Vigorously Lazy

Over the last weekend of the subscription drive we got 10 subscriptions away, so we figured it’d be a shame to quit now. We’re 10 new subscribers away from reaching our goal of making Issue Eight a reader-funded publication. Ad-free, sponsor-free and, therefore, artistically uncompromised. Those are great things to be, but the most important part is that folks feel Anna is vital enough to spend hard-earned dollars on it. And, to their infinite credit and grace, they have. In the last few weeks I’ve received and filled orders as close as a couple neighborhoods over and as far away as Israel, Australia and somewhere called Wrexham, England, which I believe is close to Liverpool and sounds like a fantastic place.

So. Here we are, finish line in sight, and to sweeten the deal I’m putting up a special offer for the final, final (for real this time) last week of the drive:

Whoever purchases the last subscription of the drive gets a subscription for life.

If you’re the lucky person who purchases the last subscription we need to meet our goal, you get Annalemma for life, for only $25.00. Click here to subscribe now for $5 off the cover price.

This is the home stretch, muscles are cramped and the breath is heaving, air feels like fire in the lungs, but we can’t quit. We won’t quit, not when we’re so close. If you’ve subscribed in the past, why not renew now? If you’ve already signed up, you get a thunder-crack of a hi-five and I’m sure you’re already enjoying the spoils of your purchase. If you feel like helping out beyond purchasing a subscription, please repost this message on your blog/facebook/twitter, wherever you share the things you love with the people you care about.

Thanks again to everyone who’s been helping out with the drive by posting about it all over the place. It means everything.

The subscription drive is kaput this Sunday night at midnight EST. So where do we stand with only two days to go? 20 subscriptions. That’s all it’s going to take to help us pay for the next print issue of Annalemma. Haven’t subscribed yet? It’s now or never. Click here to subscribe for $5 off the cover price of Issue Eight: Creation.

A lot of you (two, to be precise) have been asking how this “$5 off” thing works. If you were to buy issues seven and eight separately, it would cost you $30. But just for the subscription drive we’re hacking off $5 off the cover price of Issue Eight, meaning you get Issue Seven for normal price and Issue Eight for ten bucks. Still confused? A diagram:

Subscribing is a no-brainer.

So this is it, folks. If you’ve already subscribed then thanks for everything, you’re incredible and it means everything that you’re into this mag enough to spend your hard-earned money on it. If you still feel compelled to help out please spread the word on you blog/facebook/twitter, anywhere you like to share the stuff you dig with the people you care about.

If you can’t shell out the dough right now, totally understandable. If you still want to help out regardless please repost this message anywhere and everywhere folks who care about writing and art and all things beautiful are going to see it.

Thanks again to everyone for helping out. Hearts are swelling on this end. See you Monday.

Short Story Month has been burning along like a furnace in January, but it’s May right now. So the furnace metaphor isn’t really a proper one. It’s not that hot out either, otherwise I’d use the sun metaphor. Burning like a Jalapeno? That’s also bad. Burning like spring fever in the pants of sexually mature human beings? Meh, that’ll do. Let’s move on.

Looks like a new issue of PANK dropped last week with weird and enticing stories. I don’t really understand Lidia Yuknavitch’s piece On Being a Woman Writer, but the language and movement of it has an interesting/intriguing/seductive quality to it. Check it:

I saw a sign.  The sign said, this way to the other within.  But there was another sign next to it, big ass flashy neon sign that said, this way to language, culture, and subjectivity.  The two signs made my skin feel hot and my thighs itch.  Was one of the signs a trick?

I saw a guy go by, following the language, culture and subjectivity sign—without hesitation.  He looked really confident.  He looked unified.  He had a really good tan.  He was a snappy dresser.  He looked heroic.  But I was naked, sweaty, and I kind of had to pee.  I just felt hot, itchy and like I might die if I didn’t move.

I decided to follow the ‘other within’ sign.  Then I felt like masturbating, so I did that, there inside the white, and I heard a noise back down the direction the heroic guy had gone, and I looked back, and he’d tripped on something and fallen.  Weird, I thought, and then I finished and came really hard and let the wet be what it was—salty ocean goo–and kept walking.

Then I saw another woman.  She was tall, and her hair, unlike mine, was black as sun.  Her name was Julia, she said.   She said, “It is probably necessary to be a woman, not to renounce theoretical reason but to compel it to increase its power by giving it an object beyond its limits.”

