#Bound Anthology online book

[whatlieswithintheorchard]

Y'ALL!! CHECK OUT THIS ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS HANDMADE SIDDUR!

In this letterpress-printed and hand-bound pocket siddur, you'll find an intention-setting prayer to recite before taking a step towards gender transition and blessings for trans milestones like taking hormones or coming out. These texts draw on the rich and vibrant Jewish liturgical tradition in order to create new rituals for trans life.

The five texts in this book, printed in Hebrew, transliteration, and English translation, were originally written by Lexi Kohanski, Binya Koatz, Hannah Maya, and Rabbi Elliot Kukla for an online anthology called "Tefillat Trans," compiled by SVARA, a traditionally radical yeshiva in Chicago. With generous and enthusiastic permission from the authors and compilers, they are presented here in a deliciously ornamental chapbook, printed in deep purple ink and bound with gold and silver thread. It is dedicated to my friend and mentor Sarah Sands, who so beautifully exemplifies trans Jewish resilience and creative flourishing.

At its heart, this project is by Jewish trans people, for Jewish trans people. If that describes you and you cannot afford the price listed here, please reach out through the contact form on this website so that I can send you a copy at a sliding scale price which is accessible for you.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jason Wilson at The Guardian:

A Guardian investigation has identified former University of California, Irvine (UCI) lecturer Jonathan Keeperman as the man behind the prominent “new right” publishing house Passage Press and the influential Twitter persona Lomez. The identification is based on company and property records, source interviews and open-source online materials. The reporting has revealed that Keeperman’s current status as a key player and influential tastemaker in a burgeoning proto-fascist movement came after years of involvement in far-right internet forums.

Much of that journey coincided with his time at one of the country’s most well-regarded writing programs: Keeperman first came to UCI as a master of fine arts (MFA) student, and was also a lecturer in the English department from 2013 to 2022, according to public records. The emergence of Passage Press and other such publishers has been a key part of the development of a swathe of the current American far right, which is seeking to capture US institutions – or develop far-right equivalents – as part of a political and cultural war against what it sees as the dominance of a liberal “regime” in America. In a June 2023 podcast interview, Keeperman characterized Passage Press and its literary prize as part of this effort to “build out alternative infrastructure, alternative institutions”.

It is a fight wholeheartedly embraced by Donald Trump and his supporters in the Republican party, especially in their railing against “the deep state” and promises of retribution should Trump win the 2024 presidential election. The Guardian repeatedly contacted Keeperman requesting comment on this reporting, at a personal Gmail address and a Passage Press address, and left a voicemail message at a telephone number that data brokers listed as belonging to Keeperman, but which carried a message identifying it as belonging to a member of his household.

[...]

Scary ideas – and wanting to be recognized

Passage Press books include a Tucker Carlson-blurbed anthology of writings by “human biodiversity” influencer Steve Sailer; a similar retrospective from “neo-reactionary” guru Curtis Yarvin; and a print version of the biannual Man’s World. Like many other far-right publishers, Passage’s list is bolstered by reprints of out-of-print or public-domain books by historical fascist and reactionary writers. These include books by radical German nationalist and militarist Ernst Jünger; Peter Kemp, who fought as a volunteer in Franco’s army during the Spanish civil war; and two counter-revolutionary Russian aristocrats, White Russian general Pyotr Wrangel and Prince Serge Obolensky.

[...] Passage Press differs from many others in its niche in offering new work by the contemporary far-right’s intellectual celebrities, and in curating in-person events and a far-right literary award. The publisher also produces high-end limited editions of selected titles. The “patrician edition” of Noticing, a book by Sailer, for example, is “bound in genuine leather, gold-foil stamping” and “Smyth-sewn book block”, according to the website. Though lavishly produced, the “patrician” offerings appear to have generated significant income for Passage. At the time of reporting, Passage had sold out its limited run of 500 patrician editions of Noticing at $395 apiece, according to the website. This equates to some $195,000 in revenue. An earlier patrician edition of winning entries in the 2021 Passage prize sold 250 editions at $400 apiece, according to the website, representing another $100,000 in revenue. The publication of Noticing – also available as a $29.95 paperback – was spun out into a series of in-person events in Austin, Los Angeles, Miami and New York City, held in March, April and May.

The Guardian reveals that the identity of far-right X account Lomez belongs to UCLA lecturer Jonathan Keeperman.

[kimiiko-x]

books are cool

I really enjoy reading books, A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images. Modern books are typically in codex format, composed of many pages that are bound together and protected by a cover.A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images. Modern books are typically in codex format, composed of many pages that are bound together and protected by a cover.

The book above was one of the first ever books printed with a printing press. Modern books are usually in codex format, composed of many pages. They are connected together by a cover. One of my favorites was The Great Gatsby, a classic book by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary masterpiece and a contender for the title of the Great American Novel. As a conceptual object, a book refers to a written work of substantial length, which may be distributed either physically or in digital forms like eBooks. These can be fiction or non-fiction. A physical book may not contain such a work: for example, it may contain only drawings, engravings, photographs, puzzles, or removable content like paper dolls. It may also be left empty for personal use, as in the case of account books, appointment books, autograph books, notebooks, diaries and sketchbooks.

The picture above is a notebook, not all books contain stories in them, they can be used to write stories. Writing stories such as diary entries are so relaxing. Who knows, your diary might become a famous story in the future. Books are sold at different stores, online for delivery, and can be borrowed from libraries.

TYPES OF GENRES, WORDS, ETC. ↓

Literature

Oral literature Folklore-(fable - fairy - tale - folk play - folksong - heroic epic - legend - myth - proverb) Oration - Performance (audiobook - spoken word)- Saying Major written forms Drama- (closet drama) - Poetry-(lyric - narrative) - Prose - Nonsense - (verse) - Ergodic - Electronic Long prose fiction Anthology - Serial - Novel/romance Short prose fiction Novella - Novelette - Short story - Drabble - Sketch - Flash fiction - Parable - Religious - Wisdom Prose genres Fiction Speculative - Realist - Children's - Genre -(adventure - coming-of-age - crime - erotic - fantasy - military - paranormal - romance - science fiction - supernatural - western - horror) - Historical - Encyclopedic Non-fiction Academic - (history - philosophy) - Anecdote - Epistle - Essay - Journalism - Letter - Life - Nature - Persuasive - Travelogue Poetry genres Narrative Children - Epic - Dramatic - Verse novel - National Lyric Ballad - Elegy - Epigram - Ghazal - Haiku - Hymn Limerick - Ode - Qasida - Sonnet - Villanelle Lists Epic - Groups and movements - Poets Dramatic genres Comedy - Libretto - Play - (historical - moral) - Satire - Script - Tragedy - Tragicomedy History Ancient - Classical - Medieval - Modernist - Postmodern Lists and outlines Outline - Glossary - Books - Writers - Movements -Cycles - Literary awards - (poetry) Theory and criticism Sociology - Magazines - Composition - Language - Narrative - Feud - Estate

↓ There are many different genres and type of books, that's why it is cool. ~Information and pictures by Wikipedia and Pinterest~

[rustbeltjessie]

The past week (the good, the bad, & the miscellaneous):

—One of my uncles is in very bad health, and if he doesn’t get the proper treatment soon, will probably not make it. That’s bad enough on its own, but it has also brought up a whole slew of family drama, which…well, I won’t get into specifics because they’re not really mine to tell, but it sucks.

—The oldest kiddo is doing great with his ADHD meds. He’s better able to focus on schoolwork, he listens better, and he has actual reciprocal conversations more often now. (Like, yesterday, we got into a conversation about AI art/writing, and he had some very well-thought-out opinions! I could tell he wasn't just regurgitating things he'd heard; he'd actually put a lot of thought into it.)

—I've gotten a little sad about the fact that I probably am ADHD, and possibly also autistic, or whatever (there’s definitely some neurodivergence in there), but never got any help when I was a kid/young adult. Because AFAB kids tend to present differently and mask better, y'know? All I know is I had an awful lot of school reports that were like: "J. is really smart, but doesn't follow directions well" or "J. does well on everything, when she decides it's something she wants to do." And then when I reached the age of burnout everyone was like: "But you are so smart! You're just not trying hard enough! You're just lazy!" How much better could I have done, especially in college, had anyone noticed that I was trying, that I was fucking struggling, and it wasn't just laziness?

—Speaking of college, I'm still researching universities I might want to attend when/if I go back for another degree.

—There's also a chance we may be moving sometime in the next year.

—And I'm putting some serious thought into how I wanna proceed with Bone & Ink Press. I want to keep it going, but it has long been untenable the way it's currently going. See, the thing is, I never wanted it to become what it became, a semi-legit publishing house with perfect-bound books and royalty payments and the like. I wanted to do small print run zines and chapbooks. So I'm going to finish up/publish the New Wave anthology, and then the three other titles I have on the roster, and then after that...I think I'm going back to its roots.

