Narrative Magazine is an online literary journal that seeks to promote good writing and great writers. It is described as "promoting poetry and fiction first and articles second," and is organized primarily of high-profile editors and writers from such publications as Vogue, GQ, Esquire, etc.
Narrative was founded in 2003, and has worked hard to bring to the web as much literary publishing as possible. I enjoy perusing the selection of fiction and poetry they post on the first page (left-hand column). There are always contests which writers are encouraged to enter, such as the current "Fall 2009 Story Contest" with up to $6500 in prizes.
By combining literary articles with creative content, Narrative is able to promote an online magazine which appeals to both readers, writers, and all of the working professionals in-between.
Check them out at this link.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tea Party Magazine.
Tea party magazine is a magazine which publishes independent artists, authors, poets, and writers of non-fiction. They are based in Oakland and pride themselves on their diversity, and much of the content centers around ideas or race and racial relations. Additionally a lot of social commentary pieces exist as well. The magazine is published in print all over America and parts of Canada in addition to having content on-line. To be honest I am not a regular reader of the magazine but I heard about them through a friend who told me they were accepting internships. Nevertheless the poems I have read have been very creative, and the idea of a magazine dedicate to this sort of content is refreshing.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
McSweeney's
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/
McSweeney's is a literary journal/art journal that started out by publishing works rejected by other magazines, but soon grew to receive its own submissions. It tries to focus on writing that "pushes the form" of language in a new, or inventive way. It has four sections: McSweeney's Rectangulars is a collection of fiction works that try to explore writing in a new way. The Believer explores how books, music, politics, and art are all related. Wholphin is a DVD magazine of short films, documentaries, animation, and instructional videos that have not found wide release, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency has new works available daily, as well as discussing various events or bookstores that sell McSweeney books.
McSweeney's is a literary journal/art journal that started out by publishing works rejected by other magazines, but soon grew to receive its own submissions. It tries to focus on writing that "pushes the form" of language in a new, or inventive way. It has four sections: McSweeney's Rectangulars is a collection of fiction works that try to explore writing in a new way. The Believer explores how books, music, politics, and art are all related. Wholphin is a DVD magazine of short films, documentaries, animation, and instructional videos that have not found wide release, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency has new works available daily, as well as discussing various events or bookstores that sell McSweeney books.
Wizard: The guide to comics -Best Literary Magazine Ever
When I was growing up I used to buy comic books, but then I just couldn't afford to buy them anymore. So once a month I would buy Wizard; which recapped all the stories from the cool comics at the time. Since I don't know of any literary magazines online, Wizard is the literary magazine for comics. The magazine covers all the story arcs, pricing guides, interviews, and studies the evolving environment of the comic industry. Plus they are very funny, or used to be. They were the best writers of inside jokes (where if you knew comics you got the jokes) I have ever seen. I think I'm pretty quick on my feet wit wise, but these guys were masters. They have the online site, and have had it for a couple years, but it's going under construction right now.
http://www.wizarduniverse.com/
http://www.wizarduniverse.com/
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Week 12 Assignments
Workshop Preparation
Respond to the scene or one-act play from your workshop group by completing a Peer Response Form (handed out in class and posted to the blog) for each piece. Forms should be typed. Bring two copies of each response to class November 19th, one for the writer, and one for me.
Writing Assignment
Optional (if you still need to turn in a poem or prose piece, here are some exercises to work from):
1) Compose a series of at least five found poems or found prose pieces that have a shared theme, subject, or organizational principal.
2) Compose your own cento of at least 40 lines using at least 5 different texts.
Read for Next Week
Paradoxes and Oxymorons, John Ashbery
Blow-Up, Julio Cortazar
The Liar, Tobias Wolff
Blog
1. Post a link to an online literary magazine you like. Give us a brief one-paragraph write up of the site’s focus, interests, and aesthetic. If the magazine features collaborative or interactive processes, so much the better!
Respond to the scene or one-act play from your workshop group by completing a Peer Response Form (handed out in class and posted to the blog) for each piece. Forms should be typed. Bring two copies of each response to class November 19th, one for the writer, and one for me.
Writing Assignment
Optional (if you still need to turn in a poem or prose piece, here are some exercises to work from):
1) Compose a series of at least five found poems or found prose pieces that have a shared theme, subject, or organizational principal.
2) Compose your own cento of at least 40 lines using at least 5 different texts.
Read for Next Week
Paradoxes and Oxymorons, John Ashbery
Blow-Up, Julio Cortazar
The Liar, Tobias Wolff
Blog
1. Post a link to an online literary magazine you like. Give us a brief one-paragraph write up of the site’s focus, interests, and aesthetic. If the magazine features collaborative or interactive processes, so much the better!
