Check out my review of Jamie Iredell’s wonderful Prose. Poem. A Novel. at the Rumpus:
What I enjoyed most about Iredell’s narrative are his lyrical, almost Annie Dillard-like observations of nature, the elements, the landscape. But where Dillard’s evocations are solemn reveries sodden with all kinds of lushness, with prose akin to—[namecheck any American transcendentalist here]—Iredell’s descriptions are prickly, brittle, harboring all kinds of menace and malevolence.
From the interview:
John Madera: When film director Pedro Almodóvar was asked if his movie Bad Education was autobiographical, he responded, “Everything that isn’t autobiographical is plagiarism.” So how much of your writing is autobiographical? How much do you distinguish fact from fiction and vice-versa in your writing? Would you talk about the various personas you adopt in these stories?
Martin: I basically have two ways I start writing. Either I’ll start with something about myself, or something that happened to me that seemed important, or I’ll start with some idea I have that doesn’t have much to do with me. But one will always lead to the other.
When something is finished, distinguishing “fact” from “fiction” is a matter of “the first part of that sentence really happened but it leaves out this important detail, and the second and fourth parts of that sentence also came directly from life, but the first and third parts came from some thoughts I had while watching a movie, and the sentence after it I just thought would be really funny.”
I mean, there is a lot of stuff I write that makes it seem like my intention is to make people think I’m speaking about myself entirely, and it is my intention to make people think that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what it is.
From “A Crazy Trolley to Nowhere and Back Again: Gert Jonke’s The System of Vienna”:
With books that you planned to read this year still sitting on your shelf unread, and countless other recommendations swimming in your head, why should you even consider making room on your reading queue for a one originally published ten years ago in German and containing pieces dating back to 1970? But there is plenty fresh about Gert Jonke’s The System of Vienna: From Heaven Street to Earth Mound Square. Like the bulk of his work, this novel is musical, innovative, and difficult, not in a dusty academic way, but as a delightful puzzle, as a well-constructed argument, as a challenging game of chess. Thanks to Dalkey Archive Press, readers may now become acquainted with Gert Jonke’s work. Prior to Dalkey’s releases, Jonke’s books were unavailable in English. Having already published his Geometric Regional Novel and Homage to Czerny: Studies in Virtuoso Technique, with this new edition of The System of Vienna, Dalkey has distinguished itself as the American purveyor of the work of one of Austria’s most important writers.
I have a story in Opium Magazine: The Mania Issue. Thanks to Alec Neidenthal and Todd Zuniga!
Here’s the info:
“Let’s do a fan-fiction issue.” That sentence–said by me, I think (maybe)–is what kicked off Opium9 nine months ago, when it was still an unformed idea flitting around the 550 terabytes of storage in our aging skulls. The editorial would’ve been a breeze, but trying to design an issue around fan fic? That proved much gustier on the gale meter. So we went to the root of fan fiction, of fandom: mania.
And that’s just plain fun to consider, when you think about it (which we did, obsessively, of course). Truth is, we were going to obsess over Opium9 anyway, the way we obsess over Everything Opium: every pleasant bend and tailored bewilderment of the stories in our print issues, the perfect pairings for the Literary Death Match lineups, the perfect YouTube pitch for Opium’s iPhone app (Quick Fix with ‘Jiggle Technology’ that will debut in late November). But the better part for us: the way that obsession, delirium and dementia rose from the stories we considered for this issue. Our in-house mantra is that we design towards a theme, but let the stories stand wherever they will. While Shya Scanlon’s curatorship of our fan-fiction section is a direct breach of our editorial echo, it was on purpose. But add up John Madera’s ‘How to Be Happy and Free,’ B.R Smith’s ‘Visitation,’ and a handful of others, and it’s inescapable: we couldn’t resist mania’s charms these last months. As you’ll see.
Mania, there’s really nothing quite like it!
Featuring…
Cover!
‘The Idea Man’ by Sean Landers
Stories!
‘Walking the Walk’ by Jonathan Baumbach, ‘Cheaters’ by Dawn Raffel, ‘Entrances with Hummingbird’ by Anne Ray, ‘A Man on the Inside’ by Aaron Garretson, ‘The Uncertainty Principle’ directed by Davin Malasarn, ‘Visitation’ B.R. Smith, ‘What’s This Life For?’ Melinda Hill, ‘How to Be Happy and Free’ by John Madera, ‘Ambition Towards Love’ by Catherine Sharpe, ‘Equity’ by Wendy Duren, and ‘High Life’ by Jamie Iredell
Fan-Fiction Explosion, curated by Shya Scanlon!
Ryan Boudinot, Ben Greenman, B.K. Evenson, Sean Carman, Nick Bredie, Matt Briggs, E. Loic Leuschner, Blake Butler, Matthew Simmons, and Lindsay Mound
250-word Bookmark Contest Finalists (Judged by Andrew Sean Greer)!
Je Banach, F.J. Bergmann, Kyle Davis, Lydia Fitzpatrick, Clark Hays, Kevin Leahy, Lisa A. Levy, Aimee Mepham, Sean Murphy, Brett Rosenblatt.
Poetry!
Dean Young, Erin Berkowitz, Kathleen Rooney, and Elisa Gabbert
Cartoons!
CM Evans, Graham Roumieu, Jessy Randall, and Ben Towle
Plus, an interview with Jonathon Keats!
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JOHN MADERA—Writer, Editor, Publisher 