People Blurbed HTMLGIANT
I’ve tried to collect from the internet as many ‘blurbs’ as possible over the course of this past year, and I’d like to share a few of them with you here to celebrate our having survived twelve months of being the internet literature magazine blog of the future. The blurbs are real, in that I copied and pasted them from comments and other websites, but I have dropped the names of the blurbers in order to protect the innocent. So, thanks for reading us, hating us, loving us, shittalking us, and supporting us.
“Exactly equivalent to writing on a bathroom wall, and shame on you. Talk about ‘slime balls.’ Slime ball indeed.”
~ Richard Bausch“I’ve come to realize that HTMLGIANT contributors are, in large part, idiots.”
~ Jerzy Kosinski“I think HTMLGIANT is still trying to find their voice. They seem to teeter between adolescent posturing and intelligent discussion.”
~ Oprah Winfrey
Ryan Call—
12) We can’t care about sand mutants; if you do, or think you do, kill yourself.
(#12 of Frederick Barthelme’s 39 Steps via Gary Percesepe at PANK)
Ryan Call—
Kim Chinquee will edit the upcoming issue of the Mississippi Review Online and will judge the Flash Fiction Contest at The Collagist.
Bolaño fans will be interested to see this interview with translator Natasha Wimmer over at the blog of the Center for the Art of Translation.
Scott Esposito: First I wanted to ask you about these new Bolaño texts they’re digging up, particularly El Tercer Reich (”The Third Reich”) and the supposed sixth book of 2666.
Natasha Wimmer: I’ve read “The Third Reich” (and in fact, it looks like I’ll be translating it, though I have yet to sign on the dotted line). It’s about an elaborate board game called “The Third Reich” (Bolaño was a great fan of war games), it takes place on the Costa Brava, and it pits a German tourist against an enigmatic South American who rents paddle boats on the beach. I loved it.
I haven’t read the purported sixth section of 2666, or even really heard much about it. Maybe it will remain forever ghostly—the spectral answer to all our 2666 questions.
Ryan Call—
The Puschart Prize nomination collaboration/purchase project is now closed. We have 65 people signed up. If you are still interested, you’re welcome to comment on that post so that I’ve got a backup list of people to contact in case someone else drops out. Thanks to everyone for signing up; instructions to follow in an email from Shya and me.
‘May that godforsaken show burn in hell.’
One of my favorite things about The Onion is how often its content cleverly deals with books, reading, literature, authors, whatever. I think we’ve linked to a bunch of those stories/articles before, so I won’t do that now, but I did want to send you to this recent opinion bit by ‘LeVar Burton’ about his time hosting Reading Rainbow.
Look, Reading Rainbow was a television program. That should tell you something right there. What I should have done is hosted a show that taught children how to watch more television. I bet they would have come up with the funding to renew that show.
What I hadn’t realized is how long Reading Rainbow lasted. According to Wikipedia, “the show ceased airing reruns on PBS on Friday, August 28, 2009.” Damn.
RIP, Reading Rainbow. I have fond memories of tuning in to watch you as I sat on the floor in front of our television and sipped Kool-Aid from my sippy cup.
On Brandi Wells’s ‘Instructional’
HTMLGIANT reader Joseph Goosey asks in a recent email:
Regarding Ms. Brandi Wells’s piece in the latest PANK, could a male have gotten away with composing a similar piece, let alone publishing it in a fine journal?
Anyhow, I asked Roxane Gay, new HTMLGIANT contributor and current Associate Editor of PANK, if she’d like to respond to Goosey’s question before I posted it for others to comment on. Here’s what she sent back via email:
I definitely think a man could have “gotten away” with writing a similar story for a couple reasons. First, we don’t read blind at PANK but our submission manager assigns each file a number and if the writer doesn’t include their name in their .doc file, we have no real way of knowing who they are as we read submissions. I’m far too lazy to open up Firefox and see who wrote what as I’m reading. There was no identifying information in Brandi’s file so Instructional could have been written by anyone. I loved the story and didn’t give a thought to the gender of its author.
If I had seen a man’s name in the file, I would have thought, “eww, perv,” or “this is creepy, I hope he never finds out where I live,” but I still would have loved and chosen the story. The writing is spectacular.
I also think it’s a bit… sexist (or something) to assume that it’s somehow safer or more acceptable for a woman to write a graphic, uncomfortable story. This is not a case where it’s different for girls.
Call for Writers: Want to Buy a Pushcart Nomination?
So Shya’s comment on the No Colony post got me thinking. Shya said:
I want to get 65 people together, each write 150 words of a cooperative 10k word story, each pay $10, have it published in No Colony, and each get to claim the Pushcart nom. Who’s with me?
At Shya’s encouragement, I’m posting this call for authors.
(For those unfamiliar with No Colony‘s submission guidelines, the editors of No Colony, Blake Butler and Ken Baumann, have offered automatic publication in the magazine and a Pushcart nomination to whomever pays the $650 fee. And we’d like to call their bluff (note: I am not good at poker, and I’ve heard Blake is very good, so take that into consideration before you hitch your wagon to our train))
What we’ll do is this: the first 63 people (Shya is #1 and I’m #65) to sign up in the comments section can take part, as long as they agree to pay $10 towards buying our 10k word story into No Colony plus the Pushcart nomination from No Colony (bonus: nude photos of someone’s mother, which we’ll have to share), and then each write 150word bricks with which to build the story. Each author will write his or her 150words on deadline in the order in which he or she signed up, and we’ll pass the story around so that it grows as each author writes on it. We have to get this done as quickly as possible so we can get into the long story issue. I will cut off signups if we reach the limit or if interest dwindles so that Shya and I can then seek out other authors.
Sign up in the comments section, and be sure to put a working email address in the email address field so that I can contact you with further instructions. If your email address bounces, I’ll move to the next person in line. Remember, the first 63 to sign up will be invited to take part in this project, which, no doubt, will cause all of us a small amount of indigestion.
If it works, it will be fun, and if it doesn’t work and no one cares or is interested, then no worries.
UPDATE: This project is now full. Anyone interested should still comment if you’d like to be in; I can keep you on a list in case someone else drops out.
Uncategorized / 265 Comments
September 26th, 2009 / 11:27 am
September 26th, 2009 / 11:27 am
Favorite Words
In past conversations, Blake and I have talked about the kinds of words we most often rely upon in our writing, and whether or not we should break from them or embrace them, or both. For example, I noticed Blake seems to like rhythmic -ed words, like ‘befucked’ and ‘squidged’ and so on, and he uses them quite a lot in his writing.
Then, while reviewing SAT words with a high school student the other day, I thought of how I should make a list of words I like to use when I write, or a list of words I would like to use in another story. I went through a bunch of my past stories and reread them for words I remember liking as I wrote them into the text. I’ve listed them here with a few sentences of explanation.
What words do you like? Do you have words you use too much? Words you want to use more? Do you maintain lists of these words? Is it possible to talk about words this way? I think much of this depends on context and how the word is used, so know that I’m speaking directly from how I use these words when I write.