publicists

for a lengthy discussion about the relative merits of getting a publicist to promote your book, especially if you're at a small press, check out the debate going on on sarah's blog, which i learned about from the ever-helpful marcus grimm on his 'grimm perspectives' blog.

CHECK OUT THE DISCUSSION

queen is the first rock act allowed into iran

although western music has been subject to strict censorship in the islamic republic, a compilation album of greatest hits from the iconic band QUEEN was officially sanctioned for release.

frontman, gay icon "Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991, was proud of his Iranian ancestry, and illegal bootleg albums and singles made Queen one of the most popular bands in Iran.

liner notes accompanying the cassettes explain the meaning of various songs to fans. for example,

"Bohemian Rhapsody is [said to be] about a young man who has accidentally killed someone and, like Faust, sold his soul to the devil. On the night before his execution he calls God in Arabic, "Bismillah", and so regains his soul from Satan..."

ah...suddenly all becomes clear.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE on THE BBC

may a hundred flowers bloom

in the NYT today, charles mcgrath writes about the new flourishing of variety in short fiction.

excerpt:

"...freed from the dictates of the marketplace, short stories these days are often less formulaic, less imitative than they used to be. There's no preferred style or mode anymore - even The New Yorker no longer publishes "the New Yorker short story" - and there are now dozens of different camps of short-fiction writing, all happily coexisting. Many of them are on display in "The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories," an anthology edited by Ben Marcus, who teaches in the graduate writing program at Columbia."

may a hundred flowers bloom, and may people actually stop to smell them!

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

keep an out for for swanky new SWINK

leelila strogov et al bring out a hot new litmag, with juicy bites and naughty bits from contributors such as steve almond, neal pollack, elissa schapell, chris offut, and many more. with an emerging writer's award, and a commitment to discover new talent, this seems like a worthwhile place to submit. just received my first volume. it came within a few days of ordering and it looks lovely. may there be many more to come.

imagine what would happen if writers subscribed to a fraction of the places they submit...


CHECK OUT SWINK and SUBSCRIBE

"art as the one hex we have against the predigested pulp of public discourse"

says sven birkerts in his characteristically insightful way as he argues we need the "little magazines," that publish the bulk of short fiction, now more than ever...

excerpt:

"Existing somewhere between the ephemerality of the newspaper and magazine (and online zine -- another subject altogether) and the four-square permanence of the book, little magazines are well positioned to broker between topical and long-range perspectives. They are fluid and open in their relation to trends, even as the best of them can achieve a certain memorable -- perhaps even striking -- capture of energies. And because they are not essentially playing the for-profit game, they can hew just a bit closer to their own self-originated standards. They represent literature and opinion in repertory, talents en route, freeze-framed; they are a staking of bets on artists and artistic tendencies by editors who dream of eventual vindication."

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

one more reason to like sven birkerts

his candor, his insight, and his intellectual panache--never pretentious, always insightful, and stimulating down to the last word.

excerpt from his SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

" Still, I can’t get around it: For me editing means asserting my own taste as a kind of categorical imperative. I recognized quite early on (see Agni 57) that I would have to take the leap of trusting myself absolutely. I worried, naturally—still do—that this was the most deluded kind of solipsism, but I couldn’t see any alternative, unless it was to make the journal some sort of literary sampler, a potpourri of expressions, modes, and aesthetic outlooks.

But what would be the point of that? Why clap covers around the undifferentiated swirl that is already all around us? A literary magazine, I think, ought to declare a particular brand of excellence and seek to rally adherents, the ultimate goal being the conquest of the world by that excellence. Ha! As for the accusation of hubris, isn’t this what we all do as writers: look for the will to emboss our idiosyncratic vision of things onto the page? Maybe the editor is just the writer posing in a public face. "

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE ON AGNI

Exhaustion

...is not the way to start a new semester. but something about the date august 13th conspires against me. august 13th is the bearer of life altering unpleasantness, it has been over and over again for many years. if i were superstitious i'd really be worried. in the past week i have hardly had time to think, let alone do anything. summer is about to be officially over and i can't imagine how i'm going to finish everything i need to do before the end of the year and still sleep. i can barely pound out coherent sentences right now, hence the radio silence. sleep, that fickle master, calls me. resistance is futile.