July 13th, 2010 / 6:00 pm
Uncategorized

New York Tyrant 8

A note on the brand new issue of NYT from editor Giancarlo Ditrapano:

New York Tyrant 8 (Vol.3, No.2) is available for preorder. The book went to press today and will be back and ready to ship in two weeks. Not to blow my own horn (and I can do that, you know), but this is a pretty solid issue. Sam Lipsyte, Ken Sparling, Noy Holland, Breece D’J Pancake, an interview with Padgett Powell, Daryl Scroggins, two beautiful pieces by Brandon Hobson, Andy Devine, Ken Baumann, Sean Kilpatrick, Michael Kimball, more drawings (one sampled below) from Atticus Lish, and a shit ton of other great writers. The theme of this issue turned out, unintentionally, to be knives. Lots of knives in these stories. I swear I don’t do this shit on purpose.

A couple issues ago, we made the Tyrant 300 pages long. We are now back to a better length, less than 200 pages. I hate when journals get all bulky and are just too intimidating to even get through half of the stories. We’ll be having a launch party within the next couple of weeks so I’ll keep you updated on that. But until then, please go get your copy of the new Tyrant. Buy a subscription. Okay, here’s a deal. If you buy a 4 issue subscription or the larger 8 issue, we will throw in a copy of Brian Evenson’s novella Baby Leg. And if you buy a copy of the new Tyrant in the next 5 days, we will include a copy of Tyrant Books’ latest release, Firework by Eugene Marten. I’ve never done this discount/sale thing before but it feels good and right. No it doesn’t. It sucks and it hurts.

Tags: ,

73 Comments

  1. Sean

      Pretty solid?

      This issue looks like a crouch to the skull/hot gold ass-kicking.

  2. Salvatore Pane

      Looks awesome. One question: anyone know what exactly the content from Breece D’J Pancake is?

  3. Ken Baumann

      Good to be surrounded by those names.

  4. Sean

      I was wondering about Pancake too. An excerpt? Or retread of older story?

  5. Salvatore Pane

      That’s what I’m thinking. Although it would be amazing if NYT unearthed some uncollected story or even an interview.

  6. Sean

      Maybe an interview. No fucking way they are pulling a Tess Gallagher.

      Oh wow just found another carver story in the crisper drawer!

  7. Salvatore Pane

      Ugh. What’s that story where she rewrites “Cathedral”? Ugh.

  8. Sean

      Pretty solid?

      This issue looks like a crouch to the skull/hot gold ass-kicking.

  9. Salvatore Pane

      Looks awesome. One question: anyone know what exactly the content from Breece D’J Pancake is?

  10. ZZZZZIPP

      BREECE!!! YOU’RE BACK!!! ZZZIPP REALLY MISSED YOU!!!!

  11. Ken Baumann

      Good to be surrounded by those names.

  12. Sean

      I was wondering about Pancake too. An excerpt? Or retread of older story?

  13. Salvatore Pane

      That’s what I’m thinking. Although it would be amazing if NYT unearthed some uncollected story or even an interview.

  14. Sean

      Maybe an interview. No fucking way they are pulling a Tess Gallagher.

      Oh wow just found another carver story in the crisper drawer!

  15. Salvatore Pane

      Ugh. What’s that story where she rewrites “Cathedral”? Ugh.

  16. Amanda Osiatynska

      Exciting! Quality over quantity always wins. The only thick journals that pull off both are Unsaid and Conjunctions. Sam Lipsyte? Padgett Powell? Sign me up!

  17. ZZZZZIPP

      BREECE!!! YOU’RE BACK!!! ZZZIPP REALLY MISSED YOU!!!!

  18. Amanda Osiatynska

      Exciting! Quality over quantity always wins. The only thick journals that pull off both are Unsaid and Conjunctions. Sam Lipsyte? Padgett Powell? Sign me up!

  19. Gian

      In the post above, it was not my intention to bring Unsaid to mind. Conjunctions, yes. Unsaid, no. I fucking love Unsaid. We publish like the exact same writers, how could I not? I really was reacting to my own magazine (Tyrant 5, to be precise) which I regret because it is too long. And this one issue of Conjunctions I have that is so big it kind of ruins it for me. So, hey, stop starting fights. You have ruined my morning. (Well, I guess I ruined it myself.)

