hey guys how's everybody doin'

Are there any lit magazines you recommend to submit to?

hey anon! took me a few days to get to this because 5th sem’s getting over right now (this is the last week before our end sem exams) and there was too much going on & i wanted to like… sit down with a clear head and get this right. 

ok, i’m gonna list out some lit mags i trust. i’m also going to tell you how i choose where to submit, so that you can choose where to send your work in based on what works best for you. this got a little long so i’m putting it under a read more.

2 things to keep in mind when submitting is the kind of work they feature (genre, quality, whatever) & the masthead. when looking at the work they feature, ask yourself: is my work suitable for this mag? do the already published works here compliment what my work has & are they works i would like my piece to be featured alongside? a lot of mags may seem lucrative because they have a huge readership, but if the work they’re looking to publish doesn’t align with the work you’re bringing out, that’s not the right choice for you. also: check the masthead, always. sometimes, magazines might feature good work, but the masthead might be problematic. look up the editors! check out their twitter/facebook/insta whatever, check that they seem to be decent people that u trust. generally just research the magazine a bit before you send in any work.

ok! that said, here, from my experience, are some magazines that i like/ that i trust. these are based on what i know of them right now, and is in no way a Fact or whatever. 

off the top of my head, i can think of 

jellyfish review (their twitter account is really lovely, like, they’re super interactive and fun and give the energy of really caring abt their contributors. also when the whole pro life thing was blowing up they did a special feature on abortion and pro-choice related stories. i love that they did that.)

honey & lime lit (not to be That person but im friends with the editor of this mag and she’s a really lovely person, your work will be in safe hands, if you’re nervous) 

homology lit (the masthead seems pretty cool, and some amazing poetry’s featured in past issues, and i have a poem in their upcoming issue and i am so excited! haha)

moonchild magazine (their EIC is an actual angel, like, i kid you not. she’s so supportive and sweet and always speaks out against abuse and bigotry and supports survivors and whatnot, i just. she makes me feel safe, ok.)

half mystic (they were the first mag i EVER submitted to, so the rejection i got really stung, lol. but after sending work out to more places and whatnot, i realised that the rejection letter they’d sent me was actually really sweet…. much more than is the norm.)

brave voices magazine (they tweeted a few days ago asking for more submissions! so they might be open for subs RIGHT NOW, go check. i love the kind of work they feature, it’s usually identity-centric or deeply personal, from what i’ve read, and like. it’s Good. i’ve never submitted to them but i plan to soon. bonus: their editor is a lovely person)

flypaper lit (i have a monthly column up here!!! as someone who’s working with them, like, with that kind of frequency - it’s really a delight. their editor is super chill and amazing and i love them, haha.)

glass poetry (never actually published here or submitted so i can’t really say much but they do feature things i love.)

ghost city press (i remember a friend from a poetry network i was in recommending them much before i actually started sending out work. everyone seems to have a good opinion of them!)

adroit journal (again, i don’t know much abt this, but one of my mutuals suggested it and was excited about them.)

pigeonholes (this one’s on my lit mags to consider submitting to list, but i actually haven’t researched them very much. i remember one of my friends had a poem in here and she was pretty happy abt the experience!)

damaged goods (again, havent done anything much with this press, but heard mostly good things abt them. i think they focus on trans people specifically.)

empty mirror (heard good things about them, and i love the vibes they give off!) 

the nasiona (if you’re into writing nonfiction, they’re a good place to consider imo) 

coffin bell magazine! (esp since it’s spooky season! idk i read ONE story off this website and it changed my life lmao) 

barren magazine (i had a poem in issue 6 i think it was??? and like. the whole experience of working with them was amazing, they consulted me over edits, we discussed things out, they were very patient with me when i messed something up, etc etc etc) 

blanket sea magazine (i love the fact that this magazine exists! they focus on disability, if i remember right) 

so!! im not sure when the submissions for these magazines are open (if theyre open now, or opening later.) nor am i 100% sure abt the criteria of them - some of them, i think, are for specific groups like poc only or trans people only or, you know, things like that. there are definitely more that i’m forgetting!!! 

im too tired to add links right now, sorry. 

there are also a few lit mags that i would advise against submitting to.

not sure of the details but there was a whole thing with anti-heroin chic defending a racist editor and when one of my mutuals drew attention to the fact that the editor was racist, they were really rude to her. i don’t know what went on exactly and it’s not my place to ask, but i wouldnt ever submit there personally. 

i had a really shitty experience with storm of blue press in which they policed my identity and intentionally misunderstood me when i said “nonbinary is a spectrum of genders, not a single monolith gender identity” and got offended by the fact that i used the word ‘woman-aligned’ to refer to my friends……..who aren’t women……….but are woman-aligned…………like………..that’s the phrase they use for themselves?? there was other stuff too (biphobia) and they harassed one of my friends + tweeted about how her manuscript was “lazy work” and not good enough or something, so. steer clear 

apparently rust + moth published a terf once and when someone brought this to their notice, they made fun of the person who spoke out about it and refused to take down the work, so….. 

arkay artists was defending a racist author who said something about blackface not being too racist / implied it was forgiveable…… she’s white so. she isn’t an authority on this. then, the mag proceeded to call one of my nonbinary friends a b*tch off their official account, which is gross & unprofessional and an act of misgendering, to top that off. 

this is all i’ve got!!! i’m in no way a pro - if you’re really interested in submitting to lit mags, twitter’s a great platform to network. i follow a lot of lit mag accounts, and that’s how i keep in the loop of what’s happening, where to submit, etc etc. 

take this with as many pinches of salt as you want -im not an authority, i might be biased, but these r just observations based off what i’ve seen, what i’ve experienced and what my friends have told me! DO UR OWN RESEARCH TOO! 

Text “Antigenitalism” by Zara Paz (Raw Version) for an Activism Mag in Vienna

Here is another super exciting political article about a phenomenon / movement called "Antigenitalism".

Berlin 2013 - A group of women who have been born with dicks, have experienced shit all their lives and continue to experience shit, fight, have depression, etc., came together. Previously into activism yet, like Antifa, Antipsychiatry, Anarchism, etc. We are thinking about what we want. Whom we still want. And what we are against. Quickly, now. after 15-20 years of activism and thinking about what and who we actually are, a term comes up: genitalism.

This is what has wanted to put us down all our lives long. Wanted to kill us. And what has killed and will still kill many of us: the claim that every human / baby with a penis would a man / boy / male / belonging to the male gender, while each person/ baby with a vagina would be a woman/ girl / female / belonging to the female gender.

As if that would be clear, self evident, natural or supported by us. No. It is not. This claim, this procedure ruined our lives.

Our families and friends are incited against us. Before, until 1994, we / our "sisters" were imprisoned if we started something with a man because of that (the German "gay paragraph" §175 that criminalised so called "homosexual sex amongst men").

For me it was like this: I have always positioned myself as a girl and recognized as soon as spoken out gender position were stated (parents and all people actually do this from birth on, nonverbally children internalize it, even without words / language, logically, right?), first I was allowed to express & dress myself as I wanted in the kindergarten (skirt, long hair, jewelry, etc), but at some point my grandparents got scared that I could "become gay",

because in the documents / following the official doctrine "I was a boy" and later "wpuld become a man", of course, a hetero, everything else was criminalised & tabooed in the 80s, was considered to be perverted, wrong and unacceptable.

Suddenly at one day they shaved my hair, I was put into boys clothes against my will and gradually my toys were exchanged. Suddenly I should be interested in "boy things". A shock that still sits in my bones today. Simply because I so suddenly felt the force of the normative system, had bad presages, which should later prove true.

So far, everything reads like a harmless, exaggerated mimimi. Only if you hit the bridge from there to the many murders of women with cocks and men with pussies, e.g. if the "they fooled" because they said to be, for example, a woman, had sex, gave a kiss to someone or just were flirted or desired by a stranger (without being able to change it), a stranger who then felt "injured in his honor," just because of genitalism (penis = man, vagina = Woman ideologies).