—The youngest kiddo had his first online class in astronaut science this morning. He loved it so much, and wants to continue with the rest of the course. Now I just gotta scrounge up some money to pay for the rest. (The first class was free; the rest cost money.)

—My dentist appointment went okay. It was fast and relatively painless. I have two small cavities, and have to go back in a month to get them filled, but they said everything else looks good.

—After the dentist, I had a bunch of errands to run. Normally I enjoy running errands but today I just wanted to get home and relax and also, everyone in town was driving like a jackass, so it took an extra long time to get from one stop to the next.

—But I did see two cuties while out and about. There was a hot middle-aged skater dude in the grocery store. (I know he was a skater because I saw him get out of his car, and it had Santa Cruz, Independent, and other skateboard-related stickers on it.) Downtown, I spotted a beautiful 20-something goth person; they looked appropriately eldritch in a long-black coat and big black boots.

—And while in the checkout at Walgreens, I saw this mom come in with two kids. One of the kids was a goth/punk teen; they shuffled into the store with their shoulders all hunched and a scowl on their face. Amazingly enough, the song that was playing over the sound system at the time was the Siouxsie and the Banshees cover of "Dear Prudence," and the teen recognized it, and for a split second, their scowl turned to a half-smile. And then they went back to scowling. It was perfect, because that is the era of my life which constitutes the bulk of my new zine.

—Speaking of the new zine: it's done, and I am glad it’s done, and I’m pretty pleased with it, but I am also fucking exhausted. To paraphrase something I wrote in my journal in 2009, after finishing a zine: I have completely overdosed on punk rock and stories from my own life. So now, I must cleanse myself with different kinds of music and different writing; namely, fiction and poetry. (Even when my poems are based on my real life experiences, which is often, writing them doesn't deplete me in the same way that writing prose memoir does.)

—I've felt pretty on top of my shit in general lately, but I am somehow flat broke again. Despite all the freelance gigs, side hustles, budgeting, etc. I mean I had to buy more printer ink and paper to complete this zine, so there's that. Then there's the fact that no matter how much we budget, our monthly food money always runs out 5-7 days before it gets refilled. Oh, and then there's the dentist thing. My health insurance covers some dental stuff, but not all, so I gotta pay the rest out of pocket. My dentist has a payment plan, but I had to make a down payment and have another bill due when I go back for my fillings. Shit. Anyway, if anyone wants to order some of my stuff/hire me for stuff, now would be a great time.

[wanderingnork]

Things I did while on social media hiatus:

Listened to a 17-hour audiobook on the Cambrian period (Cambrian Ocean World, very dry and a little poorly structured but if you like trilobites, bizarre beasts, and rocks you will have fun)

Watched three new horror movies! Phase IV, a 1974 horror movie about sentient ants, Body Bags, a John Carpenter horror anthology featuring such chaos as Mark Hamill the baseball player and an evil treatment for hair loss, and Final Prayer, a marvelous found footage horror movie that got screwed over by its awful title with an ending that gave me nightmares

Listened to another audiobook, Empire of Ants, immensely readable and a manageable 8 hours long, made me feel deeply passionate about ants

Posted four fics, wrote another as-yet-unposted, worked on original horror fiction

So much offline stuff to include going to a concert, doing volunteer work, hanging with friends in physical space, and having professional development (and when the hell did I become someone who has actual professional development???)

Got another castle in wizard101 and got absolutely roasted by multiple people for it because I said I was done buying more castles after the last one

Reread a couple old and beloved fiction books that I haven’t touched in a while and came to some revelations about why I have so much trouble with fiction these days: I keep trying to read things that are outside of my preferred genre because social media tells me I’m supposed to, and trying to read things that have a style that bores me to tears because a lot of current books are forced by large publishers into styles that fit what’s saleable, not what’s good

Took an unbelievable number of pictures of lichen and moss, my camera roll is packed

Most importantly: Improved my mental health by leaps and bounds because it turns out that tumblr is an absolute NIGHTMARE that encourages doomscrolling even if you’re careful to curate your dash and block tags! Everything above is stuff I’d have done even if I was logged in on tumblr, but hot DAMN did I ever have more fun without social media in the back of my head. I was present in the moment.

I’m going to throw a bunch of stuff on my corkboard and queue up some fun stuff then I’m leaving again because I logged in to reblog things people sent me and IMMEDIATELY got upset by a chain of doom-laden posts. Going to be posting a series of horror movie recs because I do miss ranting about movies online, but I am NOT staying on. It’s absurd how much better I felt without social media—and how much I absolutely did not miss it, except for the desire to share amazing art and yell about good movies.

Highly recommend taking a big break from social media. You can get your news other places. Go discover other places on the internet. Go touch grass. Do something other than doomscroll. It feels good.

[anti-katsuki-lounge]

When thinking more about the shows that I've watched, there is a difference between what the Japanese watched and what the American watched given the different markets and it being prior to the advent of online and live streaming that's more common nowadays. Since it was classified in the 00s that Superheroes were a separate genre from Anime(ironic I know), it means the Anime Naruto, One Piece, Pokemon and other Japanese anime were separate from the American origin shows like Batman, X-Men and the Justice League were set at different time, which would influence when we watch them and what type of shows were exposed to us in our youths.

Knowing these facts and that the average American cartoon was declining in quality and color compared to the average Japanese anime, it was bound that the Japanese version was going to be more popular, especially once the kids gain the ability to purchase stuff as adults, due to its color and that manga is a lot easier to read and cheaper to buy than art books, comic books and novels. The number of colorful(black and black) pages per book per price for a manga heavily outweighs an anthology book or comic book of a series.

This as well is important to remember.

Sorta unrelated, but does anyone remember that weird period in time when Marvel had several anime films made? Were they any good?

[sofarsofastmp3]

as always, an ecclectic month. some new all time favorites, some fun silly times, and a book club choice i still can't decide if i hate or not

crush by richard siken

the first line in louise glück’s introduction to this collection is “this is a book about panic.” it’s the most succinct way to put it, the most accurate. some of these poems whisk you around so fast, your heartbeat picks up reading them. incredibly important 

first love: essays on friendship by lily dancyger

it’s friendship and it’s grief; i was bound to love it. the highest highs and lowest lows you can experience with the people you choose to love most. first love is brimming with affection, even when it’s wistful or sad. i love my friends and it’s so clear how much lily dancyger loves hers :) 

the awakening by kate chopin (re read)

my close personal friend….. i hadn't read this since high school and i had a day alone in the back at work so i listened to the hilary swank audiobook. solid narration! i think “stunt casting” audiobooks can be hit or miss, but i liked this one. this book and a separate peace are tied for the required books i loved most in my academic career.

kiss of steel by bec mcmasters (london steampunk #1)

happy halloween, i’m reading paranormal historicals again! these “vampires” don’t have fangs and there’s something soooo intriguing to me about having to cut into someone with a blade to drink from them rather than biting. it makes it such a Process and somehow more intimate? wild. anyways the third act is long as hell for no reason, which is maybe my only real gripe. i still had a blast though these people are crazy.

heartburn by nora ephron

still working my way through nora. all the reviews that say this is more monologue than book are correct, but it’s a very good monologue!!! ephron does this exact thing so well. at the end where she says she has to tell the story so she can control it. yeah i’m sure! on a weird personal note, so much of rachel’s internal monologue made me think of and empathize with my mom. one of the funniest books to ever make me cry 

heart of iron by bec mcmaster (london steampunk #2)

i appreciate the melodrama that werewolves bring, and will is soooo dramatic. my only complaint with the lore is that for all we know there aren’t any physical changes when the verwulfen lose control of their "wolf." it’s only ever described as a mental thing. i get that mcmaster is doing twists and takes on vampires and werewolves, but i think that’s boring! it’s probably less sexy than imagining the bad cgi they used on teen wolf, but i’m reading about supernatural creatures in steampunk london!! get weird with it! i enjoyed this and i'm interested in the building conflict and mystery, but books 3/4 have slightly less appeal to me based on the blurb so we’ll see. 

bodies built for game: the prairie schooner anthology of contemporary sports writing edited by natalie diaz

near perfect. i could talk for hours. instead i’ll just list a few of my favorite pieces and link any available online: introduction by natalie diaz takes enemy by shann ray the church of michael jordan by jeffrey mcdaniel  federer as irreligious experience by porochista khakpour  give and go by toni jensen  as if we were called by reginald dwayne betts dennis by kaveh akbar the condition of being a sports fan by sue hyon bae   minor league legend by matthew olzmann the sum of our doing by holly m wendt who holds the stag’s head gets to speak by gabrielle calvocoressi 

notorious pleasures by elizabeth hoyt (maiden lane #2)

i read the eighth book in this series 3(?) years ago and didn’t really like it so i’ve never felt compelled to go back. idk what made me pick this up but it was pretty good! i’m a big fan of infidelity. thematically. and i think historicals have the highest opportunity for compelling cheating narrative, there’s a lot to work with! this book is a woman falling in love with her boring fiancés brother. i do think hoyt put too much work into making the fiancé an asshole towards the end. i supported the cheating when he was just boring and judgmental!  

