New York Tyrant

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Marcelle Heath

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Oct 30, 2010, 9:36:26 PM10/30/10
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I'm loving this issue - My favorite stories thus far are Dark Matter,
The State, and These are Broken, Funny Days. The writing is inventive,
smart, bombastic. What I'm definitely not loving is the fact that
there are only 3 women out of 31 contributors.

Owen Kaelin

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Oct 31, 2010, 11:02:49 AM10/31/10
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Sometimes stuff like that just happens. I'm sure the editors' first interest is publishing what they consider to be the best / most interesting material, and the matter of who ends up sending you their work is not something the editors can control.

Marcelle Heath

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Oct 31, 2010, 2:01:09 PM10/31/10
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I agree that editors don't have control over who ends up sending them work. I also feel that editors, if they so choose, can be proactive in how they represent themselves in terms of diversity and inclusion. I certainly don't want to undermine the writers who are represented here, whose work I greatly admire.



From: Owen Kaelin <owenk...@gmail.com>
To: litma...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 31, 2010 8:02:49 AM
Subject: Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant

Matt Bell

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Oct 31, 2010, 2:04:18 PM10/31/10
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Tyrant has, in the past, done a "Lady Tyrant" issue, which was incredibly well-received and full of very strong work by female writers. So I don't think there's an all-male vibe there, and I don't think women should feel discouraged from submitting by Gian's aesthetic and his editorial style. I think he's represented himself well in this way in the past, even if the current issue seems male-heavy to new readers.

Best,
Matt
www.mdbell.com
How They Were Found

Mike Meginnis

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Oct 31, 2010, 2:12:05 PM10/31/10
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This bothered me too, but I would speculate it has more to do with the style of writing than any sort of hostility to women on Gian's part. My wife/the writer Tracy Bowling participated in what I thought was a good panel about gender imbalances in publishing and her argument was that while calling people out on imbalances was sometimes effective, the most useful thing for many editors to do would be to simply open themselves up a little more aesthetically. This issue seems to focus on a fairly particular set of aesthetic priorities somewhat to its own detriment -- a little more stylistic breadth would probably have solved this problem naturally. Which I think is true for a lot of publications. Notice that there are significant overlaps between the three stories by women, also; it seems like it's more an issue of enjoying a pretty specific thing that men tend to write more often than women.

The issue is good and the writing is strong, so this didn't ruin it for me, but it did bother me more as I read more. I think the imbalance is too big in a magazine too well known with too many contributors for me to feel comfortable explaining it away as luck of the draw.


mike

Marcelle Heath

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Oct 31, 2010, 2:31:21 PM10/31/10
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Thanks for your comment, Matt. I appreciate that NYT has actually done an all women issue and has a track-record for inclusive content. I don't want to categorically judge a journal for one issue that is male-heavy, but since new readers may be unfamiliar with their history, it is editors responsibility to look at what they are putting out there in terms of representation.

From: Matt Bell <mdbe...@gmail.com>
To: litma...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 31, 2010 11:04:18 AM

Subject: Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant

Matt Bell

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Oct 31, 2010, 2:45:13 PM10/31/10
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Personally, I'd rather have editors who focused on putting out the strongest issues they can, based on their own aesthetic rather than outside standards of fairness and representation. I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think that should be the editor's goal when selecting an issue. Also, gender is a lot more complicated than male/female, as are all the other categories one might want to look at "in terms of representation," and I think any attempt at deliberate balancing is going to be wrong-headed at some level, and certainly it's not going to be focused on the art, which is where the editor's time and efforts should be going. As long as Gian and the rest of the staff aren't doing anything to suggest they're purposely excluding certain groups, or making the magazine unfriendly to those groups, then I don't think there's an issue.

Yhanks for hearing me out, and for voicing your own opinion on the matter.

Best,
Matt

Owen Kaelin

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Oct 31, 2010, 2:54:09 PM10/31/10
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I guess this does sort of bring up an interesting question of what a literary journal's social role is or ought to be. As a public force, are a journal's editors obligated by public responsibility to be fairly open and fairly presentational in a liberal society? Or as a private venture are the editors obligated only to their own aesthetic vision?

In public life, I think it's hard to maintain a position of merit-only and still be well-regarded on a broad scale. Editors make all kinds of concessions -- if not to provide a variety of voices then to provide a space for their friends and acquaintances. But... given this, I wonder how many editors -- either male or female -- would consider that added concession for a balance of male/female names to be too much concession?

Just thinking... .

Owen Kaelin

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Oct 31, 2010, 2:56:53 PM10/31/10
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Or... in that sense, does the fact that editors make concessions make it more . . . well, reprehensible, I guess . . . if they don't make concession to making a fair representation of the writing populace in terms of gender?

Mike Meginnis

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Oct 31, 2010, 3:00:47 PM10/31/10
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Matt, I agree with you, and of course you can't be treating things like a check list, especially when things are usually pretty complicated and difficult/somewhat pointless to suss out. (Good luck figuring out which of your contributors are black, gay, disabled, etc. in a way that doesn't seem ugly and stupid.)

But obviously if we're focusing exclusively on putting together the strongest issues we can, and there are significant gender imbalances in the resulting issues, it follows that either a) we have tastes that somehow exclude large portions of one of two genders, b) we haven't looked far enough beyond the obvious sources for contributors, or c) women aren't as good at writing as are men.

In this case I suspect it's a combination of a and b, which I think is true of most literary magazines in the US. We also skew upper class, educated, white, etc. (The discomfort in discussions at my school where I allude to how poor I grew up, or the conditions in which my family lived up until very recently, like for instance the days I lived on small bowls of vanilla yogurt, is pretty incredible.) Presumably this isn't because upper-class educated white people do most of the best writing. NYT isn't the poster-boy for this problem and it's not the definitive discussion to have about this issue, but at the same time waving it away as being entirely an issue of quality control necessarily implies that women aren't good writers, which I know you don't mean to say. The truth is more boring and more difficult at the same time: yes, we have a sexist literary culture that devalues the work of women across the board, and no, no one magazine can be blamed for it, or solve the problem. You do what you can, you apologize for what you can't, you keep working.


mike

Matt Bell

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Oct 31, 2010, 3:06:58 PM10/31/10
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"NYT isn't the poster-boy for this problem and it's not the definitive discussion to have about this issue, but at the same time waving it away as being entirely an issue of quality control necessarily implies that women aren't good writers, which I know you don't mean to say."

Mike I didn't say that, and I don't appreciate the suggestion that I did. I never implied it was an issue of quality, but of aesthetics. Here's what I said: " I'd rather have editors who focused on putting out the strongest issues they can, based on their own aesthetic..."

That's not the same thing as what you're suggesting, and as an editor yourself you know it's not. It's entirely possible to have a story that you would publish in your magazine that I wouldn't in mine, and that have nothing to do with the "quality" of the piece, but rather what kind of writing I want to publish and what kinds I don't, based on qualities completely separate from "good" or "bad" writing. There are stories that are very accomplished that we could all name that wouldn't fit in Tyrant, and Tyrant stories that wouldn't fit in other magazines. Aesthetics and "quality control"--a phrase I would never use to describe the editing process, as if I'm building automobile parts--are completely different issues.

Amber Sparks

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Oct 31, 2010, 3:23:39 PM10/31/10
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I think you also have to look at the pool of submissions--and I think that, unfortunately, it tends to be somewhat to very imbalanced. I know for Emprise Review, we get a lot more men than women submitting, and I know Roxane has made this point in regard to PANK as well. And I remember several months ago when >kill author posted on their blog about how they really really wanted to publish some women but that hardly any were submitting. 

I wonder what the submission ratio of women to men is at Tyrant. That might have a lot to do with it. You can try to be balanced, but if you're getting five stories from men to every one story by a woman, it would be pretty hard to be balanced and still get the stories you want.

Mike Meginnis

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Oct 31, 2010, 3:15:13 PM10/31/10
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Okay -- it looks like I misread you. What you're saying is more interesting than what I read, but it also seems (and keep in mind here, Matt, that I respect you tremendously as a writer and as an editor, as I'm sure you know) potentially more troubling in its implications.

I mean ultimately I agree with you that probably what happened here was that there were a lot of submissions by men and by women, and then the way it happened to work out was that many, many more of the submissions by men happened to fit the aesthetic of the magazine better than did those submissions by women. I actually think this is the case in the vast majority of publications that tend to favor work by men: it's not that they're sexist, it's that their aesthetic is more often attempted and successfully executed by men than by women.

But why would we, as a culture, tend to favor forms and styles where men are more frequently successful, or where women feel in some way discouraged from participation?

Or, in other words, if we find ourselves excluding women for purely aesthetic or stylistic reasons, doesn't that suggest that there is something wrong with our aesthetics or stylistic preferences? 


mike

Owen Kaelin

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Oct 31, 2010, 3:25:04 PM10/31/10
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I suppose if, say, 20% of the submissions to a given journal are from men, then that suggests that a journal's readership is 20% male and 80% female . . . if we're assuming that the great majority of readers are writers... so in that context I suppose it only makes sense that the content reflect this. The problem, of course, is that the readers aren't likely to know the male/female stats on the journal's readership.

Maybe we need a male/female meter for each issue, eh? This season we received... .

...Sorry... .

Amber Sparks

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Oct 31, 2010, 3:35:04 PM10/31/10
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I wouldn't say, though, that submissions reflect the readership, necessarily. Just because you read a magazine doesn't mean you'll submit to it, too. I mean, realistically I understand that a lot of the people who read any given lit mag are probably its submitters, too--but there are certainly a lot of people that read lit mags but never submit, may not even be writers or don't think that particular mag fits their asthetic. (For example: I love NOON--it's one of my favorite magazines and I buy it every year--but I'd never submit because I know my style is one hundred percent wrong for them.) Also, for many, many reasons, I suspect but can't prove that women submit a lot less than men do in general, not just to certain mags. I think that's the larger problem, really--much larger than any ideas I have about how to fix such things.

Marcelle Heath

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Oct 31, 2010, 3:49:44 PM10/31/10
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I agree with Amber here about the number of women submitting vs men (It's highly likely women feel daunted by the landscape) and with many points everyone has made - Matt, I completely concur that gender is much more complicated than female/male and did not mean to attest otherwise. Mike, I really appreciate your comments about gender inequality in publishing. I'd also like to point out that in terms of aesthetics, it is problematic to categorize and/or distinguish female and male writers aesthetic sensibilities. Women writers are devalued because they are women, not because their work is different/lesser than/other etc. from male writers. Or rather, there is a belief that because they are women, their work is therefore x, y, and z and therefore not as good.  
I appreciate the thoughtful and engaging comments here.

Marcelle


From: Amber Sparks <anoell...@gmail.com>
To: litma...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 31, 2010 12:35:04 PM

Patricia Lockwood

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Oct 31, 2010, 4:41:43 PM10/31/10
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Here's the thing about Lady Tyrant, though--putting together an all-woman issue at some point in the past doesn't exempt you from including women in the future. It's almost weirder to me that a magazine would do an all-woman issue and then move on to other issues where the gender balance is so insanely skewed--3 out of 31 is really, really not a good balance-- it almost seems like throwing a sop to these concerns and not actually addressing them. 

I enjoyed the content a great deal, but like Mike, there was a strong awareness of this problem in the back of my mind as I read. It just seems like it shouldn't be happening anymore, especially not in our most cutting-edge litmags.

