How do we love thee?

UPDATE: Subscribe in the last week of July, and we’ll enter you into a drawing to win the Prize Pack of Awesomeness!

We want to get 50 new subscriptions in July. We think we can do it. You can help us, and get free stuff, too.

If we make it to 50 new subscriptions in July, August 1, 2010 will be declared Artifice Pizza Party Day. All Artifice subscribers will be welcomed to treat themselves to a Pizza Party.

LET US COUNT THE WAYS:

Way 1. If you’re one of the first five.

Each week in July, starting on Monday (7/5, 7/12, 7/19, 7/26), the FIRST FIVE NEW SUBSCRIBERS will receive a free limited edition screen print of their choice ($15 value). No, we will not tell you when the five-subscription limit each week has been exceeded.

Way 2. If you’re subscribed, and get someone else to subscribe. 

July, any CURRENT SUBSCRIBER (as of June 30) who refers a NEW SUBSCRIBER in July will receive a free limited edition screen print of their choice. New subscriptions may be for either Issue 1 and 2 or Issue 3 and 4. Current subscribers must email us at editors AT artificemag DOT com with print choice AFTER their referred subscriber has made payment.

Way 3. If you renew your subscription.

During July, any CURRENT SUBSCRIBER (Issues 1 and 2) who renews their subscription for Issues 3 and 4 will receive a free limited edition screen print of their choice. Current subscribers must email us at editors AT artificemag DOT com with print choice AFTER they have renewed their subscription.

Way 4. If you subscribe because someone who’s already subscribed referred you.

During July, any NEW SUBSCRIBER (during July) referred by a CURRENT SUBSCRIBER (as of June 30) will receive a free limited edition screen print of their choice. New subscribers must tell us in the notes section of their PayPal payment who the referring current subscriber is. They must email us at editors AT artificemag DOT com with their print choice following payment.

Way 6. If you live in a US state where no other subscribers live.

During July, any NEW SUBSCRIBER with a mailing address in a state where Artifice does not currently have any subscribers (on the date of payment) will receive a free limited edition screen print of their choice. No, we will not tell you what states are not yet represented. If your subscription mailing address qualifies as as not-yet-represented-state, we will email you upon payment to ask for your print choice.

>>>Screen prints were created in limited edition; please note that prints will be available while supplies last. All the prints can be seen here. Limit five (5) free screen print illustrations per person.<<<

Things I Have Liked Recently on the Internet That You Should Read and Then Maybe You Will Like Them as Well

Lydia Ship, “Failure in the Underground Time,” from Requited:

Don’t ask me how it worked or how anyone got oxygen because what did I care? Everyone was so sincere and sincere is sex, so no, no one minded living underground, in our burrow or anywhere else, since violence went away forever and life was a boudoir mall cave: rock, and open-faced people, and things people bought before the underground time.

Kirsty Logan, “Queer Zombie Disco,” from Zombie Summer at Nothing to Say:

I finally find Mara, mostly in one piece, but with someone’s ankle bone imbedded in her temple. I take that as a sign that it’s time to go. I hoist Mara up onto my shoulder, climb over the slow-breathing bodies in the doorway, and prop her up in the backseat. I work on digging the ankle bone out of her skull until Tukie and the babydyke stagger out and start up the van.

Caleb J. Ross, “Sarah Palin, 12, Strikes for Workers,” from Oprah Read This:

Tell Sarah that someone bought her feces flag piece. She’ll know what piece that is.

(Have you checked out Oprah Read This, generally? It’s a pretty wonderful project.)

Audra Puchalski, “Four Poems,” from > kill author:

I have a small mouth       and a protective urge
     sometimes

And if you haven’t yet, check out the Orange Alert Podcast Smiths-i-sode, featuring a variety of indie writers (Amy Guth! Mel Bosworth! xTx!) reading the Smiths, plus some pretty excellent Smiths covers from the likes of the Welcome Wagon and Spanish Prisoners.

From Issue 1 [Collectors by Ori Fienberg]

 

Ori Fienberg works as a Writing Center Coordinator for WriteBoston, a citywide initiative to promote a culture of writing in Boston’s public high schools. To fall asleep each night, he closes his eyes and counts Iowans. Find him online here.

The above image, by Sanya Glisic is part of our Issue 1 Special Edition, created in collaboration with Spudnik Press, and can be purchased as a handmade, limited edition screenprint here.