Or, think of teacher Lucy Meadows, who was personally bullied with newspaper articles by Daily Mail reporter Robert Littleton ("you men in a man's body," "stop harassing children, they'll lose their innocence soon enough,", "not in the wrong body, but especially in the wrong job", etc.), until she finally took her own life.

 What is new is that someone speaks about it, mockery like that had always happened.  In the 90s, the rainbow press liked to publish the private addresses of women who have been assigned a male gender (which is why they legally could not defend against it and then), so that many times such a house was then set on fire ("public disgrace", "something like this may not exist," "what if more people do something like that?").

 I grew up with stereotypical, vicious fairy tales of "men in women's clothes" (the, in my ears, sick and exotic-sounding labels "transvestite" and "transsexual" were even sounding more respectful compared to the stuff that was usually said and written), for example in the movie "The Naked Cannon 33 1/3" Leslie Nielsen immediately puked into a tuba after discovering that his dream-woman, who had "something to confess" to him, shows to him that she has a huge tail, what was meant to be the biggest joke in that movie, while in "the silence of the Lambs", the psychopath is a bizarre, "female dressing", androgynous (surely male looking) being that hates women because they can "get" the men/sex he/she dreams of. (The murderer is always shown as a male, like all people with dicks / male assignments are shown in the 90s... except dragqueens because they  always told to be male "in reality" in the mainstream media what made them less a danger for the gender security of those times).

 In Amsterdam we met a pair of extremely glittery, sequined and extremely high heeled drag queens who became introduced to me as "men who want to be women" under the suggestive emphasis that they are "on the hunt of some men" tonight/in general. 

It has always been said "if you have a penis but you do not behave as a man, do not wear menswear and / or are not satisfied with your body, then you are necessarily gay, perverted and disturbed, you have to be all that because you are then a danger and a serious nuisance for the society (well, that's what I always wanted to be anyways but thats another story) and something about you has to change, because that's just not the way how you and society can work together (soon more about that).

 "Unfortunately" I was mainly attracted by women (whatever that was supposed to be), so I was automatically perceived as a man, although I (yet for that) took the freedom to put on make up, "behaved as femaie as I could" and did also everything I could not to be perceived as a man/male, but since my family had bullied and punished me for the girls name I had  given myself in thekindergarten,

I was still scared to "completely go for it" or" to really claim honest respect to be a woman "(with intention I am writing this in a vague way, because I never could precisely define/find out what gender / a woman / not male should be exactly), how do you "do that" or "how do you get rid of that?", what do all of them want me to do and why do they stage this gender shit and then pretend me to be the only one who is actually trying to break out of it to be the one staging it??)

This led to many detours, at some point then came the phase where I realized I do not want to marry a man necessarily, but still I want to be allowed to use a women's toilet (instead of risking to go to jail for it), I would maybe also let my body  " get modulated" so  that everybody perceives me as a woman, always and everywhere, it would be easier for me because then I do not always have to discuss everything with everyone, especially not beeing exposed to any fomented homophobia of all people around me.

The big problems were starting in that phase. For psychologists have to approve the name change and the body modulations (even if you pay by yourself, which was the case with me in the end), you can get your arm amputated, if you're funny, make implants and tattoos, as much as you want , but taking hormones like estrogen or testosterone or altering the genitals or having breasts operated can only be done after 3 years of "therapy" that is supposed to "help", whether or not "this help" is needed or not. (To my point of view, "help" against my will is never help, but force and therefor violence,  so the phase "forced therapy" I use to describe for the shit the state forced me into, is an intentional oxymoron if you look so close).

 Furthermore you are forced to tell and subscribe you would be ("strongly feeling to be") "born in the wrong body", "hating your body" and wanting to modulate it (into the way the law defines a "male / female body", also here doesn´t matter if you really want this or not) and that you" feel like a woman / man " (NOT that you ARE a woman / man -  notice the difference !)

and that you would be "into the sex change" towards the court, doctors, authorities, public representatives, the health insurance (always, even when paying yourself), offices and many other institutions then again and again) to be able/allowed to change your name/sex entry or get prescriptions/indications for hormones, surgery and epilations (the only way to do it legally and not having to take the risks that illegal hormones and surgery imply, to be said, a high risk that yet demanded and demands many death victims).

And you have to get and pass documents ("expertises") paid by yourself to many many strangers, institutions and doctors which include lots of very herrassing normative, sexist remarks about your body, the clothes you wear, your underwear, your voice, your hair, your genitals, and your lifestyle.

 And, of course, depend on and have to deal with psychologists and psychiatrists who make such decisions (whether or not you are allowed to surgeries and legal name change) are often not casually into these jobs, but having a fetish, groping your body, asking you sexual and intimate questions, record you naked on video or ask you to try and report on certain sex practices with men / women. All around the world.

 These laws that say that you are a man / boy when having a penis and you are a woman / girl when having a vagina and otherwise you have to beg for recognition to be "the opposite sex" exist everywhere in the world, in any state. We all had these experiences. We were all permanently bullied, insulted, laughed at, threatened, sexually harassed and / or looked at badly and hostile on the streets, regularly at the latest after psychiatrists forced us to their so-called "everyday test" asking us to wear the clothes that to their opinion "women have to wear" (skirt or dress, even at minus temperatures, shoes with heels, make-up, bra, even with small breasts, possibly tights, etc.). Each of us had had countless experiences of violence, each of us had been bullied, teased and persecuted, mostly by strangers,

been (sexually and otherwise) harassed, "even" by authorities and doctors, etc. everyone of us had been discriminated and mocked, so we decided that we now are fed up with this shit and that we want to do something against this damned madness that destroys our lives and seeks to erase our existences plus our stories, just as oppression always deals with the people it seeks to destroy and exploit.

So we developed a short, catchy concept: we want to fight for an area where the genitalist assignments ("penis = man, vagina = woman") are abolished and everything related to that (gender in documents, anywhere, nowhere) , no newspapers spread the lies of "gender changes" and "born as a boy", which in the end lead to hatred and violence, no transphobic, genitalist media, movies, documentaries, newspaper articles, books, diagnoses, court judgments that repeat and state only "their" viewings on us, strengthening their perspective, but never tells a word about how we perceive our selves, how we see and perceive gender, how we perceive bodies and their meanings. Also not a "biological gender" propaganda bullshit, no "trans" / "cis" / "inter" shit from the outside, which, if you look closely, is the same oppressive stuff.

Because If I am called a "trans woman" for beeing a woman with a dicj and the other woman gets called a "cis woman" because of her body/vagina, this is the same genitalistic procedure and leads in the end just to the same special treatments, discrimination and problems, as if you would directly talk of me as "a man" or a "fake women". Finally in both ways you just take some physical attributes and start emphasizing they would make a "very big difference between two human beeing to  either have these or those

attributes". Then you start telling and repeating the claimed differences would be so big you would even have to make two categories of humans

along those body shapes/attributes.

 This is also how the categories "trans (gender)", "cis (sexual)" and "inter (identity)" work that we deny, unless you call yourself like this.

No one has the right to impose such stamps on you / us / who ever. Etiquettes kill.

We want to fight for spaces free of all gender assignments, while every state presses us into a genderrole at birth, puts a gender stamp on, with devastating consequences, every newspaper writes about all people and their bodies in body shape related manners and this normative way of stamping and norming people and bodies is what we want to completely leave behind us and be free of, to create own channels, symbols, spaces, language, paroles, culture and stories that are free of all this bullshit,emancipative, not repressive and therefor to show that one can step out of the assigned genitalist sex cramp of all existing States, the media, the "oppressor´s language" and binary gender change lies fairy tales, with which they are trying to justify their violence against us and to legitimize their asshole laws against us, for which there can be no excuse, even if its seeming to be self evidently the dominant doctine and order for many after more than 4,000 years of genitalistic terror and permanent global states of murder, persecution, criminalization and stigmatization of us and our mates.

 This is why we are here and standing up against our oppressors, stepping out of this hostile society and leaving its filthy body

normative corsets behind us to unite with our people to found and fight for our own territories free of majority terror, genitalistic

slavery and its hateful impact on our lives, health and possibilities to interact or be perceived as what we really are and may be.

