July 2009
1 post
The Future!
So you’ve probably noticed we’re not too active on the ol’ tumblr anymore. Since we’ve had the main site up and running, and an active facebook account, we’ve found that, unfortunately, there’s not a lot left over for this tumblr site to do, dear as it is to our hearts. So, while we’ll be keeping the site up for oldtimes’ sake, if you’re...
June 2009
3 posts
Someone read this and tell me whether I should...
This. BTW it’s real long.
Today's haul from Myopic Books*
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel The Firework-Maker’s Daughter by Philip Pullman Don’t Tell Me the Truth About Love by Dan Rhodes Gold by Dan Rhodes In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood Found by June Oldham
*I think someone angered Leonard, the cat that lives in Myopic, because everywhere in the bookstore smelled of cat...
May 2009
26 posts
Bookninja just pointed me to Mine via a writeup on Slate and my mind is currently being blown.
One thing I really like about the internet
is that you can ask it questions. For example, I just asked the internet “What is exciting?” and got a response.
And I have to admit, an explosion sailing on the ocean would be pretty dang exciting.
Hello! It's Everyone Read "The Rise of...
Sample? No problem:
The first thing I did was make a mistake. I thought I had understood capitalism, but what I had done was assume an attitude — melancholy sadness — toward it. This attitude is not correct. Fortunately your letter came, at that instant. “Dear Rupert, I love you every day. You are the world, which is life. I love you I adore you I am crazy about you. Love,...
Boy-Scouts-affiliated program teaches our youth to... →
I’m pretty sure real life is in the process of becoming a Pynchon novel. Money quote? Young Cathy Noriega, 16, on firearms:
“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”
We WERE
there.
But you can’t see us in any of the pictures.
You can see our friend.
But not these friends; they didn’t come.
The Pilcrow Lit Fest is going on
and we couldn’t be happier. Tonight!:
Quickies! Reading Series Innertown Pub 1935 W. Thomas (map) A Chicago flash fiction reading series featuring complete stories read in 5 minutes or less. No excerpts, no cheating. Hosted by Mary Hamilton and Lindsay Hunter. No cover, open to the public, 21+.
Re: Great Literature is no longer necessary, k thx...
There was possibly some—possible more than some?—irony in my previous post. Far be it for us at Artifice discount devices, literary or otherwise. Though in certain cases* I’ll take the tweet…
*Jane Austin
jacobsknabb:
If great literature is merely great due to plot, then no, nothing is lost. After all, that’s the plot Jane Austin gave us put most succinctly.
Ergo:...
Great Literature is no longer necessary, k thx...
Via Bookninja:
Great literature latest to be fed like mafia informant into Twitter’s language woodchipper
My favorite?
janeaustin: Woman meets man called Darcy who seems horrible. He turns out to be nice really. They get together.
Bonus points if you can make a convincing argument that anything is actually left out of that particular abrigment.
What is up, Mile-High City?
When it happens, we will be there.
Fun times.
Read this.
Then look at this picture.
And you’ll glimpse my soul.
On Cover Letters
from the folks at PANK Magazine:
We are often surprised by how many cover letters simply state, “I am surviving.”
With surprising frequency, we get cover letters where writers explain the significance of their creative work and/or why they write because they want us to understand without equivocation that which they have to say.
The one constant is that the cover letters we read are sincere...
Knock knock. Who's there? Orange.
Orange you glad we’re not a fake pharmaceutical journal?
We love Chris Ware.
Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.
We just got called out, so this might be useful.
If you want to submit to Artifice Magazine, it will be useful to know how to do so!
Visit our submission guidelines here.
Or read them, here. Note that there are two parts: WHAT WE WANT and SUBMISSION GUIDELINES. They are equally important.
WHAT WE WANT
Artifice is looking for previously-unpublished stories, prose works, and poems, pieces that are (as the name implies) aware of their own...
From one writer to another
Lorrie Moore reviews Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme.
Stuart Dybek and Yusef Komunyakaa
will be reading on May 13th, at the School of the Art Institute, here in Chi-town. Details can be found here.
April 2009
23 posts
Turn that frown upside down
This kid took my day from “sad” to “rad” in 2 minutes and 28 seconds.
In which I keep wanting to start posts with "In...
Thanks a lot, This Recording.
An Honest to Goodness Manifesto
It’s not often you run across a manifesto these days. But here’s one over at Wag’s Revue. Not sure that I agree with them entirely, but it’s fun to read “These wrongs must be redressed…”
I look forward to future issues from these guys. Preferably with added editorial essays.
How to start a literary magazine, part n+2
Get a small-business bank account. Go to the bank on a Saturday morning, when it’s just you and the bank security guard and like one teller. Speak with a polite if somewhat rambling lady about your small-business needs. Watch as she searches through the computerized list of small-business categories for magazine, and fails to find it: “Precision machinery? Ball bearings? Small...
Friends
Artifice Magazine is now friends with James Frey on Facebook. But it’s impossible to know if it’s the real James Frey.
It sounds like the womanizer machine broke down...
What the kids are up to these days.
Also: “you, you, you know I don’t like those personal pronouns.”
How to start a literary magazine, part n+1
Write and post a call for submissions:
ARTIFICE MAGAZINE announces an open call for submissions for its upcoming Issue 1, to be published in January 2010. Submissions will be accepted year-round online at http://www.artificemag.com/submissions/ Artifice Magazine is looking for previously-unpublished stories, prose works, and poems, pieces that are (as the name implies) aware of their own...
Just Ordered
Raymond Federman’s Double or Nothing, because it seemed like it’d be a good thing to have around the Artifice Offices (also a decent filing cabinet would be nice, but baby steps, people). If you’re curious about the book but not yet willing to take the Amazon plunge, Google Books has (what appears to be) most of the text up.
See also: Larry McCaffrey’s Re-Double or...
Flash Reading, Hull House
If any Chicagoites are interested, there’s a joint University of Illinois-Chicago/School of the Art Institute reading tonight, at 6 pm, at the Hull House (that’s 800 S. Halsted, for those of you who aren’t Jane Adams fanboys). 12 readers! Five minutes each! Sheer madness! Artifice Magazine will be there, representing.
So I Was Kind of Embarrassed
about the whole For Godot thing, that is, for not having heard about it last October, in the midst of the scandal. How, I asked myself, over and over, could I have not noticed this? It’s not like I don’t keep up with the literary community. I do. I swear. And yet here’s this big thing, involving at least a couple of people I know, and I didn’t even notice.
And then I...
A Little More on Forgodot
I quote:
Announcing the release of Issue 1, edited by Stephen McLaughlin and Jim Carpenter. Now available here as a 3,785-page PDF (3.9 MB).
You Too Can Not Write a Brilliant Poem for...
This link is to the comments section of Forgodot issue #1. Here’s the game, in a nutshell: Forgodot is an online journal publishing poems that are not by various famous & not-so-famous poets. If that doesn’t quite make sense to you, well, check the link, yo.
And seriously, to everybody over there at Forgodot, you have a special place in my heart. I plan to spend most of...
And this one
The Takeaway Shows
Good stuff
The Takeaway Shows
Artifice Magazine Highly Approves of Joss Whedon
and is excited to see someone writing interesting things about Dollhouse. Thanks, Alex Golub!
I went to college for a reason.
And it may be so that I can claim I went to the same college as these guys. Not a great video, but you can close your eyes.
Yeti from Like Bells on Vimeo.