Bloomsday 2010

In observation of this year’s Bloomsday, we’re posting William Walsh’s story “Conmee,” which first appeared in Artifice Issue 1.

Conmee

Derived from James Joyce’s Ulysses

Conmee blessed him in the sun. Conmee crossed to Mountjoy Square. Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. Conmee was very glad. Conmee doffed his silk hat. Conmee walked. Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner. Conmee gave a letter from his breast to Master Brunny Lynam. Conmee smiled. Conmee was very glad indeed. Conmee walked down Great Charles. Conmee turned the corner. Conmee greeted them more than once benignly. Conmee smelt incense on his right hand. Conmee raised his hat to the Blessed Sacrament. Conmee thought of that spendthrift nobleman. Conmee began to walk along the North Strand road. Conmee saluted Mr. William Gallagher. Conmee walked through Clongowes. Conmee went by Daniel Bergin’s publichouse. Conmee smiled. Conmee passed H. J. O’Neill’s funeral establishment. Conmee reflected on the providence of the Creator. Conmee saluted the constable. Conmee observed pig’s puddings. Conmee saw a Turfbarge. Conmee stepped into an outward-bound tram. Conmee sat in a corner of the tramcar. Conmee saw the conductor help her. Conmee liked cheerful decorum. Conmee perceived her perfume in the car. Conmee thought. Conmee supposed. Conmee alighted. Conmee thought of that tyrannous. Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow men. Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram. Conmee read in secret. Conmee drew off his gloves. Conmee had finished explaining. Conmee blessed both gravely.

 

The Bloomsday celebration continues at Big Other, Annalemma, Kenyon Review, and Keyhole.

Yay Writers!

Issue #2 writer Elizabeth Hildreth interviews Elisa Gabbert (Issue #1) about her book The French Exit over at Bookslut. Elisa also has some fantastic work up at SoandSo.

Issue #2 writer David Welch has some achingly good poems over at The Offending Adam.

The June issue of PANK has some rad folks in it, including a piece from our illustrious editor James Tadd Adcox‘s manuscript “Diseases, Disorders, Breaks.” AUDIO! AUDIO! AUDIO! Go there: the company is good.

It’s Summer Reading Season!

 

Remember when you used to be able to get pizza parties or prizes for reading books during the summer? Pizza Hut’s BOOK IT program was my home town’s summer reading incentive program of choice. That was awesome.

But I’m not sure I get the whole “Summer Reading” phenomenon. The marketing of “summer reading” seems like just that: a marketing gimmick to convince mothers, kids, beach-going 20-somethings, and barbecuing dads that reading is a summer activity, and so they should buy! buy! buy! super! summer! accessories!

I grew up near the Atlantic, and most people at the beach treat their books as accessories: placed face up on their bright beach towels to signal to the buff dudes: “I’m cute in this zebra-print bikini, but I’m also literate! And interesting! Buy me a pina colada!” (NB: I am pro anything that gets people reading, including Oprah’s Book Club and the Twilight franchise.)

The attributes of “summer reading” books, as far as I can tell, include:

• Gripping, engrossing plot
• More-or-less convincing characters
• Thrilling cover
• Not too serious

And let’s be honest, we all like books like that all the time, not just in the summer. We might also like serious books of lyric prose or dense asides or whatever: it’s OK to like both. (Check out, if you will, the Artifice Editors’ Goodreads account. You can sort our books to show which are mine and which are Tadd’s.)

In fact, I think I prefer my “summer reading” books in the winter, when Chicago’s grip has given me a major case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, and no one will come to visit me, and I’m tired of eating potatoes.

I am not a teacher, nor am I a student any longer, and my 9-5 job doesn’t really leave me with anything resembling the summer vacations of my youth. (Sidenote: the summer vacations of my youth involved me sitting in a lawn chair under a tree, daily, with stacks of hardcover Nancy Drew books. I had the whole set, just about.)

BUT. There is something about the extra light, and the improved nutrition I get that makes me want to read, long and lazy, through entire weekends. About five years ago, I read everything Flannery O’Connor had ever written, plus her collected letters. It was a good, good summer.

If you want some help with what to read (summer or not) No Tell Motel’s blog, No Tells is doing a series of summer reading recommendations by No Tell contributors, which I’ve been enjoying.