scandalous desires by elizabeth hoyt (maiden lane #3)

kind of obsessed. against literally all odds and normal inclinations, i kind of love pirates, even if these pirates are barely pirates. my only gripe with these last two books is hoyt kind of takes forever to end the book. the third acts are really long 

there’s always this year: on basketball and ascension by hanif abdurraqib

there’s so much to say and i don’t know how to properly articulate it at all. i both treasure the audiobook because hanif reads it like poetry (almost like he’s a poet or something), and regret the audiobook because there’s so much i want to go back and find to highlight. nobody understands what exactly is important about sports like he does. when i was at his book event back in march, abdurraqib talked about the pillars of his writing being grief/devotion/place. and i was so mad at myself after going through the signing line because i chickened out of telling him how that’s literally what sports is all about to me, and that’s what draws me to it and what draws me to his writing. this book is the perfect amalgamation of those things. grief. devotion. place. basketball. i just think he Gets It. that’s the simplest way to put it. an easy favorite on the year. 

butcher and blackbird by brynn weaver (ruinious love trilogy #1) (book club)

let the record show that after conversations with my book club and with my coworkers who are obsessed with this book, i wanted to love it. this has a vaguely 2014-2016 energy to it that i can’t deal with, mostly with the dialogue which is bananas sometimes. there are glimmers of a good time but every time i got in the rhythm of enjoying this book, something took me out of it. the chemistry is borderline nonexistent for a solid chunk, and the tension is pretty weak. not ONCE did i smile something stupid at my phone over some fictional people falling in love. criminal work for a romance. i also think this book and its fans really oversell how Weird and Gross and Intense it is? i went in expecting something absolutely insane and felt a little robbed. also the playlist weaver provides at the beginning is uhhhh. bad! (with some exceptions) knowing my completionist ass i’m still gonna read the sequels.

my lady quicksilver by bec mcmaster (london steampunk 3)

these are just a great, silly little time! incredibly high angst, GOOD CHEMISTRY AND TENSION!!!!!! the world building and politics are messy but interesting and the setup for book 4 was really good so i'm actually looking forward to it way more than i was book 3.

all in all, a better reading month in terms of enjoyment than i've had in a bit! i highly doubt i will put up these numbers in november or december. the chaos is about to descend upon me. okay thanks love you bye

[allthingsdarkanddirty]

HISTORICAL FICTION ALERT!The Other Empress by Amanda Roberts is now live on all platforms!

Run, don't walk, to grab your copy of this compelling adventure now. 

Universal: https://geni.us/TheOtherEmpress BLURB:In this exciting novel from USA Today best-selling author Amanda Roberts, the story of the slow march toward the fall of the Qing Dynasty comes to life in vivid detail, revealing a world of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue surrounding the world of empresses, princesses, consorts, and concubines, and the emperors they served.

History books may tell about the fall of the Qing Dynasty. But they haven't told my story...

Born to a family of wealth and privilege, Zhenxiu was trained from a young age to become the wife of a very powerful man, though she prayed it would not be Prince Yizhu, the future Xianfeng Emperor, a man with cruel and salacious appetites. The sudden death of the prince's consort, however, thrusts fifteen-year-old Zhenxiu into the prince's bed and the center of the Qing Court, a court still reeling from the aftershocks of the Opium War.

Zhenxiu finds solace in the friendship of a girl named Lanhua, and she does her best to help her friend rise in the emperor's estimation. When the emperor dies and leaves only Lanhua's five-year-old son as his heir, Zhenxiu finds herself as the de facto ruler of China, a position she was never trained to occupy. As she leans more and more on Lanhua for help, she slowly comes to realize that Lanhua's ambition has no bounds. An ambition that could get them both killed.

The Other Empress is a riveting historical drama that brings to light the story of an empress who stood at the helm of the Qing Dynasty for more than twenty years. An empress overshadowed by the strong presence of the woman who would prove to be her dearest friend—and her most dangerous rival.

#releaseblitz #releaseblast #releaseday #bookbirthday #booklaunch #nowlive #newbooks #historicalfiction #historicalasianfiction #historicalchinesefiction #asianfiction #chinesefiction #womensfiction #historicalwomensfiction #romanticfiction #friendshipfiction #historicaldrama #theotherempress #qingcourt #qingcourtnovel #books #booklovers #readers #bookish #bookbuzz #booksbooksbooks

About Amanda: Amanda Roberts is a USA Today bestselling author who has been living in China since 2010. She has an MA in English from the University of Central Missouri and has been published in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies around the world. Amanda can be found all over the Internet, but her home is AmandaRobertsWrites.com.

Connect with Amanda online!Amazon: amzn.to/4155JIH BookBub: bookbub.com/amandaroberts Facebook: facebook.com/AmandaRobertsWritesGoodreads: goodreads.com/amanda_roberts Instagram: instagram.com/amandarobertswritesTikTok: tiktok.com/@amandarobertswriterWeb: amandarobertswrites.com

[artoverchaos]

Oct Vella Hop~

I’m such a fan of serial fiction, and while Vella is new, it’s launch is being very kind to the authors who are trying out it. You always get the first free chapters of anything for free, and currently amazon is giving readers even more freebies and paying the authors for those freebies. So now is a great time to try out Vella from your kindle app or on desktop. 

Here’s Oct’s Monthly Round Up! 

Building Your Readership  Genre: Non Fiction

The hardest part about promoting a book is finding your readers.  Inside this book I share 10 ways to start building your readership.  Each episode gives you tips and action steps you can implement after each episode.

From The Author: Hello I’m LaShaunda Hoffman. I’ve promoted books for 20+ years. I started an online magazine – Shades Of Romance and it taught me how to build a readership.  I’m currently working on my first women’s fiction book.  I’ve been enjoying this journey on Kindle Vella.  - http://lashaundahoffman.com

 Beneath Gehenna Genre: Dystopian Steampunk SciFi 

After an alert goes out to the paying members of the disaster bunker known as New Eden, residents find themselves trapped between two vastly different worlds: one that preys on trauma and one that creates it. Now, a newly wealthy yet troubled man and his new friends must find a way to live with the Hell they bought or return to the Hell which remains. From The Author: Benjamin ran with scissors when he was five. He now writes, paints, uses sharp woodworking tools and plays with glue. Sometimes he does these things at the same time. You can read more at https://www.bxwretlind.com where he writes blog articles focused (mostly) on writing.

Bounty: Wanted Dead or Alive Genre: Urban Fantasy/Slow Burn Romance

A fast pace, Urban Fantasy tale with slow burn romance. Suggested age for reading is 18-up. I never thought I'd be running the family business alone, but a freak hunting accident left Fenris, my Direwolf companion and me half-dead. Luckily, we pulled through, but my dad he didn't make it. Now I am searching for the people responsible for his death while digging up the pieces of secrets he kept. From the author: Adalynd Grayves  is  the name  and writing darker fiction is my game. When writing my stories, I like to take a pinch of monster, a dash of myth, and add a sprinkle of fairytales into the mix. I’ve been in anthologies in the past, but I’m currently working on publishing my first novel releasing  in 2022 ( official date TBA) and I  have my Kindle Vella serial out and ready to read now.  You can find all my links here: https://linktr.ee/AdalyndGrayves

 Elven Heartbound By Elizabeth Ash Genre : Romantic Fantasy

Born of elven magic. Bound to an elven prince.

All her life, Arisanna has been destined to wed the son of the elf king, and now the elves have come to collect. Nothing, however, goes as expected when the elves arrive to claim her. Despite their misunderstandings, Arisanna agrees to wed the aloof elf prince with whom she's been heartbound since before her birth.

Is the prince as hard as he seems? Or is there more to him than meets the eye?

About The Author: I live in the middle of the woods of the Pacific Northwest, where I keep a wary eye out for sasquatch. So far, he hasn’t revealed himself, but the trees around me are the inspiration for many of the forest scenes in my stories. https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethAshBooks

 Forsaken Beauty and the Etherbeast by Kelsey Josephson Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy

A bookish strongwoman longs for freedom. A beast searches for a cure. Together, they'll break man-made curses.

After her own father sells her to the unscrupulous Ringmaster, Belle thinks she'll spend the rest of her days performing cheap stunts while the Nuzaran masses gawk at her ether-poisoned body. A chance encounter with a beast by her solitary campfire changes everything. Can they find liberation or will the past consume them both?

About The Author:  I have a deep love for Universal Monster movies, all things related to Nikola Tesla, and iced coffee. The first two things fuel my creativity and the latter keeps me motivated! You can check my other works on my website: https://simplykelseyjo.com/

 Fight or Flight: A Cinderella Tale of Court Intrigue Genre: Fantasy

Who doesn't love a Cinderella story? However, the stories never tell of what happens after the Prince finds his Bride and Cinderella finds her 'Happily Ever After'. What should be a happily ever after for Alyssa quickly becomes a game of survival as she tries to navigate a hostile court and those who are eyeing her position next to the prince.