Also notable is Mary Jones’s Burglary:

Carol decided to burglarize her neighbor’s house. She was a friend of the family, but there were things she wanted that the family had. She was tired of seeing the things, leaving them for the family.

And Three Stories by Adam Peterson:

The rest of the world watched through binoculars as the Americans changed. They were glad there was an ocean again but sad that no one was on the right side of it except for Michael Jackson and his best friend Pepsi.

Matt Bell‘s up to his old tricks, being his usual ambitious self by posting about 31 stories in 31 days. He’s getting some help from writers like Nancy Smith and BL Pawelek and, hey, look at that, Tom Williams did a write-up of Amber Sparks’s “You Will be the Living Equation”, originally published in Issue Seven: Endurance. Tom says some good things:

Sparks’s story is one to celebrate, both because it shines so brightly as an example of the unexpected things a short story can do, and because it deepens the use of second person, keeps it vital and thriving, and worthy of the next writer who—as Amber Sparks did—will find a way to make it sing.

Thanks Tom and Matt! And don’t forget to head over to Short Story Month official headquarters, EWN, where the mad genius behind Dzanc books, Dan Wickett, is posting about some killer writing. Happy SSM everyone!

Hey! Look at that, we’ve got less than a week to go and we only need 23 more subscribers in order to pay for productions costs of Issue Eight: Creation. This is pretty incredible, people. We’re trying to make this thing a reader-funded publication and the readers have heard the call. Big thanks to Chris Newgent over at Vouched Books for throwing a contest to give away two subscriptions. And congrats to Katy and Jonathan who won the contest, you’ve got some goodness coming  from your local mail carrier very soon.

All very exciting news. BUT: we still have that number 23 looming above us like a terrible Jim Carrey movie. Click here to subscribe to Annalemma Magazine for $5 off the cover price. Already subscribed? You’re the best. Truly, the best. Feel like going above and beyond the call of duty, like many people are taking it upon themselves to do? Please repost this message on your blog/facebook/twitter, wherever you share the stuff you dig with the people you care about.

Can’t cough up the dough for a subscription right now? We get it. Still want to help out? Please spread the word about our subscription drive wherever you see fit.

It’s a dream of mine to make this thing a more sustainable and this is how we can do it. We need to start paying bills by the end of the week. This is an attainable goal. We can do this. You can help. Thank you for everything. Your continued support and enthusiasm for this mag means everything. Seriously.

[image: Donya Todd]

Behold, a tentative list of folks we’re publishing in Issue Eight: Creation. Thanks to all these talented folks who felt the desire to submit and those who responded to the call. I’m very excited about the stories and essays we’re publishing in the issue, I’ll be giving some details on each piece in the coming weeks. Also, big thanks to this issue’s readers who helped out big time in whittling these choices down: Sarah Bridgins, Sarah Rose Etter, Justyn Harkin, John Kemmick, Nicolette Kittinger, Eric McKinley, Anna Neiger, and, of course, Dylan Suher.

Also, thanks to everyone who’s helping out with our subscription drive (that’s helping us pay for this issue).

Nonfiction

I Tried Really Hard to Play

Essay: Blake Butler

Images: TBA

How to Make a Bride

Essay and Images: Jen O’Malley

Uncommon Knowledge

Essay: Gina Ishibashi

Images: Amber Albrecht

Phantasmogoria

Essay: Barry Grass

Images: Paul X Johnson

The Measure of Creation

Essay: Amanda Jane Smith

Images: Susan Hope Lanier

Fiction

Win a Chance to Be in my Next Novel

Story: Eliza Tudor

Images: Alvaro Tapia Hidalgo

South Beach

Story: Ryan Rivas

Image: Shannon May

Project

Story: Peg Alford Pursell

Image: Yann Faucher

Autonomous in my Rib Cage

Story: Maggie Ritchie

Images: Donya Todd

City

Story: Paul Kavanagh

Images: Jon Mcnair

Golem

Story: Dov Naiditch

Image: Walter Green

And it was Good

Story: Sam Libby

Images: Joe Gunn

Only 14 days left in for our subscription drive. What’s that mean? It means we need 30 new subscribers to the print issue in the next two weeks so we can pay for production costs of Issue Eight: Creation. Some of you have subscribed, which is incredible and thank you for that. Some of you have blogged and facebooked and twittered about it, which is equally incredible and thanks for that as well.

