New publication – Page 2

Confucian comedy

The astounding avant-garde daily Babel Tower Notice Board kindly published my short story “Fifteen Family Sagas” last month. I’m fascinated by multi-generational epic novels, not least because they get a lot of attention on the prize circuit. I told a friend this was going to be my claim to fame, but I messed up since I’d forgotten the family tree.

It’s not that original, granted–it’s a set of riffs on old Chinese tales about filial piety. But it is very, very personal so I remain proud.

This goes out to everyone unfortunate enough to believe they had a happy childhood!

Binge or cringe

I have a new story called “The Great American Novel Writing Contest” over at Modern Jungle.

Both metafictional and a pastiche, this was fun to write and the feedback on the zaniness has been positive so far. I have pleasant memories of coming up with the back catalog of novels for the writers Thomas and Joachim in a resort cafe in central Oregon. I used the “brazzle” algorithm, supposedly used by Nabokov for his fake body of work, systematized as a procedure by the Oulipo group. You break the given title down to its syllables and create a new product through associations. E.g., SALEM’S LOT by Stephen King became SAY, LIMN THE OAK MOTTES by Joachim Stansbury.

2019 was an excellent writing year. Somehow I drafted, submitted and published this piece to blow steam while I struggled with a different project that needs yet another revision. You never really know how the work will turn out…

Celebrate good type

Back in August, my review for a new work of criticism by Barbara Foley went live on Full Stop Magazine.

It’s a celebratory review, as it was an exciting book to read. I could have found more faults—maybe I should have? I had differences with some of the Marxist formulations on capitalism, but they seemed to pedantic for a literary review. I mentioned Foley’s previous work, but I did not mention her politics, like her work with the Progressive Labor Party. That is, while I celebrated her push-back against idealist forms of politics and criticism, I did not emphasize that they generally come from a mechanical-leaning materialism, one that leads to class reductionism (though I do not think that is the case in this text).

Ultimately, however, I think it works out. The nature of polemic involves bending the stick too far the other way in the effort to correct a deviation. It is as Engels said in an important letter from September 1890:

Marx and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger people sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it. We had to emphasize the main principle vis-à-vis our adversaries, who denied it, and we had not always the time, the place or the opportunity to give their due to the other elements involved in the interaction.

Tale of a nail

I have a new short story at The Airgonaut. I admire this venue most of all for its simplicity. Only text, no pictures, just the way my brain likes it.

This is an economic folk tale, the first of a cycle generated by a constraint system that’s formally simple, but involves a few more determiners for the content.

It’s been quite a hiatus on the diary; I’ve had to write a lot of short papers this semester, and the rest of my writing time has been devoted to executing this procedure.