Will she manage to win the game or will the strike of midnight only declare the beginning of her doom?

Author The Author: In addition to writing Urban Fantasy, one of the things I love to do is write fanfiction. You can check it all out here on my blog in addition to my original works. - https://theseekerfiles.wordpress.com/

  Death Date Genre: YA Dystopian

 People tell you to live life to the fullest.  Take your time. Don't make rash decisions. I should have listened. Maybe it  would have made a difference. Tomorrow is my eighteenth birthday. A day  that's supposed to be special. Eighteen years old means adulthood. Life is  just starting. That's how it used to be, years ago. Before our new society  formed. Instead, I face uncertainty. My past sways the outcome. On this  birthday, I will receive the most important gift. The gift of the date I will  die. 

About The Author: In addition to writing YA  Dystopian, I also write YA Fantasy. You can check out more about my projects  on Facebook at authorbysimpson and on Instagram. 

Not Your Angel Genre: Urban Fantasy

Two worlds, two wings, and one big problem ex...

With the return of her childhood ex-boyfriend, Silana and her family must stop pretending to play normal and embrace who they really are in order to save the world from a disastrous past love eager for new worshippers. The only problem is that Earth already believes in angels.

About The Authors: Some friendships never die. This co-written story is by two life-long friends! Follow one of the authors on instagram @RoseOverChaos to become bookish friends.

 An Operator's Daughter Genre: Coming of Age, Family and High School Drama, Romance

When jettisoned into dysfunctional family and new high school, 17-year-old Ashton must overcome severe anxiety and fight back against sexual harassment, while attempting to rebuild a relationship with her grieving Navy SEAL Veteran father. She questions whether or not history should repeat itself while seeking her own happiness when her own budding relationship with a Special Warfare Operator begins to parallel her parents' love-at-first story as told within the pages her mother's journals.

About The Author: Laurie Anne Brandon writes based upon her experiences as a military academic counselor, high school teacher, years of working television production and as an alpine ski instructor. She lives with her husband, three cats and golden retriever in suburban Western Washington.

Find her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurie.brandon.12

The 7th Whistleblower Genre: Mystery/Suspense/YA

Claire, a journalism student at Brunston University has stumbled onto quite a few secrets about B.U.s alumnae. Outing the culprits might not only destroy the guilty, but take down the innocent as well. Travel with Claire Richardson as she navigates a sticky trail of clues that will ultimately force her to choose between what is good and what is evil.

About The Author: Every since I was a young girl I absolutely loved watching Mystery and Suspense movies with my mother. The art of a story unfolding to reveal the larger picture inspires me to create characters whose curiosity pushes them to find the truth. Visit my Link Tree for more info on current works @ https://linktr.ee/MHandy1

[babegroot]

so going strong through my third lockdown, i realised that reading has been essential for me to stay as sane and looking through my kindle list, i decided to get together a list of the titles i read and recommend. not all of them are included with kindle unlimited but it shouldn’t matter because by clicking the title, it will direct you to a free and online link to read the whole book. under the cut you can find 50+ titles to begin with. they are all classified NA fiction. they are all romance! towards the end i signalised where the mafia romance starts. ( template credit goes to @lvcifcrs ! ). feel free to request any specific themes.

romance.

addicted to you (addicted series #1) by krista and becca richie

ricochet (addicted series #2) by krista and becca richie

addicted for now (addicted series #3) by krista and becca richie

thrive (addicted series #1) by krista and becca richie

addicted after all (addicted series #1) by krista and becca richie

kiss the sky (calloway sisters #1) by krista and becca richie

hothouse flower (calloway sisters #2) by krista and becca richie

fuel the fire (calloway sisters #3) by krista and becca richie

long way down (calloway sisters #4) by krista and becca richie

some kind of perfect (calloway sisters #5) by krista and becca richie

hotshot doc by r.s. grey

marrying my billionaire hookup by nadia lee

faking it with the frenemy by nadia lee

single dad seeks juliet by max monroe

the bet (north woods university #1) by j.l. beck

the dare (north woods university #2) by j.l. beck

the secret (north woods university #3) by j.l. beck

the vow (north woods university #4) by j.l. beck

the promise (north woods university #5) by j.l. beck

the jock (north woods university #6) by j.l. beck

punk 57 by penelope douglas

the chase (briau u #1) by elle kennedy

anything you can do by r.s. grey

another (voyeur series #4) by r.s. fiona cole

filthy gods (american gods #0.5) by r. scarlett

the hunter (boston belles #1) by l.j. shen

the villan (boston belles #2) by l.j. shen

the stopover (the miles high club #1) by t l swan

the takeover (the miles high club #2) by t l swan

sicko by amo jones

mafia romance.

brutal prince (brutal birthright #1) by sophie lark

stolen heir (brutal birthright #2) by sophie lark

savage lover (brutal birthright #3) by sophie lark

bloody heart (brutal birthright #4) by sophie lark

broken vow (brutal birthright #5) by sophie lark

luca vitiello (born in blood mafia chronicles #0) by cora reilly

bound by honor (born in blood mafia chronicles #1) by cora reilly

bound by duty (born in blood mafia chronicles #2) by cora reilly

bound by hatred (born in blood mafia chronicles #3) by cora reilly

bound by temptation (born in blood mafia chronicles #4) by cora reilly

bound by vengeance (born in blood mafia chronicles #5) by cora reilly

bound by love (born in blood mafia chronicles #6) by cora reilly

bound by the past (born in blood mafia chronicles #7) by cora reilly

bound by blood anthology (born in blood mafia chronicles #7.5) by cora reilly

twisted loyalties (the camorra chronicles #1) by cora reilly

twisted emotions (the camorra chronicles #2) by cora reilly

twisted pride (the camorra chronicles #3) by cora reilly

twisted bonds (the camorra chronicles #4) by cora reilly

twisted hearts (the camorra chronicles #5) by cora reilly

fragile longing by cora reilly

sweet temptation by cora reilly

machiavellian (gangster of new york #1) by bella di corte

marauder (gangster of new york #2) by bella di corte

mercenary (gangster of new york #3) by bella di corte

the air he breathes (five points’ mob collection series #0.1) by serena akeroyd

filthy (five points’ mob collection series #1) by serena akeroyd

filthy rich (five points’ mob collection series #2) by serena akeroyd

filthy dark (five points’ mob collection series #3) by serena akeroyd

[sfsucw]

Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Chapbook/Novelette Contest

The winner of the annual Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Chapbook / Novelette Contest wins a $1,000 prize, publication of the perfect bound pocket series chapbook / novelette with a full color cover by Omnidawn, 100 free copies of the winning chapbook / novelette, and extensive display advertising and publicity, including prominent display ads in Poets & Writers Magazine, Rain Taxi Review of Books and other publications.

Guidelines:

For this contest, Fabulist Fiction includes magic realism and literary forms of fantasy, science fiction, horror, fable, and myth. Stories can be primarily realistic, with elements of non-realism, or primarily, or entirely non-realistic.

Open to all writers worldwide. There are no citizenship or residency requirements or limitations.

Postal and online submissions are accepted from around the world.

Manuscripts must be in English, although it is perfectly acceptable to include some text in other languages.

This contest is identity-hidden (formerly referred to as a blind contest), so you can submit manuscripts that contain identifying information, but please be aware that such information will be removed from manuscripts before they are passed on to our editors who select manuscripts to be sent to the judge.

Manuscript submissions for all contests must be original.

Stories are NOT eligible for inclusion within a submission if they have been previously published online or in print or Ebook editions.

We recommend that you keep the total length of your manuscript between 7,500 and 17,500 words, consisting of either one story or multiple stories.

Simultaneous submissions to other contests are perfectly acceptable. Please send us an email to let us know if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.

Revisions are not allowed to a manuscript after it has been submitted to the contest. However, the winning author will have time to revise the manuscript before publication. We do reserve the right to get approval from the judge if those revisions are significant.

The reading fee is $18 per entry. For $2 extra to cover shipping cost, entrants may choose to receive a copy of the winning chapbook or any Omnidawn fiction title, including our highly acclaimed ParaSheres anthology of fabulist and new wave fabulist fiction. A complete list of all Omnidawn fiction titles is available at www.omnidawn.com/product-category/fiction

Multiple submissions to this contest are acceptable, but each manuscript must be submitted separately, with a separate entry fee.

Online entries must be received and postal entries must be postmarked between September 1 and October 31, 2021 at midnight Pacific Daylight Time.

NOT ELIGIBLE are translations; collaborations by more than one author; students, colleagues, or close friends of the judge, Kellie Wells; Omnidawn past and present staff and interns; authors of books Omnidawn has published, and winners of previous Omnidawn BOOK and CHAPBOOK contests. Winners of Omnidawn's Broadside Contest are still eligible to enter and win Omnidawn BOOK and CHAPBOOK contests.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Down the Rabbit Hole

Summary: After meeting online, Belle French and Aiden Gold have their first date in a rather unusual location - a bookstore.

Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

Rated: G

Down the Rabbit Hole

After seven and a half months of what could only be described as truly horrendous internet dating, Belle French knew that she had found the one when her latest match agreed to have their first date in a bookstore. 

Aiden Gold was a little older than most of the others she had matched with, and looking at his profile, it was obvious that he was far different from all her previous potentials. 

Belle knew that it had been a mistake to let Ruby set up her profile for her. Aiden was the first person she had matched with after having gone through and laboriously changed all her settings. Belle was somewhat ashamed that it had taken her so long to realise what the problem with her online matchmaking service was. 

The first thing it said on Aiden’s profile was that he was a single father. He was looking for a serious, lasting relationship. He was an antique dealer by trade, and liked reading, cooking, and spending time with his son, who was fourteen and had been the one to set him up on the website in the first place.  

He seemed to be just the kind of person that Belle was looking for, and yet, when he had come up in her matches, she had been reluctant to make the first move and contact him. He was almost too good to be true, and she couldn’t help wondering what the catch might be when she did meet him. 

Eventually, though, curiosity overcame her, and she had made that first tentative step, sending him a message and beginning the dialogue that had led them to their first date. The first litmus test of any potential partner for Belle was the bookstore test. If they agreed to their first date being at Down the Rabbit Hole, the antiquarian shop tucked away in the heart of the city, then she knew that she had met someone who was likely to be a kindred spirit in some way. 

Aiden wasn’t the first to agree, but he was the first to agree with the same amount of gleeful enthusiasm that Belle herself always felt at the prospect of spending time in the company of very old books. 

She was waiting just outside the shop, looking around for her date. She hoped that he would turn up. She’d had plenty of experiences in the past where she’d just been left standing outside the shop for half an hour waiting for someone who was destined never to arrive, to the point where Tilly had come out and taken pity on her, inviting her in for a cup of tea as consolation. Belle peered in through the window; she could see that Tilly was behind the counter again today, and she wondered what her young friend would say when she saw her come in with another prospective partner. 

Aiden rounded the corner right on time, and as he got closer, Belle gave a tentative wave. He waved back a little shyly, and she smiled. Yes, she was definitely on to a good one here. True, she might be projecting because this was the first match she’d had in so long who was even halfway decent and there was a tendency towards rose-tinted spectacles in such cases, but even so. 

“Hello.”

“Hello. You must be Belle.”

Belle nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Aiden. Thanks for agreeing to meet up here.”

“Not at all, I love this place.” There was a little pink tinge of embarrassment to the tops of his ears, but it seemed to fade under Belle’s optimistic nod of agreement.

“I do, too. I think that it’s my favourite place in the whole city. Well, aside from my own home, of course.” Now that she came to think of it, with the gurgling pipes and the old, creaky infrastructure, maybe the bookstore took her top spot after all. 

Aiden opened the front door for her, and Belle gave a little curtsy before stepping inside. “Why, thank you.”

“Hi Belle!” Tilly jumped off her stool behind the counter as Belle entered. “I’ve been waiting for you to come in all week; we’ve got a brand-new George Eliot first edition in. Well, brand-new to us, obviously, not brand-new to the world in general. It’s Middlemarch, I know that’s your favourite of hers. Do you want to take a look? I kept it back off the shelves especially so that you could have first dibs on it.”

Belle smiled at Tilly’s infectious enthusiasm and good mood.

“Not right now, Tilly. Thank you for thinking of me, though.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, hello Mr G, I didn’t see you come in there.” Tilly paused, and Belle could almost see the cogs turning in her mind before her face lit up in a eureka moment. 

“Oh, this is perfect! Fate is a wonderful thing. I was just saying to Margot the other day that I really need to get you two to meet, and I don’t know how it hasn’t happened before since you’re both in here so much all the time. Belle, Mr Aiden Gold. Mr G, this is Belle French.”

“We’ve actually already met, Tilly.” Aiden’s ears had gone decidedly pink again. Tilly looked between the two of them and a knowing little smirk began to show at the corner of her mouth. 

“Well, don’t let me keep you from getting to know each other better. Just call if you need anything.”

With that statement, Tilly skipped off into the back room of the shop, and Belle wondered how long it would be before she came out again offering them cups of tea. 

There was an awkward silence for a few moments; she and Aiden were the only ones in the shop, after all, and Tilly’s sudden absence seemed very noticeable.

“So,” Belle began, going over to the shelves and beginning to run her fingertips along the familiar faded spines. “How did you find this place?”

“It was a very long chain of events, really.” Aiden came and joined her by the shelves. “I was looking for a bookbinder to assist me with a tricky restoration, and eventually I tracked down Margot. Through her, I found Tilly and this treasure trove.” He gave a soft chuckle. “Bae says that I spend more in here than I do on paying off the mortgage. What about you? I know you’re a librarian, so I know you love books, but swapping one palace of books for another?”

“I don’t know. I think that there’s something about old books in particular that just draws me to them. They contain so much magic and mystery, all those secrets waiting to be uncovered. You can find things in here that you would never even consider before you saw them here, and some truly one of a kind works that would never make their way onto library shelves. Take this one.” Belle pulled out an anthology of fairy tales bound in faded brown leather. “You’d never find something like this in my library.” She flicked carefully through the old pages, looking at the exquisite illustrations. She was aware of Aiden looking over her shoulder, but she didn’t mind. 

“It is beautiful,” he said. “I think there’s something in the atmosphere of a place like this. The secrets of old masters waiting to be retold and rediscovered. What was it that Cicero said? A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

Belle couldn’t help but giggle. “I have that quote framed on my bedroom wall.”

“And I’m sure you subscribe to the notion.”

“Of course. There are books in every room in my apartment. Including the bathroom. It’s good to have an old favourite to read the bath. One that can take getting dunked in bubbles.”

“Not one of these ones, then.” Aiden returned to perusing the shelves as Belle desperately tried to get all thoughts of bubble baths out of her head. That was not at all appropriate for a first date, even if said first date was really going swimmingly and Aiden was just as good-looking in real life as he was in his profile picture on the website. 

“You know, you’ve both been in here enough times to know that there are some comfy armchairs on the second floor if you want to have a cosy chat.”

Tilly had come out of the back room again and was pointing up at the mezzanine above them. Belle looked at Aiden, who looked back at her. It would be harder for Tilly to interrupt them up there, even if she was doing it with the best of intentions, and Belle was definitely comfortable enough not to need a timely rescue from this date.

“Shall we?” she asked. Aiden nodded and they made their way towards the tight spiral staircase in the corner of the shop.

“You know, Tilly, I’ve never managed to work out how you managed to get those chairs up there,” Aiden said. 

Tilly just laughed. “Oh, getting them up there was easy, Mr G. I’m more concerned with getting them down again.”

Leaving them with that cryptic comment, she took her place on her stool behind the counter again, and Aiden and Belle made themselves comfortable in the chairs on the mezzanine. Tilly’s acknowledgement and overt approval of their date gave Belle encouragement that this was definitely something that could go the distance, an independent third party who knew them both giving it the thumbs up, so to speak.

“You know, I think that Cicero was really on to something. You can’t deny that it’s these books that give this place its atmosphere. It wouldn’t be the same if the shelves were full of kitchenware.”

Belle burst out laughing at the image and before she knew it, she’d set Aiden off too. It was so long since she’d found someone that she could laugh with like this, and about books as well. 

Once they’d collected themselves, she sneaked a sideways glance at Aiden, only to discover him doing the same thing. The blush in his ears really was adorable, and Belle couldn’t wait to get to know him better.

[jenner-benjamin]

Seen as Read

Parietal Poem written with acrylic paint on Moleskine sketchbook paper.

Seen as Read was a seven week online course hosted by SJ Fowler and offered the chance to explore a variety of visual poetry processes. Each week we were sent a presentation of source material, ideas and inspiration for the week ahead. We would then use this as a basis for investigation and offer our thoughts, outcomes and works in progress on a blog forum for everyone to share and comment on. 

The course introduced us to the study of visual poetry which I found extremely enlightening. There were aspects of the history of aesthetic linguistics that I had not considered until starting this course. On offering a definition of poetry Fowler explained that it was ‘language referent which doesn’t posit communication or information as its primary purpose’ - therefore a haiku and a scrawled note on the back of a receipt are both forms of poetry.

In the first week we were taught about the difference between phonograms and logograms; phonograms use individual written characters to represent sounds, whereas logograms are written characters that represent whole words. Examples of logograms would include; ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics and Mayan scripts. I found the historical detail of this week to be very beneficial. I was not naive to how widespread visual poetry is around the globe, but had not considered how far back in time one could come across it. We were introduced to a plethora of artists and reference points that included the likes of Henri Michaux, Cy Twombly, The Voynich Manuscript and the Rosetta Stone (as well as some more obscure points of interest).

