Borders is drunk
Just looking at this spam email Borders sent out in the night, trying to sell, wine. Just looking at it.
Do the click to help Vouched Books & Big Car do good things for small press literature and community art in Indianaoplis, IN
I just got this email from Chris Newgent of Vouched Books in Indianapolis, IN, which I think is a generous, lovely project, so I am re-posting this here.
“Big Car Arts Collective is in the running for a $25,000 Pepsi Refresh Grant to support our new community space here in Indy called Service Center for Contemporary Culture + Community! The top 15 projects get funded. We are in the final push at 9th place with 10 days to go, which means if we can just hold on we get the grant!
At this new space, we plan to host events (the next Vouched Presents reading will be here), maintain a community garden, hold art and writing workshops (e.g. we plan to have a Dzanc Day event here next year), and have a lending library (you can bet I plan to stock that puppy with small press literature galore). On top of that, they’re devoting a shelf to Vouched Books so people visiting the community space have the opportunity to buy my books whenever the space is open. The whole endeavor is to kickstart a revitalization of a neighborhood in Indy that is in desperate need for new life. READ MORE >
Friederike Mayröcker and some scattered thoughts on writing spaces
Look at this clutter. Kind of glorious, no?
Is a messy mind the mark of a good writer or is that something dysfunctional people tell themselves in order to find comfort in the heaps of scattered pages? What is your writing space like? I don’t really have one, as I’m always on the move these days. I will say that it’s hard for me to sit at a desk. The closest I ever came to incorporating a desk into my erratic work routine was when I would go to IHOP in the middle of the night and stay until morning downing cup after cup of decaff coffee while scribbling in my notebook all bleary-eyed and delirious. But if it were socially sanctioned, I probably would have sat on the IHOP floor. Mostly I do everything while lying down in my invisible bed or sitting on the floor, perhaps because I am lazy…? I don’t believe in furniture. Probably am just undomesticated, feral. At a writing residency last year I had a normal room with a desk and a bed. And what did I do? Pulled the mattress onto the floor and probably didn’t sit at the desk once.
.
.
.
“I MUST FORGET EVERYTHING in order to finish this work, you have to get yourself in harness, no enmeshed, once you get involved in a writing project a writing diktat, there is no going back, or everything will be ruined, isn’t that right, maybe it’s getting your claw hooked into the robe of language, you attach yourself, you get snared, you get snagged in language in the MATERIAL in the TEXTURE, etc., and in the same way language seems to get hooked, attached, it hooks its claws into us the moment we acquiesce, so, we lead we guide each other, in equal measure . . .”
–Friederike Mayröcker, brütt, or The Sighing Gardens
Alternative Names for “The Guggenheim”
The Googleheim
The Googleshine
The Google Doctrine Display
Maker’s Mark presents “The Guggenheim”
The Gigglebutt
Gmail Chat
The Guggenhymie
The Guggenwop
The Windowchime
The Bitchenheim
The Windowbitch
The Googlehymen
The Bitchhymen
The Hymenbitch
The Hymenbond
The Boddington’s Pub Ale
The window maker READ MORE >
Q & A #6
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.
How formal should I be when submitting work to a place where I’ve been accepted before? It doesn’t seem like I should be totally laid back about it, but it also feels weird to send a “Dear Ms./Mr. [Editor]:” type thing to someone who I’ve personally corresponded with before.
Ryan Call
I’ve done this once before, but the situation was unique in that I had a collaborative story that was two files, so I wrote to just ask if he’d be interested in reading it. He said yes, so I sent it. It was all pretty informal. I plan to send a story to another editor who accepted a story of mine a few months ago, and asked to see another one. I’ll most likely email him to ask how he would like me to send it: something like “Hey [First Name], I’ve got that second story ready for you; how should I send it to you?” As with most things submissions-related, I tend to feel pretty relaxed about how I try to interact with editors. I think it’s important to get a sense of each relationship, and go with what feels best. To me, “Dear Mr./Mrs. Editor” feels too formal, but “Dear [First Name]” is fine. I don’t know.
Roxane Gay
I think it depends on how well you know the editorial staff. Dear John seems like it would be appropriate if you’ve established an editorial relationship. The chances are, at most magazines, that editor John won’t see your submission initially but he will eventually. I find that Dear First Name always works well with editors who have published me while I use Dear First Name Last Name for magazines where I am submitting unsolicited work and with which I have no previous relationship.
We’re Looking for a Reviews Editor
This is an open call for a position as Reviews Editor of HTMLGiant. Responsibilities would include organizing regular posts and reading/selecting/soliciting incoming reviews. Modest monetary compensation. Interested parties please email blake [at] htmlgiant [dot] com with anything you think I should know. If you don’t hear back, we filled the spot. Thanks! Thanks to all who responded so fast. We got more than we expected. More soon.
Editorial Notes
Some positive notes I made editing the final version of Mathias Svalina’s I AM A VERY PRODUCTIVE ENTREPRENEUR (Mud Luscious Press, July 2011)
Fuck I love how you write things like this
Kills me – fantastic as all get out
Cripes. I couldn’t love these phrases more
Fuck. YES.
YESSSSS
Hilarious
I feel like this section in particular really speaks to the whole of the book, underneath the clever disguises
Lovely
Shit. Brilliant
The pink “Sugapuelffuns” in the room
Mr. Snuffleupagus was my favorite character on Sesame Street. When I was a kid my parents bought me the whole series on VHS (up to that point) so I watched it all the way through. Because of this I saw the saga of Snuffleupagus play itself out.
I love to tell people about my theory of Sesame Street (actually I stole it from Slacker but whatevs) which is that the characters are all the sorts of miscreants one might encounter on the streets of a city: Oscar is a junkie; Cookie Monster’s a crackhead; Elmo is a speed freak; Bert and Ernie are gay; etc. But when I get to the part about how Big Bird is on acid and that one of the proofs was his imaginary friend Snuffleupagus, people are like what?
What these people forget or don’t know, is that for years Big Bird was the only one who saw Snuffleupagus. He would have conversations with Snuffy, sometimes musing with existentialism, but by the time Big Bird could get adults to come and see for themselves, this amazing creature had vanished into thin air.
Patience, an Asterisk, or the Kitchen
Not so Young today, eh Mike? Happy birthday to our gang’s torch-bearer. In truth if I could see it like any other I think it’d be like Mike Young. No one understands the elasticity of words like he does. No one births knowledge within me with the Other words like Mike. He tells me what I already know in such a way that I didn’t know I knew it. That’s how he usurps my brain. He makes me dumber and smarter while I thought I was looking for a spanking machine. He giggles a high titter. Until midnight tonight you can celebrate old boy’s birth with PGP by getting his poem book for just $6 which is $300 less than the perceived value of the poem “Let’s Build the Last Song and Sneak Away While Everyone Else Is Listening,” $100 of which you can watch below the fold.