Vigorously Lazy

The Holiday in Cambodia project is going along quite well, I must say, but just to give it a good kick in the pants for the sake of pants-kicking, I’ve decided I’m going to match all the funds raised by the Holiday in Cambodia project. That’s right. From my own pocket. So far we’ve got something like $70. Which brings us to a grand total of $140. That’s $140 that goes to teaching young Cambodian women how to make zines. You are a simpleton if you do not think that is cool thing. So start submitting today and put me in the poor house!

Dzanc is doing something very cool in the spirit of giving this holiday season. It’s called a Write-A-Thon and I can already hear you saying, “This sounds like a whole bunch of bullshit,” but I assure you, it is not.

Here’s all the vital info, but the gist is this: Starting today through Sunday they’re trying to get all 2000 people in the Emerging Writers Network to donate their time and money to supporting Dzanc’s efforts in the literary arts by writing for hours and hours and hours. Put simply, I’m donating six hours of my time this Saturday to writing. You can sponsor me by going here and clicking on Christopher Heavener. This is a tax deductible donation. The money goes to supporting the Dzanc Writer in Residence Program, which gets grossly talented writers to teach in high schools with underfunded or non-existent writing programs, and the Dzanc Prize, which gives a grant of $5,000 to work on a community service-based literary project. Both worthy causes. So click the link above and let’s give until we have nothing left to give!

Check out the hyper-natural work of environmental artist Jenny Kendler if you want to get in touch with your inner animal.

We were so damn exited about the Holiday in Cambodia project that we just had to relay it to you, the public, as soon as we could. We knew you were hungry for this sort of thing, for an opportunity to save the world and tell your story all at once.

What we didn’t take into account was that everyone is very busy binge eating/drinking/working/crying/laughing/screaming/shopping to worry about a December 31st deadline for a zine. So we are extending the deadline to January 15th, 2010. Hopefully this will give you enough time to process all the fucked up shit that happened to you in these last few months and exorcise it from you consciousness in a healthy way by putting it into words on a page.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here.

Contributor Tim Jones-Yelvington was kind enough to include me on “Ten (of the) Best Indie Lit Editors of 2009,” which, of course, I’m proud to be a part of. Read my “found” bio here.

I finally saw Beautiful Losers last night (holy shit! Beautiful Losers is on Netflix! Drop whatever you’re doing and go watch this movie RIGHT NOW).

A part that really stuck with me was the section where Barry McGee is talking about getting your work out there. He said that once he was showing in galleries he felt that his work was being presented to a smaller audience than would see it if he had painted on a train or a billboard.

It got me thinking about writing in print and online. Most people who submit to us would rather be in the print version than online. Due to our small print run, the chances that any given contributors work will be read is exponentially greater if it’s posted on our website. So I ask you, what gives?

If the point is to get your stuff out there, wouldn’t you rather be published online?

(screenshot: R.I.P. the brilliant Margaret Kilgallen)

In the winter of 2007 editor, author, and activist Anne Elizabeth Moore was invited to live to Phnom Penh to teach Cambodian young women how to make zines. She plans to return December 24th to continue her ongoing project. We think this is awesome. We want to help her out and hope you do too.

Everyone has drama happening around the holidays and we all know drama makes for good stories. Send us your true stories of familial (or otherwise) conflict taking place around the holidays and we will then choose the best ones for publication in zine format entitled “Holiday in Cambodia: a Collection of Holiday Stories for a Good Cause”. There will be an open fee for submissions, meaning submitters are encouraged to send whatever they think is a fair submission fee. Could be zero dollars, could be $100. Yup, just like the Radiohead thing. This book will be available to purchase for $10 on January 31st, 2010 at annalemma.net. All proceeds from sales, as well as submission fees, will go directly to Anne’s amazing work with young Cambodian women.

UPDATE: I, Chris Heavener, hereby proclaim that I will match all funds generated by this project. Out of pocket.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Please keep the stories under 3000 words. Only one submission per person. True stories only. If you have to change names or bend the truth here and there to make for a better story then that’s cool but we don’t want any Santa’s or Frosty’s or Hanukkah Harry’s showing up to the party.

Deadline is January 15th, 2010.

SUBMISSION PROCESS: Login to Paypal.com and click the “Send Money” tab. Payment of your chosen submission fee should be sent to holiday@annalemma.net

Once paid, email your submission to holiday@annalemma.net (in Word or .rtf format) from the same email address associated with your Paypal account, or from a different account clarifying who you are and what email address the payment went through. Then kick your heels up by the fireplace, sip some eggnog and wait to hear back from us.

If you’re interested in donating directly to Anne’s project click here.

Anne Elizabeth Moore’s book, Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity (The New Press, 2007), received favorable reviews from Forbes, The LA Times, and The Guardian. Co-editor and publisher of now-defunct Punk Planet, founding editor of the popular Best American Comics series from Houghton Mifflin, Moore’s work has been the subject of films, college lectures, and police investigations. She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. anneelizabethmoore.com

For more information on her work in Cambodia, click here.

For more info on “Cambodian Grrl: Self Publishing in Phnom Penh”, a 36 page collection of essays concerning Moore’s previous experiences teaching a large group of young Khmer women self-publishing in Cambodia, click here.

If you don’t already, keep an eye on Artifice Magazine. They haven’t even released their first issue yet and already they boast an impressive roster. How do they do this? I’d say it’s got something to do with the editors track records and a charming submissions wishlist that got them a heap of good press a while back. I can easily see these guys becoming some new hot shit. You may want to get your subscription now. I did.

Our intern reports from Miami. Take it away Janelle!

Art Basel was in Miami this past weekend and I just had to be there. Why? Well, I love Miami, I love art, I love a good time, and my sister was in need of some inspiration.

Can I be honest though? I say I love art, and I do, but I know very little about it. What I learned in humanities classes years ago is long gone and there were probably times this weekend I was ignorantly admiring advertisements like this guy…

And the idea of writing about art here made me anxious.

But it’s all okay. Thanks to my sister. She supplemented my slack-jawed appreciation with some solid facts and I ended up learning a few new things.

Shepard Fairey.

Os Gemeos.

You have to see this. Just because.

Art is forever evolving and I shouldn’t have assumed I ever knew anything about anything. All I can do is appreciate and support.

Wow, been a while since we done one of these.

I’m calling bullshit on Amazon’s Best Book Covers of 2009. Given, there are some nice covers you can vote on, but does it irk anyone else that the nominees are all Amazon best sellers? What about all the choice book covers that have been featured on The Book Cover Archive? For my money, any given entry on BCA blows the Chronic City cover out the water. Let’s start our own list. Anyone have a vote for best book cover of the year? Post a link to the image in the comments section.

(Yes, I realize calling bullshit on Amazon is like calling bullshit on Disney or Starbucks, it’s granted at this point that they’re a huge greedy corporation that is the #1 enemy of the indie book store. Yes, I realize that their contest is a thinly veiled sales push for the holiday season. Regardless. Bullshit!)