Win and Win

Want to win 100 books from the Dalkey Archive (the 100 books for $500 special) and get your work published on HTMLGIANT? Enter the So Many Books Contest. The deadline is Midnight, Sunday, March 21st, 2010. 3,500 max words in any assemblage. Theme to interpret: love stories. Must include the numbers 100 and 500. More details here.

Not Your Grandmother's Sunday

I spent my Sunday reading Kevin Sampsell's A Common Pornography and watching Taxi Driver--while I don't necessarily recommend that particular combination to everyone, I do recommend you read A Common Pornography. Sampsell is a local Portland writer, long-time Powell's employee, and small press publisher (Future Tense Books). (Basically I want to be him.) His latest book, A Common Pornography, is a memoir told in snippets of prose--mostly linear--but each one also reads as complete short story.

It's an entirely fascinating way to tell a story--especially a memoir. Our memories work much more like snapshots than film reels, and we have to do a little connect-the-dots in between. But Sampsell's narrative still flows smoothly from one incident to the next, taking us from the complex pornography stash in his ceiling to the complicated relationship with his father in one swift bound. The leap frog narrative works for Sampsell, largely due to his consistent voice--it's reflective, subtle, and honest. He doesn't always explain his actions or try to psychoanalyze the past, but he gives small observations that lend a weight to even the lightest anecdotes and make you feel the need to re-read each one more closely.

Did I mention it's striking, hilarious, heartbreaking, and left me wanting more?

Want to know more about Sampsell, Future Tense, and A Common Pornography? Check out HTMLGIANT's seven day exposé, or click any of the links above.

Slush Town

An article on HTMLGIANT yesterday spoke to something that's been bothering me for a while. As someone who works with the slush pile and attends editorial meetings at a well known lit mag, it's frustrating to see the ratio of slush to solicited/lit agent pieces that make it into the magazine. Sadly, slush has a terribly slim chance at making it even beyond the first or second round of readers, let alone into the magazine--at least in my experience.

From the trenches of Slush Town, the outlook is bleak, and yea, it's discouraged me from submitting to many of the better known mags. It takes the stars aligning, some serious karma (and/or determined interns) and damn good writing to get a piece from the slush into the top editors' hands. But when one of those shows up in the magazine, it feels friggin' good. I suppose the point of a slush pile at this kind of high rep magazine is to give the little guys a chance to appear next to the big names... even if it's only once in a while.

This Just In: People Still Buy Poetry (thank god)

Ooo, just found this on HTMLGiant: Small Press Distribution's Top-Selling Poetry of 2009. I wonder how many books you have to sell to be considered a small press top seller in poetry... And no fair Sherman and Suheir, share some of the love.

Indie Lit Secret Santa Gift Exchange

Today's your last chance to sign up for HTMLGIANT's second annual indie lit Secret Santa gift exchange! You can spend between $10- $20 on your favorite book or chapbook from a small/indie press, or send a subscription to a literary magazine. HTMLGIANT will email you the name and address of your recipient, and make sure to add your address as well--it's kind of essential to the whole "exchange" part. Spread the (indie) literary love.