Monday, June 30, 2008

5 STAR LITERARY REVIEW - featuring DOGZPLOT

Check out TJ Forrester's 5 STAR LITERARY REVIEW. In the past he has featured such journals as: Storyglossia, Zoetrope: All Story Extra, Hobart, Smokelong Quarterly, and others. This week it's DOGZPLOT's turn. I chose to feature a story from Angela's Birthday issue 2008, FISTFUL, by Elizabeth Ellen.

Here's an excerpt from FISTFUL:

"I turned over, got up on my hands and knees. There was a mirror on the headboard. As he fucked me I stared into it, stared at my black eye and the asshole who’d given it to me. His face was puffy and red, his black hair matted and drenched in sweat. He didn’t look much like the boy I’d fallen in love with. He looked like one of my mom’s asshole ex-boyfriends, one of the ones who beat her and told her she had a spoiled, little bitch for a kid. I didn’t look much like myself either. My stomach was elongated and swollen, my tits veiny, the areolas that centered them darkened and textured. I looked like something out of a goddamn National Geographic magazine; like a strung out, pregnant Courtney Love smoking a cigarette in the pages of Vanity Fair."

Here's an excerpt from my review:

"We are more interested in good storytelling than precision, than fancy words and metaphors and concepts that sound real pretty but don’t necessarily inform the reader. We like subtle, seemingly simplistic writing that blows your fucking head apart when you take the time to excavate below the surface. We like to dig in and get dirty."

Friday, June 27, 2008

CELLA'S ROUND TRIP

"A Hybrid Type Literary & Visionary Journal for the Good of Creative Humankind"

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE check out the debut issue of CELLA'S ROUND TRIP. The web design is amazing, the kind of design that leaves me feeling completely inadequate. The issue itself is gorgeous, the graphics, the art work, the writing, the obvious amount of TLC that was put into bringing this journal to life. Thank you to Rachel Hartley-Smith and all the other dedicated folks at Ball State for putting this thing together.

Go take a peek at what's inside

A few DOGZPLOT contributors and friends even found their way in, including CL BLEDSOE and PETER SCHWARTZ. There's even a few words from myself:

"2008 in online literary publishing seems like the 2003 World Series of Poker where an amateur player took first place and $1.5 million after earning his seat into the tournament (cost for a seat is $10,000) by winning an online poker tournament that only cost him $40. After that, Texas Hold’em poker exploded. It’s on at least three TV stations on any given day of the week, and any old knucklehead with access to a home computer can play and possibly win a million bucks. The number of WSOP contestants continues to rise every year. When will the bubble pop? I have no idea. Thus with online publishing, dot-coms, blogs, whatever the medium, anybody with access to a home computer can write something and stick it online, taking the gamble, hoping for the payoff, whatever that means to them. New online zines, journals, blogs go up almost every week and likewise, I have no idea when the bubble will pop and how it all will end, or transform rather. I’m not a trendsetter. I simply reshape existing trends to fit my own personal likes and dislikes and hope people dig what I’m doing."

Thanks again CELLA'S ROUND TRIP for an extraordinary debut issue. Can't wait for #2.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

PRICK OF THE SPINDLE - ravi mangla, anne germanacos

Please check out the latest offerings from DOGZPLOT contributors and friends Ravi Mangla and Anne Germanacos in the latest issue of Prick of the Spindle. And while you're there please take the time to scroll through the archives. I really like what Cynthia Reeser is doing with this journal.

Ravi Mangla
HOW TO BE A BAD ASS (JUNIOR EDITION)

Anne Germanacos
HIS MOTHER'S CATS

While you're there please check out some great stuff from other DOGZPLOT folks:

