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THE HORIZON

April 18, 2008

Luna Park #2 is almost here--we can harldy see the keyboards due to all the confetti in the office, and the champagne isn't helping things. Issue 2 will arrive on computer screens worldwide May 15. The following are hyperlinked highlights about some pieces from the issue:

• Three Interviews: (1) we talk with acclaimed short story writer Nam Le (Nam has made a name for himself at One Story, Zoetrope, and elsewhere, and his anticipated first book of stories, The Boat, will be released May 13),
• (2) we unearth secrets about letterpresses and poetry from the editors of the new literary magazine Lumberyard,
• and (3) Henfield Prize winning fiction writer Sam Ruddick interviews Gregory Napp, editor of the (very) short fiction site 971 Menu.
• The scoop--finally--on Hobart! A piece much delayed, both inexplicably and inexcusably, from Luna Park #1. (Our sincere apologies, Aaron.)
• Thomas Washington looks at the literary magazine submission process from the writers' side in his essay "Chronicle of Slush."
• Reviews of new issues of Gettysburg Review, Triquarterly, Cave Wall, n+1, and many more.

[Photo above is of New York City at end of World War I from Public Domain Photo Blog]

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A WEEK OF FOUNDS: 7 OF 7

April 16, 2008

FOUND: ESSAY "THE FACE OF SEUNG-HUI CHO" FROM N+1 NO. 6

Our final installment of Week of Founds is in memory of the Virginia Tech shootings, which occurred a year ago today. Though we already mentioned this essay--"The Face of Seung-Hui Cho" by Wesley Yang, published in n+1 issue 6--in an earlier Carnival post, it seems an appropriate one to revisit.

Like the Columbine shootings or collapsing buildings on 9/11, such a loss of life as occurred in the Virginia Tech shooting makes any mention of it fail horribly in comparison to the actual event; writing often falls mute in the face of such tragedy. In the vein of journalism established by Capote or Mailer, Yang attempts to understand the Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho's state of mind--but this is far from the "point" of the piece. Instead, the essay is a moving mixture of autobiography and social criticism, resulting in one of the most painful and lyrical pieces published recently in a literary magazine. Similar to the essays of Montaigne, Yang's subject is as much himself as it is the world. Here is the essay's disturbing and difficult beginning:

The first school shooter of the 1990s was an Asian boy who played the violin. I laughed when I heard an account of the rampage from my friend Ethan Gooding, who had survived it. Ethan forgave me my reaction. I think he knew by then that most people, facing up to a real atrocity, as opposed to the hundreds they'd seen on TV, didn't know how to act.

[Click here to continue reading.]

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A WEEK OF FOUNDS: 6 OF 7

April 13, 2008

FOUND: NEW RICHARD POWERS STORY "THE MOVING FINGER" FROM THE JOURNAL V31 N2

[Due to server errors, Week of Founds was delayed. Thank you for your understanding. -Ed.]

Every once and a while a literary magazine publishes a story that seems to plug directly into the readerly zeitgeist, and does so in a sort of revolt against previously held ideas as to what makes a good story. Richard Powers's new story, "The Moving Finger," from The Journal is one of these stories, where fascination and interest come just as much from plot and character as from Powers's eerie ability to read our minds.

Not many people seem to write about what is going on behind the computer screen in any complicated way. In "The Moving Finger"--a Borgesian influenced story about a man becoming obsessed with a blog called Speculum Ludi created by a blogger calling himself Funes the Memoirist--is about a writer who does what nearly all writers are bound to do: become more interested in the internet than in his own writing. Powers describes it as an easy, almost natural, transition for the narrator, one where he gets lost in the writings of Funes, speculates about their origins, about their cryptic meanings, and--like writers do of their own writing and readers do of everyone else's--wonders if the words have any answers for him. Who hasn't spent hours drifitng across the internet for God knows what reason--but at the same time sure you are going to find the answer if you just keep looking a few more minutes...?

What the narrator finds (who seems strangely like Powers) is a wormhole; the internet becomes a mirror in ways at least this reader wasn't expecting. "The Moving Finger" was originally presented by Powers as an oral piece (which, expectedly, generated a lot of attention in the lit-blog world: here, here, and here). As reprinted in The Journal, "The Moving Finger" sits on the page like a rabbit hole, into which every internet savy reader is bound to fall, and to keep falling. Or to feel though, as Funes puts it, "The clocks have been striking thirteen all afternoon."

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A WEEK OF FOUNDS: 5 OF 7

April 10, 2008

FOUND: "AMERICAN SHORT FICTION: A RETROSPECTIVE" FROM AMERICAN SHORT FICTION V11 N40 [40TH ISSUE]

We began Luna Park to fill the void we perceived regarding conversation and criticism about art and writing published in literary magazines. A book review for literary magazines. For over 200 years such magazines have been discovering, publishing, and disseminating the world's literature. So we felt such Luna Park was long time in coming. Late by a few centuries.