--- On Sun, 10/31/10, Marcelle Heath <marcel...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Bonnie ZoBell

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Oct 31, 2010, 4:56:35 PM10/31/10
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I’ll stick my neck out and say that I think 31 men writers and 3 women writers seems pretty out of balance. Unless the intended audience is men, but I don’t see any sign of that. I enjoyed reading the issue, but also thought the works were very male oriented, but I like male-oriented fiction, too.

 

Some of you seem to know who the editors are there, but I don’t, and I couldn’t find a masthead when I looked. I also couldn’t find anything out about this when I poked around on the internet, except this, which might indicate all the editors are male:  http://www.amazon.com/New-York-Tyrant-Vol-No/dp/B001K8RJVY  Unless I’m reading it wrong.

 

Some female editors on board might lead to at least some of the editors having a more female sensibility, though I would hope that both male and female readers and writers are open to both sensibilities.

 

Like Patricia, I feel like a “Lady Tyrant” isn’t really solving the problem but implies female writers can’t fit into the magazine on their own.

 

Well, it’s a great magazine and I enjoyed reading it. This one thing did bother me as I was reading it, though.

Owen Kaelin

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Oct 31, 2010, 5:08:30 PM10/31/10
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With the readership -> submitting pool corollary thing, I was sort of trying to simplify things by assuming that the percentage of female readers who submit and the percentage of male readers who submit would be approximately equal. If women are less likely to submit overall than men are, then that can explain a lot. Lots of people like to quote statistics suggesting that women read more than men . . . not that this gives me any idea of how many women vs. men read NYTyrant... . I've never been a fan of statistics, anyhow.

Honestly, though, I've never been comfortable with blanket characterizations of men or women . . . these statements are neither helpful nor fair; too often they aren't accurate at all. Humanity is just too complicated. In the end, I think I prefer to concentrate on the words rather than the name, all problems considered. Full disclosure: Gone Lawn comes out tomorrow with 4 women & 9 men, not including the presentation art (by the excellent Tantra Bensko)... I noticed this only rather late in the process, at which point I'd chosen only 2 women while all the rest were men... and it really bothered me; it still bothers me. I haven't analyzed how many women have submitted vs. how many men have submitted. In the end, while hoping I could find more women to lessen the disparity, my allegiance was to the voices, not the names. I had made a couple of concessions to voices I was less enamored with but still wanted to share because I thought them interesting, but I didn't want to make concessions based on gender. I do not think that this was a poor decision, because the editor's first responsibility, I feel, is to the presentation.

I know that if I wanted to I could also make an argument that an editor's responsibility -- in putting out a public work -- is to the readership. But... I'm one of those people who believes in sticking to one's aesthetic, hoping that an audience will follow. I've never believed that art should court an audience. I know that this does not address the problem of disparity, but . . . in addressing that problem, are we not affecting the work and a perhaps comparatively problematic way?

I guess I'll leave it at that before I've thought this through enough to actually make more sense . . . or something.

One last thing: I agree with Bonnie on the male+female masthead scenario . . . not the case here, unfortunately. Well, you know... I did ask... sigh... .

Oh: truly-last thing. The only way to reasonably address this problem, if you're running at radically tilted ratio in favor of male writers, is to solicit female writers you like. That's actually why GL's first issue is majority female, not that the female-skew was deliberate. I didn't do that for this one.

Bonnie ZoBell

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Oct 31, 2010, 5:31:11 PM10/31/10
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Owen,

 

I didn’t realize you were an editor there. Shows how out of the loop I am.

 

I did want to say that I especially liked Bradford Tice’s “How to Become an American Boy.” I really wanted to write a rebuttal to the long review it received early on HTML Giant, but then the weekend was over. The only time I have to write this sort of thing is on the weekend because of a heavy teaching load.

 

Anyway, I thought the story was beautiful and moving and I loved the dry humor. I’m open to second-person, though I don’t always think it works in something this long. I thought this worked, though. I loved the voice and what the narrator had to tell us. Really liked lots of the other stories, too.

 

I’m trying to figure this all out more. I’m not even sure if this is where we’re supposed to write notes about works, but I’ll get on it faster next time.

 

Thanks for making NY Tyrant available for this. Are you the person that mentioned we could buy them at Faras Bookstore on 30th, or was that somebody else. You’re probably in NY.

 

Best,

Bonnie

Robb Todd

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Oct 31, 2010, 5:59:38 PM10/31/10
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I agree with Matt. I can't really add to what he said, so that is all. Thank you for your time.

Christian Lorentzen

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Oct 31, 2010, 6:37:18 PM10/31/10
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I suggest the imposition on our national literature of the following rules and penalties.

1. Every issue of every American lit mag should have an even number of contributions, half of which should be written by males the other half by females.

2. At the completion of every issue, the number of male-written words and female-written words should be totalled up. The difference between the to totals should be determined, and then whatever gender-written words are overrepresented should be cut accordingly such that there are an equal number of male- and female-written words.

3. Every issue should have an equal number of male and female characters in its stories and poems. Any imbalance can simply be fixed by changing certain characters' genders.

4. To ensure that a piece of writing isn't secretly hypermale or hyperfemale, all stories and poems should be translated into Latin and the genders of all the resultant nouns should be quantified. Any story or poem whose words are more than 40% masculine, feminine, or neuter should never be published.

5. Any publication that violates the above rules should have its funding seized and redistributed to other litmags that abide by them.

6. All editors should undergo annual gender reassignment procedures, so that like Tiresias, they know how feels both ways around.

Xian

Mike Meginnis

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Oct 31, 2010, 6:42:34 PM10/31/10
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Dude, seriously?

James McGirk

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Oct 31, 2010, 6:44:20 PM10/31/10
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Of course, this is standard practice at MFA programs nationwide.

Roxane Gay

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Oct 31, 2010, 6:44:55 PM10/31/10
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I find it fascinating that whenever gender imbalance in publishing is raised as a concern, there is a response of defensiveness or a defense of aesthetic is launched or there is mocking and derision. I think that the gender imbalance of this issue of NY Tyrant, (3/31 is an imbalance no matter how you look at it) is an important topic for discussion. It has nothing to do with the outstanding quality of the magazine. It is not a negative statement about Tyrant's outstanding editor. It's an observation. How did this happen? Why does this continue to happen in so many magazines? 
--
Roxane Gay :: http://www.roxanegay.com
Co-Editor, PANK :: http://www.pankmagazine.com
http://www.indiepublishingwiki.com

Joseph Riippi

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Oct 31, 2010, 6:54:06 PM10/31/10
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Following Robb's lead, I am going to go ahead and just second what Roxane said. 

Robb Todd

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Oct 31, 2010, 7:05:19 PM10/31/10
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If the imbalance is that important, how can you say the quality of the magazine is outstanding? Just asking, not trying to be defensive of derisive, although I guess I also wonder why someone can't disagree on this topic without being lumped into some category that seems dismissive of their opinion. What's wrong with a defense of aesthetic? Sure, Xian was mocking but he is making a point, too. Can't we be inclusive of the way other people express themselves? Again, I'm not trying to be a dick (that's not something I have to try to do), I just wonder how, exactly, we are allowed to disagree.

Roxane Gay

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Oct 31, 2010, 7:19:21 PM10/31/10
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I absolutely think people can disagree about this topic. I look at what Matt said, for example, and disagree about some parts of what he said but still respect his comments, and absolutely understand where they are coming from, particularly being an editor myself. It's nearly impossible to edit for balance. I wouldn't even try to do something like that.  My comment wasn't intended to shut down disagreement but it seems a little offensive to immediately go to the extreme that Christian went to. Maybe that's just me. I've also noticed that there are three general brands of response to this topic and I was speaking more to that than anything else. 

I do think the quality of the magazine is outstanding. I didn't love everything but man, so many stories just blew my head open. I didn't think about the gender imbalance while reading, but when I was done, I happened to be looking at the TOC and  I did notice there were only three women writers and I wondered why that was the case. I guess I wonder why everyone isn't concerned about such things but that isn't the same as saying other perspectives aren't as valid as mine or that this is about ignoring disagreement.  

Mandy Boles

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Oct 31, 2010, 7:40:18 PM10/31/10
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I've enjoyed reading the back and forth on this issue all day. But...I enjoyed Tyrant8 and probably would not have given the gender issue a second thought if not for this discussion.

Sent from my iPhone

Marcelle Heath

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Oct 31, 2010, 7:42:24 PM10/31/10
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I agree with Roxane here - why is there so much defensiveness when this topic is raised? Gender inequity exists. It's a fact, not a theory, not an idea. Women are devalued, either overtly through sexism and misogyny or covertly through silencing and absence. Editors can or cannot be concerned or invested in the project of inclusion. Be true to your vision - absolutely - but also understand your privilege and the rights that come along with that privilege as well as its cost.



From: Roxane Gay <rga...@gmail.com>
To: litma...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 31, 2010 4:19:21 PM

Robb Todd

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Oct 31, 2010, 7:42:40 PM10/31/10
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I would love to hear what Gian has to say about this when he does his interview/chat/whatever-it-is. I guess the reason the imbalance in this issue doesn't really get my hair up is because I don't think Gian would ever exclude someone based on gender. If I did think that, I wouldn't read the magazine.

I just want to read writing I like and that's it, and if the ratio was reversed and I liked the issue as much, I wouldn't care. Also, so many of my favorite writers who happen to be women don't seem to have much trouble getting published, people like xTx and Doc Rox, for example. (Yes, I know what the title of your blog is.) I have never heard xTx tell me that she feels discriminated against. Or am I wrong about this? Do you think you have ever been rejected by a magazine because you are a woman? See, that would piss me off quite bit.

Roxane Gay

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:00:14 PM10/31/10
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I actually don't feel like my gender (or any other aspect of who I am) is an issue where my writing career is concerned. In fact, I would go so far as to say I know my gender is not an issue in terms of my success (relatively speaking) as a writer. When my writing is rejected, I know it isn't the right story for a given market for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with gender. Only once have I ever felt like a story was rejected because I'm a woman and well, shit happens. I know not to send my work to that magazine anymore. I care about this issue because I believe I'm one of the lucky ones, and an exception to the rule. I also think that a lot of my writing is aesthetically such that it can find placement in magazines that are traditionally skewed toward male writers. I do think many women are excluded because of the style or tone of their writing and that's why this subject keeps coming up.

We can definitely ask GIan about this during the chat which will be happening on Wednesday. I'll be sending a note about this on Monday, which is tomorrow.

Robb Todd

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:06:38 PM10/31/10
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So, my last question before I try to do something Halloween-ish outside in the cool fall air. You said that you think women are excluded "because of the style or tone of their writing." Is that the same thing as gender discrimination? And are we only talking about unpaid placements in lit mags or are we talking about publishing (paid + not paid) in general?

Robb Todd

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:06:56 PM10/31/10
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(I guess that was two questions, sorry.)

Christian Lorentzen

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:11:44 PM10/31/10
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Well, by going to an extreme I didn't mean to offend anyone, I just meant to be funny. (I thought my jokes about the gender of nouns in Latin and Tiresias were original, but a lot of people think I have a bad sense of humor; the other day a guy on Twitter said he wanted me to die in a fire.) The thing about this debate is that it is nonliterary. That is, once you start talking about gender balances you're no longer in the special subjective realm of prose and poetry but in the objective quantifiable realm of institutional politics (even if that institution constitutes one guy named Gian [a great guy, btw]). Thus you might as well be talking about how many male and doctors work at the hospital down the road. I pretty much think most of what might be interesting to be said about this stuff was said in Juliana Spahr's "Numbers Trouble" a few years back. As for why "mocking and derision" entered the conversation, that pretty much happens whenever I open my mouth, which is usually why I try to keep it shut. So now shut it I will. I'm sorry if I hurt anybody's feelings.