  20. Gian

      Oh yeah, and the Pancake is just a little intro and then a letter he wrote to his mother but never sent which she found after his death. I wish it were a new story. God. I’ve read that one book of his so many times the font is disappearing from my weak eye-lasers burning them up after all these years.

  21. davidpeak

      is there any way i can order this without using paypal?

  22. Gian

      davidpeak,

      Yes. You can send a check, or it will be up on Amazon shortly. Thanks, man.

  23. M.

      Can we get a post of all the writers in 8? I can’t wait.

  24. Today I didn't even have to use my A.K.

      Any other honeys besides Noy Holland + the one on the cover?

  25. Caketrain

      Ordered; thanks for this, Gian.

  26. Gian

      In the post above, it was not my intention to bring Unsaid to mind. Conjunctions, yes. Unsaid, no. I fucking love Unsaid. We publish like the exact same writers, how could I not? I really was reacting to my own magazine (Tyrant 5, to be precise) which I regret because it is too long. And this one issue of Conjunctions I have that is so big it kind of ruins it for me. So, hey, stop starting fights. You have ruined my morning. (Well, I guess I ruined it myself.)

  27. Amber

      Ordered. OhmygodIamsoexcited.

  28. Gian

      Oh yeah, and the Pancake is just a little intro and then a letter he wrote to his mother but never sent which she found after his death. I wish it were a new story. God. I’ve read that one book of his so many times the font is disappearing from my weak eye-lasers burning them up after all these years.

  29. davidpeak

      is there any way i can order this without using paypal?

  30. Gian

      davidpeak,

      Yes. You can send a check, or it will be up on Amazon shortly. Thanks, man.

  31. M.

      Can we get a post of all the writers in 8? I can’t wait.

  32. Today I didn't even have to us

      Any other honeys besides Noy Holland + the one on the cover?

  33. Joseph Riippi

      Looking forward to any new Breece, letter or no.

  34. Caketrain

      Ordered; thanks for this, Gian.

  35. Janey Smith

      I like to read their names. Over and over.

  36. Amber

      Ordered. OhmygodIamsoexcited.

  37. Roxane Gay

      Bad ass! And not sold out yet. I finally get in on the ground level.

  38. ZZZIPP

      IS DOUBLE THE PRICE SERIOUSLY YOUR CHARGE FOR SHIPPING IT TO CANADA? DO YOU KNOW HOW SAD THAT MAKES ZZZIPP?

      IT MAKES ZZZIPP REALLY SAD, VERY SAD.

  39. ZZZIPP

      WELL MAYBE ZZZIPP SHOULD BOAST ABOUT HOW HE DOESN’T WANT TO READ IT ANYHOW TO SAVE FACE. WELL WHY WOULD HE WANT TO READ IT???? IT’S STUPID!!!!!!!

  40. Joseph Riippi

      Looking forward to any new Breece, letter or no.

  41. Janey Smith

      I like to read their names. Over and over.

  42. MFBomb

      Glad to see that NYT is interested in writing that might be considered “Southern” (i.e., Pancake, Powell), which is something that can’t be said for many journals that favor the experimental/avant garde/comic and non-traditional

  43. Roxane Gay

      Bad ass! And not sold out yet. I finally get in on the ground level.

  44. marshall

      Lil Wayne says: “And to the radio stations… I’m tired of being patient. Stop being rapper racists, region haters, spectators, dictators, behind-door dick takers. It’s outrageous. You don’t know how sick you make us. I want to throw up like chips in Vegas. But this is Southern, face it. If we too simple, then yall don’t get the basics.”

  45. marshall

      Might have messed up some punctuations, there.

  46. Tim Horvath

      Is Powell’s Interrogative Mood “Southern”? Is Blake’s writing “Southern”? Is Kyle Minor (with stories in Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, and Surreal South) “Southern?”

      I’m not trying to be argumentative, just don’t know if the term holds up under scrutiny.