What can I do for you?

Here, friends, is my super power:

I can create an entire book — a good one — quickly, with very little help.

You want a book with your name on it. I can make that happen.

Maybe you typed up a draft, and you’re not sure where to go next.

I can take it from here.

And anything smaller than that will be cheaper and faster.

Get on the schedule while you can.

Following are more details about me and my work.

Follow are links to different things D.X. Ferris makes & does. 

I am D.X. Ferris.

I grew up obsessed with music and reading. I went to school for writing. At the time, I thought I couldn’t create things. I didn’t know it yet, but I was wrong. I tried to quit. Writing wouldn’t let me. It kept pulling me back in. 

Once I figured out how to do what I wanted to do, I made up for lost time. Now I’ve covered a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction for Rolling Stone. I endured a career-ending injury. I’ve been to the Pentagon on business. I’ve written books with & about some of my iconic heroes. Communication is my business, and business is good.

I do a lot of different things. 

I am an award-winning writer, editor, manager, publisher, teacher, speaker, cartoonist, maker, co-author, ghost writer, and overall communications professional. To me, those various & sundry processes are all part of the same sphere — and here’s the common thread: Communication is the art of organizing information. That, friend, is what I do. I can do it for you. And we can make some money together.

I have written/co-written nine books. My personal record is four new books in 16 months.

I cut my teeth as a rock & roll journalist. Then I successfully transitioned to hard news. Lately, I’ve been creating motivational literature and self-help books. I write very effective press releases & promo material. I write & storyboard short videos. I’m writer for a documentary I can’t talk about yet.

I get around. I teach college. My CV includes work for dozens of publications, including Rolling Stone and Alternative Press (America’s two top rock & culture magazines). I’ve also written for leading outlets such as The A.V. Club and Decibel. I write and stage communication seminars. 

I have been to the Pentagon and National Air & Space Museum on business. I have been backstage at the Vans Warped Tour on business. My body of work includes book-length oral histories. 

I have collaborated with certified Grand Masters, civilians, and high-profile musical & Hollywood creative types. I have had Almost Famous moments on the side of the stage at European festivals. I wake up so early it hurts. I make money for my partners.

I am a 33 1/3 author. An Ohio Society of Professional Journalists Reporter of the Year. And a third-degree black belt (in Taekwondo). Also a 32° two-time WM/PM.

Let’s do some good work — and then let’s do some good with what comes from it.

Click the following links for my...

Good Professional Wrestling: Full Contact Life Lessons From the Pinnacle Performance Art The Good Advice From... series is now officially a franchise. Volume II features a foreword by Diamond Dallas Page, motivational icon, founder of health & wellness movement DDP Yoga, and WWE Hall of Famer. Professional wrestling is the toughest business. It is a form of competition built on collaboration and cooperation. Every successful wrestler has a diverse skill set that can help you get over too, no matter what your business or lifestyle. Filled with short chapters and useful advice, this browsable motivational manual features inspirational quotes from dozens of wrestling icons. Each is followed by easy-to-read analysis and actionable tips that can turn a life around.

I collaborated with Darren Paltrowitz on this one-of-a-kind positivity handbook. It breaks down the habits, skills, and strategies that your favorite superstars practice — and you can too, starting today.

Good Advice From Goodfellas: Positive Life Lessons from the Best Mob Movie It’s the last — or maybe first —  motivational manual and self-help guide you’ll ever need. 320 pages, paperback; Kindle ebook also available, cheap. At 145 short chapters, it’s the perfect airport/travel book. This unique meditation & reading finds teachable moments in all your favorite and quotes and scenes from this beloved, seminal movie. If you know what to look for, Goodfellas covers all the same evergreen topics as your favorite business podcasts and startup seminars... but it’s a lot more fun. No, seriously.

Co-author of motivational/how-to Masonic leadership manual

Co-author of parents’ motivational guide to kids’ martial arts

I am the most prominent, prolific non-marquee contributor the music-writing/music journalism textbook How to Write About Music, from the brain trust running Bloomsbury/Continuum’s 33 1/3 series. TECHNICALLY, I AM ON THE SAME LABEL AS NEIL GAIMAN. This is one of two or three books on this topic. Note to self: Write your own.

Wrote the official book with Donnie Iris and the Cruisers For my money, Donnie Iris & the Cruisers are the best-kept secret from 80s rock radio. That had not one, but seven hot 100 hits. The bandleader/songer penned an enduring disco hit. AND he worked with three Rock Hall of Fame artists. The band have a continuous near-40-year run. During this epic tale, they work with a young Trent Reznor, Kiss, Breathless, Cinderella, Sam Kinison, Gamble & Huff, the Jaggerz, Wolfman Jack, and bunch of others. The book is a painstakingly researched oral history that plays like a mix of the four-hour Tom Petty documentary, the movie That Thing You Do!, and the American Hardcore book. Coffee-table book, 464 pages, 102 images, 308 endnotes, 8.5x11″.

Wrote two books about thrash-metal icons Slayer

One is part of 33 1/3, the vanguard series of music-related writing.

One is an exhaustively researched full-length biography featuring 33 images and over 400 endnotes.

Publisher of 6623 Press, home to creator-owned, useful, reasonably priced, unconventional books about popular culture, success, and other cool stuff. People like them.

Full-service, full-contact indie publishing. I write, co-write, ghost-write, edit, and publish books. Quickly.

Do you have book in you? We’ll get it out.

Worked for Rolling Stone, the no. 1 music & culture magazine ever.

I’ve been writing for Alternative Press — America’s no. 2 music magazine — off & on since 2002. More recent pieces are here. Older material is here.

Wrote for alternative newsweekly Cleveland Scene, in various capacities, for 8 years. Won numerous awards for news reporting, business reporting, arts reporting, commentary, feature writing, personality profiling, and sports reporting. Click here for profiles, business features, columns, reviews, and more.

I think this piece about Cleveland’s LeBron James banner won me the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists’ Best Reporter award: Literally the entire city was looking at an iconic, massive piece of public art/advertising — and I was the one person who looked behind the scenes. For alt-weekly Cleveland Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/64-and-counting/archives/2010/08/05/goodbye-lebron-banner-hello-sunshine-workers-behind-the-banner-speak

For Rolling Stone, I interviewed a band and created unofficial liner notes for a classic album:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/they-might-be-giants-flood-track-by-track-guide-to-the-geek-chic-breakthrough-82345/

This kind of piece is a specialty. For Alternative Press, I interviewed an infamous punk musician about his friendship with the late, great Anthony Bourdain. I supplied many conversation prompts, transcribed it, then edited his answers into one continuous narrative, while I remained invisible in the piece. If it looks like I didn’t do much, then that was the entire point.

https://www.altpress.com/features/anthony-bourdain-harley-flanagan-cro-mags-tribute/

I visit a business, describe the experience, and research how a controversial industry works. For Cleveland Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/game-of-chance/Content?oid=2183398

While the rest of the rock-journalism world were writing SOPA stories (Summarizing Other People’s Articles) about a developing story, I dug deep, excavated some court records, and wrote an informed summary. For Metal Sucks — for my money, the best metal news & views site.

https://www.metalsucks.net/2019/06/11/how-many-more-misfits-reunion-shows-will-there-be-according-to-legal-documents-probably-just-one/

A friendly multi-person Q&A and sidebar, stitched together from three different interviews from different media. For Alt Press.

https://www.altpress.com/features/punk-goes-fearless-records-interview/

Cover story/feature profile of the president of a local university — and how his work has helped shape the city. It’s pretty whitebread and dry, but I can work in that style when I’m not writing about raging hellions. For Cleveland Magazine, the city’s upstanding guide to what’s happening and who’s doing it.

https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/the-read/articles/city-mission

News interview with Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cavaliers and Quicken Loans. For Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/enhanced-interrogation-dan-gilbert/Content?oid=1678536

Excerpt from Good Advice From Goodfellas, my self-improvement book that draws positive life lessons from the greatest gangster movie:

https://6623press.tumblr.com/post/181078213342/the-new-self-helpmotivational-manual-good-help

Christmas Sevenfold: Metal Dad, Compendium Two  My second comic-strip compilation collects seven years of Christmas & fall holiday stripes, with new art, a foreword, and an essay about why the kind of guy who wrote two books about Slayer still loves Xmas. 180 pages, oversized 8.5 x 11″ paperback.

