stop-alienating-goal/good independent publishing houses

i need to stop writing alienating and sarcastic posts so often (i guess what i mean is: awp was fun when i went). this is a goal of mine for a while. in order to achieve that a little, i'm writing a post now about the independent book publishers that i like or that i would like to try to get a book with in some future. i am not including university presses in this list:

dzanc books: i have Roy Kesey's All Over from this press. i want to read more from this place.

featherproof books: the website design is good here and i feel like my own stuff could possibly 'fit' here. i have no way of substantiating this because i have not read a book from this place, but they do have 'free online' books which is really nice of them and nice for their readers. there are good titles here, like Boring Boring Boring Boring (their might be another Boring in there) and This Will Go Down On Your Permanent Record. i have not read anything yet.

calamari press: this place is publishing Blake Butler's Ever. i've read a lot of Blake Butler's stuff online and i like it a lot. i'm going to order this book soon. i've heard about the press many times, but i don't remember right now what other authors are on it. probably many good ones.

melville house: i have read two books by tao lin (BED and EEEEE EEE EEEE), which are both books i liked a lot, and one by Stephen Dixon, called Meyer, which is good and feels like the interior design is better. they also do a thing where they take half-forgotten novellas and publish them as individual books. i like this novella idea a lot. i think novella's should be more 'popular,' considering our short 'attention spans.' i would read a 100 page novella any day over a five-hundred page novel.

milkweed editions: i have one called Montana, 1948 from them, but have not read it. it's a more traditional feeling press to me. i have read like the first twenty or so pages of Montana, 1948 and it almost reads like non-fiction. i don't know, emily liked the 'story' of it.

open city books: i have two books from them, one by Sam Lypsite called Venus Drive and another by Sam Braumbaugh called Goodbye, Goodness. the Sam Lypsite book of stories is fun, but i have not been able to get past the first twenty or so page of the other one.
coffee house press:

FC2: this is an 'experimental' press. i would never send my stuff to them, but i still like them a lot and respect what they're doing, even if i don't particularly agree with the aesthetic or whatever. i have several of Stephen Graham Jones books. i think i've mentioned Demon Theory on here before (that's through MacAdam Cage, another good press), but he writes all kinds of stuff. his sentences remind me of Pynchon and his 'images' or 'scenes' remind me a lot of Pynchon, too. but he does it in a more condensed way, which i appreciate. also, Brian Evenson's book of stories The Wavering Knife was very good from this press; it felt like updated and crazier and less-neat/contrived Poe.

Graywolf Press: i have a book of stories by Benjamin Percy called Refresh, Refresh. i think both Graywolf and FC2, while independent, are bigger than some of these other presses. that's just a feeling i have, not substantiated in any way. the Percy stories are good. i feel he is an updated Richard Ford, like Rock Springs got updated some, maybe. i also think his stories are almost too perfect, too neat, but again, that's a difference of taste, probably.

lets do a freewrite and get back into our writing space okay

i'm not going to awp

i'm not a real writer i don't think

i think what happens at awp is real writers 'get together' and talk about writing and conference with each other

they do writing 'exercises' i think

then they get drunk

we can conference with each other then get drunk alone

hey, write something that's really wild, you know

some of your guys's stuff is out there, i mean, it's really interesting, but it's out there

let's empower each other to keep at it

if somebody really nails a piece, i think it's okay to tell them, you know, you really nailed that one

that one was the field goal that one it all, man

let's share the rough stuff

it's all about the emotion you know

wow bro i've really changed alot but that's just life ya know

my car has a ball-joint 'problem' and leaks oil

i am now lactose intolerant

two of our cats have tapeworm, we have not seen the worms yet

one of our cats has a urinary tract infection, he pees alot

another one of our cats has a serious drinking problem

i bought some new hot sauce and 'can't wait' to use it

oh man

well i guess everyone has their things in life they have to deal with, right?

