Today, Split Lip Magazine published my review of Gabe Montesanti’s prose poetry piece “The Signs.”
If you have a moment, please check out my review, but if you REALLY have a moment, please read Gabe Montesanti’s very unique poem, which Okay Donkey published back in April of this year.
Also, I would like to thank everyone over at Split Lip for their help and support, especially Daniel, who guided and edited my piece. It was a lotta fun, and enjoyed the experience.
I’m still kicking around the online lit magazine idea. I haven’t made any plans yet, just thinking it over. I did ask one editor a question about submissions, but other than that, haven’t made any progress on it.
But I thought today would be as good as any day to put out some ideas and see if any of them stick.
First, I still don’t have a name for the thing, and knowing me, it will be the last thing I do. What I have been thinking about is calling the project an “online lit zine.” Calling it a “magazine” sounds too ambitions and serious. Now, calling it a “journal” is a bit too pretentious, even for me. And then there is “zine” which feels a bit closer to the spirit of what I am attempting; which at this moment is not a whole lot, but “zine” does leave the door open to being funky and eccentric. Also, the first professional thing I ever got published was in a Dallas music zine, so it’s like an ode to my beginnings.
I have also been thinking about the format of the thing, and publication in general. My first idea was to publish a flash piece a week, you know, and email it out to subscribers – like most online magazines do. I would like to get away from publishing an issue once, or several times a year. I prefer the idea that someone would submit something, I like it, it goes up right away. I prefer the idea of speed and immediacy. I am sure if and when I do this, I will come to understand why you should take your time and wait months and months after accepting a piece, to publish it. But as of right now, let’s get’em up! (Shoot now, ask questions later!) It would be cool to post five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, and give around 260 writers a slot.
And I have to sell schwag on the site. I mean, is there any other way for an online lit zine to stay afloat? This does go back to needing a catchy name, co-opting an appropriate attitude. Then I would have to make runs of products limited, and over charge for them. Unless you get published on the site, then you would get it for free.
Okay, I’m going to roll this over in my head now, and see what sticks.
This might be a mistake, but feel free to drop a line sharing what you think works or doesn’t work when it comes to online lit magazines.
And while I’m at it, like and subscribe you freeloaders.
On August 31st, I had a flash of inspiration, and quickly jotted out the following four sentences:
“As Donald Trump’s surrender in Georgia grew closer, many on social media started to joke that the former President might need to hire a bail bondsman.
On the day of the arrest at the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, to many people’s surprise, the former President had, in fact, secured Foster Bail Bonds, LLC of Lawrenceville, GA to execute the bond.
This made CEO Charles Shaw the first person in American history to bail out a former President.
Mr. Shaw, it is easy to say, might be the most famous bail bondsman in America right now, if you excuse Chico’s Bail Bonds support of the Bad News Bears.”
I thought it was funny.
But I wasn’t sure what to do with it. The first thought I had was to put it up on my blog, or maybe Twitter/X. Then I remembered that The Drift has a “Mentions” section, which consists of short humorous pieces, four sentences long. I quickly looked up the email address for submissions, and sent it off. Let me throw my luck into the wind and see what will happen! Odds are they would say no, but maybe today would be different.
And then I reread the “Mentions” section, and it dawned on me that they are looking more for cultural observations, and not so much current events. Yeah… felt like I popped the bed on this one. I even posted a Tweet about it.
This morning a received a response to my submission, and they did say no. I don’t disagree with that decision, and their form letter to me was rather pleasant for a rejection.
As such, I now share this “mention” on my blog. If there is anyone out there who would like my four sentence humorous critiques about whatever pops into my head, my going rate is $25 per post, or best offer.
(Closest to the price without going over…)
One of the few writing credits to my name is a band review from like 1997 in a local DFW music ‘zine. Now, I know just about everybody pronounces it [zeen] which rhymes with “seen,” and that relates back to the word’s origin from “magazine.” I, on the other hand, can’t stop myself from pronouncing it [z’ine] which rhymes with “line.” I get shunned by people when I say this word incorrectly, though deep in my soul, I feel like I am saying it the correct way. Seriously, if you were against corporate magazines, wouldn’t you want your anti-corporate term to sound different? Think about it, man!
I bring all of this up because a friend of mine from college who is a bottomless well of creativity and inspiration posted on their IG about a group by the name of Reciprocal Works which hosts a zine exchange. That means you send them copies of your zine, and in return, they send you copies of other people’s zines. (Please check out their site for more information, as they describe it way better than I.) This is the type of creative idea that really gets my mind churning, and it also made me feel like a kid playing “newspaper” where I would write a fake newspaper and beg my dad to make copies of it on the Xerox at his office. So, there is some childhood giddiness here, but also a healthy portion of inspiration to do something creative, just to be creative. For the past day, I have been thinking about images, words, drawings, comix and gags that I have laying around, yet I’m not sure what to do with. Why not make a limited run zine? Yeah, why not?
This might be a good weekend to start the Hiking Campaign 2023! Dust off those boots and hope the water-wicking pants still fit, because this weekend is a good weekend to fjord a creek!
I am limited on what I can do today. Between chores, and school obligations, and watching the kid, and having to go to bed early, as I have an early morning tomorrow, I don’t have a large resource of time to work with. That is why I am looking up online journals, and submitting stories to them.
I mean, I also want to get a blog in, clearly.
But I do like the rabbit-hole game you can play online with writers, and discovering magazines they have written for. I have subscribed to several online lit journals, which means I get a couple emails a day for new works that have been published. I discover new writers this way, and in their bio’s, usually, is a list of other places they have been published. I select a publication I haven’t heard of before, read a story on their site, which will lead me to that author’s bio. And the game starts all over again. It can eat up a good chunk of your day if you are not careful. I set a time limit for myself.
I will digress for a second, as I would like to say a word about writer’s bio’s. As a theatre guy who has written thousands of bio’s for myself, it was drilled into me that this was the one shot you have to sell yourself to the audience and, potentially, your next job. It is very difficult to sum up your career in 50 to 100 words, but those of you who use this space to share your sense of humor; you are my heroes. Shine on you crazy diamonds!
Outside of someone publishing me, the thought that I subscribe to is that I need to get 100 no’s before I get my first yes. Right now, I am at “no” #36 for the year. I got some work ahead of me.