NPR has started their annual “Summer Books” series. (If you’d like to know which vampire books Margot Adler thinks you should read, go here.)

This week, I ordered The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers, with Selected Letters of Una Jeffers: Volume One, 1890-1930 a few nights ago. (Stanford University Press, Cloth $95) Volumes Two and Three are yet to be published.

I’d been thinking about getting it for a while (–Since I got my tattoo of a scrap from a Jeffers poem. I’m not trying to be all “Hey, my tattoo,” but merely to explain the extent of my love and fascination with Jeffers) but like lots of scholarly texts, it’s prohibitively expensive. (Sigh.) But reading letters is like nothing else. It’s just lovely. This 1000+ page book, plus Jeffers’ books of poetry, will keep me company this summer.

Here’s Jeffers reading “Wise Men in Their Bad Hours.”

And here, for your pleasure, are the links to books shelved on Goodreads as “summer books” and “summer reading.”

ESSAY QUESTION

What are you reading this summer? What is your Summer 2010 Reading? Are these the same? Why or why not?

Published for a Day

Word Riot’s Published for a Day project is up right now. And here’s the explanation.

Go! Quick!

The Problem of Names

Why We Don’t Like the Word “Postmodernism”

Nobody likes the word Postmodernism. It’s a terrible word. It sounds silly, for one thing. For another, it refers to a specific literary period, from around the 50s to the 80s—the so-called “postmodern moment.” We’re not looking for work exactly like that, but rather work that comes after that period & is informed by it. Which means we’d have to call ourselves Post-Postmodern, and if there’s anything sillier-sounding than Postmodernism, it’s that.

When we sent out our original call for submissions, it included the lines:

We do not believe that postmodernism need or ought be heartless. But neither do we require that every story wear its heart on its sleeve.

Soon after, we got an email from a would-be contributor who, along with his submission, included a lengthy explanation of why “postmodernism” was a vacuous philosophical stance, and one we should disassociate ourselves from ASAP. Now, clearly there was some miscommunication, and I tried to explain as much when I responded to his email: we weren’t interested in postmodernism as a philosophy, really, but instead were using the term to indicate a certain tradition of literature, non-realist, interested in the materiality of the text, paying attention to the possibilities of form without being strictly formalist. “Postmodernism” functioned, we hoped, as a sort of shorthand for a set of (specifically literary & aesthetic) concerns.

But it’s still a pretty terrible word.

Why We Don’t Like the Word “Experimental”

The temptation is to say that names don’t really matter, that one should focus on the work itself. And that’s fine up to a point. But we’re interested in pushing a certain aesthetic tradition, and we need to be able to, if not name it, at least describe it. The problem is, most of the names and descriptions for this tradition are problematic. Take “experimental.” We’re listed in Duotrope as interested, among other things, in experimental work. Which we are. Or at least, we’re interested in work that often gets labeled experimental. But we have misgivings. We doubt, in our heart of hearts, whether the work we’re looking for is truly experimental. Certainly there is some experimental work out there—particularly in new media, where experimentation is necessary to figure out how to make a given medium work in the first place. But the work we’re interested in is actually part of a long tradition, has a history reaching back, according to some, to the BCE.

We worry, too, about the inordinate value placed on novelty by terms like “experimental,” “avant-garde,” “innovative fiction,” etc. Don’t get us wrong: we like novelty just fine. But literature doesn’t develop the same way that science does. The “experimental” techniques of as avant-garde a writer as William Burroughs, for example, go back at least as far as the 4th century. If we have to chose between novelty and passionate virtuosity, we’re going to take the latter.

What We Like

Right now, we’re fans of the Oulipian term “potential literature.” Not that we believe that all literature must be based on formal constraint. But a form establishes the potential for the creation of certain literary works. A set of aesthetic concerns, or a certain tradition, can likewise establish this potential. “Potential” implies something as-yet unmade, something that, in the best of cases, will be surprising in its realization, but, unlike “experimental” or “avant garde,” doesn’t require a constant novelty. One can return to old forms and create new works, or one can create new forms and see where they lead (with passionate virtuosity, in either case).

We’re not totally settled on this term though, particularly since it’s so linked to the Oulipo, and, while we like seeing Oulipian work in our submissions pile, we’re not strict Oulipians. If you’ve got ideas for what to call what we’re looking for, we’re open to suggestions.