Archive for November, 2010
Ask the Author: Andrew Tibbetts
The fiction of Andrew Tibbetts is included in our Queer Issue and he talks with us about perfect gifts, sassy black women on TV, his catch sitcom phrase and more. 1. How would a homosexual make the perfect Christmas gift … Continue reading
BIG SALE BUY NOW
We’re having a killer sale for the next two weeks. PANK 4: $7 PANK 5: $9 Our Island of Epidemics: $6 There are lots of great combo deals as well. Go to the store, browse, we hope you see something … Continue reading
Fuck Writing Maxims
Thanksgiving Eve. It is almost midnight and, rather than sleeping, I’m working on the iPad, attempting to snap out of my writer’s block. Call it Honeymoon Hangover; upon my return from London a few weeks ago, ramping up again has … Continue reading
“There is No Safe Haven Like Being at Mother’s Breast”
Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy: One month into writing POP ULCER, I have been diagnosed with my first stomach ulcer. Thanks to TUMS and Prevacid, my stomach feels a little less like a voodoo doll. I Â have no appetite. If … Continue reading
FREE BOOKS ARE AWESOME GET SOME
I don’t have the energy for doing some elaborate contest so tell me something interesting then claim the book you want by noting the title you are taking in the comments. Please e-mail me your address if you are successful … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Mel Bosworth
Mel Bosworth writes of many things and in the November issue, he tells the tale Jonah is Clean. He’s also a big big Lakers fan. He’s the guy in the stands painted in glorious shades of purple and yellow pounding … Continue reading
Yes, an MLP Cyber Monday Deal
Any 2 Mud Luscious Press titles, current or  forthcoming, for $20, free shipping. Today only. Get you some.
Last Words: Tisa Bryant, UNEXPLAINED PRESENCE
This Thanksgiving Friday’s Last Words feature comes, appropriately I think, from Tisa Bryant’s Unexplained Presence. From the back cover: “By remixing stories from novels and films to zoom in on the black presences within them, Tisa Bryant ruminates on the … Continue reading
FOOD BLOG POSTS PLEASE TO SEND
Now that you’ve eaten some delicious turkey, make some great food blog recommendations. Here’s what the fine folks at Creative Nonfiction Have to say: Once again, Creative Nonfiction is seeking narrative blog posts to reprint in an upcoming issue. Since … Continue reading
Ever So Thankful We Are
You’re with your families and we’re with our families and we’re all so very thankful but we’re also sleeping in beds that aren’t ours or used to be ours and old wounds heal hard and dinner feels a long time … Continue reading
Breeding and Writing: Holiday horror stories
So, yep. It’s Thanksgiving. That’s the current elephant in the room, right? I’ll go with it. Happy Turkey Day, youse guys! It’s time for big parades and football games and warm fuzzies and appreciation and tryptophan and pie, extra whipped … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Christopher Phelps
Christopher Phelps brings his unique style to the October issue and talks to us about the formations of an ouroboros, his background and its influence on his writing, recent purchases from snakes and more. 1. What  inanimate objects  would you … Continue reading
Get a Free Tattoo!
Buy the new novel from Eraserhead Press: Love in the Time of Dinosaurs and win a free dinosaur tattoo. Buy Love in the Time of Dinosaurs from  amazon.com before January 1st, 2011, send an email with receipt of purchase to … Continue reading
Timothy Willis Sanders’s Orange Juice: A Review by Matt Cook
Timothy Willis Sanders’s Orange Juice is the second release from Awesome Machine, a sideline of the well-established Publishing Genius, and the remit for the little brother press is specific. Through short runs (125) of interesting projects, without all the hassle … Continue reading
Apologia for Jaden and Willow Smith, Part 1: Emotional review of one scene in THE KARATE KID (2010)
In THE KARATE KID, Jackie Chan is a broken man because he killed his wife and son in a car accident while he and his wife were arguing (though I don’t think Jackie Chan says explicitly that they are his … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Mike Buffalo
Mike Buffalo, man of mystery, appears in the October issue and talks to us about down low neo-Nazis, Dennis Cooper, and what he eats when he feels sad. 1. What kind of mask would you wear to abduct someone? Like … Continue reading
