 |
| Notes from the Bell TowerNews from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard PeabodyThings I forgot to mention in the last mailing:1) Does anybody know???I’m trying to track down a few things.A late 60s/early 70s short story about the last gasoline powered car? At one point I thought Ken Purdy wrote it, that it was called “Kings of the Road” but that’s a nf book. Still, that approximates what I remember. The entire futuristic society is chasing the guy in the last car. (Does he steal it out of a museum?) Might have been in a SF anthology? Title? Author?Another s.s. same vintage. A guy hears a joke at the office and asks his buddy where he heard it. He then proceeds to track the genesis of the joke all the way back and discovers a building in NYC where people create jokes all day. It’s top security and now that he knows they can’t allow him to leave. He either has to join the joke factory or they have to kill him. Title? Author? There was a short-short video back in the late 70s/early 80s that featured a room entirely filled with Disney dolls, trinkets, clocks, you name it, and the entire film was maybe 3 minutes max with everything marching around/moving. I don’t know whether it was early computer animation or stop-action photography but it was absolutely extraordinary (and creepy). Who was the director? What was it called? Some people told me they think it was one of those short-shorts they used to have on Saturday Night Live.The name of the ancient Greek woman poet/playwright thought to be the true writer of The Odyssey. (It’s not Sappho.) I read a brilliant defense of this thesis in the early 90s but I cannot for the life of me find anything on the article or the Greek woman. What was her name? The reasoning was that the Illiad was such a guy book, while The Odyssey must have been written by a woman because it was what women think men are up to when they’re not around. (Lovely.)I’m collecting Female Utopias/Dystopias. If you’ve read one that you recommend—do tell. (My undergrad independent study classes were on Primary and Secondary Utopian/Dystopian works/sources.) But right now I only care about the Female vision of same.2) For the DC area folks:The very hip poet/fiction writer Kim Addonizio (who grew up in the DC area) is touring with her first novel—Little Beauties. She’ll be reading at Chapters in DC on Tuesday September 13 th at 7pm. Don’t miss this gig. But in case you do, she’ll be back at the DC Book Festival on Saturday September 24th at 10:30am.3) Dynamic poet Sean Doughtery is working on his thesis and has a questionnaire below that he’s sending about re. Creative Nonfiction. His note is below. If you’re interested do fill it out and email it back to him.Dear Admirable Friends, Colleagues and Acquaintances,It’s Sean Thomas Dougherty here from the BFA Program at Penn State Erie. Please excuse this mass email. I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor. I just restarted my PhD work at Syracuse and I’m doing it on Process and Creative Non Fiction. I’m doing a qualitative study with CNF writers to get to some core issues in the Field. I’m trying to gather as many interviews as possible–I mean 100s if I can. I hope to turn this study into a book project.The survey can be emailed back to me at SUD1@PSU.EDU. I was hoping that you guys could help me out by participating and/or distributing the survey to any colleagues or students of yours. I’m sending this now as I’m thinking maybe some of you might be going to some conferences in August. Diana Hume George is helping me to get the word out too and is going to distribute it at the Goucher MFA Program this week. Dinty Moore has already distributed it to his email list with great results.The survey is only 10 brief essay questions but I worry about getting people to even do this. I’m hoping the possibility of turning it into a book will encourage everyone to get back to me. I’m interested in responses from all levels in the field.Thank you for your time and I hope we collide this year. Any help on this is so appreciated.Sincerely, SeanSean Thomas Dougherty Assistant Director of Creative Writing Penn State Erie 5091 Station Road Erie, PA 16563-1501 W (814) 898-6069 seanthomas13210@yahoo.com————————————————————————————————Questionnaire on the Process of Writing Creative Non-Fiction Name:Institutional Affiliation and Rank:Address:City:State:Phone:Email:___ I would like my answers kept anonymous. Thank you for taking the time to fill out this essay survey. These surveys are being used to complete my Ph.D. dissertation at Syracuse University on the Process of Writing Creative Non-Fiction. I hope to turn this qualitative study into a book proposal. All answers, unless requested, then will be given full credit and authorial acknowledgement.Please take your time and answer to your fullest abilities. Length is no problem, and long, complicated engaged responses are greatly welcomed. But short answers are welcome too.If you have any questions I can be reached by phone at 