The 2009 Million Writers Award is now open for nominations. You should check it out here and nominate a story from either Thieves Jargon or some other journal. Anybody can nominate their favorite piece of 2008, and the winner takes home five hundo.
Thieves Jargon has pegged a notable story every year we've entered, but still hasn't scored a top-ten finish. Maybe this will be the year. As an editor, I get to nominate three pieces. I have some in mind, but I'd like to hear some thoughts. Help me decide. A quick spin through the archives has given me the following potentials:
No Eating by Russell Zerbo
The Consciousness of Infestation by Marc Gulezian
James Becomes an Epicurean by Kevin Wilson
Pharmacon by Spencer Dew
Turtle Soup by Woodie Stephenson
Cheney Don't Dance by Peggy Newland
Twelfth by Zach Plague
Duckass II by Mike Boyle
Fly Fishing and Shit Like That by Joel Van Noord
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32 comments:
er, um-yeah, wait... why no Pericho? Thom Young?
You have some good choices in there, DiGangi, but I'm gonna' nominate Pericho.
you forgot kevin wilson's name on the third story down.
No Pericho because the stories have to be at least 1000 words long, although I didn't do the math, and I'm not sure if James Becomes an Epicurean fits on that list or not.
Wait are you purposely trying to pick the worst stories on the site or is this really the best? Because if it is I'm afraid to see the mediocre stuff.
i doubt you read them.
I'll read them, crackers. Whoever wrote above comment is not me, but is super hilarious to pretend to be me.
i know it like totally freaks me out too! I like totally want to spill on the couch and stain something or whatever.
It's the best we got, and I'll stand by it. If anybody wants, I'd be willing to wager a week's guest editor spot that there will be more TJ stories selected as notable than there will be Mather stories selected as notable.
a lot of haters stopping by lately.
Funambulism by D. Harlan Wilson was my favorite TJ piece last year.
Boyle's got a good quote about if people you don't know start taking shots, you're doing all right.
Wow, you'd be willing to wager a whole week's editorship of TJ, eh? That's quite a risk and reward! Considering I have had no short stories published, it takes real balls to make a wager like that!
What Boyle said has been said many times before, and it's true. You've got a nice format here and a lively little scene, though you are too smug and seem to be deathly afraid of negative opinion.
I read the stories and didn't like them, big surprise. I thought Dew's was the best. Most of them are too unsure of themselves, too much inside-the-head and not enough in the real world. Too much cleverness, word play, zaniness, fantasy, not enough tenderness, truth, complexity of emotion. I like simple stories told honestly, I don't like a tawdry circus show. But I have never published a story and therefor my opinion means nothing. Popularity is not everything, though that might be hard for a socialist to understand.
You guys should check out the American Dissident web site, and make a comment on his blog. Unless you're afraid of a contrary viewpoint.
Mather, the fact that you'd name-check American Dissonant proves you're a very specific kind of cunt, and the fact that you say things like "Most of them are too unsure of themselves, too much inside-the-head and not enough in the real world" enforces that notion while proving that you really have no idea what you're talking about.
Still, you say things like "lively little scene," which is moderately false, and therefore fills me with misguided importance, and at least you're desperate enough to communicate that you'd pretend to read the stories.
You're no Madore, but you're fine until he's done with Iraq.
I guess a guy crawling up an elephant's ass is grounded firmly in reality. Now I'm a "cunt" for suggesting your frat boys take a look at American Dissident? No one has fought with the editor of that journal more than I have, but still the journal represents a variation, an alternative viewpoint, which in your click is taboo. Why? Are you so accustomed to people licking your asshole and telling you everything you publish is great? I read the god damned stories, all of them, they're not very good. They seem to all have been written by people trying too hard to be "writers", instead of just being sensitive, honest, individual human beings. Dew's was all right... The one Riverbed selected is ok, it's funny at first, but after a third of the way through it becomes predictable and simly an eye-race to the finish.
I'm not sure how you could find fault with "lively little scene", but that's the way it seems to me. I try to compliment you and you still get your panties in a bunch. Congratulations for making a comment to me without making a half-assed pun on my name. That's impressive discipline.
I raise my Cutty Sark, and say "Cheers to Madore!"
FUCK EMOTIONS
The Puerto Rican boy and the German girl met at Pizza Rustico in South Beach. He had arrived from a three-day band festival and she told him that she only had one day planned in her trip; her appointment was the next day. She told him she lived in New York and took care of some rich-family’s kids when they were at work in the city; she was nineteen and she had gotten the job by applying for it in Germany, and she said she wasn’t looking forward to returning home when it was her time to study. He asked her why she was in South Beach and she said New York was cold and that she wanted to get as down south as possible.