Huckster: Mad Men, Pagan Deities & Journalism—Answers To Common Questions About Advertising
Below, I’ve answered some common questions about advertising. Hopefully this will shed some light on an industry renowned for its darkness. Dear Huckster: Is the television show Mad Men respresentative of the current advertising world? – GoingMad, Auburn, Alabama Dear … Continue reading
PANK giveaway: Andrew Borgstrom’s EXPLANATIONS
In honor of the release  of Andrew Borgstrom’s Cupboard Pamphlet Series volume EXPLANATIONS, I want to give out 5 signed copies to the first people to comment here. Go ahead. No strings attached. Just say you want one & it … Continue reading
Ask the Author: M. Kitchell
M. Kitchell’s innovative Loop appears in the October issue. He talks with us about narrative structures, things he has wanted but couldn’t love, pornography from the past and more. 1. How does the choppy sentence construction contribute or enhance the … Continue reading
This Modern Writer: Don We Now Our Gay Apparel by Kate Carroll de Gutes
Through the years I will own a heather-blue, wool ski cap that itches my head and causes my forehead to welt; a black polar fleece fez which will sit high on my head but leave my ears cold and exposed, … Continue reading
Androgene
When I was a boy, I used to wear my grandfather’s t-shirts as dresses. My family called them togas. My grandfather once caught me stuffing with shoulder pads— his 5-year-old grandson on a step stool, makeshift breasts reflected in the … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Paul Lomax
Paul Lomax’s work is included in the October issue. He talks about the importance (or not) of white space, his screensaver, and the sin he loves best. 1. How importance is white space to you when creating a stanza? About … Continue reading
Last Words: Alain Mabanckou, BROKEN GLASS
This Friday’s Last Words feature comes from Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou, one of the few writers able to pull off the Writer-As-Protagonist conceit with sly, irreverent, acidic aplomb. I’m not a particularly gifted reviewer, so I direct you to … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Holly Jensen
Enjoy a fine story by Holly Jensen in the October issue then listen in as we talk about her favorite word, the lies breeders tell, beers to get bleary on and more. 1. What is your favorite word? My fancypants … Continue reading
What These Words Really Want Is Theme Music Because They Are That Bad Ass
Congratulations to Myfanwy Collins for winning the Flatmancrooked fiction prize for 2010. xTx’s chapbook, He’s Talking to the Fat Lady, is now available from Safety Third Enterprises. Buy it now. There’s a really fantastic interview with Steven Himmer on the … Continue reading
Review: I Am Here and You Are Gone by Shome Dasgupta
Even if I haven’t submitted to a contest, and most times I haven’t, my inner-reader and inner-editor are always hyper-critical of any book labeled as a “winner”. So while I am familiar with Shome Dasgupta’s writing through various online and … Continue reading
A FAILED ESSAY ON GRIEF, SICKNESS, ANTI-WRITING/ANTE-WRITING, WOUNDS, CIXOUS, PHILOCTETES, DÉBROUILLARDES, AUNG SAN SUU KYI, ON KAWARA, KANYE WEST, JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, BARTHES’ MOURNING DIARY AND QUEER GHOSTS IN CONTEMPORARY R&B; IN THE FORM OF AN INTERRUPTED LETTER TO A DEAD PARENT.
Yes, I would sometimes like to write postcards like the above telegram to people. Especially since I now live so far from everyone I know. Postcards which say only, just as On Kawara’s telegrams do: I AM STILL ALIVE or … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Ben Engel
Ben Engel’s “In the Forest” is included in the October issue. He talks with us about mythical places, small things hidden, the deception of queer fiction and much more. You want to read this interview. 1. What mythical wooded planet … Continue reading
Help Launch Forecast
A year ago this month, we published Chapter 35 of Shya Scanlon’s Forecast and now his book is being launched by Flatmancrooked . The year is 2212, the weather is out of control, and Seattle is being rebuilt with electricity … Continue reading
Is BOOYAH still an appropriate exclamation for anything?
Over at flavorpill: 10 Online Lit Mags You Should Be Reading. Guess who comes in at number three?