814-898-6069. Please return the survey either as a Word Attachment at: SUD1@PSU.EDU or can be snail mailed to:Sean Thomas Dougherty Lecturer in Creative Writing BFA Program in Creative Writing Penn State Erie 5091 Station Road Erie, PA 16563-15011. What key term is most important to you when you think of Creative Non Fiction: Craft? Voice? Truth? Character? Please offer a brief list with the most important first:A.B.C.D.E. How important is genre when you begin to write? For example essay, memoir, article. Does genre dictate the terms of your invention strategy? Or do you write and let the process find the appropriate form?How important is Research to your work? Do you often begin with Research before drafting, or does research enter after you have started drafting? Please give examples from your own process and work.When you write, how do you–as Alan Cheuse notes–“clearly delineate the border between fact and fantasy?” Do you rely on your research? Interrogate memory? When in your process does this question present itself most? Do you want the reader to be able to say after reading your work “that really happened.” Please offer specific examples from your writing experience.Why sit down to write Non-Fiction as opposed to poems and stories? Do you write other forms of literary text? What draws you to write CNF? What does Non-Fiction offer/complement/resist that these other literary forms perhaps do or do not? Do you define your writing as Art? What makes a piece of Creative Non Fiction art and not simply journalism? Is it the use of literary technique? Is it a question of intention? Audience? Do you view yourself as an “artist?”Do you agree with Fern Kupfer that creating composite characters is a quite acceptable non-fiction strategy? Do you do this in your own work? Can you offer a specific example of a time when you felt the need to shift “the facts,” for story?At what point in the process do you think about the ethics of representation of Other people? Does it happen in the Invention stage, during drafting? At all times? Never?How important then is the Interview to your writing process? Do you agree with Laura Wexler that “the interview is the cornerstone tool of Creative Non Fiction?” Do you feel Creative Non Fiction’s continuing growth in Creative Writing Departments is the appropriate home for it? Why or why not? If not, where would you locate it institutionally and why? Do you think of CNF as “less academic” and more “professional?” As situated more in the professional fields?—————————————————————————————————Richard Peabody www.gargoylemagazine.com |
Notes from the Bell Tower
News from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard Peabody
Quick Notes:
The launch for Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area Women will be held at Politics and Prose (http://www.politics-prose.com/directio.htm), 5015 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 20008, (1-800-722-0790), on Saturday June 17th at 6pm. There will be a panel of ten contributors (definite so far are: Christina Bartolomeo, Kate Blackwell, Susan Coll, Wendi Kaufman, Meena Arora Nayak, Elizabeth Poliner, and Rose Solari) who will read a few lines from their work and answer audience questions. I wish we could have all 43 women on stage but the venue can’t handle something that large. We may have a second reading in Virginia eventually.
In other news:
Johns Hopkins hasn’t offered Richard a course for the spring though he will be advising two thesis students. Beyond that he’s looking for editing work. He charges $2 a dbl. spaced page to critique manuscripts (fiction and poetry for the most part). Richard worked on 9-10 complete novels in 2005 and would be available though June if anybody’s looking for a new set of eyes.
Richard also teaches a private novel workshop in his home, which involves 5 students with complete manuscripts in the 250-350pp (dbl. spaced in Courier type) range, meeting seven times over a period of 13 weeks. Each novel manuscript is thoroughly critiqued by 5 other sets of eyes and discussed over one complete 2 ½ hour session. One novel every other week. If this sounds good to you do please get in touch ASAP. The next session (his seventh) is scheduled to begin on February 2nd if there’s enough interest. An eighth class is planned for May-July. Complete boilerplate available on request.
Richard Peabody
www.gargoylemagazine.com
Notes from the Bell Tower
News from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard Peabody
Paycock Press is Launching Two New Books this Winter
1) Alice Redux: New Stories of Alice, Lewis and Wonderland, ed. by Richard Peabody, launches at the Writer’s Center on Thursday January 19th at 7:30pm. You can check out the WC’s site for directions at: http://www.writer.org/.
Readers:
Donya Currie Arias
Kevin Downs
CM Dupre
Dorothy Hickson
Miles David Moore
Victoria Popdan
Ross Taylor
Nancy Taylor will be bringing a batch of her trippy pix from the book (in color!). Sort of a big 10 on the atmosphere charts for the gig.
