October 1st, 2008 / 2:01 pm
Uncategorized

Surgery of Modern Warfare

I’ve been thinking about places that published me when I was just starting out. Some sites I loved are now gone. Here are three:

Surgery of Modern Warfare

Second site to ever publish me. I met Amy Fusselman, author of the incredible book The Pharmacist’s Mate, on her book tour. She was pregnant. She had one of those acoustic guitars Buck Owens used to play, the ones painted red, white, and blue. She played the songs “Hell’s Bells,” on it. She was possibly the nicest person I ever met.

I sent her at least four stories, and she rejected all of them. Eventually, though, I broke through.

Surgery went away a while back. When I was the web editor at Monkeybicycle, I convinced a bunch of sites to undergo a month long redesign so that they all looked like Surgery. This is what Monkeybicycle looked like.

Reinventing the World

Reinventing the World was emailed out to people on a list. It was a nice looking Word Doc. I think I still have the one I was in on the hard drive of my old iMac.

What happened, I wonder, to Patrick Reynolds? Patrick, are you out there? Last I heard, you were at Yaddo or McDowell.

The American Journal of Print

First place to ever publish me. The very short piece I sent them is now the pituitary gland of a much longer, still homeless story about love and the faked moon landing. A couple of years ago, I tracked down the editor who accepted the piece, and sent him a fawning love letter. Who forgets their first?

We should put together a list. A canonical list of long gone lit sites. Comment or send me a note:

giantblinditems at gmail dot com

20 Comments

  1. Jimmy Chen

      also gone: elevenbulls, bullfight review, somewhat…all really great sites. sniff.

  2. Jimmy Chen

      also gone: elevenbulls, bullfight review, somewhat…all really great sites. sniff.

  3. Blake Butler

      man, yeah, so much missing now: haypenny and the glut, i feel those a lot.

      this was an awesome post.

  4. Blake Butler

      man, yeah, so much missing now: haypenny and the glut, i feel those a lot.

      this was an awesome post.

  5. Michael Kimball

      I love The Pharmacist’s Mate, don’t find too many people who have read that great little book.

  6. Matthew Simmons

      Ah, Bullfight. The Glut. Yes.

      Coming up next: a review of Lee Klein’s rejection letters.

  7. Michael Kimball

      I love The Pharmacist’s Mate, don’t find too many people who have read that great little book.

  8. Matthew Simmons

      Ah, Bullfight. The Glut. Yes.

      Coming up next: a review of Lee Klein’s rejection letters.

  9. Matthew Simmons

      Michael, yes. A beautiful book. It’s only five bucks from McSweeney’s. Everyone who reads this should go to the McSweeney’s store and buy a copy.

      $5! That’s it!

  10. Matthew Simmons

      Michael, yes. A beautiful book. It’s only five bucks from McSweeney’s. Everyone who reads this should go to the McSweeney’s store and buy a copy.

      $5! That’s it!

  11. tao

      i remember those, i liked ‘surgery’ a lot, the layout and everything

      i think ‘american journal of print’ was ‘after my time’ but i remember looking at their website a lot, i probably looked at it over 50 times

  12. tao

      i remember those, i liked ‘surgery’ a lot, the layout and everything

      i think ‘american journal of print’ was ‘after my time’ but i remember looking at their website a lot, i probably looked at it over 50 times

  13. Matthew Simmons
  14. Matthew Simmons
  15. Blake Butler

      can’t wait to see a review of Lee’s rejections, they are the greatest

  16. Blake Butler

      more posts on defunct journals would be awesome

  17. Blake Butler

      can’t wait to see a review of Lee’s rejections, they are the greatest

  18. Blake Butler

      more posts on defunct journals would be awesome

  19. ryan manning

      Warfare refers to the conduct of conflict between opponents, and usually involves escalation of aggression from the proverbial “war of words” between politicians and diplomats to full-scale armed conflicts, waged until one side accepts defeat or peace terms are agreed on.

  20. ryan manning

      Warfare refers to the conduct of conflict between opponents, and usually involves escalation of aggression from the proverbial “war of words” between politicians and diplomats to full-scale armed conflicts, waged until one side accepts defeat or peace terms are agreed on.