  47. Muzzy

      Only Blake Butler is truly “Southern.”

  48. ZZZIPP

      IS DOUBLE THE PRICE SERIOUSLY YOUR CHARGE FOR SHIPPING IT TO CANADA? DO YOU KNOW HOW SAD THAT MAKES ZZZIPP?

      IT MAKES ZZZIPP REALLY SAD, VERY SAD.

  49. ZZZIPP

      WELL MAYBE ZZZIPP SHOULD BOAST ABOUT HOW HE DOESN’T WANT TO READ IT ANYHOW TO SAVE FACE. WELL WHY WOULD HE WANT TO READ IT???? IT’S STUPID!!!!!!!

  50. MFBomb

      It “holds up under scrutiny” because a lot of “Southern” fiction is about scrutinizing the term and its meaning in a South still conflicted between “old” and “new.” Many of the major Southern writers of the last 20-30 years are indebted to postmodernism (Powell was mentored by Barthelme, Hannah was certainly a postmodernist–even though he’d hate the term or label (scholars of Southern lit have written on this topic)–and the same could be said for Richard and Nordan). However, their works often rely on rural vernacular, idiom, comic situations, settings, and representations of the lower class. Most of the work I read in these journals has a more cosmopolitan strain and doesn’t have much experimentation with rural dialect, idiom, and vernacular. Obviously you can flip this and say, “but can’t a ‘Southern’ writer like Blake who grew up in the burbs of Atlanta write ‘Southern’ fiction too in a voice that’s similar to a kid who grew up in a cookie cutter suburb of Chicago?”

      Sure he can, but that’s really not my point when his work is the only kind that’s safe enough for many editors.

      And I would consider Powell’s “IM” Southern. Why not? It fits in well with much of the comic Southern literature published the last 20-25 years.

      Maybe my main point is that in many experimental/avant garde journals–journals one would assume to be more “open”–the range of experience and aesthetic represented is often as limiting as what’s found in the more “traditional” journals.

      If, say, you write fiction like a Hannah or Richard, it can be tough to fit in anywhere.

  51. Tim Horvath

      You raise some compelling points, but The Interrogative Mood–which perhaps is bringing on my spirit of questioning–is pretty damned elevated in its language and subject matter. “Do you favor protecting the little wilderness remaining, or do you concede that there is so little left it might as well be ceded to the tide?” “Have you ever noticed that when the coffee purists insist that the coffee-brewing equipment be kept clean of even traces of built-up coffee oil because it makes the coffee bitter, they are not kidding?” It doesn’t get any more “cosmopolitan” than that in Latteland. Shift to Butler, out of Scorch Atlas. “This is the yard where the dogs would sit by the half-wrecked shed and sweat. Dad often tied them so tight they couldn’t crane their necks…[r]emember the scummy flex of their brown backs, the lather of their sweat in suds.” A considerable amount of the book actually seems situated in rural areas, and you could make a case that only the South knows the kind of natural and human-sourced disasters that Butler visits on his narrative. I’m not trying to be difficult, just challenging the notion that there is a “Southern” vernacular tradition that can be readily tagged. You are right to complicate things by pointing out the postmodernist influences on certain writers–that, to me, is the kind of thing worth exploring further.

  52. MFBomb

      Actually, I think we mostly agree. Except here:

      ” I’m not trying to be difficult, just challenging the notion that there is a “Southern” vernacular tradition that can be readily tagged.”

      But you cited one writer, Blake Butler, and I’m not sure what you’re challenging, because I never said all of it could be readily tagged. What does this have to do with the fact that most Hannah stories can be readily tagged as “Southern”? There’s room for both.