The Writer’s Center
4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD 20815
Phone: 301 654-8664, Fax: 301 654-8667
2) Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body, ed. by Lucinda Ebersole & Richard Peabody, launches at Chapters: A Literary Bookstore on Valentine’s Day, February 14th at 1pm. It’s a lunchtime gig with some chocolate support from the Park sisters’ Chocolate Chocolate shop. More info and directions can be found at: http://www.chaptersliterary.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp
Readers
R.R. Angell
Jodi Bloom
Moira Egan
Ivy Goodman
Deirdra McAfee
Nani Power
Chapters: A Literary Bookstore
445 11th St. NW
Near Metro Center 11th St. Exit
Washington, DC 20004
(202) 737-5553
In other news, Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press will be attending both the AWP Convention in Austin, Texas (March 8-11) and we’ll be sharing a table with Robert Giron’s Gival Press at the annual Book Expo (May 19-21) located in Washington, DC for 2006.
We expect to be launching Volume #2 in a trilogy of anthologies of fiction by Washington Area Women writers in May 2006. The first volume, Grace & Gravity, was a popular and critical success, and the follow-up, Enhanced Gravity, features work by:
Stephanie Allen, Christina Bartolomeo, Kate Blackwell, Hildie S. Block, Lisa Boylan
Carole Burns, Susan Coll, Jennifer Cutting, Ramola D., J. H. Diehl, CM Dupre, Patricia Elam, Herta Feely, Robin Ferrier, Sara Fisher, Bruce Fleming, Lee Fleming, Colleen Franklin, Amy Fries, Dorothy Hickson, H. M. Johnson, Alma Katsu, Wendi Kaufman , Susan Land, E. J. Levy, Meena Arora Nayak, Vaenessa Orlando, Michele Orwin, Sibbie O’Sullivan, Saideh Pakravan, Ginger Park, Suzanne Picard, Judith Podell, Elizabeth Poliner, Judy Pomeranz, Stephanie Siciarz, Rozanne Gooding Silverwood, Julia Slavin, Rose Solari, Sally Steenland, Venus Thrash, Julie Wakeman-Linn, Sarah L. Williams, and C. Jenise Wriston.
Gargoyle #51, our 30th Anniversary Issue, should appear soon after that, at some point during the summer of 2006. The issue features a cover by Patricia Storms and photos by David Moss plus written work by:
Gail Galloway Adams, Deborah Ager, Roberta Allen, Naomi Ayala, Toby Barlow, Nicole Blackman, Sarah Browning, Laura Chester, Jan Clausen, Quinn Dalton, Thaisa Frank, Sunil Freeman, Abby Frucht, Steven Gillis, Jennifer Gresham, Reginald Harris, Elizabeth Hazen, Nik Houser, Reuben Jackson, Bruce A. Jacobs, Ron Koertge, Gerry LaFemina, Nathan Leslie, Lyn Lifshin, Pat MacEnulty, Kat Meads, Susan Smith Nash, Toby Olson, Elizabeth Oness, Kit Reed, Megan Staffel, Elizabeth Swados, Angel Threatt, Jessica Treat, Paul West, Dallas Wiebe, Ed Zahniser, and tons more.
I’ll be moderating a panel of Literary Magazine Editors at the Washington Independent Writers’ “The Reality of Fiction Writing: From Prose to Publication” conference on Saturday January 21st at George Washington University. My panel runs from 1-2:15pm and features Blair Ewing, managing editor of WordWrights!; Nathan Leslie, The Pedestal Magazine and The Potomac; and Julie Wakeman-Linn, Potomac Review. For more info go to the WIW site at: http://www.washwriter.org/
Also in the works: This Changes Everything: An Anthology on the quest for motherhood and the transformations of parenthood, ed. by Donya Currie and Hildie S. Block ISBN 0-931181-26-7 Due Fall 2006
An anthology of poetry, fiction, essays and artwork by Jody Bolz, Carol Burns, Grace Cavalieri, Christina Daub, Mary Doroshenk, Patricia Gray, Clarinda Harriss, Anne Hasselbrack, Jacqueline Jules, Mary Ann Larkin, Lyn Lifshin, Hilary Tham, Donna Vitucci, Mary-Sherman Willis, and tons more.
Cover is an amazing b/w shot of a mom nursing twins. Fertility Goddess gone punkette.
Richard Peabody
www.gargoylemagazine.com
Notes from the Bell Tower
News from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard Peabody
Things I forgot to mention in the last mailing:
1) Does anybody know???
I’m trying to track down a few things.
A late 60s/early 70s short story about the last gasoline powered car? At one point I thought Ken Purdy wrote it, that it was called “Kings of the Road” but that’s a nf book. Still, that approximates what I remember. The entire futuristic society is chasing the guy in the last car. (Does he steal it out of a museum?) Might have been in a SF anthology? Title? Author?