Xian

dave housley

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:14:23 PM10/31/10
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I think part of this might have something to do with the process. I don't know how they do it at NYT, but at Barrelhouse, we read submissions on a rolling basis and rely heavily on slush (we rarely solicit for the print magazine). We have five fiction editors and we're spread out all over, so we read and do a lot of discussion via email. When something is a clear accept or a clear reject, then the process is fairly easy and fast. When something is in that gray area -- where a maybe somebody loves it and somebody hates it and it's going to require some serious discussion, then we try to save those for one of our semi-regular in-person meetings. So one of the side effects of the way we do things -- and again, I don't know how they do it at NYT -- is that the table of contents is something is developing in little herky jerky movements over a pretty long period of time. It's very much NOT like editing an anthology, where we have all the possible elements in front of us and we have a big picture view of the whole, or what the whole could be, from the get-go. We're assembling on the fly, and obviously an author's sex/race/whatever isn't something that's taken into account in that process, so in a lot of cases we may not even know if we have a situation until pretty close to production. If we got there and looked at the table of contents and saw a serious imbalance (last issue was 18 men, 12 women), then we'd have to figure out what to do. Do we then go out and solicit some women? Only read stuff from women for awhile? I'm not sure what we'd do other than try to keep an eye on what we're accepting and try not to get ourselves in that situation. 

wick...@aol.com

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:16:43 PM10/31/10
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I guest edited two issues of Colored Chalk, here was my breakdown, and I DID solicit a couple people, both men and women:

#6: 16 total, all men, theme was Waking Up Strange
#9: 15 total, 7 women, 8 men, theme was Heaven/Hell

You can't control who submits, and I knew that #6 was a heavier noir-ish theme, so it would get more men, am surprised even now that it was all men. I think that was partly because it was my first guest edit with them, and most of my writer buddies are male. And don't think that because #9 was heaven/hell that I got all of these light, ethereal stories from the women, far from it.

I think that some themes, if you do themed issues, can appeal to men over women, and a magazine can have a certain aesthetic that appeals to more men or women. Can anybody else toss up some recent numbers? I don't have any hard numbers but I'd guess that maybe the total number of people submitting in general is a tad bit more men than women (maybe 60/40?).

I can honestly say that I welcomed the female voices, and even wanted more from women, to the point of nudging or soliciting. I tend to write and edit for darker fiction, but in the last couple of years have seen a lot more women writing dark fiction, which is awesome.

Thoughts?

Mandy Boles

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:20:13 PM10/31/10
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I thought it was funny, but I'm an ass.
--
Mandy Boles | WellReadWife.com | wellre...@gmail.com | Twitter: @wellreadwife
Mailing Address: The Well-Read Wife, 45 Hardy Court #231, Gulfport, MS 39507

Christian Lorentzen

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:23:46 PM10/31/10
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I'm opening my mouth one more time because I have a question. This a response to something Dave said about Barrelhouse.

I am not a lit mag editor (I work at a newspaper), but I pay attention to the lit mag world and have previously worked on lit-ish projects, and it always strikes me as daylight madness when I hear that editors rely mostly on their slush file for submissions. Are your slush piles that amazing? Why not go out and survey the scene of everything that's going on out there and then go after the writers you admire, hassle them, and get their stuff in your mag?

Xian

Roxane Gay

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:25:23 PM10/31/10
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You're a two question asker! I do think its gender discrimination because so often what women write is referred to as "women's writing," while the phrase "men's writing" simply does not exist. I think this is an issue in all areas of publishing but it manifests in different ways in indie publishing versus mainstream publishing. 

Roxane Gay

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:30:30 PM10/31/10
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Christian, we draw 99% of our work at PANK from unsolicited submissions. The submission queue is truly that amazing. The reality is that there are lots and lots of writers in the world. There are plenty of bad writers and the submission queue reflects that but there are also many great writers. We say no to lots of wonderful stuff because we simply cannot publish everything. Some magazines might go out and survey what's going on and pick and choose by solicitation but we have neither the time nor the inclination to do so, and we don't need to either. Because there are so many great writers, I don't think any magazine is hard up for excellent writing. I personally look forward to seeing what comes across the transom next. I also don't want to be limited by what I know and who I can find. I want to be surprised by people I've never heard of. 

dave housley

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:37:32 PM10/31/10
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We really do rely on the slush that much at Barrelhouse. I'm looking at the TOC from our last issue and I think there were only two pieces that came to us in ways other than slush -- one was something from a friend of one of the other editors, and another was an essay I had been badgering Tom Williams to write whenever we had a few beers together. I think the next issue, which we're laying out now, has two stories that came from various editors friends, and one other essay that I had been badgering Jilly Essbaum to write (when not badgering Tom Williams to write his). That's the fiction and nonfiction -- Dan Brady is our poetry editor and he manages that all on his own, so we don't even see poetry until Dan sends us the stuff he's accepted. Some of that might be solicited, but I'm not sure. 

We have solicited stuff in the past, and I do when I edit our online issues (actually solicited two people on this list -- and women to boot!). We don't do much of it, though, because I think we haven't really felt a need to do it. The slush pile has been pretty amazing. Also confounding, but it's been good to us. 

There's also the issue of there being so many of us, which means it's just harder for us to agree about what we publish. If I solicit something from Roxane, then in order for us to publish that piece, there are 4 other dudes who have to like it. I think they would, but I'd also feel like a tool if I had to go back to her and say, well, thanks for sending that along, and good luck placing your work elsewhere. If I was editing it myself (which is the case for the online issues -- we take turns), then I'd probably be more quick to solicit work and really lean on that as a way to build up an issue. 

So I think the big takeaway from all that is that Barrelhouse is incredibly inefficient, but also very democratic. 

Alyson Berman

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:38:49 PM10/31/10
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While I loved the issue, I was also troubled by the lack of women writers. I find that it's a problem in nearly every lit mag I read. I really appreciate that it's being talked about here.

The skewed ratios certainly aren't limited to fiction. One just has to go to a museum or count the numbers in Congress to see that women are underrepresented in nearly every group. Talking about that fact brings attention to it. And hopefully that attention will make editors, readers and writers more aware and ask the hard questions.

I'm a woman and I'm even guilty. I've certainly read more books by men than by women. And the majority of those books have been by Caucasian American men. Knowing that fact and that most of the books I was assigned in school were by that group of people, I actively try and spread the love. Too often work by anyone other than that group (at least in this country) is put in its own little category. As Roxane noted, "women's writing" is an example.

I've never felt discriminated against as a woman when submitting my work, but it doesn't take a genius to look at the numbers and know that something is wrong. It starts with the books we are assigned in grade school and continues through college and grad programs and into the publishing world.

Alyson
--
www.alysonjane.com

Christian Lorentzen

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:48:29 PM10/31/10
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One more question. Do you think there's possibly an inverse relationship between a publications fame and the quality of its slush pile? For instance, The Atlantic Monthly probably gets submissions from anyone in America with a typewriter, so tons and tons of stories by middle-aged amateurs about their "struggle with depression" and roman a clefs by octogenarians about their World War II experiences, penned in retirement? Whereas smaller places are less well known but known by the readers and writers and slush submitters who are right for them. Does this make sense or does it sound like total bullshit?

Xian

lorian long

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Oct 31, 2010, 5:46:08 PM10/31/10
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what does 'male-oriented fiction' even mean?

maybe we could shift the discussion to the women in the works, cuz this issue is full of 'em: brutal mothers, dead wives, ladies with knives, erotic dancers, lots of blood. and girl, what violence. jesus. james o'brien kills it. 

- lorian

Clifford Garstang

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:20:13 PM10/31/10
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Has anyone looked at all the issues of NYT to see if this issue's imbalance is representative? If it isn't representative, is it really cause for concern?
 
 
 


From: litma...@googlegroups.com [mailto:litma...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Marcelle Heath
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 7:42 PM

Roxane Gay

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Oct 31, 2010, 8:59:05 PM10/31/10
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Christian, I definitely think that inverse relationship exists. At Prairie Schooner, which had a massive submission queue, most of the writing was just so not good. People would literally send in their diaries, scribbles on notebooks, dirty typewritten manuscripts. There was a lot of prison correspondence. It was pretty depressing. While we get a fair number of submissions per month (500-600), a good 60% of those submissions come from people who actively read PANK and have a good sense of what we love.

Kevin Lincoln

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Oct 31, 2010, 9:03:46 PM10/31/10
to litma...@googlegroups.com, Christian Lorentzen
Actually, Christian, I think you're probably onto something. I interned for A Public Space this summer, and that involved reading a whole mess of slush pretty regularly. For the most part, it was worthless, and a good number of the pieces I did enjoy came from authors who I happened to recognize. (You could say I was just biased, but you'll have to trust my saying that I wasn't.) Unfortunately, I only had a couple of those discovering-revelation type experiences all summer, despite the fact that what APS publishes is generally high-quality.�

Now the caveats: naturally, I trust Roxane's saying she does find gold in the slush, and PANK reflects that�clearly the slush is good if that's where they're getting what they publish, because what they publish is good. And I've never worked with a small magazine, really, so I can't speak to that. And I was an intern, which means I didn't have the access or perception of scope as an editor would. But it seems like the true new-and-naive, or the weekend warriors, probably submit mainly to the names in lights. I mean, just thinking from my experience of learning about the literary world, I knew the top names first and the smaller mags more as I was submersed; if you're never submersed, though, then you're options are limited when you're sending out your tales of marital infidelity and, well, pre-marital infidelity, and precocious child narrators so on so forth.

On 10/31/10 8:48 PM, Christian Lorentzen wrote:
One more question. Do you think there's possibly an inverse relationship between a publications fame and the quality of its slush pile? For instance, The Atlantic Monthly probably gets submissions from anyone in America with a typewriter, so tons and tons of stories by middle-aged amateurs about their "struggle with depression" and roman a clefs by octogenarians about their World War II experiences, penned in retirement? Whereas smaller places are less well known but known by the readers and writers and slush submitters who are right for them. Does this make sense or does it sound like total bullshit?

Xian

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 8:38 PM, Alyson Berman <abe...@gm.slc.edu> wrote:
While I loved the issue, I was also troubled by the lack of women writers. I find that it's a problem in nearly every lit mag I read. I really appreciate that it's being talked about here.

The skewed ratios certainly aren't limited to fiction. One just has to go to a museum or count the numbers in Congress to see that women are underrepresented in nearly every group. Talking about that fact brings attention to it. And hopefully that attention will make editors, readers and writers more aware and ask the hard questions.

I'm a woman and I'm even guilty. I've certainly read more books by men than by women. And the majority of those books have been by Caucasian American men. Knowing that fact and that most of the books I was assigned in school were by that group of people, I actively try and spread the love. Too often work by anyone other than that group (at least in this country) is put in its own little category. As Roxane noted, "women's writing" is an example.

I've never felt discriminated against as a woman when submitting my work, but it doesn't take a genius to look at the numbers and know that something is wrong. It starts with the books we are assigned in grade school and continues through college and grad programs and into the publishing world.

