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Only the most proficient of techies among us would be able to fix their mobile phone if it broke, or their computer screen if it blinked out. If your car was built in the last fifteen years then you wouldn’t be able to fix the steering system by looking it up at your local library. The age of the professional is over and has given way to the age of the specialist. And every day we sacrifice knowledge of how things work in exchange for comfort of living. In the future, our ability to survive will hinge upon our ability to provide for ourselves, to build our own homes, to craft our own tools, to grow our own food, to reclaim our abandoned sense of imagination and creativity, instead of relying on companies and institutions to provide them for us.

With this in mind, Annalemma is dedicating an entire issue to making things. Annalemma Issue Eight: Creation will celebrate humankind’s capacity to think its way out of problems and conflict. It will focus on people who have been relying on their own ingenuity for some time and people who are trying to rediscover what it means to be a creator.

We’re looking for mostly nonfiction for this issue. Go interview an artisan. Write an essay about how your newfound granola lifestyle has clashed with your loved ones. Profile a medicine man living in a 10×10 shack in North Carolina.

There will be a two to three spaces open for fiction, so the competition will be very stiff. If you’re looking to get published in the print issue the odds are in your favor if you submit nonfiction.

Deadline is March 8^th. No pieces over 5000 words will be accepted without first submitting a query letter. No unsolicited poetry will be accepted for this issue. Click here to submit.

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Just got back from AWP last night and feel like the above image. Many books bought, traded for, given unsolicited and accepted under pressure. Left the camera in the cupboard of the friends apartment we stayed at, so wait for a full report next week. For now, time to get to work!

Crack your fingers. The theme for Annalemma Issue Eight is going to be announced tomorrow.

Also, the computer died for the final time. It is in the process of being banished from the kingdom forever and steps have been taken so that this never happens again. If you’ve sent art submissions in the past month and a half then I probably lost those emails. Please send them again. All the prose submitters need not worry, we keep that stuff on the cloud.

Feel like reading the slush pile? We’re going to be inundated with submissions soon and we’re behind as it is, so contact me at chris {at} annalemma {dot} net if you want to get your hands filthy on some raw words. We could use your help and it could help you learn a bit about what your peers are churning out these days. You will be paid in eternal gratitude and a free copy of the new issue when it comes out.

We’re all ready for NerdFest 2011.

You know you’re a nerd when you’re very excited about a book stand you made. Thinking about making more/selling them. Not sure if there’s a big demand for these though. Want one? Hit me up in the comments.

Very excited to be sharing a table with the fine folks at Avery. Come hang out with us! We will be at the following places on Thursday and Friday nights, respectively:

Want to read the story Amber Sparks originally published in Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance? It’s now live at The Reprint, a cool project from the folks at Zine Scene, wherein they post stories previously appearing exclusively in print and pair them up with the work of one visual artist. This issue features Pamela Wilson. Go check it out now.

Like Amber’s stuff? Check out an interview with her here.

{image: Ted Hollins}

Hey Orlando: The Zora! Fest kicked off last night and is churning up to full speed this week. Two events you should not miss…

And…

You should go to both of these. What else do you have to do this weekend? Go do something that you’ve never done before. Go meet people you might not have otherwise met. Go experience something outside of your little Winter Park, Downtown, Thornton Park bubble. Do it. Not taking ‘no’ for an answer on this one. You will enjoy yourself, I promise. Take pics. Send them to me. I will post them on this blog. Experience something outside of your day-to-day existence. Build a damn bridge for once in your life. Forge a friendship. Talk to strangers. Eat some good food. It’s nice outside.

I read contributor Bryan Furuness‘s story Man of Steel, originally published in Ninth Letter and republished in BANR 2010. The story concerns a kid who convinces himself that he sees things, visions of the future, most of them bad and he throws himself into harm’s way in an attempt to mitigate the disastrous future. It’s a great piece about perception, what’s real, what’s not, and the delusions that can drive people apart.

It made me happy to see Brian’s name in the BANR pages. I’d never read anything of Bryan’s work until he submitted something and we picked it up for online publication. Then I started seeing his name everywhere. And then I started reading everything attached to his name. Brian is a fantastic writer. Start here, then go here, then here.

Working on point-of-purchase stuff for AWP.

None of this stuff actually helps us sell anything. We usually sell out of books at AWP because of good old fashioned hand selling and friendly customer service.

Still, it’s fun to make this stuff and cool to give people something to walk away with. Are you going to be there? I hope so. I like meeting people who know/read the magazine. Feels good to make those connections. AWP is good for that reason alone: To hang with the people who are electronic ghosts the rest of the year. Start warming your palms up for the slew of hi fives.

Hello? Hello!

Very much sickness was happening over the last two weeks. Sickness of the body, sickness of the computer, sickness of the season. All of this sickness prohibited the blog from getting updated with anything noteworthy. It was a natural time to be sick. But now that sickness is getting purged or deferred in one direction or another, allowing things to progress unimpeded. It’s a new year, time to shed away the husk of the past and prepare for new growth. In the next few weeks we’ll be announcing some events coming up very soon and the theme of our Spring print issue, something very different from what we’ve done before, something that you will more than likely fall in love with.

What do farmers do in the winter?

Today, and today only, holiday shipping is on us. Anything ordered from our store and shipped out today will get to you before Christmas, shipped on our dime. Get Issue Seven: Endurance to arrive at your doorstep in time to put under your tree. Get the bundle for that special someone whose big holiday plans are to sit in front of the fire and read. Get Issue Five for your little brother who’s into sci-fi and letterpress. And pick up a subscription for yourself while you’re at it! Oh yeah, and we’ll cover the shipping.

Head on over to the Anna Facebook page and explain what you would endure for your very own copy of Issue Seven: Endurance. Contest ends tonight at midnight EST.