Endicott Redux

Reading on the Borders

" 'If the reader, while reading a story of this kind, thinks that the waiters are playing a joke or that they are involved in some collective psychosis, then we have lost the game. But if we have been able to give him the impression that we are talking about a world in which these absurd manifestations appear as normal behaviour, then he will find himself plunged all at once into the heart of the fantastic.' " — Jean-Paul Sartre (Cafe Irreal, Issue #26)

It's always good to remember how much excellent free fiction there is out there -- brought to you by passionate and creative editors who produce terrific issues, almost every month. I'd call it "reading on the borders" (or "interstitial " for those of you in the movement!) because the fiction is unique and experimental, fantastic and magical all at once. So here's a quick round up and I hope you stop by to give all of these hardworking online journals a glance.

Cafe Irreal: publishes wonderful short-short pieces, bordering on the surreal, from an international crop of writers. Favorites from this issue (#26) are Thief of the Moon, by Srinjay Chakravarti and Selections from Fabulosae Aves, by Flavia Lobo (with whimsical drawings by John Digby, such as the one above). And then there's that fabulous quote from Sartre above that I couldn't resist.

Farrago's Wainscot: Volume II, #6 offers a range of emotionally intense self-reflective tales and road stories. Favorites here were Running the Road, by Nancy Jane Moore and Three Views of the Maiden in Peril, by Catherine Lundoff. (Congratulations on their recent award for Best New Online Magazine or Journal.)

Clarkesworld has a fabulous new story from Catherynne Valente, a mystical geographical lesson in A Buyer's Guide to the Maps of Antarctica and Garth Upshaw has a killer tale of crows and aliens in Birdwatcher.

Serendipity, specializing in magic realism, continues to offer a handful of new stories (and a competition here and there) every month. In this issue favorites were Blue, from Elaine Walker and the very quirky Party Line from Phyllis Anderson.

Young Artists Spotlight: Chantal Bennett

   

I love discovering the work of emerging artists -- the young men and women who represent the future of the mythic arts field. Today our spotlight is on Chantal Bennett, a Canadian illustrator based in Brooklyn, New York.

"I am currently finishing up my studies in illustration at Parsons New School of Design in New York City," she says, "and most of the recent work I've been doing has been heavily influenced by Celtic mythology and folklore." She also loves Art Nouveau, and illustrative art from the Victorian age.

Visit Bennett's website and Live Journal sketch blog to see more of her enchanting art.

   

Remember when blogging was new and you could catch up on your favorite blogs over morning coffee? Now there's so much good stuff out there that there's no way in heck to keep up with it all (though syndication feeds are certainly a help), and I'm even falling behind on keeping up with blogs by friends. Case in point: I only just found out that Kim Antieau has been posting wonderful little interviews with other mythic-arts writers on her newly re-designed blog; she's got interviews with Alice Hoffman, Charles de Lint, Joanna Harris, Jane Yolen, and poet Jimmy Santiago Baca so far. She has also posted an intriguing interview with herself in which 60 writers, editors, family members and friends asked the questions. You can read some good snippets from the interviews below, and go here to check them out at full length. They are little gems.

Kim to Alice Hoffman: Like many fairy tales, your stories often begin with catastrophe. Terrible things happen to your characters and to the people around them. Is it difficult to be a witness to these tragedies, as the writer? Is this emotionally draining for you as you are writing it? Or is it cathartic? Or neither?

Alice: It's cathartic to take straw and make it into gold, or as close to gold as you can get it. Also to transfigure reality and expand it. Terrible things happen in all fairy tales -- why not? They are the most honest of all literature.

Kim to Charles de Lint: Are you ever unsure of yourself or your writing?

Charles: All the time. I think a good writer is a mix of confidence (sure that what they’re writing is going to appeal to their readers) and uncertainty (what if all these words are crap?). If you’re too confident, you get an attitude that seeps through into your writing, affecting the characters and the story. If you’re too uncertain, you’ll never finish anything.

Kim to Joanne Harris: Alice Hoffman says you can tell something about a person by which book they prefer: Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. Which book do you prefer? Why?

Joanne:Wuthering Heights; partly because I live within a stone’s throw of the place, and the landscape has shaped my childhood, and partly because of the raw poetry of the writing and the extraordinary insight the author shows into the darker mysteries of the human heart – an at such a tender age. Fantastic.

. . . And on another subject entirely, there's a good article posted on Salon.com today about Ursula Le Guin's new mythic novel, Lavinia.

On ghosts and giants. . .

I hope y'all are familiar with Fantasy Magazine, the weekly webzine devoted to high fantasy, contemporary and urban tales, surrealism, magical realism, science fantasy, and folktales. The magazine is co-edited by the indefatigable Sean Wallace and Cat Rambo (of Prime Books), along with the stellar team of Paul Tremblay, K. Tempest Bradford, Paula Guran and Stephen Segal.

They've published some terrific fiction recently, but of particular interest to mythic fiction readers is Paul Jessop's fine tale "A Word Without Ghosts" (with its delicious allusions to fairy tales, animal bridegroom myths, and the story of Peter Pan), and Richard Bowes' enchanting fable "The Cinnamon Cavalier." Don't miss them.

The charming painting above is "The Artist at Work," from K. Tempest Bradford's profile of illustrator Kat Beyer.

Speaking of Prime Books, did you know that they're republishing the "Snow White, Blood Red" fairy tales series in new trade-paperback editions? Black Thorn, White Rose is available now, with more volumes to follow.

   

My hat is off to the Stainless Steel Droppings blog, which just keeps getting better and better. This week is Book Week, which editor Carl V. says "will focus on different art, artisans, etc. that have something to do with that form of entertainment that so many of us love: the book!" Today's post features the fabulous work of Su Blackwell and Brian Dettmer. Go here to see much more.