Suburban Metal Dad, Compendium One: Raging Bullshit. The first compilation book for my webcomic. It collects Years III and IV of the comic, with 172 strips, 8 previously unreleased demo strips, an updated FAQ, and a true-life, all-text real-life metal dad story (so there’s something to really read). 180 pages, oversized 8.5 x 11″ paperback.

Individual strips of Suburban Metal Dad, an online comic that has run twice weekly since 2010.

I am totally into the Misfits/Danzig/Samhain, and wrote a bunch of stuff about this record-setting continuum of ground-breaking musicians

I wrote things for Metal Sucks

Guest on heavy metal podcasts, and bloggage about it all

Guest on assorted TV and superhero-show podcasts

Guest host on rock podcast Lost Together

Annotated both versions of “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” at Genius

Random bloggage about stuff that isn’t necessarily metal... mostly movies and holiday stuff like a survey of Christmas imagery in True Detective season 1

Tweet too much, but it’s healthier than taking cigarette breaks.

The Pentagrammarian: I take note of writing, grammar, usage, and the business thereof. I am one of very few professional writers who can list the four parts of a well-rounded profile or break down the constituent parts of a sentence, in correct technical grammar terms.

The goat had it comin’. I swear.  

Where You Can Follow...

Hey everyone! As some of you know, I have been making some changes in my writing life to help me succeed in my dream of publishing my own novels. It has led to some changes on where you can find me and follow my work, and people have asked about it recently, so I wanted to make another post! 

There are a number of places you can follow me:

Instagram

I really enjoy using Instagram and post not only for my writing stuff, but also personal life stuff as well. If you are wanting to keep an eye out on what’s going on, this would be an easy place to do it. I also plan to do unboxing/reveal videos for when I get copies of my works (which will be soon--see the Website notes for details!!!). I have been trying to use hashtags so if there is a certain thing I do you don’t want to see (i.e. crafting, baking, pagan stuff), you can just block those hashtags. ^^ 

Twitter

I won’t lie, I’m kinda bad about posting on Twitter, but I do make sure the big things get posted on there. So if you want to just know the big things, that would be a good place to follow me. Although, I will warn you, I like to reblog stuff from my favorite actors and podcasts, so you may see that often! XD 

She Writes (Blog)

She Writes is a new platform of support and blogging for female writers that I found through a writing podcast I listen to. I absolutely adore it as published authors to beginners can blog or post articles in support of each other. They even have editing and publishing support! 

Anyways, I plan on using my She Writes Blog to post (hopefully) an article a month for supporting other writers. It will range from tips in the writing process, editing process, motivation techniques, time management techniques, who knows. But if you are looking for some more support, which I am hoping to offer more of to the community, that would be an excellent place to follow me! 

Stories by Shanna P (Website)

This is my official writer’s website. I update it monthly! I have a page that will tell you my current projects and what phase of writing they are in, I have a blog-like page where I will post one of my works each month, and I even will do giveaways when I get published for those who are following me (you can follow by subscribing via email or follow through a WordPress account)

Actually, I plan to do one of these giveaways next week as one of my short stories is published in an anthology! When this happens, I will do a drawing of all my followers, those who win will get a FREE signed copy of the anthology, or the book. If you are wanting regular updates on my writing status and publications, this is the place to do it! :D 

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

With all these changes, I am stepping back from writing fanfiction, but not leaving completely. There are series I have started that I want to finish (TTB!). However, with the changes to Tumblr, I moved all my stories over to AO3. I have a few that are still listed as mine, most of the others I orphaned, but they are still available through AO3. If you want to keep up to date with my fanfiction progress (I am hoping to do a chapter a month), you will want to follow me on AO3 ^^ 

Tumblr 

Now, although I have moved my stories, I don’t want to leave Tumblr. I have made such amazing friends and met new people on here I don’t want to leave. I also want to still be a part of the community here, so I plan to use my Tumblr account now for challenges. I will host challenges throughout the year to help inspire and promote writers. I know I found many new voices and followers through challenges, so I want to help other writers do the same. 

If you are wanting to do challenges, be sure to keep an eye out. I have one planned nearly every month of this year! :D 

Monthly Writing Checklist

For those of you who are very curious, I do have a ‘checklist’ (I know, I have an OCD/Organizational Preference Problem) of things I HOPE to get done each month...it is as follows, and I am already a bit behind *falls face first on the floor*:

Post on Website (Some type of original work) & Update Website on Projects

Work on Novel (edit, submit to agent, etc.)

Write Short Story for Own Anthology

Submit an original piece for publication

Write a chapter of TTB

Post She Writes Article of the Month

Work on Mag Pie Submissions (A Local Digital Magazine)

Host/Work on Tumblr Challenge

--PRIVATE PROJECT I CANT TELL YOU ABOUT YET--

Writers of the Cedar Valley Project (It’s a local group I am helping lead)

Other -- some random to do list thing I need to get done that month

Well, that was a lengthy post, and I do apologize, but I wanted to give another update as people were asking! <3 <3 <3 

//I cannot for the life of me Reblog @alwaysadolphin’s posts about the sheer madness that went on behind the scenes of both comic series and TV series of W.I.T.C.H., so, here I am copy-and-pasting the first revelation regarding the cluster-cuss.

I’ll reblog later with my opinion because all this information is taking me a LONG dang time to process…

From @alwaydolphin, here is their reproduction of an interview with Canepa and Barbucci, and just let me interject beforehand: I’m am just shocked at how poorly Disney treated them! Shockéd! *coughsarcasmcough*

as long as im posting these deep production tidbits from w.i.t.c.h. I should probably also track down that old Canepa interview where she talked about being turned away from Disney for four years until Disney begrudgingly took the project on, published it, and then bragged about how they always knew it would be a smash hit when it broke sales records bc I think about that a lot

Sceneario.com : What do you think of the manga genre? I am thinking in particular of “WITCH”?

Canepa & Barbucci : What is good with the authors of mangas is that they can tell a period of life that we Westerners always try to hide: adolescence. I think that explains the huge success of the manga with teenagers … and nostalgic adults! It’s very difficult to work for this type of audience, there is no survey or marketing plan that’s deemed it worthwhile!

W.I.T.C.H. succeeded because it was born spontaneously between three people who introduced entire phases of their own adolescence, without “reinterpreting” it from an adult angle, going against the proposals of a service marketing manager ! Witch is currently published in 75 countries, sold over 40 million copies, to Japan where it was reworked by Japanese artists in their black and white style. We started creating Witch in June 1997, when the word “manga” was downright banned at Disney. It’s incredible ! While today, in society, it is on the agenda … A bit late now, it is now public domain. However, since its first punlication in spring 2001 in Italy, out of our control after the second issue (this remoteness is our own, but it’s a long story!) and that of the historic creator Elisabetta Gnone, the scenario took a very family turn, a little too feminine and much less introspective. For a wide audience of girls from 9 to 11 years old. Adolescence, the true and the most adult, is really distorted by the well-meaning Disney, in the last episodes. A great damage, in our opinion. It was also born for a mixed public, up to 15 years old. Disney has lost this age group for at least 10 years. They wanted it at all costs, but still can not get it back! These are the boys of video games and mangas, far removed from the “Good” Disney! Witch would have had the strength of a Japanese shojo comic.

Look only in France! And without adding gadgets to the magazine, ostensibly female, which increase sales but bring nothing in quality comics. Without wishing to be great mythomaniacs, we were sure that Witch would be a success. And Disney has never been convinced. On the contrary ! You can not imagine how many doors have been closed to us. We fought a good two years against a managerial system that did not want it. It was only thanks to the audacity of the then director of women’s magazines at the time, E. Gnone, and the open-mindedness of one of the American leaders that the magazine was able to appear. Moreover, here in France, after a single year of publication, it caused the name of the magazine that published it to change: “Minnie mag" became “Witch mag”! We are very proud of what we did with this comic, and it is always thanks to Witch that we decided in 1998 to try a new experience together: Sky Doll. And from time to time we think about 40 million copies !!! CHILLS…

Sceneario.com : What graphic benefits did you get from your Disney experience?