      And the two excerpts you cite sort of contradict your point as both are in fact readily tagged as “cosmopolitan,” despite their placement in rural areas. Also, Padgett Powell isn’t publishing stories in Unsaid and is famous enough to do whatever he wants; he’s passed through all of the gates and filters and NYT is publishing an interview, not a story (though, much of Powell’s post-Edisto work was deemed too wacky for most people and was more experimental with rural dialect and idiom than “Edisto”). It’s interesting that “IM,” with its more “cosmopolitan voice,” resurrected his career. And Kyle Minor’s work is pretty diverse, too, but at the same time, he also interviewed Pinckney Benedict a week ago, whose workshop leader at Iowa told him he’d be a better writer if he “avoided all that backwoods stuff.” In the interview, Benedict essentially acknowledges the ways in which writers who write in a voice “readily marked” by region are often discouraged to embrace a new, quieter voice. In my experiences as a writer who writes in a voice that is in fact “readily tagged” as rural Southern, I’d have to agree with him.

      My point is: I want more backwoods stuff. Where is it, and can you point me to journals that aren’t scared of backwoods stuff, whether it be in the South, Midwest, or Maine?

  53. MFBomb

      *encouraged to embrace a new, quieter voice

  54. MFBomb

      In fairness, though, it might’ve been better to approach my original point from the angle of place, more than region (rural vs. suburbia/urban).

  55. Gian

      Nice

  56. Guest

      Glad to see that NYT is interested in writing that might be considered “Southern” (i.e., Pancake, Powell), which is something that can’t be said for many journals that favor the experimental/avant garde/comic and non-traditional

  57. Guest

      Lil Wayne says: “And to the radio stations… I’m tired of being patient. Stop being rapper racists, region haters, spectators, dictators, behind-door dick takers. It’s outrageous. You don’t know how sick you make us. I want to throw up like chips in Vegas. But this is Southern, face it. If we too simple, then yall don’t get the basics.”

  58. Guest

      Might have messed up some punctuations, there.

  59. Tim Horvath

      Is Powell’s Interrogative Mood “Southern”? Is Blake’s writing “Southern”? Is Kyle Minor (with stories in Southern Review, Gettysburg Review, and Surreal South) “Southern?”

      I’m not trying to be argumentative, just don’t know if the term holds up under scrutiny.

  60. Muzzy

      Only Blake Butler is truly “Southern.”

  61. Guest

      It “holds up under scrutiny” because a lot of “Southern” fiction is about scrutinizing the term and its meaning in a South still conflicted between “old” and “new.” Many of the major Southern writers of the last 20-30 years are indebted to postmodernism (Powell was mentored by Barthelme, Hannah was certainly a postmodernist–even though he’d hate the term or label (scholars of Southern lit have written on this topic)–and the same could be said for Richard and Nordan). However, their works often rely on rural vernacular, idiom, comic situations, settings, and representations of the lower class. Most of the work I read in these journals has a more cosmopolitan strain and doesn’t have much experimentation with rural dialect, idiom, and vernacular. Obviously you can flip this and say, “but can’t a ‘Southern’ writer like Blake who grew up in the burbs of Atlanta write ‘Southern’ fiction too in a voice that’s similar to a kid who grew up in a cookie cutter suburb of Chicago?”

      Sure he can, but that’s really not my point when his work is the only kind that’s safe enough for many editors.

      And I would consider Powell’s “IM” Southern. Why not? It fits in well with much of the comic Southern literature published the last 20-25 years.

      Maybe my main point is that in many experimental/avant garde journals–journals one would assume to be more “open”–the range of experience and aesthetic represented is often as limiting as what’s found in the more “traditional” journals.

      If, say, you write fiction like a Hannah or Richard, it can be tough to fit in anywhere.

  62. Tim Horvath

      You raise some compelling points, but The Interrogative Mood–which perhaps is bringing on my spirit of questioning–is pretty damned elevated in its language and subject matter. “Do you favor protecting the little wilderness remaining, or do you concede that there is so little left it might as well be ceded to the tide?” “Have you ever noticed that when the coffee purists insist that the coffee-brewing equipment be kept clean of even traces of built-up coffee oil because it makes the coffee bitter, they are not kidding?” It doesn’t get any more “cosmopolitan” than that in Latteland. Shift to Butler, out of Scorch Atlas. “This is the yard where the dogs would sit by the half-wrecked shed and sweat. Dad often tied them so tight they couldn’t crane their necks…[r]emember the scummy flex of their brown backs, the lather of their sweat in suds.” A considerable amount of the book actually seems situated in rural areas, and you could make a case that only the South knows the kind of natural and human-sourced disasters that Butler visits on his narrative. I’m not trying to be difficult, just challenging the notion that there is a “Southern” vernacular tradition that can be readily tagged. You are right to complicate things by pointing out the postmodernist influences on certain writers–that, to me, is the kind of thing worth exploring further.