literary links writing update near-contagious depression

in the fall, i sent out queries to agents, seeing what sort of response i would get, not taking it seriously too much. i got rejected within two weeks by almost all of them. so i decided to send the manuscript to one independent publishing place to see what kind of response i would get. that was like four months ago and i got the rejection today. it was personalized, i guess because it has to be, and was nice enough. it said nice things about the collection. but that doesn't matter. i am now retiring all the stories that were in that collection except maybe two. that collection was called Marathon, Ohio. the collection, the book, the stories except two, are retired. a couple of the stories in that collection are linked on the right. i don't know if i will take those links down yet or not (my blog would look sadder and more depressed), i haven't decided. but i'm retiring them. *retired officially.*

since november, i've written five new stories: "Foreign," "In Japan," "Sympathy," "Dana's Sister," and a new one i just finished, called, i think, "House Guests," though i don't like that title much. these will compose a new collection, which will be called i think the title of this blog. i will also include a short thing coming out in Hobart soon. these will 'take the world by storm.' it's a good idea to stay friends with me or try to become my friend. i'm already thinking about what i'm going to say in my letterman interview. i'm also pleased, because by the time this book peaks at 1 million sales, Conan will have the new late night slot and i'll be able to display my humor, sarcasm, and cynicism, yet also a deep sense of compassionate detachment on his show.

i wrote most of a novel this summer, called Meridian. i've looked back over it and i don't think it is tight enough. it feels good for maybe the first sixty pages, then it gets too sloppy or lazy. it is currently 150 pages. i would like to get it down to eighty or ninety and have it be a novella and include it in this new collection. the collection would be around two hundred pages, near 50 k. all the stories in this new collection, as opposed to the one now in retirement, are more sarcastic, cartoony, and mean. they are also better, i think, but that has no objective reality, it's just a feeling i have. nothing in the outside world has confirmed this, the outside world being people who publish things. the true nature of this post is to express great concern, depression, and self-pity. these things will be cleaned away by the time letterman and conan want to do their shows.


here are some good links i've come across lately that have to do with writing. i will put these over on the right soon:

interview with Joy Williams.

essay by John Barth about minimalism. thank you greg.

article by Gary Lutz on the sentence in The Believer. the only thing i dislike about the article is that he doesn't mention william gass. if you're going to talk about the sentence, you have to talk about william gass. you have to at least mention him. while lutz's article is really good and i agree with most of it, he never addresses the problem of having great, honed, and narcotic sentences but also leaving the reader a little cold, emotionless. the names brought up in the article seem to be the typical names. gass is the best sentence writer, and the best writer about the sentence there is. his opening to Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans kills this article a little. it's still worth reading though.

wait, wait. yes.

article by Kenneth Harshbarger about New Orleans book fair.

Doubt

i don't know how to write about this movie except in complete cliches because it is that good. i typically feel sick when i hear someone say 'that's the best movie i've seen in forever' or some similarly cliched phrase, but this is what i've felt and feel about Doubt. this may be because i was raised Catholic, played the role of alter boy dressed in robes and watched Father Michael as the pastor draped the Priestly vestments. the vestments are placed on the priest in order, starting with the amice, ending with the surplice and sometimes biretta. the vestments are beautifully ornamented and opulent robes. during mass, i held the heavy gold-plated bible, my back to the congregation, as Father Michael opened the book to the page he wanted, held his hands up, and then read the gospel. i brought the cruets of water and wine for the priest so that he could pour them into the chalice. i watched as Father Michael put the eucharist away in the tabernacle at the end of the mass. but along with these things, which all altar boys do, i saw other things. Father Michael ran five miles every morning before the first mass. he came into the church sweating and smelling. i saw him and the deacon laughing, joking with one another, then becoming priests again when a lay person walked by. i was invited into Father Michael's small house near St. Peters, which was like any other house. at one point, i think, i wanted to be a priest. i no longer go to church, am no longer catholic, but still have a deep respect for Catholicism, when it is tolerant and sane (which, in my experience, it can be).