Ghost Project
When some from a corner I saw a shadow---
Heard a knock.
Footsteps walking in the sky, someone staring
Only once did I truly see a ghost---ghosts been people we never knew
It seemed to say once I lived here too
When some from a corner I saw a shadow--
It was dark and walked fast.
In my dreams I saw it too, in color and it tried to talk
Only twice then did I truly see a ghost---ghosts been people we never knew.
When some from a corner I saw it again.
It tried to trick me into thinking I had another hour of sleep.
Only three times then did I truly see a ghost---ghosts been people we never knew
Heard a knock.
Footsteps walking in the sky, someone staring
Only once did I truly see a ghost---ghosts been people we never knew
It seemed to say once I lived here too
When some from a corner I saw a shadow--
It was dark and walked fast.
In my dreams I saw it too, in color and it tried to talk
Only twice then did I truly see a ghost---ghosts been people we never knew.
When some from a corner I saw it again.
It tried to trick me into thinking I had another hour of sleep.
Only three times then did I truly see a ghost---ghosts been people we never knew
response to epistolary project
Dear Lycaon pictus,
Today, as I stared at you, standing so stiffly alone with your partner (did you know your twin previously, or did you become brothers by womblike shipping crates or thousands of miles traveled to reach this final resting place?) I stare at you, moving toward a painted backdrop, head turned to gaze behind. I read on the informational sign that your packs used to run in the hundreds, but are now reduced to mere thirties or twenties. I started to wonder of your ancestors, thriving in their community of a hundred yapping brothers and sisters. Then I started to wonder of your own pack. Do you miss them? Do you miss their soft breathe blowing warmly from their snouts, exchanging with your own, or their flanks dancing in and out as you lay in the African sunlight, or their soft fur, whose touch you know by heart, as it softly brushes against your own? Are you lonesome without your tribe?
Did you ever live in Africa, or were you born in captivity, a child of cement walls? And do you wish your body had decomposed in the dusty savannah, feeling the wind and earth hugging your bones in mourning, after vultures ceremoniously tore you to shreds?
Are you sad the last warmth of another being you felt, was a gloved hand, pressing you down as a cold scalpel was brought to your belly?
And now, you are put to rest in an air-controlled room, where you may occasionally be dusted from time to time, and are stared at by thousand of onlookers not much different from myself. There we stand, momentarily still gaping at you, frozen in that position, forever looking back at something the rest of us can’t see?
-P
Today, as I stared at you, standing so stiffly alone with your partner (did you know your twin previously, or did you become brothers by womblike shipping crates or thousands of miles traveled to reach this final resting place?) I stare at you, moving toward a painted backdrop, head turned to gaze behind. I read on the informational sign that your packs used to run in the hundreds, but are now reduced to mere thirties or twenties. I started to wonder of your ancestors, thriving in their community of a hundred yapping brothers and sisters. Then I started to wonder of your own pack. Do you miss them? Do you miss their soft breathe blowing warmly from their snouts, exchanging with your own, or their flanks dancing in and out as you lay in the African sunlight, or their soft fur, whose touch you know by heart, as it softly brushes against your own? Are you lonesome without your tribe?
Did you ever live in Africa, or were you born in captivity, a child of cement walls? And do you wish your body had decomposed in the dusty savannah, feeling the wind and earth hugging your bones in mourning, after vultures ceremoniously tore you to shreds?
Are you sad the last warmth of another being you felt, was a gloved hand, pressing you down as a cold scalpel was brought to your belly?
And now, you are put to rest in an air-controlled room, where you may occasionally be dusted from time to time, and are stared at by thousand of onlookers not much different from myself. There we stand, momentarily still gaping at you, frozen in that position, forever looking back at something the rest of us can’t see?
-P
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
response to "letters to kelly clarkson"
Dear Tom,
It may be true that you have golden ratio face, and that you feel the power! but I am going to write a video game about your life. It doesn't have to be great, but it will have a lot of stuff in there about being you, not to mention about being a celebutante in an age of beauty saturation and neverending present. You can't escape the time loop! Everything you do will be taken a picture of, uploaded to the internet, and then viewed by millions of people whom you will then act like your (pictured) self for. It's genius!
But you needn't fret. Sometime (ha!)-- sometime you will be a rational person again, whose life follows a straight line. Someday you will be normal, and you will be happy, being the thing you couldn't buy or bullshit your way into. But I won't waste my breath preaching to the choir. Enjoy your personal hell while it lasts.