The art above is "Twelve Dancing Princesses" by Su Blackwell.

Of men and dogs...

 

I was researching the folklore of dogs recently and came across a good, short article to share with you: "Black Dogs: Guardians of the Corpse Ways" by Bob Trubshaw (posted on the At the Edge website).

"The dog is the oldest domestic animal," writes Trubshaw, "traceable to the paleolithic, since when dogs have enjoyed a peculiarly close relationship with humans, sharing their hearths at night and guarding the home, working during the day as sheepdogs or hunters. This close symbiotic relationship with people is reflected in the early literature where dogs seem to have clear connections with the Otherworld. But this is not unique to hounds as many species from bulls, boars, to owls and cuckoos have clear associations with deities which lead to ritual veneration. However, archaeological evidence and mythology brings recurring examples of a very specific role for dogs. They are the 'psycopomps', the guides on the paths to the Otherworld, the guardians of the 'liminal' zone at the boundaries of the worlds...."

If you happen to be looking for a more in-depth study of dog mythology, try David Gordon-White's wide-ranging, fascinating book Myths of the Dog-Man, from the University of Chicago Press. The Mythology of Dogs by Gerald and Loretta Hausman is also a good source of information on dog lore from around the world.

As for dogs in magical fiction, I hope you haven't missed Kij Johnson's absolutely brilliant story "The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change," published in The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales. (It can be read online here.) Reviewer Colleen Mondor was as bowled over by Kij's story as I was:

"Johnson takes a relatively simple idea -- that animals have gained the ability to speak -- and takes readers into an emotionally charged arena that is wholly unexpected and exhilarating. Once I realized the hook for this story, I thought it might be funny in a wry or maybe even sophisticated sort of way, but I didn’t think that Johnson would be able to touch my heart so deeply....'The Evolution of Trickster Stories' is a perfect story for classes on the modern short story; it conveys an amazing amount of powerful emotion in such few words and in a truly uncanny way."

I recommend reading Colleen's full review (over on the Bookslut website), in which she also looks at dog tales by Nick Abadzis (Laika) and Charles de Lint (Dingo), as well as a reptile novel by Wendy Townsend and animal poetry from Marjorie Maddox.

Kristen Bakis' novel Lives of the Monster Dogs is a Frankenstein-like story about a race of dog-people, designed by a mad scientist, now living in New York City. I loved the wacky premise, but didn't find the book itself entirely successful...Ellen Datlow loved it, however (as did many other people), so it's definitely worth checking out. On the mainstream shelves, I was impressed and occasionally unnerved by the hard-hitting stories in Brad Watson's Last Days of the Dog-Men. Despite the fanciful title, this is a collection of realist stories with just a tinge of surrealism at the edges...but don't miss it if you're a dog lover, or simply a fan of fine contemporary writing.

Art credits: The painting at the top of this post is from my Desert Spirits series, called "Coyote and the Dog Spirits." The second painting is by Meinrad Craighead, who often uses dog symbolism in her deeply spiritual and mythic art, which has been collected in a beautiful volume titled Crow Mother and the Dog God. The photographs on the left are "Old Dogs" and "Macbeth" by the dog-obsessed artist William Wegman. Visit his website to see more of his work. (There's a cool little flash movie on the homepage.) For more dog lore and art here's a link to to our previous post on the subject: Magical Dogs.

Duirwaigh Gallery: Moving Sale Extravaganza

Angi Sullins of Duirwaigh Gallery is having a huge (over 300 items!) moving sale on Ebay from May 1st through the 14th. Here's a chance to purchase some really terrific pieces of art from well known fantasy artists. Here's the description of the sale: " A treasure box of items will appear for auction here on Monday May 1st to help Duirwaigh find homes for many of its art-children! To make their cross-country move easier, lots of limited edition signed prints, original paintings, unique drawings, one-of-a-kind sculptures, animation cels, collectibles and fun things will be up for auction May 1st - May 15th. Items from Wendy and Brian Froud, David Delamare, Kinuko Craft, Linda Ravenscroft, Amy Brown, Ian Daniels, and Nene Thomas will be featured in the sale."

For more information, stop by Angi's blog for photos and news updates about the sale.

The Monday Video

Our Monday Video this week is "Maybe Sparrow" by Neko Case, with animation by Julie and Paul Morstad. The song comes from Case's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, an album recorded at the Wave Lab Studio in Tucson. You can hear more of her music on her website.

Julie Morstad is a Vancouver artist whose work I just love. Go to her website to see more of her art -- and also check out her terrific new artbook, Milk Teeth, from the Canadian art & comics press Drawn & Quarterly.

   

Sunday Poem

The Sunday Poem today is "Myth" by Natasha Trethewey, which is read by the poet herself in an audio recording on the Poetry Foundation website.  As Trethewey explains in her introduction, this astonishing poem, written as a palindrome, combines the myth of Orpheus' journey to the underworld in search of Eurydice with the poet's own vital dreams about her deceased mother.

Trethewey's 2000 collection, Domestic Work, won the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for best first book of poetry by an African American poet, the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize, and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. Her 2006 collection, Native Guard, received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including The American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, and The Southern Review. Trethewey is currently a Professor of English at Emory University, where she holds the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry.

You can hear and see more of Trethewey discussing and reading her work here and here (scroll down to see the many options).

*The art above is "Orpheus and Eurydice" by George Frederick Watts.

From Bordertown to Checquers

Those of you who remember the fabulous original covers for the Borderland series might be interested in what the cover artist, Phil Hale, is up to these days. Go here to find out.