Alyson


�

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 8:00 PM, Roxane Gay <rga...@gmail.com> wrote:
I actually don't feel like my gender (or any other aspect of who I am) is an issue where my writing career is concerned. In fact, I would go so far as to say I know my gender is not an issue in terms of my success (relatively speaking) as a writer. When my writing is rejected, I know it isn't the right story for a given market for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with gender. Only once have I ever felt like a story was rejected because I'm a woman and well, shit happens. I know not to send my work to that magazine anymore. I care about this issue because I believe I'm one of the lucky ones, and an exception to the rule. I also think that a lot of my writing is aesthetically such that it can find placement in magazines that are traditionally skewed toward male writers. I do think many women are excluded because of the style or tone of their writing and that's why this subject keeps coming up.

We can definitely ask GIan about this during the chat which will be happening on Wednesday. I'll be sending a note about this on Monday, which is tomorrow.
On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 6:42 PM, Robb Todd <ro...@robbtodd.com> wrote:
I would love to hear what Gian has to say about this when he does his interview/chat/whatever-it-is. I guess the reason the imbalance in this issue doesn't really get my hair up is because I don't think Gian would ever exclude someone based on gender. If I did think that, I wouldn't read the magazine.

I just want to read writing I like and that's it, and if the ratio was reversed and I liked the issue as much, I wouldn't care. Also, so many of my favorite writers who happen to be women don't seem to have much trouble getting published, people like xTx and Doc Rox, for example. (Yes, I know what the title of your blog is.) I have never heard xTx tell me that she feels discriminated against. Or am I wrong about this? Do you think you have ever been rejected by a magazine because you are a woman? See, that would piss me off quite bit.
On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 7:19 PM, Roxane Gay <rga...@gmail.com> wrote:
I absolutely think people can disagree about this topic. I look at what Matt said, for example, and disagree about some parts of what he said but still respect his comments, and absolutely understand where they are coming from, particularly being an editor myself. It's nearly impossible to edit for balance. I wouldn't even try to do something like that. �My comment wasn't intended to shut down disagreement but it seems a little offensive to immediately go to the extreme that Christian went to. Maybe that's just me. I've also noticed that there are three general brands of response to this topic and I was speaking more to that than anything else.�

I do think the quality of the magazine is outstanding. I didn't love everything but man, so many stories just blew my head open. I didn't think about the gender imbalance while reading, but when I was done, I happened to be looking at the TOC and �I did notice there were only three women writers and I wondered why that was the case. I guess I wonder why everyone isn't concerned about such things but that isn't the same as saying other perspectives aren't as valid as mine or that this is about ignoring disagreement. �


On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 6:05 PM, Robb Todd <ro...@robbtodd.com> wrote:
If the imbalance is that important, how can you say the quality of the magazine is outstanding? Just asking, not trying to be defensive of derisive, although I guess I also wonder why someone can't disagree on this topic without being lumped into some category that seems dismissive of their opinion. What's wrong with a defense of aesthetic? Sure, Xian was mocking but he is making a point, too. Can't we be inclusive of the way other people express themselves? Again, I'm not trying to be a dick (that's not something I have to try to do), I just wonder how, exactly, we are allowed to disagree.
On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 6:44 PM, Roxane Gay <rga...@gmail.com> wrote:
I find it fascinating that whenever gender imbalance in publishing is raised as a concern, there is a response of defensiveness or a defense of aesthetic is launched or there is mocking and derision. I think that the gender imbalance of this issue of NY Tyrant, (3/31 is an imbalance no matter how you look at it) is an important topic for discussion. It has nothing to do with the outstanding quality of the magazine. It is not a negative statement about Tyrant's outstanding editor. It's an observation. How did this happen? Why does this continue to happen in so many magazines?�

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 5:37 PM, Christian Lorentzen <clore...@gmail.com> wrote:
I suggest the imposition on our national literature of the following rules and penalties.

1. Every issue of every American lit mag should have an even number of contributions, half of which should be written by males the other half by females.

2. At the completion of every issue, the number of male-written words and female-written words should be totalled up. The difference between the to totals should be determined, and then whatever gender-written words are overrepresented should be cut accordingly such that there are an equal number of male- and female-written words.

3. Every issue should have an equal number of male and female characters in its stories and poems. Any imbalance can simply be fixed by changing certain characters' genders.

4. To ensure that a piece of writing isn't secretly hypermale or hyperfemale, all stories and poems should be translated into Latin and the genders of all the resultant nouns should be quantified. Any story or poem whose words are more than 40% masculine, feminine, or neuter should never be published.

5. Any publication that violates the above rules should have its funding seized and redistributed to other litmags that abide by them.

6. All editors should undergo annual gender reassignment procedures, so that like Tiresias, they know how feels both ways around.

Xian


5:31 PM, Bonnie ZoBell <bzob...@gmail.com> wrote:

Owen,

�

I didn�t realize you were an editor there. Shows how out of the loop I am.

�

I did want to say that I especially liked Bradford Tice�s �How to Become an American Boy.� I really wanted to write a rebuttal to the long review it received early on HTML Giant, but then the weekend was over. The only time I have to write this sort of thing is on the weekend because of a heavy teaching load.

�

Anyway, I thought the story was beautiful and moving and I loved the dry humor. I�m open to second-person, though I don�t always think it works in something this long. I thought this worked, though. I loved the voice and what the narrator had to tell us. Really liked lots of the other stories, too.

�

I�m trying to figure this all out more. I�m not even sure if this is where we�re supposed to write notes about works, but I�ll get on it faster next time.

�

Thanks for making NY Tyrant available for this. Are you the person that mentioned we could buy them at Faras Bookstore on 30th, or was that somebody else. You�re probably in NY.

�

Best,

Bonnie

�

From: litma...@googlegroups.com [mailto:litma...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Owen Kaelin
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 2:08 PM


To: litma...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant

�

With the readership -> submitting pool corollary thing, I was sort of trying to simplify things by assuming that the percentage of female readers who submit and the percentage of male readers who submit would be approximately equal. If women are less likely to submit overall than men are, then that can explain a lot. Lots of people like to quote statistics suggesting that women read more than men . . . not that this gives me any idea of how many women vs. men read NYTyrant... . I've never been a fan of statistics, anyhow.

Honestly, though, I've never been comfortable with blanket characterizations of men or women . . . these statements are neither helpful nor fair; too often they aren't accurate at all. Humanity is just too complicated. In the end, I think I prefer to concentrate on the words rather than the name, all problems considered. Full disclosure: Gone Lawn comes out tomorrow with 4 women & 9 men, not including the presentation art (by the excellent Tantra Bensko)... I noticed this only rather late in the process, at which point I'd chosen only 2 women while all the rest were men... and it really bothered me; it still bothers me. I haven't analyzed how many women have submitted vs. how many men have submitted. In the end, while hoping I could find more women to lessen the disparity, my allegiance was to the voices, not the names. I had made a couple of concessions to voices I was less enamored with but still wanted to share because I thought them interesting, but I didn't want to make concessions based on gender. I do not think that this was a poor decision, because the editor's first responsibility, I feel, is to the presentation.

I know that if I wanted to I could also make an argument that an editor's responsibility -- in putting out a public work -- is to the readership. But... I'm one of those people who believes in sticking to one's aesthetic, hoping that an audience will follow. I've never believed that art should court an audience. I know that this does not address the problem of disparity, but . . . in addressing that problem, are we not affecting the work and a perhaps comparatively problematic way?

I guess I'll leave it at that before I've thought this through enough to actually make more sense . . . or something.

One last thing: I agree with Bonnie on the male+female masthead scenario . . . not the case here, unfortunately. Well, you know... I did ask... sigh... .

Oh: truly-last thing. The only way to reasonably address this problem, if you're running at radically tilted ratio in favor of male writers, is to solicit female writers you like. That's actually why GL's first issue is majority female, not that the female-skew was deliberate. I didn't do that for this one.

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 4:56 PM, Bonnie ZoBell <bzob...@gmail.com> wrote:

I�ll stick my neck out and say that I think 31 men writers and 3 women writers seems pretty out of balance. Unless the intended audience is men, but I don�t see any sign of that. I enjoyed reading the issue, but also thought the works were very male oriented, but I like male-oriented fiction, too.

�

Some of you seem to know who the editors are there, but I don�t, and I couldn�t find a masthead when I looked. I also couldn�t find anything out about this when I poked around on the internet, except this, which might indicate all the editors are male:� http://www.amazon.com/New-York-Tyrant-Vol-No/dp/B001K8RJVY� Unless I�m reading it wrong.

�

Some female editors on board might lead to at least some of the editors having a more female sensibility, though I would hope that both male and female readers and writers are open to both sensibilities.

�

Like Patricia, I feel like a �Lady Tyrant� isn�t really solving the problem but implies female writers can�t fit into the magazine on their own.

�

Well, it�s a great magazine and I enjoyed reading it. This one thing did bother me as I was reading it, though.

�

�

�

From: litma...@googlegroups.com [mailto:litma...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Patricia Lockwood
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 1:42 PM
To: litma...@googlegroups.com


Subject: Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant

�

Here's the thing about�Lady Tyrant, though--putting together an all-woman issue at some point in the past doesn't exempt you from including women in the future. It's almost weirder to me that a magazine would do an all-woman issue and then move on to other issues where the gender balance is so insanely skewed--3 out of 31 is really, really not a good balance-- it almost seems like throwing a sop to these concerns and not actually addressing them.�

�

I enjoyed the content a great deal, but like Mike, there was a strong awareness of this problem in the back of my mind as I read. It just seems like it shouldn't be happening anymore, especially not in our most cutting-edge litmags.


--- On Sun, 10/31/10, Marcelle Heath <marcel...@yahoo.com> wrote:


From: Marcelle Heath <marcel...@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant
To: litma...@googlegroups.com
Date: Sunday, October 31, 2010, 3:49 PM

I agree with Amber here about the number of women submitting vs men (It's highly likely women feel daunted by the landscape) and with many points everyone has made - Matt, I completely concur that gender is much more complicated than female/male and did not mean to attest otherwise. Mike, I really appreciate your comments about gender inequality in publishing. I'd also like to point out that in terms of aesthetics, it is problematic to categorize and/or distinguish female and male writers aesthetic sensibilities. Women writers are devalued because they are women, not because their work is different/lesser than/other etc. from male writers. Or rather, there is a belief that because they are women, their work is therefore x, y, and z and therefore not as good.��

I appreciate the thoughtful and engaging comments here.

Marcelle

�


From: Amber Sparks <anoell...@gmail.com>
To: litma...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 31, 2010 12:35:04 PM
Subject: Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant

I wouldn't say, though, that submissions reflect the readership, necessarily. Just because you read a magazine doesn't mean you'll submit to it, too. I mean, realistically I understand that a lot of the people who read any given lit mag are probably its submitters, too--but there are certainly a lot of people that read lit mags but never submit, may not even be writers or don't think that particular mag fits their asthetic. (For example: I love NOON--it's one of my favorite magazines and I buy it every year--but I'd never submit because I know my style is one hundred percent wrong for them.) Also, for many, many reasons, I suspect but can't prove that women submit a lot less than men do in general, not just to certain mags. I think that's the larger problem, really--much larger than any ideas I have about how to fix such things.

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Owen Kaelin <owenk...@gmail.com> wrote:

I suppose if, say, 20% of the submissions to a given journal are from men, then that suggests that a journal's readership is 20% male and 80% female . . . if we're assuming that the great majority of readers are writers... so in that context I suppose it only makes sense that the content reflect this. The problem, of course, is that the readers aren't likely to know the male/female stats on the journal's readership.

Maybe we need a male/female meter for each issue, eh? This season we received... .

...Sorry... .

