We’re gonna give this another shot
Back by popular demand… the thing that we only did a few times like a year and half ago but always meant to do more of… it’s our what we’re reading-watching-engaging-with-while-also -promoting-our-own-stuff list of links and shout outs. I would say look out for this on a semi-regular basis but, like, let’s just take this one at a time okay?
This time we’re getting the whole team involved. That’s right, we’re talking full editorial staff being asked to paste a link onto a google doc. And, for the most part, they did it! (Minus Frazer who is currently in the woods somewhere.) So let’s quit rambling and see what everyone has been up to this summer.
Jenkin Benson, Poetry Editor
New Noir Sauna just dropped. One of my favorite, if not my favorite, contemporary publishers of poetry. Always a wonky, weird, wild read. It is my firm belief that everyone published by the sauna will be regarded as avant literary geniuses in 50 to 100 years.
Spencer Johnson, Associate Editor
I’ve really been enjoying everything that comes out by Pioneer Town. I check back with this little online mag every once in a while. Poetry and very short fiction and nonfiction pieces, consistently form- and genre-bending. Every time I visit I find something that hits hard.
Livvy Jean, Associate Editor
Faith Kathleen just put out a story titled “Why I Never Got My License” in issue 6 of Pinky. Faith brings poetry to prose. This beautifully written short story will absolutely gut you but still leave you wanting to read it again. A must read for all girls who question their sexuality and don’t want to learn how to drive.
Matt Gillick, Managing Editor
“Red Tailed Hawk” by Alexandra Goodale in Currant Jam’s Winter Solstice Issue #4. It’s a poem of grand space with an intimate scope and carnality. One word I think about this poem is desperation, but proud in it, though the context of the language can be difficult to penetrate. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ll probably pull it out and read it again with another opinion.
Jake Hargrove, Editor-in-Chief
It’s been a huge summer of releases, many of which our team has been featured in, so I’m going to list a lot. First and foremost, we just put out a new issue a few days ago! Thank you to everyone that contributed, helped put it together and to everyone who came out to celebrate it with us the other night.
Grotto Journal, run by one of our favorites PJ Lombardo, just put out a recent issue a month or so ago that is very much worth your time. We recently did a pod with PJ which is also worth listening to if you want to get a feel for what they’re doing over there. In regards to the issue I really enjoyed the two poems by Madeline Scott.
Our poetry editor, Jenkin Benson, just put out an incredible book with New Mundo Press. At the release the New Mundo editor Andrew Judson Stoughton spoke about the book saying Jenkin refashions english in a manner that feels like he’s making use of the language in a way that feels more exact to its original purpose and I don’t know if there’s a better way to describe Jenkin’s writing so I won’t try.
Our associate editor Livvy Jean just got a story out in the Adroit Journal which is really fucking good. I’m just going to copy and paste the opening of it because it goes so hard:
Perhaps it is easier if before we tell the story of Eve on the table with her legs hiked up in the stirrups and the cold speculum inside her, we tell the story of Eve standing in an art museum watching a naked woman drink a gallon of whole milk while a strange neon montage plays in the background depicting mothers and babies and mothers with babies.
This is terrible, Eve says to her boyfriend at the time.
I know, he responds, the predestined curse of motherhood is a constant and monitored cycle.
No, Eve says pointing to the exhibition dates on the pamphlet, she is gonna be doing this every day for a month — all that whole milk will make her fat.
I had a couple things come out this summer that I’m not above promoting as well. New poem out in Ballast Journal and new fiction in Phase Zero. Thank you to both of them for featuring me and for the amazing work they do.
Finally, Owen Edwards, who I met at our Baltimore reading and who is my fucking boy, has some poetry out in Keith and it’s really really good.