As an ode to the parietal poetry on cave walls, the first activity I indulged in was making my own poems with my finger tips. I explained how there was an acute closeness to the material when applying it directly with your fingers. This way of working mirrored the close-to-hand ethos that I explored during the three month lockdown earlier in the year.

Parietal Poem written with an ink stamp pad on Moleskine sketchbook paper.

After this exercise I chose to make my own sequence of logograms, taking inspiration from things found in my bedroom. I wrote these on exercise book paper and began practicing my invented glyphs. The rhythmic repitition of scrawling the glyphs over and over reminded me of my childhood when I was learning to write the alphabet on lined paper. The reiteration of writing the same character allows for delicate differences inferred by it being handwritten that the eye becomes drawn to. I intended to compose these glyphs in to poetry during the week but for now I quite enjoy them as they are.

An example of a repeated logogram on exercise book paper.

An example of a repeated logogram on exercise book paper.

An example of a repeated logogram on exercise book paper.

The second week was beneficial in encouraging me ask questions about the nature of writing. I do often fear that the work I make runs the risk of becoming relentless and contrived so this was particularly useful.

We were asked to ponder what is the visual character of writing? What is writing without semantic meaning? What is the capacity for an imagined language to mean beyond the representational or referential? This served as an excellent starting point for the week ahead. With reference to what Fowler posited in the first week’s presentation I would reiterate that writing without semantic meaning is pure poetry - it does not seek to communicate information as its primary purpose. I would also argue that an asemic written language can still ‘mean’ despite it being non representational or referential. The meaning might be entirely aesthetic, or it might be emotionally expressive, it might even exist as a means of translating a pre-existing language.

As a printmaker I have wrestled with where the process fits in the world of printmaking. Is asemic writing to be drawn or written only? Would repeating the writing through a print process detract from its agency as a handwritten process? I was stimulated by the prompt in the slides about formulating an alphabetical system that is pictorial or logogrammatic. Encouraged by this and my previous research into typography I decided to make my own asemic font. I felt the exercise would be a good way of marrying asemic writing with printmaking - my thinking being the font could be physically made and printed in a typesetter.

A translation of the first five letters in the first draft of my asemic typeface.

My starting point was going through my sketchbooks and portfolio to locate certain asemic characters that I had repeated over the months. It was this set of characters that I then digitised on my phone, attributing each character form to existing letters, numbers and punctuation marks.

Overall I found this exercise to be very successful as my first attempt at digitising my asemic language. Now that I have the app saved to my phone I can experiment with it further and design a cohesive body of abstract letterforms to print from when university reopens. I feel that this is the first step in potentially creating publications and artist books that find a common ground between asemic writing and printmaking.

‘Pangram’ - a sentence that uses every letter in the alphabet - first draft of my asemic typeface.

A selection of letters written in the second draft of my asemic typeface.

There is much scope for experimentation and a playfulness around the idea of the typeface being decoded. I could explore the dialogue between asemic writing being solely abstract and yet decipherable. I might be tempted to play on this in the same way Luigi Serafini did in his Codex Seraphinianus. With the existence of caesar cyphers and cypher wheels there is a wealth of opportunity for further consideration.

I came across weeks that I struggled with more so than others, in particular those based on art poetry and concrete poetry. I think that because the lines are so blurred between the subjects of each week I found that I was a little unsure as to how to approach them for fear of what I make not falling under the ‘correct’ umbrella. In hindsight I think the most fruitful approach would have been to read and research more and put less emphasis on creating, after all this was a learning experience and not a deadline for the next great work of art. 

I took a selection of lyrics from Enter Shikari’s most recent album ‘Nothing is True & Everything is Possible’ and made a series of monoprints on newsprint that I initially thought could be pasted on to a wall but in actual fact work quite well as a poem in book form. The lyrics work as individual loose leaves but when coupled with the repetition of the word ‘meanwhile’ they become quite powerful and moving. The poem reads as follows:

Meanwhile,

Masking weakness, masking woe.

We'll disobey our Frankenstein.

Meanwhile,

It's primal, it's tribal.

And I'll die.

Red sky at night, a shepherd's flashlight,

This isn't what I planned.

We orbit fast.

Meanwhile,

Search and seek,

I'm gonna track you down,

Search and seek,

A cosmic dance.

Now I see you,

I can't walk away.

Meanwhile,

I wish this was over, after dark.

Meanwhile,

Nothing is true,

You're not really here.

Meanwhile,

Give me a sign,

Why?

Meanwhile,

I no longer want to hide,

I am the judge,

I can hear alarm bells,

A crisis of creativity.

‘You’re not really here’ - monoprint on newsprint.

‘A crisis of creativity’ - monoprint on newsprint.

‘A cosmic dance’ - monoprint on newsprint.

‘We’ll disobey our Frankenstein’ - monoprint on newsprint.

Concrete poetry found me very much outside my comfort zone, my work tends to be more loose and free and I found myself thinking a bit more rigidly. I am used to working with a bit more expression and gesture, so this was quite the challenge. Nevertheless I made an attempt at some concrete poems of the many plants I have dotted around the place. These were made whilst isolating at home, I found that in times where I felt unsettled and uneasy it was good to have some positive growth in the form of plant-life keeping me company. These ideas are very basic and leave much room for improvement, should I wish to return to this method of working. 

‘Plant Pot’ - letraset on Moleskine sketchbook paper.

‘Cactus Pot’ - letraset on Moleskine sketchbook paper.

‘Ivy Ivy Ivy’ - letraset on Moleskine sketchbook paper.

‘Cactus’ - letraset on Moleskine sketchbook paper.

One of the later weeks of the course prompted the notion of scale. What would be the consequence of making poetry for a billboard wall? I have briefly discussed how my work tends to be quite intimate, typically taking the form of smaller tactile prints or books. The prospect of poster art seemed a bit daunting at first. What sentiment would the text offer when not only enlarged for all to see, but also in the public domain as opposed to the sometimes solitary book format?

I composed some poetry earlier on in the year as part of an artist residency at Bower Ashton Library that will be bound in to small poetry anthologies when the university studios re-open. For the purpose of this week’s prompts I made an installation in my bedroom studio, projecting these poems and corresponding drawings on to the walls at various angles. The results aren’t quite as I’d hoped or imagined but the chance to experiment with the concept was a welcome one, I am keen to return to this and develop it further. This week highlighted that there a multitude of ways we might interact with our audience and the value of looking at your work with fresh eyes. 

‘Your Mouth’ - poem projected onto an interior wall.

‘Black, White and Grey’ - poem projected onto an interior wall.

‘Two Men’ - poem projected onto an interior wall.

The final output I made during the course was an edition of artist’s books inspired by monostich poetry. I hadn’t heard of it before and wondered how I could make a book with just one line of text. I made monoprints of a line from the Spin Doctors' song, ‘Two Princes’ that reads, ‘if you would like to talk for hours, just go ahead now’. This varied edition of concertina books is a dialogue of sorts between the ‘two princes’, each side being a line spoken.

‘Two Princes’ - accordion folded artist’s book with monoprinted pages.

‘Two Princes’ - accordion folded artist’s book with monoprinted pages.

‘Two Princes’ - accordion folded artist’s book with monoprinted pages.

‘Two Princes’ - accordion folded artist’s book with monoprinted pages.

‘Two Princes’ - accordion folded artist’s book with monoprinted pages.

‘Two Princes’ - accordion folded artist’s book with monoprinted pages.

Participation on the Seen as Read course has been extremely beneficial. I have been tempted out of my creative comfort zone on more than one occasion, which is always a valuable tool as an artist. It teaches you to not rest on your laurels and even though you will most likely return to your favoured processes, you might bring with you a method of creating that you had not before. The most worthwhile aspect to take away is the contacts I have made. A handful of participants have agreed to continue our correspondence beyond the confines of the seven weeks and will proceed to critique and support each other on a similar online forum to that which we have used for Seen as Read. I hope that this is the beginning of an active role in joining in the global conversation regarding visual poetry.   

[straydog733]

Reading Resolution: “Our Happy Hours, LGBT Voices from the Gay Bars”, Collected by S. Renee Bess and Lee Lynch

13. A collection of short stories: Our Happy Hours, LGBT Voices from the Gay Bars Collected by S. Renee Bess and Lee Lynch

List Progress: 20/30

This book has been sitting on my shelf for a long time, after I received it as part of a blind giveaway at an independent bookstore in Oakland, which feels very fitting. Our Happy Hours, LGBT Voices from the Gay Bars is obviously about bars, but often makes references to bookstores, community halls, clubs and online forums, all places that queer people gather with each other to form communities. Our Happy Hours was compiled in 2017, in direct response to the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. Through fiction, non-fiction and poetry, writers process their feelings about the massacre itself, about their relationship with gay bars in general, and about their communities. Collected by S. Renee Bess and Lee Lynch, who both have stories included, the anthology strives to paint a picture of what these social institutions mean to people, for better or for worse. And on the whole, this collection does a good job.