While the literature published in literary magazines has been somewhat ignored in mainstream and scholarly conversation (at least compared to literary book publishing), so to a certain extent have the magazines themselves been ignored. Scholarly attention has begun to direct its gaze more and more at historical literary magazines, especially those related to modernism. But what about contemporary literary magazines? Who is paying attention to their history? Their achievements?

In celebration of its fortieth issue, American Short Fiction published "American Short Fiction: A Retrospective"--a compilation of brief essays written by authors formerly published in the magazine about what ASF means to them, how it has helped them as writers, or where they see it in regard to the larger literary world. Some of the responses are quite moving. One in particular, written by Peter Rock, seems to clearly and accurately embody feelings about many of these magazines, from the sides of generous writers, thankful readers, and hard-working editors. Here is Rock's contribution to the retrospective quoted in full:

"Since my story "Wilderness" was published in ASF in 1998, many people have died while being re-educated in wilderness/boot camp kinds of programs. It's not that surprising that the publication of my story didn't turn this sad situation around and educate the people of America; perhaps it's more surprising that I've continued to write stories. Ten years ago they seemed more fluid and straightforward to me. Whether it's age, experience, or humiliation, they seem much more slippery and multifarious, these days. It's so fine to run into people, and publications, that aren't too eager to tame them all down."

[Note: Inspired by Radiohead, ASF recently enacted a sliding scale of payment options for subscriptions. ASF managing editor Jill Meyers says: “Literary magazines are expensive. And the people who really want to read them—writers, students, teachers—don’t have a lot of disposable income. We wanted to give people greater access to fiction.”]

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A WEEK OF FOUNDS: 4 OF 7

April 9, 2008

FOUND: STORY "CHAGALL"S WIFE" BY ABIGAIL ULMAN FROM NEW ENGLAND REVIEW V28 N4

At the heart of Abigail Ulman's story "Chagall's Wife" from the most recent issue of New England Review is a typical yet powerful kind of story, where the movement of the main character is from the world of innocence to one of experience, from the world of ignorance to the one of knowledge, where the character is then (rightly or wrongly) implicit in all that knowledge's history and responsiblity. Literature is riddled with examples of stories like this: Great Expectations, Daisy Miller, all the plays by Henrik Ibsen. Is that what all great stories are essentially about? Characters becoming aware of their role in the guilty knowledge of those around them? Certainly all great mysteries are about this.

"Chagall's Wife" is a sort of a mystery, but a sexual one. The story begins with Sasha telling us: "I had never before bumped into a teacher on the weekend. But there he was..." The italics are mine, but the emphasis is Ulman's. The rest of the story examines Sasha's slow and awkward decision to stop being a student and become...well, perhaps this bit from the end of the first paragraph gives a clue: "Through the glass I saw him slide something off his fork with his mouth. I felt his eyes land on me the second I took mine off him. I drew in a breath and sauntered in." (Is it getting a bit hot?)

Though the story is brief, Ulman's prose lingers over moments when Sasha is caught between curiosity and desire--and also over the strange predatory awareness of Sasha's teacher, Mr. Ackerman. It is an intimate portrait of Sasha's coming of age into a world all but too ready to devour her.

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A WEEK OF FOUNDS: 3 OF 7

April 8, 2008

FOUND: POETRY FROM ST. PETERSBURG REVIEW NO. 1

After flipping through the stacks of literary magazines that have arrived over the months in the LP mailbox, much of the poetry began to feel similar. Not that some of it wasn't very well done--such as Lisa Pierce's recent poem in Willow Springs, or much of the newest issue of Court Green. Maybe this is merely a symptom of too much reading, but there seems to be a certain homogeneity permeating poetry published in lit mags (and I am not the first to mention this). Perhaps this is inevitable, as all the poetry I read is in English and the majority of its writers are American. Certainly I, like many, need to get out more. Brush up on my Spanish.

Amidst the wash of poetry published daily, the poetry published in the premiere issue of St. Petersburg Review is a refreshing addition. More, it is memorable, and the writers of it talented. (Note: SPR #1 contains prose as well as poetry, and both of quality; I am merely focusing on the latter of the two.) What is the poetry in SPR like? For one, it is diverse. It is funny, sad, painful, rarely ecstatic but often happy, achingly sincere and movingly dishonest. In other words, poetry.