It may be true that you have golden ratio face, and that you feel the power! but I am going to write a video game about your life. It doesn't have to be great, but it will have a lot of stuff in there about being you, not to mention about being a celebutante in an age of beauty saturation and neverending present. You can't escape the time loop! Everything you do will be taken a picture of, uploaded to the internet, and then viewed by millions of people whom you will then act like your (pictured) self for. It's genius!
But you needn't fret. Sometime (ha!)-- sometime you will be a rational person again, whose life follows a straight line. Someday you will be normal, and you will be happy, being the thing you couldn't buy or bullshit your way into. But I won't waste my breath preaching to the choir. Enjoy your personal hell while it lasts.
FREEDOM
..now if i Fail..
....you'll Read these words....
...and if wE fall...
.........thEn all is blurred.........
...........Deliver love...........
...........On time alone...........
.for there My heart is well perferred.
....you'll Read these words....
...and if wE fall...
.........thEn all is blurred.........
...........Deliver love...........
...........On time alone...........
.for there My heart is well perferred.
Response to prelude from air to...on ghost...
I learned to read at an age that I have forgotten. I still read and sleep in emptier beds that reek like pantomimed dreams, fall beneath pillows like a head has somewhere to stay but keeps moving, european freight train to more westerly clouds. I opened a cupboard thinking a distilled beverage would stand against a sight in orange-pleasant round, a stained aluminum dream blank in any epiphanies, cold in any relation to night. I sank between bread and boxes thinking that eating must ring a satisfaction much less general than a kiss, a tense smell, a breezing scent caught in electric blue light evening sidewalk understanding, I fell. When I stood up it crossed a blank church upside down from thefall. what should a saturday look like; grenedine, fantaside, earl grey housemanship. I tinkered with a broken fingernail, ate grapes, followed a cab brigadire and thought about the troggs, what about garage records, thelonious monk, blue neckties, brotheres karamazov, earthly glue worms, philip k dick. I opened a can of peaches and thought about tomorrow. Sunday.
epistolary
Dear Boss,
Work has been quite unusual since you decided to go on your impromptu vacation. I know that a funeral might not constitute as the most relaxing getaway, but you are gone and I believe you are using up several sick days in order to visit with family.
First of all, the coffee maker is broken. Not broken in the sense that it won't make coffe, it will, but the alarm goes off at fifteen minute intervals, ruining the concentration of anyone who sits within a twenty yard radius (which, as you know, is everyone that works here). We have been keeping it in a box, under a blanket, locked inside the supply closet.
Secondly, Marcy and Dean have been at each other's throats for days now. Marcy thinks that a heavier quality of paper will make our personal business correspondence seem more impressive. Dean, however, believes that font and font color hold more sway psychologically. Unable to get them to compromise, I went ahead and approved both. We now have course, recycled paper with brown, old English letterhead. Due to the additional cost, we can no longer afford envelopes.
The office really misses you and your communication skills. Remember how you solved the debacle at last year's Christmas party? All of your mail is on your desk, messages have been sent to your inbox. I'm going to be sick for the week or so, a rare vitamin D condition which requires lots of sun and relaxation.
Have fun, come back soon.
N
Work has been quite unusual since you decided to go on your impromptu vacation. I know that a funeral might not constitute as the most relaxing getaway, but you are gone and I believe you are using up several sick days in order to visit with family.
First of all, the coffee maker is broken. Not broken in the sense that it won't make coffe, it will, but the alarm goes off at fifteen minute intervals, ruining the concentration of anyone who sits within a twenty yard radius (which, as you know, is everyone that works here). We have been keeping it in a box, under a blanket, locked inside the supply closet.
Secondly, Marcy and Dean have been at each other's throats for days now. Marcy thinks that a heavier quality of paper will make our personal business correspondence seem more impressive. Dean, however, believes that font and font color hold more sway psychologically. Unable to get them to compromise, I went ahead and approved both. We now have course, recycled paper with brown, old English letterhead. Due to the additional cost, we can no longer afford envelopes.
The office really misses you and your communication skills. Remember how you solved the debacle at last year's Christmas party? All of your mail is on your desk, messages have been sent to your inbox. I'm going to be sick for the week or so, a rare vitamin D condition which requires lots of sun and relaxation.
Have fun, come back soon.
N
Epistolary Letter Project Response
My Dear Sunny,
It's been an age since we last spoke. The last time I saw you, I was crawling out of the Kabuki Hotel with a raging hangover and whiskey on my breath.