Multi-author anthologies are always hit-or-miss and your enjoyment of them is largely dependent on how you respond to each individual writer’s style, which is a big gamble to take. While Our Happy Hours didn’t always knock it out of the park, the success percentage was definitely higher than many collections I’ve read, and I don’t recall many true low points. The fact that Bess and Lynch’s respective stories were among my favorites makes me think that having good writers at the head of the project definitely helped the collection as a whole. These are my top recommendations

“Omar Mateen’s Shirtless Pics Make Me Sad” by Clay Kerrigan

“On the Sidewalk in Front of Kellers” by Richard Natale

“Black and White Strobe Lights” by Rebekah Weatherspoon

“A Night Beyond the City Limits” by Renee Bess

“At a Bar in the Morning” by Lee Lynch

“Chances” by Shelley Thrasher

“Sharon’s Lookout” by Anne Laughlin

“All I Never Said” by Patrick Coulton

“The Pulse” by Michael Ward

These particular stories stood out for being rich, evocative, and different. Because the downside of this anthology is that a lot of the stories are quite same-y. Despite being called “LGBT Voices”, the stories are majority lesbian with occasional gay male stories, and most of them are unambiguously positive. The stories that really jumped out to me were ones that addressed issues of racism, ableism and substance abuse within bar culture; being queer does not make something perfect. These nuanced takes avoided looking at the community with rose-tinted glasses, though still with a great deal of love.

I have never been someone with a regular place at gay bars, though I have very fond memories of Divas in Northampton, MA and The White Horse in Oakland, CA. These stories were written in the immediate aftermath of the Pulse shooting, and I am reading them during the Covid-19 pandemic, which is bound to change the face of bar culture for many years to come. But even in the face of trauma and disease in pain, there will always be a queer community out there for people to find a home. And I am glad that Our Happy Hours was able to record some of those moments in time.

Would I Recommend It: Yes.

[annabethbreakstherules]

OUAT and why “mystery box” narratives are doomed to fail

Once Upon a Time premiered on Oct 23, 2011 to 12.9 million viewers and fairly positive reviews from critics who praised the performances of the main cast, the surprisingly complex and interesting takes on storybook characters, and the impressive special effects. This quote from the Wikipedia page essentially summarized what was so compelling about the show (and hints at ultimately why it failed):

“‘Rick Porter gave the pilot praise for bringing together the central theme, saying "No other new show this fall is attempting to tell a bigger story, and we're hoping the rough patches smooth out and it fulfills the potential that's there in its very strong cast and premise.’”

Once wasn’t unique for its fairytale remixes, which was also being done concurrently for a time on NBC’s Grimm, but for it’s intrigue and mystery. Emma Swan is pulled into the uncanny world of Storybrooke and into a scheme much bigger and more complicated than she could imagine.

Premiering a year after the controversial Lost finale, OUAT was propped up as the next project from Lost producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, promising a series built on unknowns and mysteries that unravel as time goes on. The first season utilizes the Enchanted Forest to give the audience hints and clues that line up with discoveries Emma makes in the town in the real world. It’s laden with pockets of missing information that get revisited and stories told out of order to better serve the overall narrative. It works. The first season was critically and commercially successful, pulling audiences in the 12-9 million range in the Sunday night slot. However, as time went on and the show unfolded, things changed and the show declined in viewership and quality. A lot of the qualms with the latter season of the show stem from the fact that from the second half of season 3 onward it essentially became a weekly hour long commercial for Disney properties, with the recent or upcoming films and their characters being woven into the story. Certainly this is likely true as the show originally so compelling for its unique take on characters that challenged their pervasive PG interpretations but also didn’t simply turn to the original Brother’s Grimm tales. However, this shift is storytelling is a side effect of the larger problem the show faced that it failed to overcome, ultimately ensuring its eventual downfall.

OUAT was sold as a mystery box show, but it ended as your average villain of the season supernatural/fantasy show bogged down by Disney and recycled plots. No matter what direction this show took, because of the original premise being rooted in a mystery box plot, like the previous project the show runners worked on, it was bound to come in contact with narrative problems. 

Part 1: The JJ Abrams and the Lost finale of it all

What exactly is a “mystery box”? Here is a link to a TedTalk where Abrams himself describes the concept: https://www.ted.com/talks/j_j_abrams_the_mystery_box?language=en 

Essentially, he breaks down the power of mystery and specifically how his conception of mysteries and the unknown as opportunities for incredible feats of human imagination factored into the creation of Lost, where the first two episodes, which he wrote and shot with Damon Lindelof in the span of 11 weeks and set up a bunch of questions that end up driving the plot of the subsequent episodes and seasons. In his TedTalk, Abrams talks about how mystery boxes stand in for unknowns that when revealed, often lead to much broader and deeper truths that speak to things bigger than the narrative itself. This was supposedly the idea behind Lost. 

However, this didn’t end up being the reality. Abrams exited the show in the third season and (allegedly) pretty much left the new showrunners and writers room with little idea of what was inside the mystery box he’d set up. Thus, it was up to people who didn’t create the show to guide it through three more seasons and attempt to land a satisfying ending. The details of the finale aren’t important, what matter is that it came with a lot of controversy. Fans found it confusing or unsatisfying and felt it ultimately failed to provide good answers to the questions it set up. While not relevant to this story, Abram’s handling of the Star Wars sequel trilogy suggest a pattern of setting up a mystery box he doesn’t intend to answer himself (and then fumbling when he attempts to solve the equations he wrote). 

Opinions on the finale have changed over time, but in 2011, just a year after the show had concluded, ABC and Kitsis and Horowitz were very aware of the precarious view many people had of the show’s conclusion. With OUAT, ABC was clearly trying to recapture the magic of Lost, where the television mystery became a massive phenomenon as people wrote think pieces and articles, tuned in every week for more clues, and talked about their theories online. They wanted another show that would keep people guessing and, therefore, encourage them to discuss it publicly and drum up more interest. However, they knew they couldn’t afford to fumble the bag this time and risk alienating people who were unsatisfied with Lost, but had enough good faith to give the show a chance. Kitsis and Horowitz saddled themselves with this task, despite likely having no real idea how to best address the problems Lost had. The concept of “the mystery box” was championed by Abrams and he had yet to really prove a mastery over the thing he created. This motivated the decision making behind the structure of the show for better or for worse. 

Part 2: Looking inside the box too soon 

Lost was built on the question of what exactly was going on with the island and whether or not the people on it could escape. OUAT was built on the question of what was going on in Storybrooke and what it had to do with Henry’s book of fairytales. The Enchanted Forest identities of Storybrooke citizens, who cast the curse, and how to break it were shrouded in mystery and slowly revealed through flashbacks and Emma’s own investigation.  It was pretty compelling TV that provided a few good gasp worthy reveals over the course of the season. It all built towards the final reveal that Emma was the Savior, the fabled hero of the Enchanted Forest, the daughter of Snow and Charming, and that True Love’s Kiss is the way to break the curse. The curse is lifted and everyone regains their memories. The mystery is solved. And therein lies the problem. 

The entire marketing campaign around the show either capitalized on the fairy tale aspect of the show or the mystery, usually both. Every episode trailer was about what information the flashbacks would reveal next, what new characters we might meet, what we might learn about characters we already knew, and what Emma and Henry would learn about Storybrooke itself. The genre of the first season of the show is obviously a mystery and a good one with several branches that, while connected, all had their own unique and complex answers or causes. The majority of these questions were answered in the season finale, which seemed an odd move from the network and producers who brought audiences the six season long Lost, where even in the finale things were left unanswered. 

It’s clear ABC and the showrunners wanted to capitalize on the success of the show while also trying to rectify the problems that had plagued it. One of the reasons the finale to Lost was likely going to be unsatisfying to many no matter what it contained, was that the show had simply been on for long and there was so much speculation and hype about how it would end that there was no way anything they could write would live up to fan expectations. Additionally, over the course of six season, plot holes began to build up that one two-part finale could never hope to make sense of. That’s the burden of putting long narrative mysteries on TV, they’re hard to land. This is why we’ve seen many shows that revolved around mysteries or crimes turn to the anthology format where every season poses a new question that is solved in a limited amount of episodes. This was likely the intent behind “looking inside the mystery box” at the end of OUAT’s first season; it was better to present a coherent and condensed mystery narrative than drag it out and risk creating a mountain of contradictions. This isn’t a terrible call, especially because Kitsis and Horowitz and their writers delivered on the promises they set up and presented great characters. It was a great set of 22 episodes. Had the show ended after 1 season, there would be little to talk about, it might even be regarded as one of the most competent mystery shows ever to air on a major network. However, the problem doesn’t lie in the first season, but what comes after it. 

Part 3: What happens now? 

OUAT managed to pull off a feat that should not have been possible considering the circumstances. After solving most of the mysteries that drove the plot and made the show interesting in season 1, they somehow managed to pull of a second season that didn’t drastically decrease in quality. In fact, on Rotten Tomatoes, season 2 has the highest critic and audience scores. The team behind the show had left just one stone unturned in the final episode of season one: what was the ultimate fate of the Enchanted Forest after the curse? 