We Can Be Happy Underground: A Review of D.R. Haney’s Subversia by Matt Cook
When a book has a cover this arresting, features writing by a punk-author originally published on The Nervous Breakdown, and has an opening chapter entitled “I was a child porn model”, you might anticipate an abrasive experience filled with memory-scorching … Continue reading
Huckster: A Frank Introduction To The Ad Agency Production Meeting
When someone asks me what I do for a living, I tell him or her I’m a writer at an advertising agency. I could say that I’m a copywriter at an advertising agency, but there have been too many instances … Continue reading
Girls With Insurance is Having a Contest
The folks at Girls With Insurance have this to say: It’s contest time. What we have up for the winning is a once-read (by yours truly) copy of Mather Schneider’s Drought Resistant Strain (Interior Noise Press, 2010, Â $15–GwI review forthcoming). … Continue reading
When You Write About Writers You Make Editors Sad
This may well become an annual announcement but writers, you must, for the love of all that is holy, stop writing stories where the main characters are writers. I understand the appeal. You are, perhaps, writing what you know. You’re … Continue reading
Kids Say the Darndest Things & We Should Exploit Them After We Correct Them
My aunt looks like Justin Bieber.  When I grow up I wanna be skinny. Not fat like my mom. I have two really small toes like midgets do. ‡ These gems sparkle from the mouths of third grade students I’ve … Continue reading
The Queer Issue Reviewed
We were so pleased this morning to read Marcelle Heath’s lovely review of our October issue. Check it out!
Ask the Author: Simon Sylvester
Simon Sylvester writes about boys in the October issue. He talks with us about David Bowie, what pocket money can buy and more. 1. What David Bowie song have you always wanted to slow motion walk to? Modern Love. Hasn’t … Continue reading
We Give Thanks for November PANK
Another month is upon us and as always, we are thankful for the amazing writing that comes our way. We’ve said it before but we’ll say it again–the quality of our submission queue never ceases to impress us. The good … Continue reading
Pretty, Rooster by Clay Matthews is Now Available
Pretty, Rooster by Clay Matthews is now available to order! The latest full-length collection of poems from Cooper Dillon Books is now available. If you like sonnets and love and small towns, roosters, flea-markets and beaters up on blocks, then … Continue reading
Insignificant Gestures—In Stores Now
Jo  Cannon is a doctor and short story writer. Her debut collection, Insignificant Gestures, was published by Pewter Rose Press in November  2010. Purchasing information can be found here. A refugee finds his face has disappeared from the … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Dennis Mahagin
Dennis Mahagin’s charming and irreverent work appears in the October issue and he talks to us about the why of dwarves, his favorite TV theme song, Kissimmee, FL, and more. 1. Why the seven dwarves? As “soldiers of metaphor” I … Continue reading
Last Words: Manuel Ramos Otero, “The Exemplary Life of the Slave and the Master”
Last Words is a feature about the last words of a given work: story, novel, poem, essay, instruction manual. I find we often favor excerpting the beginning of a piece of writing; Great First Sentences, etc. Why not excerpt the … Continue reading
This Modern Writer: Not an English Person by Ester Bloom
To lose one job may be regarded as a misfortune but, as Oscar Wilde might say, to lose two looks like carelessness. I am on my fifth in five years. A monogamist by nature, when I was first hired by … Continue reading
Breeding and Writing: Psycho families are just more fun
Thanksgiving’s closing in quickly. Enter the holiday season, with all the familial insanity it always brings. I used to wish I had a normal family. You know, as a kid. Back when I thought there was such a thing. Cookies … Continue reading
Review: Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Want to write flash fiction? Want to write it better, cleaner, harder, stronger? Read this novel. It’s only 200 pages and the font is really big; you have time. Play It As It Lays chronicles the downward drift of resting … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Robert McDonald
Robert McDonald’s moving poem for Dorothy Allison is featured in the October issue. He talks to us about her influence, the stories that weigh him down, and the things he carries. 1. How has Dorothy Allison influenced you? I had … Continue reading
We Are All Just Hanging On With These Words
A new issue of Barrelhouse rises from the mist and in it you will find stories from Amber Sparks, Aaron Burch,and  Brian Oliu. In the new issue of Ghost Ocean Magazine, you can find poetry from Susan Slaviero and an … Continue reading
Future=Present=Past=PANK
1. PANK 5 will assemble an army. PANK 5 will give birth to a dancing star. Poetry, prose and ecstatic otherness from  Deb  Olin Unferth, Lucas Southworth, Emily Kiernan, xTx, Sheldon Lee Compton, Kaitlin Dyer, S.J. Fowler, Marcus Wicker, Christopher … Continue reading
Literary Los Angeles: The Big One
Like every hapless child that went to school in Los Angeles in the 1980s, I was terrified of The Big One. Â The Big One, the big earthquake, the nine-point-something San Andreas Fault killer that was—that is—quietly sleeping beneath our … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Crystal Boson
Crystal Boson’s brings her unique voice to the October issue and talks to us about her prayers, sacrifice, Texans and their marinades, and more. 1. What do you pray about? Does it help? I mostly pray for the normal things: … Continue reading
The Maze of Diane Lockward’s Temptation by Water
Diane Lockward’s collection of poems, Temptation by Water, takes readers on a journey through a maze of sorrows and delights. Just as life doubles back on itself, giving the joy of french fries with the regret of trans fats, Lockward … Continue reading
A FAILED ESSAY ON READING WHILE MOVING, MANGUEL’S A READING DIARY, BOLAÑO’S NAZI LITERATURE IN THE AMERICAS, MARGINALIA, SEI SHONAGON, AND HOW TO BE A BROWN GIRL AS A TEDIOUS PASTICHE.