Whoever thought karaoke was a good idea was sadly deranged and sadistic. Whichever one of us ordered the carafe of Jim Beam over a simple soju cocktail needs to be taken outside, and promptly shot.
Your hands were soft as butterflies and your kisses as pleasing as ever. But when we got too drunk to enjoy one another things just got too weird. I passed out on the polyester comforter on the bed with one shoe off and a shirt half open. You ran out to find me because you somehow got separated from me on the elevator. You returned somehow and let yourself in. I don't remember how we ever made it through the night- god knows, if there were any justice, we should have choked on our puke and freed the gene pools of the stupidity forever.
Didn't happen. We survived.
And I wonder, who else do you seduce over Jim Beam and Iron Maiden songs, at that cheesy karaoke bar in a part of town that I never go to? I will never eat Korean food again.
Take care,
Your Coworker
It's been an age since we last spoke. The last time I saw you, I was crawling out of the Kabuki Hotel with a raging hangover and whiskey on my breath.
Whoever thought karaoke was a good idea was sadly deranged and sadistic. Whichever one of us ordered the carafe of Jim Beam over a simple soju cocktail needs to be taken outside, and promptly shot.
Your hands were soft as butterflies and your kisses as pleasing as ever. But when we got too drunk to enjoy one another things just got too weird. I passed out on the polyester comforter on the bed with one shoe off and a shirt half open. You ran out to find me because you somehow got separated from me on the elevator. You returned somehow and let yourself in. I don't remember how we ever made it through the night- god knows, if there were any justice, we should have choked on our puke and freed the gene pools of the stupidity forever.
Didn't happen. We survived.
And I wonder, who else do you seduce over Jim Beam and Iron Maiden songs, at that cheesy karaoke bar in a part of town that I never go to? I will never eat Korean food again.
Take care,
Your Coworker
Epistolary Project Letter
Dear J,
I don’t know how to stop cheating on you.
I love you very, very much. We’re too young for this, something so serious. Too much intimacy. It’s not like we’re going to get married.
I’m rationalizing, of course. Maybe it’s just child-of-divorce commitment problems. Maybe I don’t understand why you love me.
But I love you.
It was Halloween.
I was drunk. You were at home with your cats. The “two angels.” Waiting for me to come back, probably.
I knew her from a class. I don’t even remember her costume. A slut-version of something. We kissed her outside a bar. Our bodies smashed up against a brick wall.
She and I broke into a schoolyard and kissed by the sandbox. It was kind of romantic in a way.
I don’t know why I did it. There was no REASON.
The next weekend you threw me a party for my birthday. All my friends were there and everybody knew. Everybody knows.
You bought me a scarf from the Gap. A simple, black woolen scarf. A simple gift but a good one.
God knows it’s been nice for these damn dark November Nights and the grey-all-days with people all walking around but none of them are talking just on their way to some other place and my father called, Trevor is in trouble with school and you’re the only good thing in my life and goshdangit!, when will I ever learn!
- P
I don’t know how to stop cheating on you.
I love you very, very much. We’re too young for this, something so serious. Too much intimacy. It’s not like we’re going to get married.
I’m rationalizing, of course. Maybe it’s just child-of-divorce commitment problems. Maybe I don’t understand why you love me.
But I love you.
It was Halloween.
I was drunk. You were at home with your cats. The “two angels.” Waiting for me to come back, probably.
I knew her from a class. I don’t even remember her costume. A slut-version of something. We kissed her outside a bar. Our bodies smashed up against a brick wall.
She and I broke into a schoolyard and kissed by the sandbox. It was kind of romantic in a way.
I don’t know why I did it. There was no REASON.
The next weekend you threw me a party for my birthday. All my friends were there and everybody knew. Everybody knows.
You bought me a scarf from the Gap. A simple, black woolen scarf. A simple gift but a good one.
God knows it’s been nice for these damn dark November Nights and the grey-all-days with people all walking around but none of them are talking just on their way to some other place and my father called, Trevor is in trouble with school and you’re the only good thing in my life and goshdangit!, when will I ever learn!
- P
Inspired by Andrea Baker's Gather
Inspired by Andrea Baker's Gather
There was something
clawing underneath
the flowing water
that only the fish saw—
the body
already
sinking—
could not reach the light
Then
the it was silent,
broken only by the caws of
crows huddling together
in the dark.
-K. De Melo
There was something
clawing underneath
the flowing water
that only the fish saw—
the body
already
sinking—
could not reach the light
Then
the it was silent,
broken only by the caws of
crows huddling together
in the dark.