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 3:15 PM, Mike Meginnis <mike.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

Okay -- it looks like I misread you. What you're saying is more interesting than what I read, but it also seems (and keep in mind here, Matt, that I respect you tremendously as a writer and as an editor, as I'm sure you know) potentially more troubling in its implications.

�

I mean ultimately I agree with you that probably what happened here was that there were a lot of submissions by men and by women, and then the way it happened to work out was that many, many more of the submissions by men happened to fit the aesthetic of the magazine better than did those submissions by women. I actually think this is the case in the vast majority of publications that tend to favor work by men: it's not that they're sexist, it's that their aesthetic is more often attempted and successfully executed by men than by women.

�

But why would we, as a culture, tend to favor forms and styles where men are more frequently successful, or where women feel in some way discouraged from participation?

�

Or, in other words, if we find ourselves excluding women for purely aesthetic or stylistic reasons, doesn't that suggest that there is something wrong with our aesthetics or stylistic preferences?�

�

�

mike

�

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 1:06 PM, Matt Bell <mdbe...@gmail.com> wrote:

"NYT isn't the poster-boy for this problem and it's not the definitive discussion to have about this issue, but at the same time waving it away as being entirely an issue of quality control necessarily implies that women aren't good writers, which I know you don't mean to say."

Mike I didn't say that, and I don't appreciate the suggestion that I did. I never implied it was an issue of quality, but of aesthetics. Here's what I said: " I'd rather have editors who focused on putting out the strongest issues they can, based on their own aesthetic..."

That's not the same thing as what you're suggesting, and as an editor yourself you know it's not. It's entirely possible to have a story that you would publish in your magazine that I wouldn't in mine, and that have nothing to do with the "quality" of the piece, but rather what kind of writing I want to publish and what kinds I don't, based on qualities completely separate from "good" or "bad" writing. There are stories that are very accomplished that we could all name that wouldn't fit in Tyrant, and Tyrant stories that wouldn't fit in other magazines. Aesthetics and "quality control"--a phrase I would never use to describe the editing process, as if I'm building automobile parts--are completely different issues.

�

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Mike Meginnis <mike.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

Matt, I agree with you, and of course you can't be treating things like a check list, especially when things are usually pretty complicated and difficult/somewhat pointless to suss out. (Good luck figuring out which of your contributors are black, gay, disabled, etc. in a way that doesn't seem ugly and stupid.)

�

But obviously if we're focusing exclusively on putting together the strongest issues we can, and there are significant gender imbalances in the resulting issues, it follows that either a)�we have tastes that somehow exclude large portions of one of two genders, b)�we haven't looked far enough beyond the obvious sources for contributors, or c)�women aren't as good at writing as are men.

�

In this case I suspect it's a combination of a and b, which I think is true of most literary magazines in the US. We also skew upper class, educated, white, etc. (The discomfort in discussions at my school where I allude to how poor I grew up, or the conditions in which my family lived up until very recently, like for instance the days I lived on small bowls of vanilla yogurt, is pretty incredible.) Presumably this isn't because upper-class educated white people do most of the best writing. NYT isn't the poster-boy for this problem and it's not the definitive discussion to have about this issue, but at the same time waving it away as being entirely an issue of quality control necessarily implies that women aren't good writers, which I know you don't mean to say. The truth is more boring and more difficult at the same time: yes, we have a sexist literary culture that devalues the work of women across the board, and no, no one magazine can be blamed for it, or solve the problem. You do what you can, you apologize for what you can't, you keep working.

�

�

mike

�

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 12:45 PM, Matt Bell <mdbe...@gmail.com> wrote:

Personally, I'd rather have editors who focused on putting out the strongest issues they can, based on their own aesthetic rather than outside standards of fairness and representation. I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think that should be the editor's goal when selecting an issue. Also, gender is a lot more complicated than male/female, as are all the other categories one might want to look at "in terms of representation," and I think any attempt at deliberate balancing is going to be wrong-headed at some level, and certainly it's not going to be focused on the art, which is where the editor's time and efforts should be going. As long as Gian and the rest of the staff aren't doing anything to suggest they're purposely excluding certain groups, or making the magazine unfriendly to those groups, then I don't think there's an issue.

Yhanks for hearing me out, and for voicing your own opinion on the matter.

Best,
Matt

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 2:31 PM, Marcelle Heath <marcel...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Thanks for your comment, Matt. I appreciate that NYT has actually done an all women issue and has a track-record for inclusive content. I don't want to categorically judge a journal for one issue that is male-heavy, but since new readers may be unfamiliar with their history, it is editors responsibility to look at what they are putting out there in terms of representation.


From: Matt Bell <mdbe...@gmail.com>
To: litma...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 31, 2010 11:04:18 AM


Subject: Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant


Tyrant has, in the past, done a "Lady Tyrant" issue, which was incredibly well-received and full of very strong work by female writers. So I don't think there's an all-male vibe there, and I don't think women should feel discouraged from submitting by Gian's aesthetic and his editorial style. I think he's represented himself well in this way in the past, even if the current issue seems male-heavy to new readers.

Best,
Matt
www.mdbell.com
How They Were Found

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 2:01 PM, Marcelle Heath <marcel...@yahoo.com> wrote:

I agree that editors don't have control over who ends up sending them work. I also feel that editors, if they so choose, can be proactive in how they represent themselves in terms of diversity and inclusion. I certainly don't want to undermine the writers who are represented here, whose work I greatly admire.

�


From: Owen Kaelin <owenk...@gmail.com>
To: litma...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, October 31, 2010 8:02:49 AM
Subject: Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant


Sometimes stuff like that just happens. I'm sure the editors' first interest is publishing what they consider to be the best / most interesting material, and the matter of who ends up sending you their work is not something the editors can control.

On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 9:36 PM, Marcelle Heath <lunapar...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm loving this issue - My favorite stories thus far are Dark Matter,
The State, and These are Broken, Funny Days. The writing is inventive,
smart, bombastic. What I'm definitely not loving is the fact that
there are only 3 women out of 31 contributors.

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Amber Sparks

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Oct 31, 2010, 10:29:29 PM10/31/10
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I echo everything Roxane said below. At Emprise Review we get just about everything from slush--and I find myself having to turn down tons of great stuff because we have such a surplus of good writing. I'm always crazy impressed and really grateful. 

Sent from my iPhone

Owen Kaelin

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Oct 31, 2010, 11:29:37 PM10/31/10
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Anyhow, it's nice to finally see a really lengthy, interesting discussion on something.

Amber Sparks

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Oct 31, 2010, 11:06:28 PM10/31/10
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You know, I'm probably going to catch major flack for this, but what the hell. The new issue of Emprise Review comes out tomorrow and I was reviewing the galleys and noticed to my kind-of chagrin that it skews pretty male. And I was thinking, why is that? That's happened before, too. And it's definitely that I don't get as many submissions from women, true, true. But I think it's also something else. It's the fact that more of the male writers who submit are willing to take risks, and not enough of the women are. I get a lot of very nice, lovely, quiet stories from women, which is great if that's your thing but it's definitely not my thing. I like writing that pushes boundaries, that's willing to take a leap, be violent or aggressive or in-your-face, go someplace bizarre. And for whatever reason, it seems like more men are doing that kind of writing than women. Not to say that there aren't some fantastic women out there doing risky, edgy writing like Roxane or xTx or Bonnie or Lindsay Hunter or Amelia Gray or Paula Bomer or Lydia Davis or Lydia Millet or Joyelle McSweeney or Jac Jemc or Deb Olin Unferth or Ethel Rohan or Frank Hinton or Noy Holland or Kate Bernheimer or Cami Park or Kathy Fish or Lily Hoang or Molly Gaudry or Amy King or etc etc etc...there are so many great women writers I'd be up all night naming them. I am fierce in my love for great women writers. But I do think more of the female part of the slush pile is just too cautious, too careful for me. There are a lot of total misfires and just total fails on the dude side, don't get me wrong--and a whole lot more carpet-bomb submitters sending me space robot cowboy adventure stories. But I think this is why I tend to end up with more men than women in my TOC sometimes--the risk taking. I'd rather see something that's a little flawed but fascinating, rather than something perfectly polished but ordinary. And I wonder if that's not an issue for other editors, too.

And I don't think it's a sexist thing to point out, but I think it is a problem for women in life in general. Way fewer women run for public office because they don't want to run the risk of losing. Fewer women take the risks needed to get the top jobs, raises, etc at corporations. Not sure if this is hard-wired, societal, both, and obviously this is a way more difficult question than we can answer here in our LMC--but just thought I'd be really honest and throw it out there.

Mike Meginnis

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Nov 1, 2010, 8:53:34 PM11/1/10
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I think there's probably some truth to this and there likely always will be. Men tend to be statistically distributed in very strange ways in a lot of places, disproportionately represented at both at the top and the bottom of a given curve, apparently for reasons that seem to be related to what you're saying: men have biological and social imperatives to take risks, to stand out from the crowd, is the thinking. Most evolutionary psychology is bunk, of course. But there are suggestive examples in this case. (For instance, you find more wealthy men than women, which is largely explainable by way of sexism, but you also find way more men that are total abject failures sleeping on the street, which obviously isn't.)

But I wonder if this doesn't also serve as evidence for what I was hinting at, perhaps too subtly, in a previous e-mail: that our aesthetics as writers and readers are often excessively masculine. This is a tricky argument to make, especially in the context of NYT, and especially because NYT feels like further evidence; why is it that there is such an obsession with "sharp" writing? With violence? With "muscular" prose? Why do we constantly talk about great stories as if they assaulted us physically, sexually, and etc.? And isn't this tendency naturally exaggerated by the challenges of slush, which will tend to desensitize us to less aggressive stories?

Has anyone else who reads slush noticed that sexual assault is currently one of three primary experiences a woman can have in a story? Or at least that the threat of sexual assault seems surprisingly common? Have you noticed how many women are clearly portrayed as sluts and whores who ought to be ashamed? Brian Conn (Birkensnake) has mentioned to me the misogynist tendencies of slush. I've begun to see these as the misogynist tendencies of literature more generally less skillfully obscured. 

It's not that these priorities inherently militate toward a male skew in publishing, because of course a) it's not the only thing that affects how and what we publish and b) plenty of women write what is, for the purposes of this conversation, "masculine" prose. Masculinity and femininity are of course a choice. However, I do feel as if our understanding of what makes a good story is, if we discuss the terms and consider them carefully, clearly gendered in their underpinnings and their implications. I feel I am as guilty of this as anyone. And I'm wondering if other people see it this way too. One thing I've noticed is that it seems as if my own more "masculine" stories tend to do better, in terms of finding publication, than my "feminine" ones. (True story: the computer programs that tend to successfully identify gender from writing samples ALWAYS say I'm a woman.)  (How do I decide which stories of mine are more masculine and which are more feminine? It's hard to say -- part of it is structure, I think. Part of it is the style of sentence. Part of it is who knows.) 

Alyson Berman

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Nov 1, 2010, 9:30:00 PM11/1/10
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I think the argument that men take more risks than women and that's why there are so many more men published is a difficult argument to make. In part because you'd also have to extend that argument, or another, to people of color as well. Not only are many lit mags publishing largely male writers, but also Caucasian males. That hasn't really been addressed in this thread. We've stuck mostly to a conversation on gender. I don't know enough about each writer in this issue of NY Tyrant to give a head count, but I'd bet the vast majority are not POC.  This doesn't mean I'm calling anyone sexist or racist but I do think it's important to recognize the numbers and ask the hard questions. Questions I don't pretend to have solid answers to.
--
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Mike Meginnis

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Nov 1, 2010, 9:33:06 PM11/1/10
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I don't think anyone is arguing that's the primary cause of imbalances here. Maybe I misunderstood Amber, though.


mike

Christian Lorentzen

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Nov 1, 2010, 9:40:18 PM11/1/10
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A four-person committee should be appointed to write a Men Are from Venus Women Are from Saturn of Contemporary Experimental Lit. I nominate Roxane, Lily Hoang, Tao Lin, and Josh Cohen. They can get a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation for it.

