Keep Your Ear to the Ground: A History of Punk Fanzines in Washington, DC was recently published by Georgetown University Press. Written by John Davis, member of punk band Q and Not U and an archivist at the University of Maryland library (he commands the DC Punk Archive there), this large tome makes a case for the strength of the DC zine scene of decades past. My own fanzine, Mole, is represented in the book on pages 204-206; there are pictures of two issues, and a rather nice capsulized history of the 13 issues published from 1989 to 2001. The only “error” is citing Mole as a photocopied zine; to set the record straight, Mole was pro-printed by offset printing for the duration of its run.
There’s much I didn’t know about DC zinedom past. From my recollections of the 90s, I would not have said a book was merited, but Davis dug deep and it’s a strong showing. If you’re not already sick and tired of the zine hype, you may want to check it out.
There wasn’t enough “and the trillions” in the first volume (originally released in 2012) so I wrote a sequel, naturally entitled And the Trillions, Part 2. This book length accumulative poem examines multiples as a metaphor for the complex social and natural world humans inhabit. At 280 pages, Part 2 is over 4.5 times longer than Part 1, and all new material.
And the Trillions, Part 2 is now available on Lulu, here.
Online lit journal Mad Swirl has published a “best of” issue for the past five years; the volume for 2021 was just released and is now available in print on Amazon. I’m very pleased to be included with my poem “The Joys of Serf Culture,” which appeared in the journal last April.
Here’s the book hype direct from Mad Swirl editor Johnny Olson:
“2021 has been yet another extraordinarily challenging year. Thru it all, Mad Swirl was there, every one of the 365 days of this twisted year. We didn’t miss a beat. Those beats are what you’ll get when you dig into this year’s collection. Get your firsthand view of one helluva of a f*cking year. The Best of Mad Swirl : v2021 is a 107-page anthology featuring 52 poets, 12 short fiction writers, and four artists hailing from 5 continents (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, & North America); 15 countries (Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, England, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Montenegro, Nigeria, Romania, Singapore, Syria, & USA [20 States]). We editors reviewed the entire year’s output to ensure this collection is truly “the best” of MadSwirl.com! The works represent diverse voices and vantages which speak to all aspects of this crazy swirl we call ‘life on earth.’
“Mad Swirl is an arts and literature creative outlet. It is a platform, a showcase, and a stage for artistic expression in this mad, mad world of ours; a diverse collection of as many poets, artists, and writers we can gather from around the world; from Nepal to Ireland, from England to China, from California to New York City and all the places in between. Our Poetry Forum features works from over 170 contributing poets, our Short Story Library has over 40 participating writers and our Mad Gallery has over 50 resident artists.”
Contributors include: Artists: J Gregory Cisneros, Alan Murphy, Thomas Riesner, Bleak Teeth
Poets: Jeff Bagato, Tohm Bakelas, Jon Bennett, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, Jean Biegun, Jean Bohuslav, Casey Bush, Laurie Byro, PW Covington, John Dorroh, J.K. Durick, Michael Estabrook Joseph Farley, Robert Fleming, Susie Gharib, Iulia Gherghei, KJ Hannah Greenberg, John Grey, Paul Hostovsky, Ojo Victoria Ilemobayo, Mike James, Ivan Jenson, Sally Jo, Ferris Jones, Carl Kavadlo, Vyarka Kozareva, Padmini Krishnan, Tyler Malone, Robert L. Martin, Tom Montag, Ian Mullins, Madelyn Olson, Johnny Olson, Brittany M. Ortega, Irena Pasvinter, Patty Dickson Pieczka, Timothy Pilgrim,, Randall Rogers, Madu Chibueze Romanus, Sreemani Sengupta, Beate Sigriddaughter, Susandale, David Susswein, Rp Verlaine, Isaiah Vianese, Agnes Vojta, Trier Ward, Richard Weaver, Stefan White, Stephen Jarrell Williams, Catherine Zickgraf, Milenko Županović
Fiction: Jim Bates, Glenn Bresciani, Mike Fiorito, Susie Gharib, Jeff Grimshaw, Prapti Gupta, Flora Jardine, James Lawless, Edward N. McConnell, Vivek Nath Mishra, Randall Rogers, Chuck Taylor
Picture from The Chamber’s Facebook post for the story.
If you’re wondering what a grandmother sitting in a rocking chair has to do with science fiction, you’ll need to read my short story, “Ol’ Rocking Chair’s Got You,” which appeared yesterday in online dark fiction magazine The Chamber. The grandmother and her chair reside in the future on a distant exoplanet. The chair is a caregiving robot; and its care is not what it seems at the outset. You can read the full story here. The magazine releases a new issue every week, so if you are a fan of dark fiction, you may want to check it out.
Looking for some Halloween humor? Cthulhu Limericks is available on Amazon! This collection of 70+ rhymed verses based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos combines horror and humor in equal measure to demonstrate that man’s view of himself as the center of a known space-time continuum remains laughably out of scale with the reality that ancient forces control his world.
Print version available here; kindle version here.
Night Garden Journal recently released its anthology of poems from last summer as a Lulu book. You can see the full list of authors above. I’m pleased to say my poem “The World is Ash” is included.
You can get a shipping discount (see image above) if you order today on Lulu at this link.
An online poetry journal focusing on dark and atmospheric work, Night Garden Journal has started compiling its offerings into quarterly anthologies. The Autumn 2017 Issue has just been released on Lulu. The cost is $5.99; you can probably get a coupon from Lulu to knock a percentage off that. You can buy the book here.
Two of my poems are included, “Future Dragons” and “Shattered Maps.”
An online journal of experimental poetry, Futures Trading compiles its issues into print anthologies. The fifth book was just released as an on-demand paperback, available via Amazon. It’s something of a who’s who of the international experimental poetry “scene,” including work by Mark Young, Volodymyr Bilyk, Eileen Tabios, Mark Cunnngham, Sanjeev Sethi, and many others. I’m pleased to be included with four poems from four different online issues.
I present two rip offs related to my bizarro Christmas novel Kill Claus!
First up, this game app: “Kill Santa Claus,” created by some company called ChipPOW and available through Amazon. Apparently, it encourages players to take revenge for bad or missing gifts by shooting Santa Claus.
The description of game play seriously needs a grammar and syntax intervention:
Kill Christmas old man!
Santa Claus did not bring you a gift dreams? Behaves like rudolph! Start the game Kill Santa Claus as a snowball! Shoot on target! This pathetic old holly is not going anywhere from a sniper rifle rudolph! Try role grinch, destroy Christmas!
Each year promises rudolph gifts, only they do not! Hatred grew as snowball. Shoot to destroy all the Santa Claus! Suggests sight and tap on the shot. Your timer is 5 minutes to clean the territory grinch. You have to win the game Kill Santa Claus!
How old were killed – see on the screen, there statistics rudolph. Take care of snowball cartridges and do not shoot into the air. Aim, shoot and then holly. So you can do away with the silly holiday Christmas!
One user gave the game a single star and declared they were deleting the game.
For the record, my surreal science fiction novel Kill Claus! does not involve shooting Santa with any sort of firearm. So the game is not technically the result of plagiarism. However, I’d like to think the app grew out of a superficial glance at the title of my book.
As a shameless plug, Kill Claus! is still available on Amazon and Lulu as both a eBook and paperback. The eBook can be downloaded for a mere $1.99 from either site. On Lulu, the paperback costs $13.50. As for the Amazon paperback, you can choose between two price points, either 15 bucks, or $609.11!
I love seeing these inflated prices on my books. It’s just further proof that when you put something out in the world, it takes on a life of its own.
jeff bagato 