-K. De Melo
Epistolary Project - Dear K
K,
We used to be tessellations, you and I, two shapes moving together along parallel trajectories, but now we live at perpendicular angles. Two planes that no longer intersect. Ten years crowded with memories have slowed to a halt and now I mumble "remember whens" to the person beside me on the train, who shrugs and probably thinks I'm on drugs. Maybe I was. Perhaps, because allegedly the things I recall are retrospective falsifications. Everything has become alleged. You are now alleged. Don't you remember when we got into that car accident, when my flip flop got stuck on the gas pedal and we hit that station wagon with side wood paneling? We sang to each other in the ambulance, me through a mask filled with oxygen and you clutching my hand. The seat on the train is cold and makes my back ache. The chirporactor says I carry my tension in my lower back, so you must be with me. This disconnect could be a product of linear time, although you claim everything is fine it's not because the weight of it all is compacting me into a tidy parcel; I don't occupy much space now. Are we to become constellations, rooted in stubborness and pinned to the sky?
Yours,
L
We used to be tessellations, you and I, two shapes moving together along parallel trajectories, but now we live at perpendicular angles. Two planes that no longer intersect. Ten years crowded with memories have slowed to a halt and now I mumble "remember whens" to the person beside me on the train, who shrugs and probably thinks I'm on drugs. Maybe I was. Perhaps, because allegedly the things I recall are retrospective falsifications. Everything has become alleged. You are now alleged. Don't you remember when we got into that car accident, when my flip flop got stuck on the gas pedal and we hit that station wagon with side wood paneling? We sang to each other in the ambulance, me through a mask filled with oxygen and you clutching my hand. The seat on the train is cold and makes my back ache. The chirporactor says I carry my tension in my lower back, so you must be with me. This disconnect could be a product of linear time, although you claim everything is fine it's not because the weight of it all is compacting me into a tidy parcel; I don't occupy much space now. Are we to become constellations, rooted in stubborness and pinned to the sky?
Yours,
L
Response; River
Its hair mottled grey
the little thing
down from one and
skittered up
another oak
and the space
between the two,
the trees,
like dark rum, burned spread
and seeped
into the ground
the little thing
down from one and
skittered up
another oak
and the space
between the two,
the trees,
like dark rum, burned spread
and seeped
into the ground
Response to River by Andrea Baker from Project: Ghost
I was drawn to Andrea Baker's piece because her name looks like Anita Baker.
Bay
The boat docks
musically synchronized
with the rippling of chocolate syrup
Wetness is undeniable
the cold seeps into my bones
and I ache for the end
-Boomer aka Sarah cook
Bay
The boat docks
musically synchronized
with the rippling of chocolate syrup
Wetness is undeniable
the cold seeps into my bones
and I ache for the end
-Boomer aka Sarah cook
Reponse to "Listen Bro"
Hey man
the party was really lame, no booze,
but Jamie managed to get really drunk
she's a cheap drunk but I don't know
where the alcohol came from, i'm just
sayin it wouldn't take a lot for her to get
drunk you know. And I had to walk her
home, Don and I and Carli actually and
she kissed Carli which was pretty funny
I hope she remembers that tomorrow but
she probably won't she'd be really embarrassed
it was quite a long walk home and she fell
down a few times total shitshow
anyways we poured her into bed around
2. and I got a call from mykel and she was
really drunk too actually and we hung out
for awhile we didn't fuck or anything though
I know that's what you were about to ask
we just smoked cigarettes while she sobered
up a little bit anyways you didn't miss
anything good i'll talk to you later
jon
Rain Eating Toast: A response to->The River is Far Behind Us
I really fell in love with this piece. After reading several different shorts and poems, I found myself reading this one over and over and over again. There was something about it. The perfectly placed ( ( ( ( ( ripples of the water, I also invisioned representing her mind lost on PCP. Acting like someone she isn't. The dead fish in his head, it could be many a things. It could be a reference to someone's mind after too many drugs. But my favorite line of the whole piece has to be "rain eating toast at a window." While I can literally see rain pounding down, disinegrating a piece of toast on a window ledge. The way I wish to envision this line. Is the rain as a being, clear/murky, hunched over ripping the toast to shreads in it's mouth. It's eyes fierce and full of hunger, out for blood.
Response to River: Ghost Project
My fingers spread wide, calling to different points
Cold Concrete
Strong and hollow
Like our friendship
the crisp wind using branches as its dance partner
Sliver of a ghastly moon, smiling
This is
my
last
goodbye
Cold Concrete
Strong and hollow
Like our friendship
the crisp wind using branches as its dance partner
Sliver of a ghastly moon, smiling
This is
my
last
goodbye
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