Another s.s. same vintage. A guy hears a joke at the office and asks his buddy where he heard it. He then proceeds to track the genesis of the joke all the way back and discovers a building in NYC where people create jokes all day. It’s top security and now that he knows they can’t allow him to leave. He either has to join the joke factory or they have to kill him. Title? Author?
There was a short-short video back in the late 70s/early 80s that featured a room entirely filled with Disney dolls, trinkets, clocks, you name it, and the entire film was maybe 3 minutes max with everything marching around/moving. I don’t know whether it was early computer animation or stop-action photography but it was absolutely extraordinary (and creepy). Who was the director? What was it called? Some people told me they think it was one of those short-shorts they used to have on Saturday Night Live.
The name of the ancient Greek woman poet/playwright thought to be the true writer of The Odyssey. (It’s not Sappho.) I read a brilliant defense of this thesis in the early 90s but I cannot for the life of me find anything on the article or the Greek woman. What was her name? The reasoning was that the Illiad was such a guy book, while The Odyssey must have been written by a woman because it was what women think men are up to when they’re not around. (Lovely.)
I’m collecting Female Utopias/Dystopias. If you’ve read one that you recommend—do tell. (My undergrad independent study classes were on Primary and Secondary Utopian/Dystopian works/sources.) But right now I only care about the Female vision of same.
2) For the DC area folks:
The very hip poet/fiction writer Kim Addonizio (who grew up in the DC area) is touring with her first novel—Little Beauties. She’ll be reading at Chapters in DC on Tuesday September 13 th at 7pm. Don’t miss this gig. But in case you do, she’ll be back at the DC Book Festival on Saturday September 24th at 10:30am.
3) Dynamic poet Sean Doughtery is working on his thesis and has a questionnaire below that he’s sending about re. Creative Nonfiction. His note is below. If you’re interested do fill it out and email it back to him.
Dear Admirable Friends, Colleagues and Acquaintances,
It’s Sean Thomas Dougherty here from the BFA Program at Penn State Erie. Please excuse this mass email. I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor. I just restarted my PhD work at Syracuse and I’m doing it on Process and Creative Non Fiction. I’m doing a qualitative study with CNF writers to get to some core issues in the Field. I’m trying to gather as many interviews as possible–I mean 100s if I can. I hope to turn this study into a book project.
The survey can be emailed back to me at SUD1@PSU.EDU.
I was hoping that you guys could help me out by participating and/or distributing the survey to any colleagues or students of yours. I’m sending this now as I’m thinking maybe some of you might be going to some conferences in August. Diana Hume George is helping me to get the word out too and is going to distribute it at the Goucher MFA Program this week. Dinty Moore has already distributed it to his email list with great results.
The survey is only 10 brief essay questions but I worry about getting people to even do this. I’m hoping the possibility of turning it into a book will encourage everyone to get back to me. I’m interested in responses from all levels in the field.
Thank you for your time and I hope we collide this year. Any help on this is so appreciated.
Sincerely,
Sean
Sean Thomas Dougherty
Assistant Director of Creative Writing
Penn State Erie
5091 Station Road
Erie, PA 16563-1501
W (814) 898-6069
seanthomas13210@yahoo.com
————————————————————————————————
Questionnaire on the Process of Writing Creative Non-Fiction
Name:
Institutional Affiliation and Rank:
Address:
City:
State:
Phone:
Email:
___ I would like my answers kept anonymous.
Thank you for taking the time to fill out this essay survey. These surveys are being used to complete my Ph.D. dissertation at Syracuse University on the Process of Writing Creative Non-Fiction. I hope to turn this qualitative study into a book proposal. All answers, unless requested, then will be given full credit and authorial acknowledgement.
Please take your time and answer to your fullest abilities. Length is no problem, and long, complicated engaged responses are greatly welcomed. But short answers are welcome too.
If you have any questions I can be reached by phone at 814-898-6069. Please return the survey either as a Word Attachment at: SUD1@PSU.EDU or can be snail mailed to:
Sean Thomas Dougherty
Lecturer in Creative Writing
BFA Program in Creative Writing
Penn State Erie
5091 Station Road
Erie, PA 16563-1501
1. What key term is most important to you when you think of Creative Non Fiction: Craft? Voice? Truth? Character? Please offer a brief list with the most important first:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
How important is genre when you begin to write? For example essay, memoir, article. Does genre dictate the terms of your invention strategy? Or do you write and let the process find the appropriate form?