  63. Guest

      Actually, I think we mostly agree. Except here:

      ” I’m not trying to be difficult, just challenging the notion that there is a “Southern” vernacular tradition that can be readily tagged.”

      But you cited one writer, Blake Butler, and I’m not sure what you’re challenging, because I never said all of it could be readily tagged. What does this have to do with the fact that most Hannah stories can be readily tagged as “Southern”? There’s room for both.

      And the two excerpts you cite sort of contradict your point as both are in fact readily tagged as “cosmopolitan,” despite their placement in rural areas. Also, Padgett Powell isn’t publishing stories in Unsaid and is famous enough to do whatever he wants; he’s passed through all of the gates and filters and NYT is publishing an interview, not a story (though, much of Powell’s post-Edisto work was deemed too wacky for most people and was more experimental with rural dialect and idiom than “Edisto”). It’s interesting that “IM,” with its more “cosmopolitan voice,” resurrected his career. And Kyle Minor’s work is pretty diverse, too, but at the same time, he also interviewed Pinckney Benedict a week ago, whose workshop leader at Iowa told him he’d be a better writer if he “avoided all that backwoods stuff.” In the interview, Benedict essentially acknowledges the ways in which writers who write in a voice “readily marked” by region are often discouraged to embrace a new, quieter voice. In my experiences as a writer who writes in a voice that is in fact “readily tagged” as rural Southern, I’d have to agree with him.

      My point is: I want more backwoods stuff. Where is it, and can you point me to journals that aren’t scared of backwoods stuff, whether it be in the South, Midwest, or Maine?

  64. Guest

      *encouraged to embrace a new, quieter voice

  65. Guest

      In fairness, though, it might’ve been better to approach my original point from the angle of place, more than region (rural vs. suburbia/urban).

  66. Gian

      Nice

  67. Pemulis

      Dude, *two* actors from The Outsiders? I’m in. I’m totally in!

  68. Pemulis

      Dude, *two* actors from The Outsiders? I’m in. I’m totally in!

  69. Kyle Minor

      I’m traveling in Haiti, so I’m late to this discussion, but I’m leery of conflating “Southern” with backwoods. The South in which I grew up, and the South in which I travel is hugely diverse in population, culture, dialect, etc. There is room in literature set in the South for the entire range of literary approaches. I think writers are well-served to explore as many of them as they can, and to write up and down the socioeconomic scale, to write “high” and “low,” and to complicate wherever possible (I slept outside on a mountain in Haiti a few nights ago five feet from a snoring genius computer programmer from rural Alabama who was on his way to Manhattan to consult with a Fortune 500 company about the efficacy of their Internet security policies, after which he was planning to go alligator hunting.)

  70. Kyle Minor

      I’m traveling in Haiti, so I’m late to this discussion, but I’m leery of conflating “Southern” with backwoods. The South in which I grew up, and the South in which I travel is hugely diverse in population, culture, dialect, etc. There is room in literature set in the South for the entire range of literary approaches. I think writers are well-served to explore as many of them as they can, and to write up and down the socioeconomic scale, to write “high” and “low,” and to complicate wherever possible (I slept outside on a mountain in Haiti a few nights ago five feet from a snoring genius computer programmer from rural Alabama who was on his way to Manhattan to consult with a Fortune 500 company about the efficacy of their Internet security policies, after which he was planning to go alligator hunting.)

  71. Adam

      I just subscribed. The full 8. Baby Leg looks great- bribery works. But $28 S&H? Jesus H.

  72. Guest

      I just subscribed. The full 8. Baby Leg looks great- bribery works. But $28 S&H? Jesus H.

  73. Donkeyfeet

      You were swell to send along a copy of “Firework,” but then, you’re just swell all around.
      Thank you.