possibly a spoiler in here, though i've left out big things:

Doubt is a movie that never lets the audience see directly into the mind of it's characters. we never get to see what Father Flynn really thinks or really has done. we never get to hear a voice-over from Sister James. and though we seem to have Sister Aloysius understood, we do not. thus, it is fitting that the movie begins with one altar boy. we are that altar boy for the rest of the movie, watching things happen in the church that the lay people do not see: where the vestments are kept; what a priest eats; what the nuns do in spare time. but, like an altar boy, we never get into the mind of the characters - we simply observe, and this is what makes Doubt one of the finest films i've seen in a long, long time. it makes us create along with it.

the film is essentially a power-struggle between Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius. Sister James is caught up in this struggle. she reports to Sister Aloysius some suspicious behavior between a student named Donald Miller (a black boy) and Father Flynn. immediately Sister Aloysius believes there is something sinister happening. this is the question the film wants us to ask: as an observer who is priveliged, who gets to see more than a lay person, but does not get to see everything, do we believe that Father Flynn is innocent? or do we believe that Father Flynn has committed some vile act, most likely sexual assualt? Meryl Streep plays the conservative, rigid, and sometimes cruel, sometimes compassionate Sister Aloysius so well it hurts to watch her. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the more progressive, kind (and possibly gay) Father Flynn not like he is a priest, but like he is flawed person who also is a man of God. Amy Adams's Sister James is an innocent, but also is developing into a strong nun, and she does well alongside Hoffman and Streep. there are three scenes in the film that are so strong i was surprised they were all in the same movie.

all that said, this isn't a movie where anything happens. in fact, almost nothing happens. so, if you like a movie with stuff happening, don't see it. this is about characters. it is about the struggle between doubt and certainty, and it a beautifully conceived and beautifully shot movie. also, if you're looking for a religious message, you will not get one: it is an utterly human movie. i will not give away more.

this is serious

edit: minimalism

i am having to do a lot of things for teaching, which is why i have not posted, responded to emails, or finished any stories this week. i'm teaching an online class which is sort of making me dead with all the preparation and getting everything linked and stuff. this comes at a good time then: here is a sort of response/further-development of the minimalism post i made. i like this because i think it clears up a lot about what i was saying about 'avant-garde' and then also helps to better explain the difference between 'representational' writing and realism. this comes from Greg Napp, editor of the very cool online site 971 Menu. coming up i'm going to make a post about the online literary places i visit with maybe like a short critique or review and 971 is included. here's Greg's post:

Representational work knows it's representational. Realistic work doesn't, or won't admit it. It goes to all sorts of lengths to hide the fact. Many devices are developed in order to get around or between the realistic rules.

Representational work realizes that it doesn't make a shit whether the organ is made of cats or pipes. In fact, it's funny if the thing represented (organ) is made of something like cats.

Realistic work can only make cat-organs if someone is insane or dreaming,or, oddly enough, a wizard or prophet.

(sidebar: this is why i can't get into serious discussions about mainstream science fiction or fantasy--people try to argue that it's representational when it's clearly just fantasy realism--your zombie movies..hmm, i can only imagine fairly low-grade discussions about most of those, but I'm no aficionado--sorry we never got to talk about them more (which doesn't mean I want to do so, except over beers)--as I said,
sidebar).

Both your representational and your avant-garde minimalism are their own meaning. The Barth essay, which largely characterizes minimalism by its economy of expression, seems to overlook the fact that realistic work tends to look for meaning outside of itself (or to provide meaning to the world outside of itself). Unfortunately, what it generally finds (and provides), no matter how many tropes it dispenses with, is more tropes, more myths, and so the search seems a bit funny, in a tragic way.

What you're calling representational(-ism) is its own meaning--or its meaning arises out of the play between the signifier and the signified.