Amandine Williams-Abraham
WILD ANIMAL KINGDOM

Corey Mesler
I NEED A LITTLE POEM
MY FATHER IS A FRANGIBLE GOD
WRITING MY ANGEL

Kristine Ong Muslim
FEAR BOX
VERSION 9; BREAKFAST

Jimmy Chen
THE UNREALISTIC PHILOSOPHER

Ray Succre
HOARDING THE BRAIN

Jamie Jones
MAY DAY
UNSCREWED

Barry Graham
TOOTHBRUSH
THE NATIONAL VIRGINITY PLEDGE

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Monday, June 23, 2008

BOB, or MAN on BOAT - peter markus

BOB, or MAN on BOAT

"Markus has a remarkable ability to strip life down to its basics, to the point where the metaphors we manufacture as the looking-glass for our existence end up standing in for existence itself. Fish, mud, night and river come to stand in place of family connections as fathers and sons, by giving themselves to fishing, give themselves over to a lone search and to loss.”
Brian Evenson

Peter Markus, who wrote of brotherhood with rare wisdom and purity of style in the linked stories of The Singing Fish, now trains his extraordinary powers on the heartaching relationship between fathers and sons with even more enchanting results. Bob, or Man on Boat is a marvel of thrillingly limpid prose—a profound and unforgettable first novel.”
Gary Lutz

Order info from DZANC

Sunday, June 22, 2008

ACHILLES CHAPBOOK SERIES

Do you have a flash fiction or short story chapbook manuscript, 26-48 pages in length?

Check out:

ACHILLES CHAPBOOK SERIES

We are looking for writers seeking immortality through words, who breathe fire, who wish for "no man to forget how menacing we are. We are lions." - Achilles

Monday, June 16, 2008

JUNE 2008 aka MATT BELL month

Congrats to DOGZPLOT contributor and friend MATT BELL.

In addition to his story, Creating a Radio, appearing in elimae, Matt has recently published another amazing piece, The Folk Singer Dreams of Time Machines, with an accompanying interview (from Kelly Spitzer), in the latest issue of SmokeLong Quarterly 21. Both of these stories come from his forthcoming novel. This book is gonna blow your fucking head apart. It's that great.

Here's a quickie from the TFSDOTM:

"When he closes his eyes at night, everything he sees is dynamite and mustard gas and time machines he wants to build for saving little girls lost in foreign wars. He wants to write music to gather these people up and keep them safe. Songs like bomb shelters, like air raid drills, like preparations for tragedies."

I also want to mention (not that you don't already know) that this is SmokeLong's 5th anniversary issue and features work from so many amazing writers that I can't even list them all here. Congrats to SmokeLong for five years of outstanding literature.

And finally, check out the storySouth Million Writers Award top 10. Included among those ten finalists is Matt's story from Storyglossia, Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken. Congrats to all the finalists, now do your part and get your asses over there and vote.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

DOGZPLOT FOLKS in ELIMAE

Check out the latest offerings from a few DOGZPLOT contributors and friends in the latest issue of elimae.

Barry Graham
Thumb's-Up-Seven-Up
http://www.elimae.com/2008/June/Thumb.html

Matt Bell
Creating a Radio
http://www.elimae.com/2008/June/Radio.html

Greg Gerke
The Coming of the Steppe Peoples
http://www.elimae.com/2008/June/Steppe.html

Sean Ruane
Tonic
http://www.elimae.com/2008/June/Tonic.html

Brandi Wells
Six Thirteen Sixteen - Three Fictions
http://www.elimae.com/2008/June/Wells.html

Monday, June 9, 2008

JA TYLER in LAMINATION COLONY

Check out the latest offering from DOGZPLOT contributor and friend JA TYLER in LAMINATION COLONY, described by LC editor Blake Butler as "a creepy sequence of serial texts." SIX THINGS HAPPENED.

Friday, June 6, 2008

RAY SUCCRE - TATTERDEMALION

Please check out the latest offering, TATTERDEMALION (Cauliay 08), by DOGZPLOT contributor and friend RAY SUCCRE.

publisher's note:

"This is the amazing story of a man trapped in a mad, fantasy world that begins to change against his will... At times, hysterically funny, at other times, incredibly moving. You will have to decide if it is the story of a madman coming to terms with the real, uncaring world, or that of a caring, sane man, in a world gone completely mad."

Monday, June 2, 2008

FLASHQUAKE - JAMIE JONES

Check out the Summer 08 issue of Flashquake. It features a poem from DOGZPLOT poetry editor, Jamie Jones. Read Embers. It's amazing.