor fool. But who? READ MORE >
Booklyfe 2
Literary Multiplier / Critical Mass
And here’s Norman Lock on small presses & print vs. digital, via Eugene Lim’s wonderful blog.
A select bit from Norman, and my thoughts:
…To acknowledge such a limitation is to accept a reduced role for the writer. I do not believe that what I write can change the world or the people in it. I don’t believe that anything written by a contemporary literary artist has that power over a mass audience. There are some who believe they can restructure consciousness using language and narratives that defy convention. But their visionary writing will scarcely be read by the people most in need of a transformed consciousness. The only work that has power to engage a mass audience is sentimental (which is a lie) or pornographic (which is also a lie, though perhaps a more entertaining one). We can rue this. We can set down the causes to mainstream publishing or to a degeneration in popular taste and appreciation that have little to do with literacy. But we can and should seek out our own margin and make our literature there.
Today at the Daily Rumpus: Useful Additions to D.T. Max’s “The Unfinished”
Rumpus regular Elissa Bassist offers up “Notes and Errata: A DFW Companion Guide to ‘The Unfinished’ by D.T. Max.” (I think we reported on the Max piece when it first came out, but anyone needing a refresher can get one here.) Basically, her piece catalogues any DFW work, interviews, or otherwise relevant points of reference in Max’s piece and, if that work or parts of it are available anywhere online, she links to it. Por ejemplo:
5. “Anything comforting put him on guard. ‘It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most ‘familiarity’ is meditated and delusive,’ he said in a long 1991 interview with Larry McCaffery, an English professor at San Diego State.”
6. “The critic James Wood* cited Infinite Jest as representative of the kind of fiction dedicated to the ‘pursuit of vitality at all costs.’”
*Two pertinent links: Book Review: James Wood’s The Irresponsible Self, by Nigel Beale(the quotation “pursuit of vitality at all costs” is given context here); Remembering David Foster Wallace (Wood’s comment is last)
Thanks for the good work, Elissa! I’m sure putting something like this together was tedious and time-consuming, but there are a lot of people out there who will be grateful you took the time to do it.
I Love Bingo Gazingo So Fucking Much I Can’t Shit
definitely not reciting poetry
Bingo Gazingo is some kind of old man who writes and performs ‘songs’ without any accompanying instruments. He insists that it is not poetry. Poetry is too limiting for him.
From an article from the new york times website:
“Poets are all in their right place,” [Bingo] always explains, “but a songwriter can go anywhere.”
Huh? Anyways.
READ MORE >