On Monday, June 14th at Pacific Standard Bar in Brooklyn, a Big Other extravaganza will be taking place with games, prizes, raffles, music and readings. Mary Caponegro will be the headliner.
Music by John Madera and Robert Lopez.
Readings by Nicolle Elizabeth, Greg Gerke, A D Jameson, Michael Leong, John Madera, Edward Mullany, Shya Scanlon, and John Dermot Woods.
My story, “How to Avoid Being a Woodpusher,” was selected as a finalist in The Rumpus’s The Jump Off, a contest where entrants “were asked to submit a fictional work of 300 words or less using as a jump-off point one sentence or sentence fragment from Sam Lipsyte’s novel The Ask.” I’m happy to be in the company of such fine writers as Mark Edmund Doten, Lincoln Michel, Maureen Miller, Shya Scanlon, Franklin Winslow, A. Wolfe, and Snowden Wright. Here’s an excerpt from my story:
As you mull over maneuvers, ignore the news of a subway platform birth. Don’t allow the translucent-slimed, meconium-stained bundle of filth spoil your positional plans. Disregard the radio’s panting in counterpoint with the television. Give up sussing out the song’s name: “For What It’s Worth,” and curb the laughter provoked by its announcement.
And be sure to check out the website of André da Loba, the artist whose illustrations grace the stories (the one above presides over mine). Loba merges a personalized cubism with a deranged whimsicality all his own. Someone should tell Michel Gondry about him.
Thanks, Rozalia Jovanovic!
Shya Scanlon interviewed me on Facebook:
Shya Scanlon: As an author, blogger and founder of Chapbook Review, you are a rare breed: someone who seems as comfortable reviewing fiction as you are writing it. Do you think authors have a responsibility to share, discuss, and promote work not their own? Do you personally feel a responsibility to do so?
John Madera: First of all, thanks for setting up this tiny interview series. Sometimes I think of Facebook as “Fakebook” so it’s great to see something that has a little more dynamism. As for all the stuff I’m up to, I feel like I’m at my best when I’m juggling all kinds of plates. They all intersect, play off of each other, and cross-pollinate.
As for responsibility, I think writers, in order to be called writers, must write. How often and how much, I wouldn’t presume to say or demand. I don’t think that a writer has a responsibility to share, discuss, and promote work that isn’t theirs. Writers who choose to work in total seclusion and isolation without a care for anyone else is fine with me; what matters is the quality of their work.
As for me, I feel it’s less a responsibility but more something that brings me great pleasure and teaches me so much.
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JOHN MADERA—Writer, Editor, Publisher 