Together : Disney is an excellent school to become professional: you learn to work a lot and quickly, without getting too attached to your job. Graphically, on the other hand, the effects are often devastating: one risks the standardization to an impersonal style, which one will escape with difficulty.

Sceneario.com : Why did you leave Disney?

Together : For many reasons: to create something for us … and finally have control and copyrights, to no longer have to participate in depressing marketing meetings, to work in an environment where quality is not optional, to progress professionally and artistically! And also because of a lawsuit against Disney (still in progress)* for the rights of WITCH, since 2001. Is that a good enough reason? > :)

*This lawsuit was still pending in 2008, however it appears that some sort of agreement was reached eventually, as the crux of the case was that Canepa and Barbucci had no proper credit as series creators, possibly a response from Disney’s higher ups to Barbucci and Canepa’s departure from the project - for years, only Elisabetta Gnone was given any form of recognition for the role of series creator. With the 2017 worldwide reprints, this has been changed to acknowledge all three, in addition to Francesco Artibani, who was instrumental in persuading Disney to give the series a chance in the first place.

Oh here’s the specific quote I was thinking of, which I’ll have to hunt down the source of because tv tropes never provides any damn sources

"We conceived of "W.I.T.C.H.” together with Elisabetta Gnone, the then director of girls publications for Disney. We worked for three years in secret on it and she then presented the project to the big bosses at Disney. They thought that this project was crazy, a sure-fire bomb, complete waste of time, and that mangas wouldn’t have a chance in Europe anyway (!!!). However, we didn’t let ourselves be led astray and worked for another year on it anyway, with a tiny budget and without publicity. And then the series became a worldwide hit. The official version from Disney is, of course, that “W.I.T.C.H.” is a product of their brilliant, visionary marketing strategy…the end of the series was then taken out of our hands, we actually had something a lot more intelligent planned for it. Now, as you can see, Elisabetta Gnone and the two of us no longer work for Disney…a really sad story.“

[Top Shelf TS TK 1989 "Copper" / Apple v. Samsung Dumb Truck Edition] - It's been a while.  How have you been? - I am taking a few classes.  I could've graduated early with AP credit but Mom and Pop said stick around a while. - Publish any poems? - Only in Poetry.com that publish everything =/.  I wrote some poems.  I published poems in my high school's literary magazine.  OTOH my friend who got dinged from the HS lit mag is not publishing a novel through a literary agent associated with William Morrow.   I am not sure if / whether to write or what.  I am young and don't have anything to say except silly fancies and dreams or nostalgia / the past. - John Updike became a published author at a young age. John Updike went to Harvard and had been valedictorian of his high school.  He was physically diminuitive and psoriatic(?).  His dad was a math-teacher and John Updike was a part of the "Silent Generation(?)" along with the likes of Richard M. Cheney and Joseph Lieberman.   When Mr. Updike was a boy as he recounted in "Self-Consciousness" he did not know that he was poor.   He also said he liked the Great Depression because it froze everything and everyone was kind and honest(?) and caring(?) and forebearing.  OTOH Mr. Thomas Wolfe recounted in "You Can't Go Home Again" that men were putting on suits with nowhere to go and bankers et al. were killing themselves. Years later I had a pretty good time in the Great Recession because I was already at 23 a little sick and tired of "money-grubbing(?)" and feeling like I had to have a giant-sized life.  My friend Miles Patrick Klee got a good job thanks through his dad and said, "Maybe our lives won't be as big as our Boomer parents'."   * "How have you been?" "I don't know.  It's not a very long walk to the office from here.  Thank you for your kindness and caring for me.  I have been eating pretty well.  I think I eat at least one apple every day.  You and your skin look as though you have been eating pretty well as well.  I have also been weight- and strength-training for exercising and running intervals on the inclined treadmill and walking.  Koreans think that it is strange to walk at night around everywhere in unknown neighborhoods, or so I am told.  But it helps me stay fresh for the kids especially in October and November.  And in any event how have you yourself been Miss Park."   I don't recall what she said.  We had reached the office steps already, and now that I recollect, we never took stock of each other's way of climbing stairs.  I do not think we ever went either up or down any flight of steps together / concomitantly / paratactically, as the BD also had a lift or elevator which the other company employees liked to utilize. On the 5th floor "Grandmother Gaya Harp" produced her Gaya Harp for me and my "nearest and dearest friend in KR." "California wine?  This was expensive wasn't it?" They gave us an egg, and we shared the egg.  Then years later I remember earlier how I had gone to Barnes and Noble on Route 22 and looked at the mane / neck of the white horse on the Cormac McCarthy novel in which the man ate the tortilla, the woman watched him eat, and years around then Dr. Prof. and Korea-lover Mr. BR Myers wrote that the author of "All The Pretty Horses" was approximately "hysterical realist" and there was no good reason to write like that.   He was a vegan and then started writing about North Korea in "The Cleanest Race How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters" in which he said they were like a spontaneous large-handed high-cheekboned cis-Varangian(?) child-race with spontaneous and perfect genius that the Great Dear Fatherly Loving Motherly Perfect Yesunim Squared(?) Leader had to superintend always and e/Eternally. "It wasn't that expensive honestly.  43,000 won?  The department store sommelier had a very lovely and ingenious face; I have no good and perfect word or name for how her face is or was or always is going to be like.  Maybe her name from her father and mother is Lee Ji Hye or so.  How are your family?" "My dad's sad about my body.  My brother thinks I'm human trash.  Sis is perfect as ever - the saint-hero son my father never had.  I'm still the favorite." Later or earlier he talked about Min Jin Lee's first book and said he read only 30 pages or and then got tired or had had enough; I understood yet not.   BigBoss said "reading makes a full man."  But he might have said that living and seeing and reading life and "seeing the world with the wife of your youth" (Proverbs? - Isaiah?) would too make a full man.  The Curriculum and Instruction professor said that she was a slow reader in her university and they made a pun of her father's / family's name with "procrastinare(?)."   I had become a fast reader but I didn't care / felt zero investment in fictions like "Dogwood Hill Magnoliaville Carolina or Alexander Theroux Bradley Evans Banana Hanabataka(?) / Bouquet / Nosegay Kangaroo Manbag Kkoom."  I liked to read official documents such as my speeding ticket from the New Brunswick 08901 PD that said "and then and there did [crime]."   * Years later or whenever Professor Minister Good King David Cameron UK / Team GB gave a speech like as what Mrs. Amy Chua would if she wasn't "hanzi-smirking."  The name of the speech was "Life Chances."  Mr. / Dr. / CEO Lee Sooman said that some people received 1 chance, 3 chances, or 100 chances in their life(s).  

*

- What’s in Japan?  Why would I go to Japan?  There is a green dark water natural water at the end of the gargantuan anthracite waterslide known as the cannonball in at Action Park New Jersey whereat then and there people expire on the speed falling waterslide or drown in the violent violin repressive panning for fool’s gold locomaniamotion of the soi disant wave pool.  I was watching End of the Eldarvangelion once and “Affect Queen Warrior Princess Dutch Girl Oh Hayoung’s Spirit Archangel” said sometimes also cold water would thermally expand her breasts because Christianity is a rebellion against evil.

Palace confident ICC will reject probe into drug war

#PHnews: Palace confident ICC will reject probe into drug war

MANILA – Malacañang is confident that International Criminal Court (ICC) judges will eventually decide against opening a preliminary investigation into the Duterte administration’s anti-illegal drugs campaign.

In a Palace press briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made this remark after ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her office allegedly found "reasonable basis” to believe that crimes against humanity were committed in the crackdown on illegal drugs.