How important is Research to your work? Do you often begin with Research before drafting, or does research enter after you have started drafting? Please give examples from your own process and work.
When you write, how do you–as Alan Cheuse notes–“clearly delineate the border between fact and fantasy?” Do you rely on your research? Interrogate memory? When in your process does this question present itself most? Do you want the reader to be able to say after reading your work “that really happened.” Please offer specific examples from your writing experience.
Why sit down to write Non-Fiction as opposed to poems and stories? Do you write other forms of literary text? What draws you to write CNF? What does Non-Fiction offer/complement/resist that these other literary forms perhaps do or do not?
Do you define your writing as Art? What makes a piece of Creative Non Fiction art and not simply journalism? Is it the use of literary technique? Is it a question of intention? Audience? Do you view yourself as an “artist?”
Do you agree with Fern Kupfer that creating composite characters is a quite acceptable non-fiction strategy? Do you do this in your own work? Can you offer a specific example of a time when you felt the need to shift “the facts,” for story?
At what point in the process do you think about the ethics of representation of Other people? Does it happen in the Invention stage, during drafting? At all times? Never?
How important then is the Interview to your writing process? Do you agree with Laura Wexler that “the interview is the cornerstone tool of Creative Non Fiction?”
Do you feel Creative Non Fiction’s continuing growth in Creative Writing Departments is the appropriate home for it? Why or why not? If not, where would you locate it institutionally and why? Do you think of CNF as “less academic” and more “professional?” As situated more in the professional fields?
—————————————————————————————————
Richard Peabody
www.gargoylemagazine.com
Notes from the Bell Tower
News from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard Peabody
Lots of things to tell you all about but experiencing the double whammy of having a book of s.s. rejected on the same day my book of poems (with the best work I’ve ever accomplished) didn’t even make the final cut in a local poetry contest, has me sinking fast as the Clash said: “Down and down and hit the floor, down and down and down some more, depression.” Every writer I know is in the same boat–living the Kerouac life of several manuscripts in the backpack. Maybe it’s time to create a DC area Fiction Collective? Now that’s an idea. But having helped so many others in my life it’s my time to ask you all out there if they have market suggestions for me. Cuz I’m fresh out. I seem to be able to steer other folks but can’t get out of my own way.Let me follow that with the news that my longtime partner in crime, Lucinda Ebersole, is moving to West Virginia where she seemingly bought an entire town. She’s outta Dodge very soon. I’m kind of in bittersweet limbo about this—happy/sad. I know she wanted out of the area but 4 hours away might as well be Siberia from my life with small kids POV.
August News
First, my “Use as Needed” story is in Potion #3. http://www.potionmag.org/#
And my “Rain in Eritrea ” story is in Pedestal #29 due out in a week or so. http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/
I also have some work in Robert Giron’s new anthology Poetic Voices Without Borders. 150 poets from six continents. $20 from Gival Press at www.givalpress.com.
And I’m part of an Exquisite Corpse in the 3rd print issue of 2GyrlzQuarterly (2GQ). I haven’t seen it yet but I’m in there with Dave Eggers, Julian Tulip, and a whole bunch of others. http://www.2gq.org/
Apparently Linda Friedman’s fantastic interview with me for Radio Clarendon, the new internet station in my neighborhood, isn’t online yet. Check it out soon at www.radioclarendon.com. I know they’re going to run some cuts from the Gargoyle Cds (46 and 49) as part of the interview. Not sure when that will be yet.
September
Grace Cavalieri’s review of CD issue #49 is due up at: The Montserrateview and here it is:GARGOYLE 49 (CD: Poetry/Music)
Produced by Richard Peabody, postproduction/sound by Zenon Slawinski
Column: BEST PICKS FOUR STARS / Cavalieri
Gargoyle Magazine is a known quantity and has made a national difference in the literary world for more than two decades. Recently, publisher/poetry curator Richard Peabody has ventured into the world of sound. Gargoyle 49 is poetry and music combined, not the first of his audio ventures, but the best.
In the world of poetry and music, theorists talk about relationships—of material to sound—and finally the overall tone. We can call this aesthetic quality—still a useful phrase. For audiophiles, the hardware drives the software and we care very much that one track does not amplify differently from the next. Thank God the technical is superior from the hands of Zenon Slawinski who has an established reputation riding on it.