Xian

Clifford Garstang

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Nov 1, 2010, 9:41:51 PM11/1/10
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Interesting claim. I wonder if it's true.
 
Random choice of litmags from the pile on my desk waiting to be read: new issue of Missouri Review. Four short stories: one by a white male, one by a white female, one by an African American female, one by an Asian American female. Suites of poems by 3 writers, all white: 2 women, one man. Nonfiction: essays by 3 white men; an interview with a woman novelist; a feature about a woman photographer; a review by a woman of a book about poetry by women.
 
 


From: litma...@googlegroups.com [mailto:litma...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Alyson Berman
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 9:30 PM

Amber Sparks

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Nov 1, 2010, 9:49:19 PM11/1/10
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No, no, so sorry if I made it seem like that was a primary cause. Absolutely not, and I want to emphasize that I absolutely do think there are many causes of the imbalance, some I can guess at, some I think I know (like submission rates) and some I couldn't even begin to guess at. I was just pointing out one thing that strikes me, particularly, when editing Emprise. And I also want to make it clear I'm definitely not putting the onus on women or anything--I was clumsy but wanted to address Lorien's point about what is "male" about male writing, at least the way we see it? Because I think Mike, that you raise some really good points and perhaps we've been sort of conditioned to like the things we like and find others boring because those wilder, more experimental pieces tend to come from men and we're conditioned to approve of what men do as the norm, what women do as segmented (or what people of color do, LGBT/queer people do, etc.) I didn't mean to say that it's good or bad, but violence and aggression is definitely more interesting to me and I'm sure I've been socialized that way but it's what I like sort of regardless and what many editors seem to like and what do we do about that, if anything? Should we do anything? 

I agree, though, Mike, that there is a lot of violent and disturbing shit directed at women in fiction these days, and some of it I'm honestly so disturbed by that I won't put my own name when I reject it. I'm afraid this may be a person who really, really hates women, wants to do them harm. It scares me. And it's really funny that we've started talking about that, because I actually wrote the NYTyrant piece in reaction to a piece of slush I read. I wanted to give a woman the best kind of power over a woman-hater--and have her really enjoy it, not be ashamed at all. She's not a "good" character, but she's one I think you can sort of root for, hopefully regardless of your sex.

Tim Horvath

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Nov 1, 2010, 10:11:22 PM11/1/10
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This is an interesting discussion, but I have to admit that based on my own experience I don't see male writers taking notably more risks than women writers. Obviously, what it means to take a risk is itself thorny to define, and I think it depends on many factors, including what's in vogue in a given moment in literary history. For instance, writing like Carver was risky once upon a time and now the main risk you take by doing so is in being lumped in with Raymond Carver. There are risks of content (maybe aggression and violence and candid sexuality always fulfill this category) and those of form, and sometimes the two are paired together, sometimes not. Ultimately, I think when we see a work as risky, it has more to do with this pairing of form and content than anything else, such that the literary equivalent of a slasher film or snowboarding video, while it may stoke the adrenaline, winds up being tiresome and not-the-least-bit risky. The greater risks come in restraint, or in emotional violence or the reaction to it, the recoil or echo, right? Or in some interplay, the push and pull dynamics of action and restraint, of familiar and unfamiliar. There are all kinds of risks in understatement, and the risks of playing with coherence or with narrative direction (you know all this, I realize). And I guess ultimately I'd call into serious question whether any of these risks can be said to be more masculine or feminine.


=

Mike Meginnis

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Nov 1, 2010, 10:11:50 PM11/1/10
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I think that's sort of the irony though, isn't it? I mean again, respect and love to all concerned and etc., and I don't mean to say violence in fiction is wrong, and I don't mean to say violence against any given gender in fiction is wrong, because it's fiction and because my fiction has a lot of violence, some of it against women. But there's a sort of arms race mentality, I feel, where we continually reinforce that fiction needs to be LIKE THIS, in this case sharp, violent, damaged. I'm honestly beginning to think that indie lit's answer to mainstream literary fiction's aesthetic of Spanish moss (see my blog to know what this means) has become the aesthetic of knives. Cold, hard, brutal. Fiction and poetry about damaging bodies, often especially the bodies of women, are doing well right now, and that story fit in at NYT largely because it was participating in that strategy of fiction.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I like NYT and its aesthetic but I would really like to see more stuff that is a) not boring, and b) not participating so heavily in this particular strategy of writing fiction. But when people decide not to be boring, or not to publish boring, they seem to return perhaps too often to a few particular wells. Fiction should be about the body and destruction and creation, and the aesthetics thereof, and so on, but I feel as if I'm being shown the same body over and over again. I want other bodies. I'm kind of getting tired of these. 

More Kelly Link for everyone is I guess my solution.

Amber Sparks

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Nov 1, 2010, 10:24:10 PM11/1/10
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Yes! More Kelly Link, absolutely!  And I would argue too that she takes risks and goes interesting places with her fiction, as does Lydia Davis in the understated vein Tim mentions. That understated thing, I would say, is the appeal of NOON and its writers. A very different vibe than Tyrant, but both going someplace new and thus both terrific, to me.

So it doesn't have to be violent. I love wordplay and introspection of a Davis, too. But I think sharp, maybe dangerous, are good words for what I like--whether it's xTx or Davis or Blake Butler. I guess that's what I mean by risky. Trying something new, or writing something that feels a little sharp, a little dangerous, yes, I guess like a knife. Though not necessarily cold. Not at all.

Roxane Gay

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Nov 1, 2010, 10:31:09 PM11/1/10
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I would say that its not that women don't take risks but that you have a preference for a certain kind of writing that is edgy and, as you note, a little dangerous. I think it's dangerous to label women's writing as safe writing. I think that there are risks in writing quiet stories when at times it seems that many writers are taking risks not as a natural progression of their writing but because they feel that the zeitgeist calls for edginess. I cannot tell you how many cover letters come my way where writers, and now that I think about it, women, say that they tried to make their story as edgy as possible and unfortunately, that edginess is forced and didn't serve the story well at all. Sometimes, a quiet story is a great story. I enjoy quiet stories as much as I enjoy the more "risk-taking" writing. I would almost say that there is a pressure for writers to push the proverbial envelope, to do violence to their characters, to shock and titillate and when writing does not do these things, we think of it as safe and lesser when such writing is, simply, different.  

Amber Sparks

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Nov 1, 2010, 11:02:14 PM11/1/10
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You're right, Roxane. Quiet is not necessarily boring or bad. And violence or forced edginess can be more boring. 

It would be interesting for the LMC to look at a magazine that seems to prefer those quiet stories, I think. 

wick...@aol.com

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Nov 1, 2010, 11:25:45 PM11/1/10
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More Kelly Link for sure. I think there are just as many women taking risks. I'm reviewing books for The Nervous Breakdown now, and just got done reading some of the most amazing work. The Physics of Imaginary Objects by Tina May Hall, Daddy's by Lindsay Hunter, Museum of the Weird by Amelia Gray, and lots more to come. TONS of risk taking going on there by women. What I'd really be curious to see is, as far as the slush, what are the percentages coming IN the door. I don't think there is much we can do if there are 80% men, and 20% female submissions to any particular issue or magazine or online site.

Robb Todd

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Nov 1, 2010, 11:28:06 PM11/1/10
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I have grown a little tired of writing that is only trying to shock me. Sometimes it seems people (espeically on the Internet) are asking, "What's the most outrageous thing I can say for the sake of being outrageous?" I heard a piece in a writing class this summer about a woman sweeping up dust and she finds a spider in the dust and crushes it between her fingers. It was amazing. Quietly written, but the way it was written was full of tension and insanity. Maybe Joseph Riippi remembers the piece I'm referring to.

Brad Green

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Nov 1, 2010, 11:38:45 PM11/1/10
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Well, out of a very quick survey of the first page of the PANK submishmash queue, I count the following:

Male: 11

Female: 7

Unknown: 2

This was a sampling of twenty. Gender was determined based on actual his/her references in the BIO and secondarily, the name. The two unknowns have names that don't point in a particular direction and no reference to gender in the BIO.  I wager that a larger sampling would likely break down along similar lines.  

Best,

Brad Green

Owen Kaelin

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Nov 2, 2010, 9:05:22 AM11/2/10
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I agree with Roxane that there can be great power in quietness... even in gentle stories. You can write daring stories in a quiet way or a gentle way.

Some of the daring female writers on my shelf: Sarah Kane, Jena Osman, Thalia Field, Sara Greenslit, Kari Edwards, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Rosmarie Waldrop, Jeanette Winterson, Unica Zürn, Yoko Tawada, Gertrude Stein, Jane Unrue, Nathalie Sararaute, Rachilde, Marie Redonnet, Stacey Levine, Margarita Karapanou,
Kathy Acker, Ingeborg Bachmann, Alicia Borinski, Leonora Carrington, Hélène Cixous, Kim Chinquee, Shelley Jackson, Carla Harryman, Madeline Gins, Diamela Eltit, Lucy Ellmann... .

...Of course, there're also a whole bunch of great, daring female authors I could list whose books I don't own.

...And, of course, this doesn't get into emerging writers who don't have a book out. That area is nearly a bottomless pit of talent and intrigue.

But, admittedly, and you can probably get this impression from the list: I own notably more books by male writers than by female writers.

So... I'm not sure if this says that more men than women are writing the kind of stuff that enchants me, or if it says rather that more men actively seek to get their work published than women do. But I think I'm putting my money on the former.

Why don't we have any female Arno Schmidts, for example? We have Gertrude Stein, but Stein is not at all like Schmidt.

Of course, there is the reality that the further you go back in time the fewer known female writers you find... . That does help skew things.


Marcelle Heath

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Nov 2, 2010, 9:57:55 PM11/2/10
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So many wonderful women and men writers out there  - I've really enjoyed this lively discussion. I've been thinking a lot about aesthetic sensibility and inventiveness in terms of style/form. A story can be really inventive stylistically but totally retrograde in terms of content (reinforcing dominant, oppressive power structures) & conversely, a story can be pretty traditional in terms of narrative structure and completely subversive in terms of content.



Sent: Tue, November 2, 2010 6:05:22 AM

paul griner

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Nov 3, 2010, 11:44:03 AM11/3/10
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All right, at the risk of being a pain in the ass, I'd like to ask a question that has nothing to do with this current discussion (which I think is an important one.  I'm teaching a graduate creative writing workshop right now, and I referred to this discussion in class last night, encouraging my students to go online and read it and contribute).  But my question is this: I love a lot of the pieces in this issue (my favorite is Amber Sparks', which I find funny and spooky and horribly believable), but I'm totally confused by Andy Devine's Apartment City.  Can anybody help me out here?  

This question comes out of something else that's been a theme in the graduate class, especially when we read and discuss poetry, but also when covering experimental fiction: what does the reader owe the writer, and the writer the reader?