Though nearly all the poems in the issue seem, like some of the best poetry, dying to be quoted from, none so much as Dmitrii Prigov's humorous poetic examinations of a much darker--perhaps more real?--side to the world. These are not polite poems; they are not meant to be nice--or, for that matter, they are perhaps not even meant to please. Here is a stanza from his cycle "A Difficult Childhood or 20 Dreadful Tales":

"When I was young and played
violin amidst a great hall
a rat crept out from behind
and crawled up my pant leg
nibbling away at my trembling scrotum
until it nibbled completely away
and I played, played, played, and I played
in the midst of the enormous, dank
hall"

[Above image is by David Fettig of the Washington, DC metro.]

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A WEEK OF FOUNDS: 2 OF 7

April 7, 2008

FOUND: STEPHEN MARCHE'S STORY "FOR THE OTHER EUGENE SCHIEFFLIN" FROM FICTION V20 N 2

While casting her vote for The Morning News 2008 Tournament of Books' final round between literary heavyweights Tom McCarthy's The Remainder and Junot Diaz's Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, Kate Schlegel wrote, "Can I cast a write-in vote for Shining at the Bottom of the Sea?" Marche's 2007 novel, Shining at the Bottom of the Sea, is the fascinating fictional genesis of an island community named Sanjania. The world of Sanjania sticks in the craw your mind after finishing the book--perhaps the only thing keeping a reader from hesitating a visit there would be the destruction of the alluring fiction Marche spun to bring such a world into existence in the first place. Because one comes to realize by the end of the book that much of the allure of Sanjania is its fictionality.

"For the Other Eugene Schiefflin" is a vertiginous new story from Marche published in the most recent issue of Fiction (a magazine initially designed by the subject of our previous Found, Don B.). The story begins its intriguing postmodern ride of mistaken identity from the first line: "I didn't know my name mattered until Stephen Marche called me from the university to ask me if I had any relatives in New York." Though it could have easily turned into another Borgesian knock-off, Marche instead tells a quiet, introspective story. In it, a man named Schiefflin has accidentally released an epidemic of startlings "as far South as the Gulf of Mexico and as far north as the Arctic Circle." The birds wrecked havoc to the unexpecting native creatures and plants, simultaneously altering the courses of both history and literature. "The drop or so of ink it takes to write the word 'startling' altered the skyscape of a continent," Marche writes. "Whose legacy is this destruction?"

[UPDATE: Here is an occurence between Marche's starling tale and life--or, what's more likely, between Marche's art and someone else's: www.starlingmigration.info. The website was advertised all over the latest issue of BOMB.]

[Above image: Richard Francisco, 444, 1998, Wood, plaster, bole, acrylic, enamel. From the cover of Fiction 20/2]

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A WEEK OF FOUNDS: 1 OF 7

April 6, 2008

Gearing up for our second issue, we are launching a week of founds, seven take-off-your-hat lit mag offerings from the magazine rack--or, more specifically, from our mailbox. (Found a found? Tell us about it: lunaparkreview@gmail.com. Submissions for the Luna Park quarterly issue are due April 15th. Click here for more details.)

FOUND: NEW DONALD BARTHELME STORIES "AMONG THE BEANWOODS" AND "HEATHER" FROM THE HOPKINS REVIEW NO. 1

"The already-beautiful do not, as a rule, run. I am, at the moment, seated." So intriguingly begins "Among the Beanwoods," a never before printed story by Donald Barthelme (1931-1989) and published in the inagural issue of The Hopkins Review. The story, along with the story "Heather," is introduced by Barthelme's friend and literary peer, John Barth, who says in his introduction: "I find myself still quoting from time to time some of Don's remarks." Barth is most certainly not alone in this habit. (For years, in an effort to mystify strangers at parties, I slipped into conversations this line from Barthelme's novel Snow White: "Anathematization of the World Is Not an Adequate Response to the World.") For examples of Barthelme's lasting influence in the literary world, check out the lushly designed issue of McSweeney's dedicated to the writer, filled with stories about him Ann Beattie, David Gates, and more; or read an article on Barthelme by James Walcott in the last issue of Bookforum. Who can help but be fascinated by a man who would write, "The already-beautiful do not, as a rule, run"? Thanks goes to The Hopkins Review for making such language available for the rest of us.

These stories are by no means merely of interest to the Barthelme scholar or fan, but affecting pieces of fiction in their own right. "Among the Beanwoods" is reminiscent of the electric prose poetry found in Barthelme's imaginative geographical romp, "Paraguay." The story is packed with stunning lines, such as: "The forest will soon exist on some maps, a tribute to the world's cartographers." "Heather," on the other hand, is another of Barthelme's idiosyncratic Beckettian dialogues, which in this instance resolves in an at the same time sobering and hilarious riff on--what else?--the American Dream. "'We got the Blue Cross, the Red Cross, and the Star-Spangled Banner,' Heidi says. 'What can go wrong?'" As always, the mad world needs its satirists. This one is sorely missed.