* All the features and habits of moving, all of which I now know too well. In the past eight years, I have lived in eight different cities. * Madness of packing—though I am an exemplary packer, the best packer … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Maureen Seaton
Maureen Seaton has both a poem and an essay in the October issue. She talks with us about being tri, what she’d like to fly and blast radii. 1. What do you think it would be like to be “tri”? … Continue reading
I’ve Always Wanted To Be a Housewife
Earlier  I thought about raw fast food chicken soaked in ammonia, so I ordered a double cheeseburger and fries. If you get McDonald’s, take the long way home. We think we’re invisible to others when we drive. Blast that Katy … Continue reading
This Modern Writer: Post-Orgasmic Chill
I’ve been lucky lately. Like, super-lucky. In a three-week span I: #1. Got a story accepted by BBC Radio 4 (due to be broadcast in January); #2. Landed a paid internship at Creative Scotland; #3. Won third place in the … Continue reading
Mel Bosworth’s Grease Stains, Kismet, and Maternal Wisdom: A Review by Martin Macaulay
Have you ever read a real-life story of love? Not one of those decorated love stories, wrapped in adjectives too flowery to connect to any kind of reality, but a love story that grabs you by the hand and drags … Continue reading
Breeding and Writing: Be awesome or die
What’s more important: being perfect or being kind? Â Should you encourage writers even though they suck? This issue has been on my mind today after reading Carolyn Kellogg’s rebuttal article up at the LA Times site today called “12 reasons … Continue reading
Words, Whispers, Waning, Wanting, We.
Night Train 10.2 is live with writing from J.P. Dancing Bear, Stevie Edwards, Thomas Patrick Levy, and others. JP also has work in the Fall 2010 issue of the Willows Wept Review where he is joined by Kirsty Logan, and … Continue reading
the unfirm line – MGMT
“It’s a heavy time but your, Â your rhythm makes it light and explode like a violent star keeps threatening the night.” MGMT, Flash Delirium I am more influenced by music than literature, especially musicians that can write without mimic, without … Continue reading
The PANK 5 Lineup
[BUY PANK 5] The Man Who Says Shhhhh by Deb Olin Unferth A Dainty Network of Bones by Lucas Southworth Last Dance at Poplar Ridge by Emily Kiernan Caterwaul by xTx Sacrifice for Higher Wisdom by Sheldon Lee Compton When … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Michelle Valois
Michelle Valois’s fine work is part of our September issue and she talks with us about teaching humanity, revolutions and much more. 1. What bodies have you buried in your growth as a person? Only the celestial bodies of old … Continue reading
2011 1,001 Awesome Words Contest Results
We received entries from 70 writers, many of whom sent in two or three pieces. Â We read a great many stories, poems and work that truly defied categorization. Â Our winner is a new-to-us writer but there are also familiar names … Continue reading
Divinia is Divina by Jack Wiler
Jack Wiler’s collection of poetry “Divina is Divina” got me—I mean got my heart and made me cry good hot tears. Poems like “We Monsters,” “My Friend Asked Me to Write About Losing Things,” “Divina Is Divina,” “The Man with … Continue reading
Ask the Author: Valerie Suffron
Valerie Suffron’s imaginative work appears in the September issue. She talks with us about the desire for perfection, being thrown off a bridge and the intersection between desire and illness. 1. What do you desire the most? Perfection. I’ve reflected … Continue reading
KICKSTART THE RE:TELLING ANTHOLOGY
Our friends at Ampersand Books are publishing a unique anthology entitled Re:Telling: An Anthology of Borrowed Premises, Stolen Settings, Purloined Plots, and Appropriated Characters. Consider contributing to this project which includes the work of several PANK contributors. Giving is good. … Continue reading