Joseph Young

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Nov 3, 2010, 12:05:20 PM11/3/10
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as said in his bio, he writes 'alphabetical' fiction. i've heard that explained a couple ways, first that the fiction is written and then alphabetized and second that it is written alphabetized in the first place. 'owe' seems like a funny word to me all of a sudden. the contract between a writer and reader is always voluntary, and so neither seems to owe the other at all. you either enter the contract or you don't, case by case, right? all writer/reader relationships depend on some level of exchange and in every case, not all elements of the text or its apprehension are given over. even in a 'traditional' story, some elements of the text or subtext or alt-text or whatever are withheld from the reader by the writer and some aprehension or understanding is not granted the writer by the reader--the expectation of full communication/exchange is always thwarted. with andy divine, those witholdings are probably a lot more evident.
--
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www.verysmalldogs.blogspot.com
www.BaltimoreInterview.com

David Peak

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Nov 3, 2010, 12:15:27 PM11/3/10
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Hi Paul,

I'll take a stab at this, because I've been thinking about it lately.

Devine's stuff, what little of it I've read, seems to be most interesting in its approach. The idea of tackling narrative a single word at a time is taken literally. It's so methodical and organized that it's actually a mess. I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to put something like together, but then again, I've never tried anything even remotely similar to what he's doing.

What strikes me when I'm reading Devine is the way I fill in the gaps while following the alphabetized order of words, how certain words pop out and hint at deeper story (something I'm most likely projecting all on my own) while others go unnoticed. There's a new flux every time I approach one of his pieces. A delving or exploration of story or form or character. The words he chooses, when strung together, mean nothing. Individually they all mean something. Where the reader goes from there depends entirely on their imagination and their willingness to get lost.

When it comes to readers and writers "owing" each other something. I wouldn't go down that route. The reader owes the writer nothing, and vice versa--unless it's genre fiction and the rules are clearly laid out. I've never read or parsed through or interpreted an Andy Devine story for more than five minutes, yet I've gotten more mental stimulation out of it than almost anything else printed in the Tyrant.

But it's interesting to think of readers owing something to the writer. I know I feel that way when I read Gary Lutz and William Gass, like I owe it to them to read slowly, to re-cover passages over and over, because clearly they put a lot of effort into it.

--- On Wed, 11/3/10, paul griner <paul....@gmail.com> wrote:

Travis Kurowski

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Nov 3, 2010, 1:55:13 PM11/3/10
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Thanks Joseph and David. I'm still stumped by Apartment City, and can't really 'read' it in the traditional sense---I find myself instead skimming, sort of the way I do some of Chris Ware's more complicated comics (like some of the Building Stories series from the NYTimes magazine) or Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project. I guess I am glad that the work exists--very glad, as someone very interested in our relationship to place, and especially to places in cities.

It also led me to this review of Devine's book WORDS by j. a. tyler---a book which seems to include the NYTyrant piece in it: http://www.rumble.sy2.com/stories/words_tyler.html

And this interview at big other---with a nice excerpt: http://bigother.com/2010/08/22/the-big-other-interview-1023-andy-devine/

A commenter said Devine's writing reminded him of the infinite monkey theorem. I was thinking it reminded me of William Gass's idea that every word we write creates/limits what will come after.

Amber Sparks

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Nov 3, 2010, 2:11:40 PM11/3/10
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Travis, I think the skimming is the way I read it, too. Very fast, all the way through. I don't get too hung up on the alphabetization, since I feel like that's just an exercise, a game--very Oulipo--to give Devine a way of structuring the piece and producing the work.

I like the Chris Ware analogy--I read Chris Ware sort of the same way sometimes. To me, Devine's stuff definitely exists in a different place than some of the other pieces in Tyrant--it's sort of floating up there in the ether, an intellectual exercise, mental stimulation. It's nice diversion from the dark nature of some of the other work, to me. But I'm not always the sharpest crayon in the box, so I may have missed something and it may actually be the darkest work of all.

Oh, and this may or may not be bad form, but I'm a midwesterner and I can't resist the nice, it's busting through, so: thank you, Paul, for the kind words about my story! Much appreciated.

paul griner

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Nov 3, 2010, 2:34:09 PM11/3/10
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Well, if it's bad form, I'm all for it.  As a transplanted New Englander who's now sort of midwestern-southern (Louisville), I could use a lot more nice.  And it's a really interesting piece.  even more so after reading your comments on how it came about.  

But thanks Travis, Joseph and David (Amber too); all good suggestions, and nice to have links to interviews.  

Tom DeBeauchamp

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Nov 3, 2010, 9:07:32 PM11/3/10
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Sent from my iPhone

Adam Robinson

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Nov 4, 2010, 3:41:53 PM11/4/10
to LMC: Literary Magazine Club
I can't read it either. I usually just look at a page for a while and
free associate. I don't think there is a right or wrong way to
approach Devine's writing, but it does pay off whenever I get into it.

On Nov 3, 2:11 pm, Amber Sparks <anoellespa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Travis, I think the skimming is the way I read it, too. Very fast, all the
> way through. I don't get too hung up on the alphabetization, since I feel
> like that's just an exercise, a game--very Oulipo--to give Devine a way of
> structuring the piece and producing the work.
>
> I like the Chris Ware analogy--I read Chris Ware sort of the same way
> sometimes. To me, Devine's stuff definitely exists in a different place than
> some of the other pieces in Tyrant--it's sort of floating up there in the
> ether, an intellectual exercise, mental stimulation. It's nice diversion
> from the dark nature of some of the other work, to me. But I'm not always
> the sharpest crayon in the box, so I may have missed something and it may
> actually be the darkest work of all.
>
> Oh, and this may or may not be bad form, but I'm a midwesterner and I can't
> resist the nice, it's busting through, so: thank you, Paul, for the kind
> words about my story! Much appreciated.
>
> On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 1:55 PM, Travis Kurowski <traviskurow...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > Thanks Joseph and David. I'm still stumped by Apartment City, and can't
> > really 'read' it in the traditional sense---I find myself instead skimming,
> > sort of the way I do some of Chris Ware's more complicated comics (like some
> > of the Building Stories series from the NYTimes magazine) or Walter
> > Benjamin's Arcades Project. I guess I am glad that the work exists--very
> > glad, as someone very interested in our relationship to place, and
> > especially to places in cities.
>
> > It also led me to this review of Devine's book WORDS by j. a. tyler---a
> > book which seems to include the NYTyrant piece in it:
> >http://www.rumble.sy2.com/stories/words_tyler.html
>
> > And this interview at big other---with a nice excerpt:
> >http://bigother.com/2010/08/22/the-big-other-interview-1023-andy-devine/
>
> > A commenter said Devine's writing reminded him of the infinite monkey
> > theorem. I was thinking it reminded me of William Gass's idea that every
> > word we write creates/limits what will come after.
>
> >> --- On *Wed, 11/3/10, paul griner <paul.gri...@gmail.com>* wrote:
>
> >> From: paul griner <paul.gri...@gmail.com>
>
> >> Subject: Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant
> >> To: litma...@googlegroups.com
> >> Date: Wednesday, November 3, 2010, 11:44 AM
>
> >> All right, at the risk of being a pain in the ass, I'd like to ask a
> >> question that has nothing to do with this current discussion (which I think
> >> is an important one.  I'm teaching a graduate creative writing workshop
> >> right now, and I referred to this discussion in class last night,
> >> encouraging my students to go online and read it and contribute).  But my
> >> question is this: I love a lot of the pieces in this issue (my favorite is
> >> Amber Sparks', which I find funny and spooky and horribly believable), but
> >> I'm totally confused by Andy Devine's Apartment City.  Can anybody help me
> >> out here?
>
> >> This question comes out of something else that's been a theme in the
> >> graduate class, especially when we read and discuss poetry, but also when
> >> covering experimental fiction: what does the reader owe the writer, and the
> >> writer the reader?
>
> >> On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 9:57 PM, Marcelle Heath <marcellehe...@yahoo.com<http://mc/compose?to=marcellehe...@yahoo.com>
> >> > wrote:
>
> >> So many wonderful women and men writers out there  - I've really enjoyed
> >> this lively discussion. I've been thinking a lot about aesthetic sensibility
> >> and inventiveness in terms of style/form. A story can be really inventive
> >> stylistically but totally retrograde in terms of content (reinforcing
> >> dominant, oppressive power structures) & conversely, a story can be pretty
> >> traditional in terms of narrative structure and completely subversive in
> >> terms of content.
>
> >> ------------------------------
> >> *From:* Owen Kaelin <owenkae...@gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=owenkae...@gmail.com>
>
> >> *To:* litma...@googlegroups.com<http://mc/compose?to=litma...@googlegroups.com>
> >> *Sent:* Tue, November 2, 2010 6:05:22 AM
>
> >> *Subject:* Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant
>
> >> I agree with Roxane that there can be great power in quietness... even in
> >> gentle stories. You can write daring stories in a quiet way or a gentle way.
>
> >> Some of the daring female writers on my shelf: Sarah Kane, Jena Osman,
> >> Thalia Field, Sara Greenslit, Kari Edwards, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Rosmarie
> >> Waldrop, Jeanette Winterson, Unica Zürn, Yoko Tawada, Gertrude Stein, Jane
> >> Unrue, Nathalie Sararaute, Rachilde, Marie Redonnet, Stacey Levine,
> >> Margarita Karapanou, Kathy Acker, Ingeborg Bachmann, Alicia Borinski,
> >> Leonora Carrington, Hélène Cixous, Kim Chinquee, Shelley Jackson, Carla
> >> Harryman, Madeline Gins, Diamela Eltit, Lucy Ellmann... .
>
> >> ...Of course, there're also a whole bunch of great, daring female authors
> >> I could list whose books I *don't* own.
>
> >> ...And, of course, this doesn't get into emerging writers who don't have a
> >> book out. That area is nearly a bottomless pit of talent and intrigue.
>
> >> But, admittedly, and you can probably get this impression from the list: I
> >> own notably more books by male writers than by female writers.
>
> >> So... I'm not sure if this says that more men than women are writing the
> >> kind of stuff that enchants me, or if it says rather that more men actively
> >> seek to get their work published than women do. But I think I'm putting my
> >> money on the former.
>
> >> Why don't we have any female Arno Schmidts, for example? We have Gertrude
> >> Stein, but Stein is not at all like Schmidt.
>
> >> Of course, there is the reality that the further you go back in time the
> >> fewer known female writers you find... . That does help skew things.
>
> >> On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 11:38 PM, Brad Green <glbe...@gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=glbe...@gmail.com>
> >> > wrote:
>
> >> Well, out of a very quick survey of the first page of the PANK submishmash
> >> queue, I count the following:
>
> >> Male: 11
>
> >> Female: 7
>
> >> Unknown: 2
>
> >> This was a sampling of twenty. Gender was determined based on actual
> >> his/her references in the BIO and secondarily, the name. The two unknowns
> >> have names that don't point in a particular direction and no reference to
> >> gender in the BIO.  I wager that a larger sampling would likely break down
> >> along similar lines.
>
> >> Best,
>
> >> Brad Green
> >>http://about.me/bradgreen
>
> >> On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 10:25 PM, <wicker...@aol.com<http://mc/compose?to=wicker...@aol.com>
> >> > wrote:
>
> >>  More Kelly Link for sure. I think there are just as many women taking
> >> risks. I'm reviewing books for The Nervous Breakdown now, and just got done
> >> reading some of the most amazing work. The Physics of Imaginary Objects by
> >> Tina May Hall, Daddy's by Lindsay Hunter, Museum of the Weird by Amelia
> >> Gray, and lots more to come. TONS of risk taking going on there by women.
> >> What I'd really be curious to see is, as far as the slush, what are the
> >> percentages coming IN the door. I don't think there is much we can do if
> >> there are 80% men, and 20% female submissions to any particular issue or
> >> magazine or online site.
>
> >>  -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Mike Meginnis <mike.megin...@gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=mike.megin...@gmail.com>
>
> >> To: litma...@googlegroups.com<http://mc/compose?to=litma...@googlegroups.com>
> >> Sent: Mon, Nov 1, 2010 9:11 pm
> >> Subject: Re: [LMC] New York Tyrant
>
> >>  I think that's sort of the irony though, isn't it? I mean again, respect
> >> and love to all concerned and etc., and I don't mean to say violence in
> >> fiction is wrong, and I don't mean to say violence against any given gender
> >> in fiction is wrong, because it's fiction and because my fiction has a lot
> >> of violence, some of it against women. But there's a sort of arms race
> >> mentality, I feel, where we continually reinforce that fiction needs to be
> >> LIKE THIS, in this case sharp, violent, damaged. I'm honestly beginning to
> >> think that indie lit's answer to mainstream literary fiction's aesthetic of
> >> Spanish moss (see my blog to know what
>
> ...
>
> read more »

Alex Cook

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Nov 4, 2010, 4:06:07 PM11/4/10
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I like the idea of Devine's piece as conceptual art; I thought more about the process of doing it rather than the result. Part of me hopes that Devine has software that just rips through a text and generates the final assessment and part of me hopes that he does it meticulously by hand with index cards.