We’re closing in on the goal here and the challenge now, the eternal challenge for publishers, is finding and connecting to new readers. If you follow this blog, if you read the stories we post here every week, if you’ve got your hands on a copy of the print issue at some point in your life and you dig the stuff that we do, surely you have some friends out there who would be psyched on it. It would be a big help if you spread the word.

Annalemma has no ulterior motive than creating something beautiful to hold onto for a long time. In a world full of bad things, we’re trying to be something good, something worth investing your time and money into. I believe we’re achieving that. But we can only keep going with the support of our readers. Click here to subscribe for $5 off the cover price.

If ponying up the dough isn’t an option right now and you’d still like to help out, please repost this message wherever you share the stuff you dig. 30 subscribers in 14 days is a totally achievable goal, but we can only do it with your help.

Thanks again to everyone who’s helped out so far for their continued support and enthusiasm. A mag like this is a leaky-boat-edge-of-a-cliff-rickety-house type of operation and it feels incredibly bad ass when people offer a hand to support something that they love.

Wigleaf mag announced the Top 50 [very] Short Fiction awards over the weekend and Amber Sparks made the cut with her piece, The Dictator is Drinking Alone, which we published online. Way to be, Amber! We also had some alumni on the long list for their stories: Erin Fitzgerald’s This Morning Will be Different, Brad Green’s Missing the Next Inch, and Ben Loory’s Sea Monster. Well done everyone and big thanks to Wigleaf’s associate series editor Ravi Mangla, selecting editor Lily Hoang and Wigleaf head-honcho, Scott Garson. This is a great list of some damn good writing that’s happening all over the web and I’m not just saying that because Anna is well represented here. There’s some incredibly strong writing on this list and if someone wanted to know where they could get their hands on some of the best short stories on the web I’d send them a link to this list.

Hey, it’s been Short Story Month for five days and I’m late to the party. It seems events and celebrations have been moving along at a good clip over at SSM headquarters, Emerging Writers Network, and at Matt Bell’s Blog so I thought I’d join in the fun.

Everyday Genius has always been an interesting zone, at the very least for the curatorial process involved. For the month of May, Publishing Genius head-honcho, Adam Robinson, recruited Justin Sirois, of Narrow House Publishing and The Understanding Campaign fame, to wrangle in some refreshingly bizarre writing inspired by a selection of animated gifs. Kind of strange task to undertake seeing the gifs themselves are the visual equivalent of a non sequitur. Anyway, most notable so far are Brian Allen Carr and Amelia Gray‘s  short pieces. From Amelia’s:

Hey folks, the subscription drive is revving up into the high temperatures in the final three weeks. We have 21 days to get 37 new subscribers to the print issue. Why do we need 37 new subscribers? So we can pay for the next print issue, Annalemma Issue Eight: Creation. It’s all explained here.

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been thinking about subscribing for the last few weeks. Let this be your tipping point. Click on over now to subscribe for $5 off the cover price.

There’s also the possibility that if you’re reading this, you’ve already subscribed. High five. You’re an incredible human being and I’m thinking all very good things about you and having a general vibe of joy and reverence in your direction. But there’s a part of me that feels you still want to do more to help out. Good news! You can.

If you want us to keep doing what we’re doing please post this message on your blog/facebook/twitter or however else you share the things you love with the people you care about.

If you want us to keep publishing writing and art and all things beautiful by the likes of Patrick deWitt (Issue Seven) Matt Bell (Issue Six), Amelia Grey (Issue Five), Blake Butler (Issue Eight), Zora Neale Hurston (Issue Seven) Joe Meno (Issues Four and Seven) David Potes (Issue Seven) Roxane Gay (Issues Six and Seven) and Raquel Aparicio (Issue Four) then please. Please. Please spread the word to your friends, family and whoever else you think would be into the cool things we’re up to at Annalemma.

Honestly, I know these contributors are published a lot of different places, very good places, but who else publishes them in such a beautiful package? Nobody but Anna. It’s true. Don’t deny it. Promote it. Thank you. You’re incredible.

This week‘s image contributor, Sean Lotman, snaps these strange, washed out, cross processed photos out of what feels like a pinhole camera, then posts them on his blog and writes haiku about them. Good haiku, too. And I don’t even like haiku. Click on over and check him out. These are the out-takes of this week’s essay. I was going to run this pig image here, but I felt that would portray the anti-hero of the story in too much of a negative light. As fucked up as he is, he’s got some redeeming qualities. The anti-hero, that is, not Sean, who seems like a very decent man.

Thanks Sean!