With a sky like this to start the evening, it just rolled on from there. Thanks to Structo, Mezrab, and Verso for organizing last night’s event.
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All Aboard: Readers Wanted
For about six months now, I’ve been editing for Structo Magazine, a remarkably humble (and classy) literary magazine based in the U.K. (A recent Skype meeting with Euan Monaghan, the magazine’s founder and editor-in-chief, led to a brief discussion about humility.)
But there are days when dishes pile up and my one-year-old son seems a little clingy. To the knees of my sweatpants as I try to fix lunch. There are days when I haven’t written something new. Weeks, perhaps. Months? And so there are days when using energy on something else seems almost absurd.
Then I have another Skype session with Euan; I’m back on the boat and we’re all rowing. I’m part of a community of literary enthusiasts. (Euan is, refreshingly, not a writer but a planetary scientist.)
And all of this is to say that Structo is looking for readers who want to be part of this smart, passionate, and oft times quirky crew. Pick up an oar, and apply here.
I Like Birds
I don’t mean to do it. It just happens. I spot birds; they spot me. They sit strangely close to me on the bench in my front yard.
And so, some new fiction. It’s short. It’s sweet. It contains a lot of birds. (Which reminds me, doesn’t another favorite magazine of mine foreground a beautiful bird?) Anyway, read it here, or listen to me read it, at Hermeneutic Chaos.
*Also a song by The Eels well worth a listen.
Photo by Tyler Ingram, cc.
A Little British Magazine
In 2013, I was published in issue 10 of a British magazine called Structo . (I jumped at the opportunity for a not-entirely-business trip to London to help launch the issue, which, thanks to Structo, is free to read online, by the way. Check it out here if you haven’t already.) What ensued was a growing respect for the “little” magazine, and I recently–and humbly–accepted a position on their team as a web editor.
My first contribution is up, albeit small: a call for book reviewers. (So, um, cough, if you know anyone…)
Anyway, I’m excited and sniffing around like a puppy. I hope to learn much from this group in the future. They have a lot to offer.
Tethered by Letters Summer Journal
The Tethered by Letters Summer 2014 edition is now out in print. Purchase a copy to read my short fiction feature, “Accidental Deaths Don’t Count.”
Tethered by Letters
Yesterday, I accepted an editorial internship at the literary nonprofit journal Tethered by Letters. A lot of new and exciting things happening in their online forums and print journal.
“Talented. Eccentric. Passionate. That’s what you can expect from TBL’s international group of writers, editors, and publishers. Did we mention crazy? There’s a lot of that in there too. And for every moment of insanity, there are little rays of brilliance shining through. If it sounds amazing, it’s because it is…”
So look for me there.
My Girl Canon
A friend of a friend has a new worthwhile website up and running. Check it out today to read a list of the ten books that have most moved me. Read below for a more detailed description. Or follow them here: http://girlcanon.tumblr.com/.
Girl Canon- About Us
“The power of a personal canon, secret or not, lies in the authority one needs to create it. Women need to trust that they know what’s good, what’s bad, and what serves them intellectually in order to reject or reclaim the books in their lives. […] What “No Regrets” argues for most powerfully is the right of women to reject that line of thinking and to believe that they are qualified to decide what literature should be. It argues for the public claiming of formerly secret canons: the right to create your own vision of what is best in the culture and to have that vision influence what books other people read and value.” – Sady Doyle, “The Perils of Reading While Female,” In These Times, 2014.
We are GIRL CANON, and we want to know what you read.
grrrlcanon [AT] gmail.com
Defining a Scene
I’ve been to a lot of literary festivals, but prior to Friday, I hadn’t been to one in The Netherlands. And then here was this thing: Writers Unlimited. Not stodgy, not stuck-up, not held in a musty room filled only by equally-musty people all speaking with six-inch NPR voices. It was sound booths and DJs pumping international tunes, twenty-foot live trees and tabletops covered in chalkboard, so that while you gulped your beer, you could instantly self-publish. Fiction. Non-fiction. Short speeches dubbed Tirades delivered from a soap box in the middle of the crowded floor. For me, it was love. I will be back again next year.
Issue 10 now online
In a Foreign Town also inside! Read it online.
An early Christmas present: the online version of Structo issue 10!
Click on the preview above, or head on over to Issuu, to read the issue for free and in its entirety. It features 10 short stories, 10 poems, two interviews (author Evie Wyld and poet/translator/author/editor David Constantine) and an essay about hereditary book addiction. It’s a great issue, even if we say it ourselves.
There are also a few print copies around if you would like to read it on paper.
Happy Christmas on behalf of the entire Structo team.
— Euan