Roque said he was confident that the ICC will apply the April 2019 decision of its pre-trial chamber that prevented the prosecutor from investigating allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, which cited, among others, the lack of cooperation from parties and the need for the Court to use its resources prioritizing activities that would have better chances to succeed.

“Kampante po kami na dahil sinabi na natin iyan ay ia-apply ng ICC iyong naging ruling na nila sa isang kaso. Na bakit ka pa magsisimula ng kaso, kung hindi ka naman makipagtulungan, iyong bansa na naging miyembro ng ICC. Desisyon po iyan ng ICC mismo, pre-trial chamber doon po sa kaso na nais nilang mag-imbestiga laban sa mga Amerikano. I am confident po na ia-apply din iyong prinsipyo pagdating kay Presidente (So, we are confident that because we said that, the ICC will apply their ruling in a case. That is why you will start a case, if you do not cooperate, your country that has become a member of the ICC. That is the decision of the ICC itself, the pre-trial chamber in the case where they want to investigate against the Americans. I am confident that the same principle will also apply when it comes to the President),” he said.

In her report, Bensouda said her office will decide on whether to seek authorization to open an investigation into the situation in the country in the first half of 2021.

Roque also described as “legally erroneous” Bensouda’s report saying there is "reasonable basis” to believe that crimes against humanity were committed in the Duterte administration’s drug war.

“Obviously, we do not agree with her. It’s legally erroneous dahil mayroon po tayong minimum gravity na required. Hindi po lahat ng krimen ay nililitis sa ICC. Pero gaya ng aking sinabi, eh mayroon na pong desisyon ang ICC, na hindi sasayangin ng ICC ang panahon ng kanyang mga opisyales sa mga kaso na hindi naman po uusad dahil walang kooperasyon (because we have the minimum gravity required. Not all crimes are tried at the ICC. But as I said, the ICC has already made a decision, that the ICC will not waste the time of its officers in cases that will not progress because there is no cooperation),” he said.

Roque cited principle of complementarity in which the ICC can only investigate crimes against humanity if local courts are unable or unwilling to do so.

President Rodrigo Duterte himself has repeatedly said the ICC has no jurisdiction over him since the Rome Statute was never published in a newspaper of general circulation or on the Official Gazette. The Rome Statute is a treaty that created the international court on Nov. 1, 2011.

Roque said the ICC report was “grossly misleading” because the ICC judges will still have to decide by mid of next year whether or not they will proceed to preliminary investigation.

“The announcement is the decision whether or not they will proceed to ask the pre-trial chamber for authorization to proceed to a preliminary examination will be out next year. So there is no finding to speak of. Besides, as I’ve said, they can do what they want pero hindi kinikilala ng Presidente ang hurisdiksiyon at mayroon na pong desisyon ang ICC chamber (but the President insists they have no jurisdiction and the ICC chamber has already made a decision),” he said.

Bensouda's report said there is “reasonable basis” to believe that the crimes against humanity of murder and the infliction of serious physical injury and mental harm as other inhumane were committed on the territory of the Philippines between at least 1 July 2016 and 16 March 2019, in connection to the [war on drugs] campaign launched throughout the country.”

The Duterte administration’s drug war has been under preliminary examination of the Office of the Prosecutor since February 2018.

Manila cut ties with the ICC after Bensouda in February 2018 pushed through with the preliminary examination of the communication filed by lawyer Jude Sabio before the international tribunal.

Sabio’s communication accused Duterte of perpetrating crimes against humanity for thousands of alleged extrajudicial killings of drug suspects since the anti-narcotics drive was launched on July 1, 2016 until March 31, 2017, but he eventually dropped the communication he filed before the international tribunal.

In June, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra announced the creation of an inter-agency panel that will reinvestigate the drug-related killings. (PNA)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Palace confident ICC will reject probe into drug war." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1124849 (accessed December 16, 2020 at 02:28AM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Palace confident ICC will reject probe into drug war." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1124849 (archived).

Consumer Guide / No.88 / author of the UK’s First Bubbling Under Book, ‘Hits That Missed’, Michael Hows (aka Colin Driscoll) with Mark Watkins.

MW : Your new book, ‘Hits That Missed’, was 15 years in the making. Why did you set out on this journey, and what were some of the steps (and obstacles overcome) along the way?

MH : When I retired from a job that involved writing I decided to set myself a project which still involved writing. I had always been interested in 1950’s music and I recall Record Mirror published individual dealer returns from which they compiled the Top 20, but there were many other records that were in these returns that didn’t make the charts, so I set out to log these. I didn’t realise how long it would take and what a difficult journey I would embark on.

MW : Why did it take so long?

MH : I first bought up as many of the pre-1961 Record Mirror’s from ebay as I could costing thousands of pounds to lighten the load, as the only place in the UK where these magazines are located en masse was at The British Newspaper Library at Colindale, London (now at The British Library King’s Cross, London).

Record Mirror, which came out weekly, was published from June 1954 and stopped its published dealer returns in March 1961 (the time span of my book). So there are about 350 magazines to carefully trawl through and log the relevant details and put them on a spreadsheet. I could generally get through about ten Record Mirrors per visit to Colindale, but it was not a quiet library and there were lots of distractions so it was tiring maintaining my concentration at times, often meaning I had to double-check the results. I hate to think how many journeys I made to London using the Northern Line to Colindale tube station. I suppose this labour of love did not make economic sense, but it was a project I was determined to complete - although I did not think it would take 15 years!

MW : What type of support have you received along the way from your publisher?

MH : I was lucky that I quickly found an online publisher called Music Mentor with a fantastic back catalogue of 1950’s & 1960’s music books - and was as committed as myself to the project. Without this support I would not have been able to complete the task, particularly in relation to some of the more obscure entries like Jazz & Irish genres and the biographies of long forgotten artists like Nash Lorraine.

It was decided from the outset that we would include all the information from dealer returns - including Classical, Show, Jazz & World Music - not just the pop stuff which became more dominant post-1955. This was a mammoth (i.e elephant!) task and the mammoth took a lot of nibbling away over many often frustrating months - what we hope we have produced is a historical time capsule of the development of post-war music in the 1950’s and the early days of Rock & Roll in UK which so influenced the Beatles & the Rolling Stones - besides being the first ‘UK Bubbling Under’ (the charts as archived by the Official Charts Company) book. We would have loved to have had the support of the Official Charts Company but all they seem interested in was financial return so in the end we did not include their information.

MW : Tell me about the chosen format of the book…

MH : The experience of Music Mentor was key to the book’s layout and the requirement to condense all the information into a reasonable, understandable and affordable number of pages (428 including copious illustrations).

We followed the ‘US Bubbling Under Format’ and UK chart publications of previous decades but keeping our own individual way of presentation.

MW : How has the book been received so far?

MH : If this Book had been published before the Millennium it would have been great - but the music scene has changed completely over recent decades, so much so that artists like Jerry Lee Lewis, Marty Wilde, Chuck Berry & Little Richard - still household names up to the 1990’s - are now forgotten.

So it is a struggle in what now is perceived as a niche market - it means working harder on marketing and this will take time. I am sure there are still an audience out there both in the UK and abroad for this book as it’s entertaining, educational and nostalgic. It is getting across the fact that HITS THAT MISSED is out there. Every little bit of publicity helps, of course.

Online sites like Twitter and YouTube help to spread the message, but some of the “target audience” (probably post-55) may not have wide internet access. There is targeting magazines like Record Collector & Vintage Rock but advertising in these can be very expensive, unlike in the past these mags like the Official Charts are run as businesses with profit margins clearly in mind. There is no such thing as a free lunch these days and when a book (no matter how important or interesting it might be) will not be a big seller it does not make economic sense to market it via this route

MW : Where can we buy it?

MH : The ISBN for HITS THAT MISSED is 978-0-9562679-9-3 so using this number you can order it through any bookshop or on-line. It is also available from the publisher http://musicmentor0.tripod.com/catalogue.html or from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hits-That-Missed-Bubbling-1954-1961/dp/0956267998/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=hits+that+missed&qid=1559723063&s=gateway&sr=8-1

MW : Tell me about your interest in music in general?