A similar tack I enjoyed more as a finished product was the index at the end of Tao Lin's "Richard Yates" in that I felt the narrative was so close to the details, you could probably reverse engineer the novel from the index. It went off in poetic directions, like with the cold listing of facial expressions.

facial expressions
    alert  117, 184
    amused   190
    angry   68
    bored   63
    calm    68
    concerned  84, 99, 187
    ...

Alex V. Cook

Tom DeBeauchamp

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Nov 4, 2010, 4:26:16 PM11/4/10
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It's definitely a different sort of reading experience. It's interesting. Once upon a time it seemed that a lot of people were really interested in taking the structures of different media (a symphony for example with section headers like scherzo and gigue) and using them to form words. Devine does a similar thing, but rather than using an art form, he's using an index, or an actuarial breakdown. If it wasn't so much data entry, I'd pull a pivot chart to visually understand the volumes, the weights of each word in the distribution.

While being much different, and much more narrative, and much much much more emotionally relevant, Ken Sparling's "what can the world do for elrond" has a few similarities. Not an index, its sentences and paragraphs do seem to stand alone. The same sort of clientside processing is required from the reader to make the story storylike.

Sent from my iPhonee

Tom DeBeauchamp

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Nov 4, 2010, 4:39:43 PM11/4/10
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Another thing about Andy Devine's story is that it's representative of a fairly new sort art whose artistic satisfaction is based on both an audience's inability and disinterest in "completing it." Other examples include much of Morton Feldman's work, that "then we ate whale" poem by Tao Lin, "into the dusk charged air" by ashbery, blogs, soap operas. Some ulterior satisfaction is reached because there is more to get. It's inexhaustible. The stamina of the piece is greater than the stamina of the reader. In samurai movie fashion we're delighted to have been bested by such a strong and clever (or at least persistent) opponent. It's the buffet school of art.  Of course, there's a John Henry perspective you can take. The machines allow us to become incomprehensible to ourselves.

Sent from my iPhone

Amber Sparks

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:27:41 PM11/4/10
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I love the idea of using incredibly mundane forms to create vivid art. One of my favorite examples of that is Matt Bell's Index of How Our Family Was Killed--which is not in NYTyrant but is in his new book and I highly recommend it. When I read Devine's piece I was reminded of that story, though Devine's is much more abstract in nature.

Sent from my iPhone

Joseph Riippi

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:31:56 PM11/4/10
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You can find Matt's awesome story on Web Conjunctions, here: http://www.conjunctions.com/webcon/bell09.htm

It's really quite worth the read. Love the way it contracts and expands. 
--
Joseph Riippi

www.josephriippi.com


Roxane Gay

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:34:37 PM11/4/10
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It's interesting, Amber, that you bring up How Our Family Was Killed Amber. I first read that in Conjunctions and it's a story I've never forgotten. It is in my top 10. There are similarities in that Matt and Andy both use farm to create something artistic but for me, the crucial difference is that there is far more function to Matt's use of form. There's a narrative in his index, a story I find compelling and memorable. I have to admit I struggled mightily with Andy's piece. I appreciate the obsessive quality of it and the experiment in the piece but I don't get it. I don't get it at all. It is not something I will remember. 

I am also interested in the recent question here, of how to read the piece, or any piece for that matter. I had no idea how to read Apartment City. I'm pretty rigid in my reading habits. I start at the beginning of something and work my way to the end but that doesn't work here. When I read it from beginning to end, I felt irritation more than anything else. Was it Devine's goal to disrupt natural patterns of reading? I don't know. I don't get it.

I am loving this conversation.

Cheers,
Roxane

giancarlo ditrapano

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:40:39 PM11/4/10
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I wanted that piece from Bell but slept on it and I think Conjunctions took it. It's a great piece!

Travis Kurowski

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:40:35 PM11/4/10
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Me too, Roxane. Thanks for setting all this up. Looking forward to the chat tonight with Giancarlo. Thanks Joseph for the link to "Index of How Our Family Was Killed." Excited to read it. Makes me also interested to think more about NYTyrant functions as a descendant (in a literary influence way) of Conjunctions. Will try to remember to bring this up tonight.

Joseph Riippi

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:44:44 PM11/4/10
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I agree that I have no idea how to read Andy's pieces, but I remember his pieces better than a lot of stories precisely because of that. What I like is that he uses the basic elements of fiction (words, to allude to his book), but lets a different rule govern their flow than what almost all other writers let rule, that being something I very generally would call "narrative." Matt used an index in his story, but as Roxane pointed out, there's still a narrative there for us to follow. What Devine gives us is a written work governed instead by the alphabet, or a sort of index (as in Apartment City), and I find that incredibly interesting and disarming.

Even though I don't come away necessarily with an image or a story that sticks with me (like with Matt's "Index...") I do come away with that feeling of being somewhat disarmed. And if part of what we hope fiction does when we approach it is to affect and excite, then it succeeds for me.

That being said, in this sense, Devine is very much a (forgive the phrase) "writer's writer."


On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Roxane Gay <rga...@gmail.com> wrote:



--
Joseph Riippi

www.josephriippi.com


Matt Bell

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:46:10 PM11/4/10
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Thanks for all the kind words, folks. Means a lot to me.

As for the Devine: I think the best way to read it is aloud, reading the words in order, each the number of specified times.

So the beginning would be: "1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2nd Street, 2nd Street, 2nd Street, 2nd Street, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3..." and so on. That's the only way I can find to truly uncompress it, and read it as its notation seems to suggest it should be read.

That's the best way for me, anyway.

wick...@aol.com

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Nov 4, 2010, 5:55:42 PM11/4/10
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yes, that's a fantastic story, was so jealous to read that, loved the form

Tom DeBeauchamp

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Nov 4, 2010, 6:02:27 PM11/4/10
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I agree with you, Matt. I stumble on ", (2436x)" though. As I read through it, I thought it would make an interesting chorale piece. Maybe each letter having it's own voice, all the voices speaking simultaneously. Or else each word could have its appropriate number of voices and be read in order. 



Sent from my iPhone

Matt Bell

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Nov 4, 2010, 6:04:19 PM11/4/10
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Tom, you just have to pause slightly two thousand four hundred and thirty-six times in a row. I can't believe you're balking at such a simple task!

dan wickett

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Nov 4, 2010, 6:25:30 PM11/4/10
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Gian,

You should simply tell Bell you'll never publish him in NYT until he sends you a better story!

Then email me right after you accept one so I know to be excited about a story better than that one coming soon.

Dan Wickett

--- On Thu, 11/4/10, giancarlo ditrapano <ditr...@nytyrant.com> wrote:

giancarlo ditrapano

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Nov 4, 2010, 7:02:27 PM11/4/10
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I kind of already have said that, didn't I Matt?

Matt Bell

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Nov 4, 2010, 7:04:36 PM11/4/10
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I think that's a deal we have going, yes.

This is maybe too inside ball, so I hope you'll forgive me for saying it in this oddly public forum, but one of the things that makes me respect the Tyrant the most is the string of rejections I've received since "Index." I love that you really want to see a story that makes you feel not just the way that one did, but something even greater, and that you're willing to pass on my stories until you get one that feels that way to you. That's a great thing, and makes me feel that when I do have a story--hopefully, someday--that it'll really mean a lot to me.

giancarlo ditrapano

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Nov 4, 2010, 7:13:15 PM11/4/10
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Nice! I'll keep it up then.







Giancarlo DiTrapano
NY TYRANT BOOKS
676A 9th Ave. #153 NYC 10036









Stephen Hoban

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Nov 4, 2010, 10:32:50 PM11/4/10
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Did anyone else feel like they could pick up a narrative from
Apartment City if they spent enough time on it?

Do you think it makes a difference if this was a once-conventional
story that was then alphabetized (or ripped through with software, as
Alex says) or if it was actually written alphabetically (as Devine
said in that big other interview Travis linked to)?

More than with other kinds of experimental stories, when I read it I
get a sense of loss. From the feeling that there once was a story that
the author had to destroy to make this alphabetical list, and the
whole meaning was irretrievably destroyed along with it.

Everyone may have already picked up on this, but I feel like he wants
us to figure out bits of it. I can guess that the story took place in
New York in the days after the 2003 blackout (35x; 16th of August) or
at least after some summer blackout. It takes place or has something
to do with clothes (127x), maybe a clothing store (54x). I also think
it revolves around a family (22x) rather than romance (zero) or love
(zero) or sex (zero). But I can't make much more headway than that.

It made me think of, on the one hand, ancient poetry fragments, which
from today's POV are all about lost meaning, and on the other David
Markson, since it feels like you're doing detective work with index
cards.

Mark West

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Nov 6, 2010, 3:14:53 PM11/6/10
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The talk about Devine's story revolving around loss/indexing is interesting. The story itself - in what it asks of you - reminds me a bit of "Tender Buttons", where Stein makes the construction of meaning so difficult that you come to the conclusion that the reading aloud of it, the sound of the words, the performance of it, is the piece, and the words on the page aren't really it at all, they're merely an index - in the sense of a record of something else somewhere else.

But at the same time I'm reminded of Cubism or something - an attempt to describe/picture something from all angles, in all its "being" at the same time. also like cubism, that it asks you to construct the thing it has described so perfectly - you have to "complete" it or something...

Alex Cook

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Nov 8, 2010, 10:01:36 AM11/8/10
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Re. Devine

This story came up on Boing Boing this morning
Cut-up artist alphabetizes the newspaper
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/11/08/cut-up-artist-alphab.html

I understand its not the same thing - the piece in the story is more of Fluxus-style nihilist game art piece, like I don't get the feeling that one is supposed to try and read this alphabetized newspaper; rather the artistic merits are more sculptural, architectural and procedural. But because Alphabet City is text in a journal full of other engaging texts, one treats it as a text (I'm not saying its not a text) whereas if it was on a gallery wall or in some sort of book art context, I'd likely view it differently.  It's interesting how the arena decides the game being played.

Alex
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