The upshot is this:

Realism uses signifiers as if they were scientific instruments, treating them as though they were intrinsically linked by concrete rules to their signifieds, at least within the context of the individual work, in order to manipulate signs (meanings).

Representational-ism admits (or ignores--you can see that realism can never ignore it, only deny it) the fact of its representational nature, after the author's having internalized the notion that there is no intrinsic (and certainly not 1:1) link between word and object/concept, by deploying its signifiers in such a way as to create an emptied sign.

In Southern Gothic, we can talk about what a house represents, what a kitchen represents, but this, oddly enough, makes it a realistic story, and not a representational one in the sense I think you mean. You mean it re-presents the house, or presents it again, I take it. The realistic work treats the signifier "house") as if it were the signified (building in which I live), and the realistically-circumscribed author sees the world as signified by the work or sees the work as signified by the world, depending on the direction he's thinking at the moment--this is where we get life imitating art imitating life, because the practice creates a sign that is essentially a feedback loop--the sign 'house'/the building I live in becomes a form feeding on itself.

In a representational postmodern piece, "house" can signify anything and anything can signify house. The chickens had had their long houses clipped, so they couldn't make it over the fence. I drank my house dry.

The link is broken, the connections ground away. The house sign, comprised of the signifier "house" and the concept of the place in which I live, is now empty--it is a form without content other than its formfulness, form-ness or its formation/formulation whatever. When you read it, it crackles at you, because you're getting not a conduit from some reaction in the author's mind (best case--worst case, some long-ago reaction borrowed by this author and served to you cold), you're getting THE reaction (chemical-like). This is your avant-garde, it seems to me.

What you've here labeled representational(-ism), I think, takes this emptied sign and feeds it back into the realism machine. This is where the minimalism comes in. It seems more complex than a simple matter of economy. The minimalist, it seems to me at the moment, intentionally avoids feeding the loop. Economy helps, but there's no reason work can't be verbose, even downright discursive, and still work outside the signs. I think the quality of the economy is more telling than the quantity.

Example:
She turned suddenly, sensing the man behind her.
VS
She turned. The man was there.

The economy here is not in words, but something else. The first one, in its melodramatic fashion, plays into any number of tropes and is scarred. The second less so--it gives the feedback loop a pass, for the most part, short-circuits it, even. I'm not saying the second one is all that great, but it would stand a far better chance of surviving a CW workshop.

So that's my take on what you're calling representational minimalism VS realism. (I've no quibbles with your terminology--just making sure throughout to keep what you said in front of me (don't want to get confused with a more general definition of representation).)

I'm pretty sure I've left some loose ends, but I'm tired and don't feel like rereading for the fifth time. I'm also sure that I'm overlooking any number of things. I've also gotten some things wrong, no doubt. Best case, I just resaid things already better said. Straighten me out, won't you?

two kinds of minimalism

in a very general way, i think there are two kinds of so-called minimalism. i don't think they have names, so i'll call them 'representational' and 'avant-garde'. the second one, i think, comes from the work of Gordon Lish and those influenced by him. the first one seems more like 'realism,' but it is not really realism, it just seems that way.

1. 'avant-garde' minimalism: concerned with language, so that the content of the story is the language of the story. or, another way of saying it, it is the language of the story which draws attention to itself, to how words do things and how sentences get put together. therefore, in these type of stories, sometimes sentences are very strange, purposefully. the author is writing a 'thing' here, or 'making art' in an 'avant-garde' way. because the language of the thing draws attention to itself, or is 'primary,' plot or stuff happening is secondary, or nonexistent. the reader is not drawn into 'plot', but into language. this is basically William Gass, but with the label of minimalism slapped onto it. i consider this to be 'high' art or something. (edit: probably a kind of formalism).