I think the victory of this edition is the combined effort where the sensibility of the performers all fit within a general discourse, pieces of the same cultural puzzle. Gargoyle 49 is a criticism of the world from many poetic positions. It presents the artists’ prevailing consciousness and conscience at a time when intellectuals seemingly have no other power over events. As we listen we realize the effectiveness of thought, image, humor, satire more than ever before—making the mainstream world an ok place to visit but we’d rather hang out with a Gargoyle reality.
35 (and more) poets and musicians offer renditions successfully different in meditation and emphasis — from the clarion voices of Donna Denize (“Sacred Geometry,” “Babylon to Baghdad”) and Bernadette Geyer (“The Eye Forgets,” “The Rose Forgets Its Beauty”) to the hilarious, memorable Jenny Badman (“The Boyfriend Poem”) and the incorrigible incandescent, Jeffrey McDaniel (“What Year was Heaven Desegregated”).
These and others are poetcritics of the society they live in, connecting us to ideas with mystical intelligence and sometimes a stand-up-comedy precision. The CD is important, not only as a paradigm of America in the 21 st century but as a showcase for the changes we see in poets who have spoken over the years. How else would we hear Sydney March’s “Monk’s Misterioso,” so different from his previous works, or the new musical intentions of Zenon Slawinski (“Now Hear This”) who has been inventing technology for sound for more than a quarter of a century.
Some of the other music selected I have to say is still in love with the 70’s,but; in fairness, certain kinds of music frames words the best and let us remember that impresario Peabody is faithful to his mission — presenting poetry. It is unlikely he’d let the word be subsumed by a heavier beat. Just when we thought we knew everything about his work, we find the CD cover adorned with original Peabody sculpture and photos.
The only resistance that finally changes the world is creativity. This collaboration is an exciting compendium of voices and sound and one I’ll keep in the car radio for a very long time. For orders: gargoyle@gargoylemagazine.com. More information on the website: www.gargoylemagazine.com.
Grace Cavalieri
Poet/producer
“The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress”
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New Pages has a review of #50:
http://www.newpages.com/magazinestand/litmags/default.htm
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September 21 st (tentative) I’ll be reading in Charlottesville, VA with Sharon Leiter at New Dominion in downtown.
September 23th & 24th the 4th Southeastern Literary Magazine and Independent Press Festival at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta. I’ll have a table and also teach a fiction workshop. Details TBA.
I’m still trying to cement a gig in GA, SC, NC or VA for 9/26.
Upcoming Events
Saturday October 8 th brings a Johns Hopkins University Publishing Workshop with Tim Wendel and myself talking the talk. Details yet to come.
October 9th is 2004 Jenny McKean Moore honoree Joyce Hackett’s “Washington Write-a-Story-Day,” which will feature 30 fiction workshops all over the city. For more info go to www.joycehackett.com. I’m taking part as are people like Elizabeth Benedict, Kenny Carroll, Wendi Kaufman, Matt Klam, and a lot of the women from Grace and Gravity. I’ll be running a workshop at the Washington Highlands Public Library in SW from 2-5pm with a big reading of the day’s creations at GW University at 8pm. The best creations are to be featured in an anthology.
October 14th and 15th is the First Annual Chincoteague Island Writer’s Conference. I’ll be giving the Keynote Address on Friday night 7:30-8:30, be a part of a publishing panel Saturday and I’ll also either teach a fiction workshop or consult one-on-one with folks who think they’re ready for publication. Oh and I’ll also give a reading. For more info: CCA, PO Box 257 , Chincoteague Island , VA 23336 . E-mail writersconference@verizon.net. I’m particularly excited because I’ll get to meet Michael Weldon who is the guru of all things Psychotronic. Ex-pat poet Anne Rouse will be there, too. (She has 3 great collections out in England .)
October 22nd is the 10th Annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference. This year’s Award honoree is novelist Pat Conroy. I’ll be teaching a fiction workshop. And my literary partner in crime Lucinda Ebersole will be on one of the panels. Should be fun. You can call (301) 309-9461 for more info, or http://www.peerlessrockville.org/FSF.
October 26th I’ll be reading in Richmond, VA at Chop Suey Books at 7:30pm. Last I heard I’m reading with DC poet Hiram Larew. More info to come.
December 2005 Alice Redux: More Stories of Alice , Lewis, and Wonderland should be available before Christmas. The book is in final stages of desktopping and ready to go.February 14, 2006 is the pub date for Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body. We’re still ironing out two reprint permissions on this one. The book was assembled in 1998-99. We’ve lost a couple of stories and have added a couple of new ones written just in time.
