Roxane Gay

http://www.roxanegay.com

Roxane Gay’s writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, The Rumpus, Salon, The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy culture blog, and many others. She is the co-editor of PANK and essays editor for The Rumpus. She teaches writing at Eastern Illinois University. Her novel, An Untamed State, will be published by Grove Atlantic and her essay collection, Bad Feminist, will be published by Harper Perennial, both in 2014.

How Do You Take Yourself Apart?

Aaron Burch’s How To Take Yourself Apart, How To Make Yourself Anew is now available and is currently shipping. All proceeds from sales between now and 2/13 will be donated to the American Red Cross or Médecins Sans Frontières but this isn’t about that, necessarily. A generous benefactor has purchased five copies of the chapbook for us to giveaway.

To enter the drawing, leave a comment on this post between now and Friday at noon answering the question “How Do You Take Yourself Apart?”

We’ll choose our five favorite answers and those individuals will receive a copy of this sexy little piece of work.

Contests / 76 Comments
January 19th, 2010 / 6:47 pm

This Just In: Poetry, Fiction & Literary Magazines Are Still Dying

A recent Mother Jones article by Ted Genoways, editor of Virgina Quarterly Review, suggests literature is dying because of the explosion of MFA programs and in turn, literary magazines and writers who look inward rather than outward in their storytelling. The really interesting conversation takes place in the comments where anonymous commenters and folks like Matt Bell and Gina Frangello both expand the discussion and take Genoways to task quite eloquently for his myopic and rather privileged outlook from within academia and his willful ignorance of the independent publishing community.

I have said it before but I will say it again. I remain weary of the ongoing, lofty prognostications about the death of literature, literary magazines, the printed word and so on. The conversation is getting so very tedious. Literature is dying the longest death in the history of deaths. It is amazing, really. If literature is dying, it is now time for a mercy killing so we can bury the dead, allow the dead to rest in peace, and surrender to the five stages of grief. I will never understand why magazines continue to publish articles which look backward rather than forward, in no way cover new ground or offer practical solutions that are grounded in hope rather than pessimism.

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Uncategorized / 188 Comments
January 18th, 2010 / 6:21 am
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Pardon the sort of self-promotion but PANK is contributing all proceeds from all sales (between now and 2/13/10) of our chapbook, How to Take Yourself Apart by Aaron Burch, and PANK 4 to the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières. If you want to acquire some great reading material and make a generous contribution to organizations who will put your money to good use in Haiti, consider participating. Order here. Both ship next week.

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Q & A 3

If you have questions about writing or publishing or whatever, leave them in the comments or e-mail them to roxane at roxanegay dot com and we will find you some answers.

Q1: How do you get a poetry manuscript published?

Sam Pink

write a poetry manuscript that you like and show it to people.

Sean Lovelace

That’s a tough one. I would say contests and then send it out to presses who you admire, or who have a sensibility somewhat like your own work. Also, publish the individual poems, build a presence, voice, and you might just get a publisher contacting you, saying, “Do you have a collection?” Like all writng, if it is a strong collection and you believe in it, it will eventually find its place.

Alexis Orgera

So far editors have asked for the chapbooks I’ve published. I’m told you just have to send out relentlessly, particularly to places where the editors’ aesthetic is similar to your own. For instance, I wouldn’t send a manuscript with lots of shit-fuck-goddamns…well, that’s not true. I send everything everywhere.

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Behind the Scenes / 24 Comments
January 13th, 2010 / 2:58 pm

An Indie Publishing Wiki

A while ago I talked about how I wished there were some kind of resource for independent publishers great and small and then Dave Housley and I started talking about how it would be great to start a wiki and then well, we did. The Indie Publishing Wiki is still in its infancy but I thought I would share the project’s existence so people can start adding their knowledge and participating in what we hope becomes a valuable resource for editors.

Presses / 23 Comments
January 12th, 2010 / 3:48 pm

Inside Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory: McSweeney’s 33—Panorama

I’ve always likened McSweeney’s to Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Behind their magical doors are editors (OOMPA LOOMPA) who get to publish a quarterly literary magazine with a different, wildly imaginative concept each and every time and they have the means and reach to do almost anything they want. An issue as a direct mail concern? If you please. An issue as a box of cards? No problem. A hard cover book? Easy. A ridiculously large 8.5 lb. broadside? Why yes. Of course.

Leading up to its publication, there was a great deal of hype about McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama—a- literary magazine cum newspaper printed in full color, that would offer a new perspective on the potential and possibilities afforded by the beleaguered newspaper. I ordered my copy of Panorama (a whopping $16 so not at all like a newspaper) and it arrived recently.

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Uncategorized / 28 Comments
January 11th, 2010 / 4:35 pm
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Another perspective on self-publishing at 3:AM Magazine (via Madore).

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Guest Post: Dave Clapper on New Editorial Directions at SLQ

Blake had a post a while back about the problems that slush presents for every lit mag. When magazines start out, their slushes are pretty small, the editors are really excited about reading, and for the most part, they go into reading each piece with the hope of finding a piece to publish. As lit mags get older, their slushes get larger, the editors get a bit more burnt out, and because the amount of space the mags have is the same, they can’t accept as high a percentage of subs, and tend to start reading each sub with an eye toward finding a reason to reject. It’s kind of horrible and numbing. How do mags avoid this?

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Uncategorized / 89 Comments
December 31st, 2009 / 10:00 am

And Then We Came to the End

Today, I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (which, it must be said, is quite expensive and staffed by some insanely rude and surly individuals). I walked briskly up the Rocky Stairs. I also saw interesting and confusing and awesome art objects but the best exhibit was a retrospective of the work of Arshile Gorky. Toward the end of the exhibit was a placard discussing the end of Gorky’s life which, as is the case for most artists, ended tragically. In one of this final interviews, Gorky stated, “”I don’t like that word finish. When something is finished, that means it’s dead, doesn’t it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting–I just stop working on it for a while.”

Gorky’s comment has had me thinking all afternoon about when a story or a poem or other creative work ends or is finished. How do you know? Do you, as Gorky does, believe in everlastingness and that to finish something is to kill it?

Craft Notes / 24 Comments
December 30th, 2009 / 5:36 pm

Q & A #2

If you have questions about writing or publishing or whatever, leave them in the comments or e-mail them to roxane at roxanegay dot com and we will find you some answers.

Q1: What are some good ways for a writer to self-promote? bad ways? are there unwritten, unspoken rules? rules of engagement?

Ken

Share: tell those you respect they can read something that you’ve written. Tell them twice.  Move.

Amy

The same advice you’d give to a girl who can’t get a date would apply here too: Be confident! Don’t insult your own work. People will start to believe you if you keep saying your story is shit. At a reading, don’t count down to the end of your reading (just 4 more poems, just 3 more poems). Assume that if people came to hear you read, they want to hear you read.

Karma works too. Help promote your friends and people whose work you admire, and they will help promote you.

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Craft Notes / 49 Comments
December 29th, 2009 / 5:26 pm