i consider these authors, mostly recent, to be: Gordon Lish, Diane Williams, Lydia Davis, Gary Lutz, Sam Lipsyte (a little), early (Lish edited) Carver. there are some online people who maybe do similar things, who could be considered 'avant-garde' minimalists, and i would say Kim Chinquee, Tao Lin, Deb Olin Unferth are these people, among others. i think this is a big trend in some online venues. possibles are: Amy Hempel (more plotty) and Ben Marcus. it seems important to say that these types of stories are often shorter than ten pages, and even more times, are shorter than 1,000 words, making them very good for online things.

here are a couple examples of what i'm talking about:

Diane Williams

Gary Lutz

here also is a brief snippet of interview with Lutz, rehashing the same thing Gass (i think) once said about film.

i think it's clear from that brief thing of the Lutz interview that more 'plot-driven' writing, like a love between step-siblings, is frowned upon.

2. 'representational' minimalism: concerned with characters. psychological and emotional depth looked for in the best of these stories. plot is there, but is secondary (sort of) to the emotional development of the characters. language is both representational and more quietly a form of content, in that it 'represents' a bleak and doomed kind of everydayness (the avant-garde minimalists, i would argue, do not address this because their content (ie, their language) cannot make the reader feel this bleak type of thing). what makes these minimalists 'representational' and not 'realistic' is hard to describe, but i think it's about how characters are made, move and develop on the page in a world just slightly off, more amplified, and more lost or strange and a little more 'cartoony', than our own.

i consider these writers to be Joy Williams, Frederick Barthelme, Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel (again, sort of), later Carver, Jane Bowles (i won't go back further), Nicholson Baker, Mary Robison, Michael Knight - i would not consider Alice Munro or authors like that to fit here. i'm not sure who online practitioners of this might be. i think this might be a dying thing, where 'avant-garde' takes over. there is a Barthelme story and Knight story over on the right for examples of this. an interesting tactic, i think, of some of these types of stories is 'fantasy fulfillment,' in which the story allows room for a fantasy of small scale to happen, as in Driver. these people are/were doing new things, too, but i think they get a little cast out or shadowed by more blantantly 'avant-garde' writing.

3. i like both kinds of writing, though i prefer the second group. Joy Williams a lot. what i think annoys me is that the second group is perceived as more traditional and therefore, somehow, less artistic or creative or something (as in Lutz interview). i don't think i have anything else to say except that i dislike such a perception.

i'm probably going to stop posting such long things for a while and do shorter posts.

a day when i finish a story

6:45 emily goes to work. i say, Turn off the light.

9:45 i get up, bathroom, shower.

9:50 make coffee.

10:00 take dog out while coffee is going. dog pees but doesn't poop and i tell him, slightly annoyed because i don't want to take him out later, Dude, you need to poop, my friend. he looks up at me blankly and wags his tail.

10: 10 go back inside, drink one cup of coffee fast. check my four emails. look at clock and see it is after 10 and tell myself i will get up earlier tomorrow. i go in bedroom and set alarm for 8:30.

10:20 open word file of story i'm going to finish. minimize word file. read literary blogs and get internet literary news. maybe look and see how a basketball team is doing. get another cup of coffee.

10:30 go to bathroom, with coffee. come back out and think that enough time has passed for me to check email again. maximize word file for story i'm going to write last scene for. see that it is now after 10:30 and now i'm really going to get some serious writing done. finish coffee

10: 40 read the first couple paragraphs of the story. get a really good idea for a blog post. go check my blog. check statcounter. see that i have a new 'international' hit. start post, but tell myself i can only start it and save, that i have to finish it later because i have to finish the story first.

10:50 read opening of story again. wonder what emily will think of the first couple paragraphs. try to pretend that i have never read the story before and read it like that. think that she will basically be blown away by it. tell myself i'm just joking but know that i'm sort of serious. think about how rick barthelme might read the opening. think that he'll be pleased and possibly drinking a diet coke. open some older stories and try to read them like i have never read them before, pretending i am either emily or rick barthelme.