The Puerto Rican boy had acknowledged that the things he did he did to truly sense his feelings; he knew he must be alone. He told her to sit down while she waited for her food and she got her pizza and ate with him, and he talked and talked and talked to her because he had nothing better to do, because he didn’t care that he was annoying her. He was thinking that if she left, he’d be just like he was before he had begun speaking to her: alone.
But she ended up agreeing to go see Revolutionary Road with him and he realized the only reason they were talking in South Beach was because he hadn’t copped junk. He had been walking to Overtown on 15th street from the Omni station with a hundred-twenty dollars in his pockets, but it was dark and after many many tries of state-of-mind-control, of slight suggestions, of come-on-you-fucking-idiot-you’re-gonna-get-jumped-and-ripped-off, he didn’t make it to the dope-spot. He decided he’d go back to South Beach, eat somewhere, watch a movie, smoke some weed, go to sleep and that he’d wake up early and cop all the junk he wanted to during daylight; it’d be much safer that way.
They watched a movie about Indian ghetto kids that lived in misery and were conditioned to miserable things and actions, and he saw himself in that movie and she saw herself in that movie and they saw each other in that movie. He walked her home through the masses of fichus and snobs of South Beach with the idea of ghettos more expansive than his homeland cemented into his head. He gave her his number and she told him she’d call him in two days, after she was done with her only plan, but she never did.
RJ:
Good call. I'll drink a drink for Madore.
Andy:
Good baseball coming out of Puerto Rico these days.
Have you read this guy:
Roberto Bolano
?
hell yeah. bolaño's awesome; he got a bit big a couple of years ago, when i first started being the ambassador. they released the savage detectives and a girl names healy has been translating his poems and getting them published.
i have a novel of his, but have only been able to find his poetry in journals; i stole an issue of poetry magazine from the writing department at UF because it had bolaño's poetry; i carried it around with me for the break.
Was that "Fuck Emotions" thing supposed to mean something? Is it apropos of the conversation or just a bit of genius thrown in for kicks, to stop us in our tracks? The first paragraph is confused and pointless, the second is just boring. You know it's bad when your own amigos don't chime in with "Hell, yeah, dude!" or "Way to tell it, Riverbed!" No me gusta.
Please piss on me to show me that you care.
Mather, that was your chance to dazzle with a poem and show us how it's done, but you blew it with the same old ass artless crap.
and to keep the south florida theme going on, a few words from my dear friend Rick Ross:
Who gives a fuck what a hater got to say? I made a couple million dollars last year dealing weight.
el pajaro no canta por aplausos.
I'm not a hater, but I'm not a herd monger either. So, the junky diary was an invitation for me to leave a poem here? How could I have missed that? And now I've gone and blown it! Give me another chance, fellas.
I'm not out to dazzle people, what would make you think that? I don't look to literature to dazzle me. Dazzle is for the 4th of July. Heart is more important in literature. A reason to write is needed, besides the desire to be famous, make money, fill up a web site or dazzle your friends.
Bueno, Riverbed, pero eres mentiroso. Por supuesto quieres aplausos, y los esperas en sus suenos. Desafortunadamente el pajaro canta como un pescado.
"Give me another chance, fellas."
Open invite.
That was a sarcastic comment, DiGangi. Renaissance found my poetry, you can too if you really want to read it. Buy the next issue of Hanging Loose or Chiron or Nerve Cowboy or NYQ. I actually have a story coming out on Laura Hird soon. Read the current issue of American Dissident. Say something interesting.
"Renaissance found my poetry, you can too if you really want to read it."
I don't. At all.
If you're going to talk shit on my blog about every writer I publish and then back down when you're asked to give a taste of your own work... you didn't even have the sack to give a link when you were asked to. Forget what kind of a writer you are, that shows what you're made of as a person.
I'm going to delete every comment you post from now on until you post some of your own work, because you haven't earned the right to be a hater.
This stupid bitch told me I am suffering because of the choices I made. But I didn't choose to get caught driving drunk or smoking weed in the park. I didn't choose for them to catch me tampering with my urine samples. I only chose to have fun getting high. Fucking bitch. But seriously is there any reliable way of cheating a urine test that doesn't involve abstinence?
i passed a piss test to get my current tutoring job with this grae drink i bought at this plass called mother earth. i think it was called piss pure or test pure, one of those two.
i think i'm in love with mathers. i'm gonna start sending him photo texts like i did to the girl i'm obsessed with in town and now she's afraid of me.
digangi, i personally feel nobody should be censored, even if all they come around is to stir reactions from us reactionaries.
OPP anonymous. It's the only sure thing, trust me.
Other peoples piss
Carry it in a clean prescription container stuffed into your sock or drawers. Remember, the temp has to be right.
Good luck.
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