The dual settings of the storybook land and the town had never collided. The showrunners took advantage of this and capitalized on the new dynamic of Emma going to the Enchanted Forest. Suddenly, in addition to the flashbacks that continued to flesh out recurring and new characters and the going-ons of Storybrooke, Emma’s adventures in the present of the Enchanted Forest became a third arm to the narrative. The show was still pretty exciting and had some fun twists and turns, but it was fundamentally different. It was no longer about small town social politics, intrigue, and putting together the pieces of a past in a magical world that how somehow leaked into reality. While the show had always been based in fantasy, the mystery kept it grounded. The second season launched it full speed into the fantastical and committed itself to being a strictly fantasy show. Regina remained a prominent antagonist, but the new villain was her mother, Cora, who became the first in a long series of villains who stayed around for a half to a whole season before either being defeated or fading into the shadow of a new big bad. There was no longer a larger ultimate goal the show was heading towards as it had been in its first season. The show’s identity had completely changed and this created a lot of problems.

Part 4: A wuick summary of the decline

The first season was fairly streamlined with each episode serving a clear purpose in pushing the mystery forward, with the new goal being to simply defeat the new bad guy, filler episodes began to crop up with some frequency as the writers tried to shoehorn in as many fairy tale characters as they possibly could. The flashbacks also began to double back. In order to line up with the new big bad narratives each season, the backstories of many characters had things retroactively inserted into them that didn’t really line up with what the audience already knew of the characters. 

The writers also kept trying to chase the magic of the first season, introducing new curse after new curse and continually undoing Regina’s character development to keep her as a constant antagonist. The show had nowhere to go, so the writers began throwing things at the wall and seeing what stuck. There was time travel and rewriting the past, there were other fantasy worlds where characters from other public domain stories that weren’t traditional fairy tales lived. The show ultimately did a soft reboot and basically recreated the storyline of the first season in the final season with Henry taking up Emma’s mantle of main investigator. And it was all...pretty lackluster. 

However, the biggest downfall of the show came in season 4. Season 3b had seen the writers managed to weave in Oz, which was featured because of the upcoming Disney flop Oz the Great and Powerful, and create a moderately interesting character and plot through the introduction of Zelena. This seemed to embolden them, because, whether forced by ABC and Disney execs or inspired by the massive commercial success of the film, a Frozen plotline was introduced. This wouldn’t have been too terrible had they not ripped the character designs and stories directly from the film itself. With Oz they’d put their own spin on the world, but Elsa and Anna received no such treatment. They were simply carbon copies of their film counterparts, which felt wildly out of place in a world where Peter Pan was Rumplestiltkin’s father and Prince Charming had an evil twin brother. Viewership began to decline in earnest over the fourth season, yet the writers never really learned their lesson, with most new introductions to the show being fairly similar to their previous appearances in films. 

The show had the benefit of continued good performances and the foundations of good characters. They also chose not to introduce a true love interest for Emma until the second season and didn’t begin to develop their relationship until the third. Their continued success hinged fairly squarely on the shoulders of shippers who cared more about Captain Swan than the actual narrative of the show. 

The turn to weak season to season plots was ultimately what hurt OUAT as the writers clearly ran out of viable ideas long before the show ended. This turn was ultimately necessitated when the show continued to be renewed despite having fulfilled its premise so early on. 

Part 5: Conclusion and the future fate of “mystery box” shows

Lost was fresh and unique and exciting when it premiered; there was really nothing else like it on TV. The desire to recapture what Lost did continues to this day (see NBC’s Manifest feat. OUAT alum Josh Dallas). However, should Lost be something writers try to recreate? The show had mass popularity, but the finale can routinely be found on lists of worst TV finales or TV finales that ruined shows along with the likes of Dexter and Game of Thrones. Lost ultimately failed to deliver on its promises. Some fans may enjoy the ending now or have come to understand it after rewatching the show a few times, but its still pretty controversial, enough so that pretty much every anniversary of the finale is marked by interviews with the cast and crew and articles about whether the ending worked or not. A successful mystery story shouldn’t leave audiences wondering if the mystery was actually solved. 

OUAT certainly doesn’t have the fanfare surrounding it as its predecessor. The show croaked to a finish in 2018 with a fraction of the viewership it had in its first season. OUAT had a really strong first season, proving that mystery box narratives can work in an episodic structure and come to a satisfying end. However, the problem was that the show continued on past that, shedding its mystery identity for a time and then desperately trying to go back to it when things began to turn. 

The show pretty strongly supports the thesis that mystery box shows might only work for one season. If stretched for too many seasons they either become extremely convoluted and impossible solve in a way that the audience will understand and enjoy or eventually have to solve the mystery and shift to a new structure to stay fresh (see Westworld which somehow manages to do both). Anthology mystery shows seem to have the right idea. However, what OUAT proved is that when a mystery box has a planned answer, they make for good television with satisfying payoff. 

This isn’t to say OUAT couldn’t have continued on extending the mystery of the original curse into more seasons. I see a world where it could’ve occupied a majority of the second season, with more questions being raised. However, OUAT suffered under network and showrunner fears of repeating mistakes. Drawing out a mystery over multiple seasons hadn’t, so they shied away from that. The premise of OUAT was brilliant and interesting, capitalizing on past trends while also adding a the new element of fairy tales; this brilliant premise and strong mystery was ultimately its downfall. Like many shows that were once Tumblr darlings, OUAT has some of the best seasons of television early on, but now many former fans are embarrassed to have been associated with it. The puzzle was completed too soon, yet fans wanted more content. The result was lazy and lackluster storytelling that have greatly tarnished the initial success and genius of the show. 

[hunkpurveyor]

On a whim I grabbed a 2018 horror anthology off the write-off shelf at work. It’s one of the Ellen Datlow edited ones, and I understand she’s fairly well-reputed, and I’ve read through a bunch of it, a couple of hundred pages, all the while getting next to nothing. I haven’t really been a huge reader of horror so I thought perhaps it might just be a genre of fiction that I can’t get into… It’s strange though, because horror cinema has become so intriguing and compelling to me that I will seek it out - actively going against my nature as someone who is easily and deeply terrified by horror movies. I’m appreciative of the genre’s possibilities but it seems to me that they are fundamentally different in prose. None of the stories here were scary. A slew of monsters and cannibals and zombies and no matter how grotesque the description I read on, unconcerned. You just cannot conjure viscerality and shock in the same way as a film can.

I tried to think back to any books that had genuinely scared me and I’m not sure the two I can think of would qualify as horror: John Darnielle’s Wolf In White Van, and Danielewski’s House of Leaves. The environment of fear in these books is much more existential, almost completely in the case of the former, which is something I think prose does excel at. A book can deal with symbols, can deal with reality in a way a film cannot. Words adhere to meaning in a fundamentally more slippery way than an image does, I think. I can write something (for a trite example) like “fear called my name,” but I can’t film the concept of fear speaking. There’s a passage in the introductory essay to Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red which illuminates this a little:

What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs activate the names. Adjectives come from somewhere else. The word adjective (epitheton in Greek) is itself an adjective meaning “placed on top,” “added,” “appended,” “imported,” “foreign.” Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being.

She goes on to talk about what happens when we undo those latches, when a river can be ‘root silver,’ when a planet is ‘middle night stuck’ and killings are ‘cream black’ - and this is for me the potential of prose for horror.

An author can terrify by beginning to pick at the seams of a slippery reality and unhinge us from the place we thought we were. A film is tied to a physicality, image situates us to an extent - which of course has its own unique power of viscerality but prose is uncoupled from this obligation and can leave us dangling in a void. I’m sure there are people writing this kind of horror fiction but I was disappointed not to find it in this anthology. Cosmic horror as a rule leans closer towards this kind of existential fear but I have still rarely seen it executed in a way that effectively plays with the possibilities of prose. 

An interesting side-note is that there are monster stories very much in the tropey vein of the horror fiction in this anthology that I do find scary: creepypasta. Quality varies wildly of course but I think the context of these stories is crucial for understanding their capacity to scare - reading a reddit post is very different to reading a printed and bound book. Even though I’m fully aware that they are just horror stories posted online there is something about the insistence on the pretension of reality that gives the stories a sense of genuine threat. There is a plausibility to reading a wild story on a social media website, posted by a real person; I do it every day. They also often go out of their way to try and extend the threat into the reader’s (online) world - Smile Dog is an archetypal example of what has been termed elsewhere the ‘cognitohazard,’ something capable of harming you just by sight or by knowledge of it. Such elements didn’t feature at all in the anthology I read, perhaps because the writers rightly thought it would be cheesy to have their monster turn to face the (metaphorical) camera on the final page and say, “and now I am coming for you!” Creepypasta might be more capable of getting away with this kind of thing as a fresher, younger subgenre.

All of which is perhaps to completely disprove my earlier point about the relative strengths and weaknesses of prose for horror and simply describe the fact that “scariness” is extremely contextual and subjective.