{LMC}: Organizing New York Tyrant 3.2
I help to edit one magazine and I am the co-editor of another and I am not sure yet how one organizes such a thing, probably because I haven’t had to actually do it myself yet. The best analogue I know is mix CD’s, which I do make often, and about which I have many specific and strongly held opinions. What goes first in a mix CD? Well you want to put the strongest track first, but here “strongest” has a pretty specific meaning. It should probably be a pretty short song. It should be something with an impeccable sense of rhythm. It should be unbelievably entertaining, charismatic. It should leave the listener, though, with a certain yearning, a hunger for more. And it should also, at the same time, promise more. It should also perhaps be, as an opening gambit, unexpected, surprising. You don’t use the first track from someone else’s album, you probably don’t use the single. Some of these rules have easy analogues in literary magazines. Some do not.
Random Live Broadcast of Recent Books I Liked #3
You missed the live reading but you can watch it archived.
Featuring excerpts read from:
Museum of the Weird by Amelia Gray
Flowing in the Gossamer Fold by Ben Spivey
The Book of Frank by CAConrad
Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting
Selected Poems by Mary Ruefle
Event Factory by Renee Gladman
Sean Kilpatrick’s “The All Encompassed Drowned” in New York Tyrant Issue 8
Caketrain 8 is $8
Issue 8. 276 pp. $8, postpaid.
Contributors
Joseph Aguilar, Nubia Bint Aqeel, E.C. Belli, Carrie Bennett, Amaranth Borsuk, Paul Braffort, Blake Butler, Jak Cardini, William Cardini, Jon Cone, Juliet Cook, Olivia Cronk, Kelly Dulaney, Laura Eve Engel, Géraldine Georges, Kristen Gleason, Sarah Goldstein, Adriana Grant, Hillery Hugg, Gabriela Jauregui, Sean Kilpatrick, Robert Kloss, Darby Larson, Tan Lin, Matthew Mahaney, Megan Martin, Gordon Massman, David Ohle, Brian Oliu, Kim Parko, Nick Ripatrazone, Kim Roberts, M Sarki, Kathryn Scanlan, Farren Stanley, Heidi Lynn Staples, Louisa Storer, Emily Toder, Ashley Toliver, J.A. Tyler, Maren Vespia, Danielle Vogel, Jasmine Dreame Wagner, Rosmarie Waldrop, Joel Weinbrot, Jess Wigent, Corey Zeller.
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.
Uncategorized / 73 Comments
July 13th, 2010 / 6:00 pm
July 13th, 2010 / 6:00 pm
But What About the Nipples? A Nice Conversation (Pt. 3)
Blake Butler, Kate Zambreno, Amy King and I recently had a nice, interesting, and lengthy conversation about gender, publishing and so much more, prompted by lots of things including the recent, and largely excellent discussion in Blake’s “Language Over Body” post about the second issue of We Are Champion. We thank you all so much for engaging with us on these issues. Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 can be found here.
Amy: I want to try to connect such modes of discussion and modes of writing with why we might have an inequitable publishing history by citing excerpts from Joan Retallack’s essay, “:RE:THINKING:LITERARY:FEMINISM.” Blake, when you say we’re “just people” or we’re “just bodies,” I think you’re resisting the notion that biology is essentialist and destiny (it’s not) that determines how and what we write. You are, in fact, by default arguing against the primary thread of feminist literary tradition that says women’s experiences have traditionally been ignored and must be heard via the writing and, I suspect, you imagine that writers could empathize their way into such positions and write those realities. Just a guess.
But this notion falls short of what types of writing have been deemed masculine and feminine. I hope Kate jumps in soon because she most likely has more to say on this matter than I.
Blake Butler—
I’ve been guest editing Adam’s Everyday Genius this month. Today is Sean Kilpatrick’s poem ‘fistfucking rules’ which again reiterates why he is one of the realest mothers in this. Also this month new work from Laura Carter, Mark Leidner, Rav Grewal-Kök, Kimberly King Parsons, Robert Kloss, Donora Hillard, Travis Nichols, Kevin O’Cuinn, Cameron Pierce, Kate Zambreno, and Amy McDaniel, and the month is only halfsies. Hit it, please!
207
relatability
how big an issue is relatability? what i mean is, when you are reading something, how much of your interest in it is the direct result of relation? i think it could be argued that relationships are what every book is about one way or another. this means all things relatable (ie, the relations between characters, the relations between reader and book, the relations between words and ideas, etc).
Blake Butler—
One of my favorite writers, new or ever, Sean Kilpatrick, has selections from his novel Sucker June online now at Spork. I mean, these are sentences. In the worst way. “He’ll cream himself flowery and miss my big holy penetration.”
Massive People (13): Johannes Göransson
If I had to make a list of modern forces for the grossvoice, for the kind of language and propagation of a series of imagery and discussion that is continually underfunded or otherwise ignored, Johannes Göransson would being among those crowning the list. An editor and founder of the vital Action Books, as well as its web component Action Yes (both one of my favorite presses and online journals, publishing big voices such as Lara Glenum, Aase Berg, and a high # of books in translation), Johannes is also the author, so far, of three books of new mind and language: Pilot (Fairy Tale Review Press), A New Quarantine Will Take My Place (Apostrophe Books), and Dear Ra (Starcherone Press). This year Black Ocean released his translation of major Swedish poet Aase Berg, With Deer, one of many works in translation Göransson has put together.
Recently I sent a couple of questions Johannes’s way, and he responded in force, as might be expected, about the history of Action, the grotesque, Genet, and !!!!
Fence 21
Reading and enjoying muchly the new issue of Fence, #21, which is full of fresh and good and fun, one of their best issues of late. It has some wonderful work from Giant friends Sean Kilpatrick, Colin Bassett, Janaka Stucky, as well as new by Rachel Sherman, Dean Young, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Ben Black, and a roundtable on nonrealist fiction with Brian Evenson, Laird Hunt, Joyelle McSweeney, Kate Bernheimer, and Eric Lorberer, and a lot more. I haven’t read a piece yet that I haven’t enjoyed and felt cooled by.
While you are at it, the friends at Fence are still offering a really great deal in that if you subscribe for 2 years (only $30, which is a steal), you get a free book of your choice (another $15 value, at least) from their excellent of array of past titles, including, among my favorites, Joyelle’s Flet, Daniel Brenner’s The Stupefying Flashblubs, Aaron Kunin’s The Mandarin, and their many new titles. If I weren’t already a subscriber, and have most all of their books, I would have done it again now twice.
Not sold yet? Fine. If that won’t do it, try on this sentence cut from Kilpatrick’s poem (1 of 3 from him), ‘Gay Trade.’:
Same old fears kind of save the day, / or make you look vacuously sane / in this light, eyelid small, giving / handshakes of solid milk, warmed / by crack-lighters drying your reflection / on a buried clothesline.
If you aren’t ready now, you never will be.
Uncategorized / 30 Comments
July 3rd, 2009 / 1:24 am
July 3rd, 2009 / 1:24 am