March 8-11, 2006 The Associated Writing Program Convention in Austin, Texas. We have a table and we’ll be there soaking up music, selling books, and eating good food until we burst. http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2006awpconf.htm
May 19-21, 2006. Book Expo America 2006. Now that DC has a new gigantic convention center the Book Expo returns. We’ll be sharing a table with Robert Giron’s Gival Press. We’ll shake hands and kiss babies and generally run amuck amid the NY publishing world glitterati. www.bookexpoamerica.com
May 2006 Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area Women should be released. (We’re still waiting on two promised stories.) The sequel to last year’s Grace and Gravity includes: Stephanie Allen, Christina Bartolomeo, Kate Blackwell, Hildie S. Block, Lisa Boylan, Carole Burns, Susan Coll, Jennifer Cutting, Ramola D., J.H. Diehl, CM Dupre, Patricia Elam, Herta Feely, Robin Ferrier, Sara Fisher, Lee Fleming, Amy Fries, Dorothy Hickson, H. M. Johnson, Alma Katsu, Wendi Kaufman, Susan Land, E.J. Levy, Meena Arora Nayak, Vanessa Orlando, Michele Orwin, Sibbie O’Sullivan, Saideh Pakravan, Ginger Park, Colleen Pecorelli, Suzane Picard, Judith Podell, Liz Poliner, Judy Pomeranz, Stephanie Sicariz, Rozanne Gooding Silverwood, Julia Slavin, Rose Solari, Sally Steenland, Venus Thrash, Julie Wakeman-Linn, Sarah Louise Williams, C. Jenise Wriston and more.
###
Heartfelt thanks to all of the folks who jumped to our aid via the Advanced Subscription plan for Alice Redux, Sex & Chocolate, and the Jimi Hendrix Reader. We are still accepting checks made out to Richard Peabody, sent to 3819 North 13 th Street , Arlington , VA 22201 . $20 gets you one of the 3 books of your choice; $30 gets you any two, and $50 guarantees you a copy of any (or all) three. Each will be limited edition paperback run of 1,000cc.
Meanwhile we’re entering the final three weeks of collecting things work for Gargoyle #51. We’ll read until Labor Day. Looks like that won’t appear until next summer/fall. But I can tell you that the next issue features works by: Naomi Ayala, Jennifer Bosveld, Sarah Browning, Laura Chester, Jan Clausen, Quinn Dalton, Jennifer K. Dick, Ann Downer, Thaisa Frank, Sunil Freeman, Abby Frucht, Reginald Harris, Reuben Jackson, Bruce A. Jacobs, Ron Koertge, Gerry LaFemina, Nathan Leslie, Lyn Lifshin, Pat McEnulty, Daniel Nester, Toby Olson, Elizabeth Oness, Kit Reed, Megan Staffel, Venus Thrash, Angel Threatt, Jessica Treat, Tuschen, Dallas Wiebe, and much much more. Cover will be by Patricia Storms. If you haven’t heard from us yet, don’t despair. We’re buried in submissions and slowly reading our way through everything else. We also have a lot of things that we’re still pondering.
By the by we’re always looking for author photos, particularly literary couples, for our pages. No promises but we’re looking for things to consider and add to the mix.
I’ll be teaching a fiction workshop at Johns Hopkins this fall. I’ll also be offering another edition of my private Novel Class. I’m full up on the private class right now but I’ll offer it again in the spring. Let me know if you have any interest. The class is limited to 5 students with completed manuscripts in the 250-350 dbl spaced range. That’s in Courier font by the by. I have one person on the waiting list right now.
That’s all for now,
Happy End of Summer
Richard Peabody
www.gargoylemagazine.com
News from and about Richard Peabody
Lots of things to tell you about.
First, I have some work in Robert Giron’s new anthology Poetic Voices Without Borders. 150 poets from six continents. $20 from Gival Press at www.givalpress.com.
I also have an Exquisite Corpse in the 3rd print issue of 2GyrlzQuarterly (2GQ). I haven’t seen it yet but I’m in there with Dave Eggers, Julian Tulip, and a whole bunch of others. http://www.2gq.org/
And Linda Friedman did a fantastic interview with me yesterday for Radio Clarendon, the new internet station in my neighborhood. Check it out at www.radioclarendon.com. I know they’re going to run some cuts from the Gargoyle CDs (46 and 49) as part of the interview. Not sure when that will be yet.