MH : My teenage hero was Buddy Holly and I have seen the Buddy Show many times - but as time goes by I have widened my musical interests to include Folk/World/Classical but Rock 'n Roll will always be my passion - and name any rock ‘n roller and I probably have had a record or compilation of his/hers at some time. Nowadays, I rely on Radio, YouTube & Spotify to connect with music, although I still collect obscure UK artists that have not been compiled. My latest search is for Cuddly Dudley ‘Too Pooped To Pop’ - is there a copy or mp3 out there?

MW : What’s your all-time favorite single and LP?

MH : Very difficult -it does change from year to year - but I suppose for single the combination of ‘Raining In My Heart’ c/w ‘It Doesn’t Matter Anymore’ must take top spot - so nostalgic - the posthumous release after Buddy Holly’s death February 1959. LP must be Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ - not a naff track on this superbly crafted album - which is somewhat dismissed now but in 1970 was WOW.

MW : What newspapers do you read and why?

MH: I am embarrassed to say that my wife buys the Daily Mail for the puzzles etc. and I have been known to skip through the pages - particularly the sport - I am an avid and often nervous Southampton football club supporter - so a sympathetic sports’ columnist gets me interested. Otherwise I pinch a Metro from the local bus station or get my news off the TV or internet.

MW: …favourite news presenters?

MH : My favourite news reporter is Norman Smith. My favourite news anchor is Louise Minchin & my favourite weather presenter is Carol Kirkwood. Actually, the only one to wind me up is Piers Morgan (he’s like marmite, I guess).

MW : How do you relax?

MH : I have been forced to relax after a health issue this year. I am concentrating more on walking my ten thousand steps per day and eating at least my 5 portions of rabbit food per day! Besides that, I am still chart-compiling but this work is unlikely to be published. Then there’s surfing the internet, listening to music in the background, holiday planning, tending the garden, and my family to keep up with.

MW : Now you’re in retirement, any regrets looking back? What are you now looking forward to?

MH: I never look back (other than my music) but not in my life - I am a great believer in Doris Day ‘Que Sera Sera - Whatever Will Be Will Be. The only regret is that my book was not published in the heyday of chart archive publications - not really for me, because all I ever wanted was to complete my project, which I have done, and I now have my book on my bookshelf to prove it, but for my publisher, George Groom-White at Music Mentor, who put so much faith, energy, patience and kindness into the project, as well as time and money - he deserves success with this book and I look forward with help from the buying public to deliver it to him.

© Mark Watkins / June 2019

Find Your "Alt + Esc" at this DIY Art Heaven

If Nike hadn't already snagged the motto, "Just Do It" would be the slogan of No Vacancy II, a one-weekend-only DIY art pop-up organized by indie art mag/curatorial team Alt + Esc. 

Rather than relying on sponsors or art sales to fund spaces for artists to show their work, founders Alison Sirico and Irina V. Makarova take the financial risk upon themselves. They max out their credit cards to secure cheap space and try to break even by throwing parties every night their pop-up exists. This time around, the self-funded show brought hundreds of art enthusiasts and partygoers to pre-war building-turned-studio space Studio 929 in Bushwick. Dozens of players in art world subcultures got to show their work free of the bottom line, and visitors got to see it free of charge.

Photo by Charlie Rubin

The venue was a four-story walk up, with No Vacancy II dominating the top two floors. Curators, including Ballast Projects founder and VICE Design Director Adam Mignanelli, and Baltimore-based Platform Gallery director Lydia Pettit, brought small enclaves of art to each of the 12 rooms on the third floor. One room was devoted to digital apparitions by James Moore, Peter Burr, and Mark Fingerhut. Another featured abstract screen prints and a virtual reality slideshow about color theory and politics. There was a recording of Michael Potvin scrolling through Instagram, James Clar's projection-mapped light switch, cake-like sculptures by Cali Moore, photography by frequent Creators collaborator Charlie Rubin, and digital manipulations by Mark Dorf. 

The selfie star of the lot is Emergency Contacts, a room-swallowing installation by two artists Pettit brought up from Baltimore, Phaan Howng and Eliott Doughtie. They covered an entire room with contrasting rainbow and black-and-white wallpaper, peppered with surreal furniture and decorations that match the color scheme. "I wanted to do an exhibition of both of their work because they both transform space, and I wanted to do something really memorable," Petitt told Creators. "Also they're best friends. Even though they're two distinct artists, they bleed into each other because their union is so strong."

Emergency Contacts by Phaan Howng and Eliott Doughtie. Photo by the author

Calli Moore, 3 Tetons (Chandelier), 2017

Charlie Rubin, Working it Out, 2015. Inkjet Print, 13x19" Edition 1/3 +2AP

Alt + Esc was founded by Alison Sirico and Irina V. Makarova. Sirico is a veteran organizer at The Silent Barn, and helped curate Death By Audio's signing off gallery show, Death By Art. Makarova is a curator and journalist who has written for art publications including Creators. Together they've been publishing a monthly digital magazine since May 2016, featuring interviews with emerging artists that often become their first in-depth profile. In June they began curating events at small galleries and DIY spaces, including the first No Vacancy, which launched the bi-annual print edition of Alt + Esc. In less than a year they've worked with artists ranging from MSHR and Molly Soda to Alfredo Salazar-Caro and Peter Burr, and drawn on that growing pool for their curatorial process. "These are all artists we have interviewed, friends or friends of friends," Makarova explained to Creators.

Permanent New York City gallery spaces, which must to sell art to pay towering monthly rent prices, tend to show work that does well on the market. Some are even abolishing their public spaces to sell exclusively online or by appointment. No Vacancy II is part of a movement of low-budget groups helping make space for artists who aren't a safe bet for the remaining physical galleries. "It's important to have physical spaces because you lose information when transferring images online," explained Makarova. "You lose the conversation and the narrative, which is equally important for the artist and the viewer. Not all work can be photographed, and there are artists who make work specifically for that reason." 

Peter Burr

A panel on Saturday, moderated by Creators Editor-in-Chief Marina Garcia-Vasquez, addressed the form and function of these spaces. The 90-minute discussion brought together Spring/Break Art Fair founders Ambre Kelly and Andrew Gori, Satellite Art Fair's Brian Andrew Whitely, as well as Mignanelli, Makarova, and Sirico. The six panelists discussed not only how they're able to find spaces for art in New York City—hint: get drunk with landlords and don't be afraid of credit card debt—but also why it's important for people to take those risks.

Kelly and Gori's eight-years-running Spring/Break Art Fair is a juggernaut in this DIY world. They specialize in finding empty spaces for large groups of artists to show their work, each year pulling off a fair that rivals the concurrent Armory Show in art world buzz. Last month they packed 120 artists into the former Condé Nast office space at 4 Times Square. The year before, they occupied a run-down section of the Moynihan Station US Post Office adjacent to Penn Station. 

The first Spring/Break was in a church, which donated its space while New York City was still reeling from the 2008 financial crisis. Kelly, who spent years as an art fair fixer before teaming up with Gori, explained, "Sales weren't our priority with the show, but then sales started happening.We learned we could be a resource for artists and curators who aren't dealers, and actually make a business providing important services. We could basically be the gallery, so the artists don't have to deal with tax liability and everything that goes into actually making sales." Alt + Esc is now at a similar developmental stage as Spring/Break was then, with similar goals.

Mark Dorf, Untitled 28, 2013. Courtesy the artist and Postmasters Gallery

Hein Koh, Little Twin Stars (Hugging), 2016

During the panel the conversation turned to the personal worth of risky and demanding DIY events. The cost isn't just monetary, but personal—Makarova and Sirico were maintaining afterparties until at least 4 AM every night No Vacancy II was open. As Mori says, "Freedom is a blessing and a curse. Freedom means you can do whatever you want. It also means that anything you do, if you fuck yourself over it's your own bad." With their freedom, Makarova and Sirico put on a show that never would have happened otherwise, and there are more on the way. Makarova said Alt + Esc is just getting started. "We are on the lookout for real estate, definitely more large-scale exhibitions in new spaces. A Home Depot would be great."