11:00 think about what we have to eat for lunch. think that i could probably make one more cup of coffee because i feel that the first two cups might be wearing off a little. go to end of story. write a paragraph, delete some sentences, re-write it. do this for about an hour. decide that it's pretty much finished.

12:00 eat some chex mix/chips with tomatillo salsa/muffin. think that i need to eat a high fiber vegetable at some point in the day.

12:15 play ping-pong for about twenty minutes. pet the cats.

12:25 make a sandwich, consisting of bagel, turkey, cheese, and feel a little depressed about everything.

12:50 don't know what to do. think that my stories are terrible. think that my novel, that i stopped working on because i was writing a lot of stories, is terrible. realize that the coffee has fully worn off. get a little sleepy.

1:15 question my existence. wonder if i should go to help people in a foreign country. wonder if i would've been better living with basho. look out the window, see the trees without leaves, and feel like basho. really want to wander around.

1:45 take dog out.

2:00 tell myself that i will go on a run at 3. wonder what we'll have for dinner. read a book, some chapters or a couple stories.

3:00 get sleepy. decide that i can't run now, that i have to wait. tell myself to close my eyes and just take a short nap.

4:30 wake up. see that it's near dark out. hear emily's car pulling up alongside the house. get computer out, open some stuff, and make it look like i've been working.

5:00 say that i've just finished a story, would she mind reading it while i go on a run? force the computer on her in a subtle way, by saying that she really needs to look at this hilarious video.

5:10 emily asks my why i'm not going on a run. tell her it's a little too cold and dark out. sort of wander around the house, petting cats or eating something. when she makes a noise like hmm, say, What part are you at? if she laughs, say, What part are you at? she asks me to please leave her alone.

5:15 sit down next to her and pretend to read a book, but sort of look over at the computer to see which page she's on and try to gauge her facial reactions.

5:20 try very hard to be quiet and not say anything.

5:25 get annoyed that the phone rang.

5:30 emily says she's finished and that she liked it, she thought it was good. ask what was good? get a sort of vague answer. ask what she thought about a certain character. was he convincing? yes. was his psychology, you know, complex and everything? yeah, i saw that. good, i was going for that. ask what she thought about the prose. she says, Well, what about it? it was clear. clear's good, i say. was it, you know, interesting? yeah, i was interested. say, quickly and annoyedly that she isn't being critical enough and that if she doesn't want to be critical then that's fine. rolls her eyes.

6:00 ask her what she wants for dinner. she doesn't care. ask her what she really thinks of the story.

6:15 ask her what she really thinks of the story.

6:30 pick up dinner. eat some food. get full. say that i was just hungry, my bad for being annoyed or forceful or sort of a dick. she says that that's okay, do i want to play ping-pong? i say sure. i say, can i ask you just one more question about like the descriptions?

low-media with mid-level-emotional-content post

we went to a place called edisto island in south carolina. i got almost nothing done there, but i ate a lot of good food and saw people i hadn't seen for a while and that was good. the natural progression of all things is for them to get further away, i think, and to become apart, and then to return. this is evidenced by rivers and probably, i think, by moths. this is why moth balls are necessary in certain climates. i have other things to say but i don't know the words for them yet. all things written on this blog should be viewed as mildly sarcastic in an attempt to combat deeper feelings of lostness sometimes. but right now i feel full of coffee and pleased because none of the cats crapped on the floor, or if they did the lady who looked after them did a fine job. thank you lady.

i (or we) received the following material possessions, some of which might be helpful to the soul:

Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie
East Bay Grease by Eric Miles Williamson (on a rec from Stephen Graham Jones, an excellent writer who I haven't linked to yet - if you like horror, you should read Demon Theory).
The Brothers by Frederick Barthelme (a hardback, signed copy from a used bookstore).
a Nintendo Wii, with Mario Kart
three sweaters