Check out more pictures from No Vacancy II below.

L: Adam Mignanelli, R: Hein Koh

Peter Burr. Video by the author

Sophia Narrett. Photo by Oren Shoham

James Moore. Photo by the author

Keep up to date with Alt + Esc on the official website.

Related:

How to Hold an Art Show

The Nebraska Zine Fest Turning Makers into Activists | #50StatesofArt

This Photographer Turned Her Apartment Into an Art Gallery

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Sensor Sweep: Pulp on Pulp, Sabatini, Jirel, Weird Westerns

New Project (Misha Burnett): A reminder that the collection of essays that Cheah Kit Sun and I are putting together is open for submissions. I don’t know that Pulp On Pulp will be its title when it comes time to publish it–I just needed to call it something. I am looking for essays from writers, editors, reviewers, and readers of fiction on the subject of what makes fiction fun. The emphasis should be on practical considerations–do this, don’t do that.

Writing (Amatopia): I recently put up a huge blog roll of sites I read and authors I want to spread the word about. Problem is, lots of them didn’t have websites or blogs to link to! Sure, there are alternatives. For example, I linked to many Amazon pages, either for the author or a particular book. But an actual web presence can make an author seem more official, and in the indie world, this is very important.

Review (DVS Press): Brian Niemeier’s new book is out now, and it’s a number one best seller. Let’s address one 100 IQ level comeback I see frequently when talking about shutting your wallet to the mega-corporations who not only don’t give a shit about the franchises that you grew up with, but actively hate you and your culture and want it (and you) dead: bUt yOu Use AMaZon/yOuTUbE /fAcEbOok/PAtreON.

Popular Culture (Wasteland & Sky): As you can see from the photos in this post, normal people were all over the arcades at its peak in the late ’80s to early ’90s. I know, because I was there. When the most creative and successful games from Double Dragon and Final Fight, to Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, to Time Crisis and Dance Dance Revolution, were around, arcades thrived. By the end of the ’90s, the crowds got smaller as the games were shifting to home consoles. Normal people left, and developers abandoned the subculture.

Fiction (DMR Books): When I wrote my first post about Rafael Sabatini and his swashbuckling fiction, the concept for a series about the “Forefathers of Sword and Sorcery” here on the DMR Blog was still merely a glimmer in my eye. As with Arthur Machen, it’s high time Sabatini received his own entry. In this post, I try not to retread too much ground. For a more complete picture of the man and his work, I recommend that you check out “Rafael Sabatini: King of the Swashbucklers”.

Westerns (Brain Leakage): it’s not hard to see the appeal of stories about rugged loners living by their own rules. Nor is it difficult to see the appeal of books and movies that dwell on the majestic beauty of wide open spaces. Above all, Westerns are stories about personal freedom. After so many weeks being told where we can and can’t go, how close we can and can’t get to people, and what businesses we are and aren’t allowed to patronize anymore, who can blame viewers for looking to John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Yul Brenner for a little cathartic release?

Weird Western (Marzaat): There are new additions to the Weird Western subgenre all the time in games, fiction, comics, and movies. I’ve been interested in it for decades, starting with old Twilight Zone comic books and the Clint Eastwood movies High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider. The trouble is that, while I haven’t looked at every single example of the subgenre, I have sampled quite a few and most have been disappointing. For me, that disappointment comes in three areas.

Art (Broadway World): The Frank Frazetta The Serpent (aka “Aros”) Paperback Novel Cover Painting Original Art (Paperback Library, 1967) and Bernie Wrightson Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein Front Endpapers Illustration Original Art (late 1970s) sparked furious bidding to lead Heritage Auctions’ Comics & Comics Art Auction to $9,099,710 in total sales April 30-May 3. So strong was the demand that the Dallas-based auction raced past its pre-auction estimate of just over $7.3 million and boasted sell-through rates of 100% by lots and value.

D&D (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): Magic is way more interesting. Tons of off the wall spells get used. Having to find magic the AD&D way creates one of the best incentives to adventure ever made. Success here– finding even two or three new first level spells– can fundamentally change the nature of the game and the balance of power between the first level classes. Exciting! With three big books of monsters instead of a “pure” edited down list of archetypes, the players run into something they’ve never seen before almost every session.

Art (Mens Pulp Mags): David is, among other things, an aficionado of men’s adventure magazines (MAMs). So, he knows that Eva is the most widely-recognized female artist’s model in the MAM genre, in addition to being a popular pinup photo model featured in various types of men’s magazines from the mid-1950s to the 1970s. He also knows that Steve Holland is the most famous male model in the realms of both MAMs and paperback covers. Holland is particularly well known for being the model artist James Bama used for Doc Savage, in the cover art Bama did for the Bantam paperback series.

Sword-and-Sorcery (Legends of Men): What makes this story bad is first and foremost the prose. Phrases are repeated in ways that only seem like that of an amateur author. In the opening scene, Jirel storms a castle and impatiently calls for Giraud’s head. Twice more we are told how impatient she is. This sort of repetition is rampant. More importantly, C.L. Moore does not follow the best practice of “show, don’t tell.” Rather than showing us that Jirel is brave Moore just writes “she was not afraid.” This frequent and another example of how the author comes off as an amateur.

Video Games (That Matt Kid): Conan has had quite the bumpy ride in his transition to the video game world. Let’s revisit some of the earliest titles in the barbarian’s gaming adventures.

Pulp Magazines (Don Herron): ere’s a shot of Kong emerging from an alley next to a news agent shop. More mags. The big model allowed panoramic shots and flyovers, but the level of detail extended to street scenes as well. Those shots are rich in every way. Relevant to our interests, there are numerous shots of newsstands, featuring a variety of magazines, including pulps.

Streaming T.V. (Running Iron Report): The world was living for real in the shadow of the fictional prophecy that forms the bedrock of Showtime’s new horror tale, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels: City of Angels is built around the seething racial tensions that simmered just below the golden surface of Los Angeles through most of its history. The planned Arroyo Seco Motorway (eventually the 110 Freeway running from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles) will displace a Mexican-American neighborhood, just as the construction of Dodger Stadium would clean out Chavez Ravine two decades later. Nazis are infiltrating the film studios and the aircraft manufacturing plants.

Review (Paperback Warrior): After the pulp magazines disappeared, they were largely replaced by a more gritty and realistic magazine genre collectively known as Men’s Adventure Magazines (MAMs). These glossy, color publications featured stories and artwork by the same people servicing the men’s paperback original market in the 1950s and 1960s. Magazines like Adventure and Real Men were filled with colorful illustrations and stories designed to appeal to working class men returning home from the wars of the Mid-20th Century.

Fiction (DMR Books): Gustave Flaubert died on this date in 1880. While most famous for his novel, Madame Bovary, and dubbed “The Father of French Literary Realism”, Gustave nonetheless had a strong influence on the early formation of sword-and-sorcery. Salammbo–published in 1862–is loosely based upon the events following the First Punic War. The Carthaginians had lost their war with Rome and then decided to stiff the mercenaries who had fought for them. Predictably, mayhem and atrocities ensued during what has been dubbed the “Mercenary War”.

Fiction (Dark Worlds Quarterly): Fire Hunter (1951) by Jim Kjelgaard follows Hawk, chief weapon-maker for his tribe, as he makes innovation after innovation and leads his tribe to survive sabertooth tigers, rival tribesmen and grass fires. It was illustrated by Ralph Ray. Kjelgaard, who is best known for his Big Red dog books, serves up a fascinating tale of cavemen and invention that is plausible for the time but filled with action and adventure too. He attempts Burroughsian fantasy but strives for plausibility in a way that Jean Auel will make best-sellers of in thirty years. The film 10,000 BC should have used this story.

Gaming (Pelgrane Press): There’s value in seeing how a hero you know translates into Swords of the Serpentine, especially when that hero changes over time. SotS lets you play fledgling (less experienced) and sovereign (exceptionally experienced) versions of the same character, jumping back and forth in time between adventures in the same way a collection of fantasy short stories might jump between different eras of the same hero’s life.

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