July 2005.
Both new Gargoyle issues are hot off the presses.
CD issue #49 features the usual mix of Spoken Word/Music $10.
#50 is a massive 492-page chunk of lit which sells for $18.95 (plus $3 postage.) It’s big enough to stun a mugger. Might even stop a bullet. Go to our website for more info: www.gargoylemagazine.com. Both should be available from Amazon.com in a matter of days. But you can always make out a check to Atticus Books and pop it in the mail to our PO Box.
And Coming Soon:
July 30th the 1st DC Literary Arts Karaoke Benefit Extravaganza. 7-9pm at the Big Hunt (downstairs), 1345 Connecticut
Avenue, DC
. All money collected will be split between the literary journals. Here’s your chance to party, sing, embarrass yourself, and help the DC literary community. We’ll be there flogging our wares along with folks from 32 Poems, Barrelhouse, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Potion Magazine, Quarterly Staple, The Potomac, and more
September 23th & 24th the 4th Southeastern Literary Magazine and Independent Press Festival at Agnes
Scott
College
in Atlanta
. I’ll have a table and also teach a fiction workshop. Details TBA.
October 9th is Jenny McKean Moore honoree Joyce Hackett’s “Washington
Write-a-Story-Day” which will feature fiction workshops all over the city. For more info go to www.joycehackett.com. I’m taking part as are people like Elizabeth Benedict, Kenny Carroll, Jonathan S. Foer, Wendi Kaufman, Matt Klamm, Mary Kay Zuravleff, and more.
October 14th and 15th is the First Annual Chincoteague Island Writer’s Conference. I’ll be part of a publishing panel and I’ll also teach a fiction workshop and give a reading. For more info: CCA, PO Box 257
, Chincoteague Island
, VA
23336
. E-mail writersconference@verizon.net. I’m particularly excited because I’ll get to meet Michael Weldon who is the guru of all things Psychotronic. Ex-pat poet Anne Rouse will be there, too. (She has 3 great collections out in England.)
October 22nd is the 10th Annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference. This year’s Award honoree is novelist Pat Conroy. I’ll be teaching a fiction workshop. And my literary partner in crime Lucinda Ebersole will be on one of the panels. Should be fun. You can call (301) 309-9461 for more info, or http://www.peerlessrockville.org/FSF.
December 2005 Alice Redux: More Stories of Alice, Lewis, and Wonderland should be available before Christmas. We’re still in negotiations on four of the reprint permissions. You can take a sneak peek at the cover on our web site.
February 14, 2006 is the pub date for Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body. We’re still ironing out three reprint permissions on that one as well. The book was assembled in 1998-99. We’ve lost a couple of stories and have added a couple of new ones written just in time.
March 8-11, 2006 The Associated Writing Program Convention in Austin
, Texas.
We have a table and we’ll be there soaking up music, selling books, and eating good food until we burst. http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2006awpconf.htm
May 19-21, 2006. Book Expo America 2006. Now that DC has a new gigantic convention center the Book Expo returns. We’ll be sharing a table with Robert Giron’s Gival Press. We’ll shake hands and kiss babies and generally run amuck amid the NY publishing world glitterati. www.bookexpoamerica.com
May 2006 Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area Women should be released. (We’re still waiting on a few promised stories.) The sequel to last year’s Grace and Gravity includes: Stephanie Allen, Kate Blackwell, Hildie S. Block, Lisa Boylan, Carole Burns, Susan Coll, Jennifer Cutting, Ramola D., J.H. Diehl, CM Dupre, Patricia Elam, Herta Feely, Robin Ferrier, Sara Fisher, Lee Fleming, Amy Fries, Dorothy Hickson, Alma Katsu, Wendi Kaufman, Susan Land, E.J. Levy, Meena Arora Nayak, Michele Orwin, Sibbie O’Sullivan, Saideh Pakravan, Ginger Park, Colleen Pecorelli, Suzane Picard, Judith Podell, Liz Poliner, Judy Pomeranz, Holly Sanders, Stephanie Sicariz, Rozanne Gooding Silverwood, Rose Solari, Sally Steenland, Venus Thrash, Julie Wakeman-Linn, Sarah Louise Williams, and more.
Heartfelt thanks to all of the folks who jumped to our aid via the Advanced Subscription plan for Alice Redux, Sex & Chocolate, and the Jimi Hendrix Reader. We are still accepting checks made out to Richard Peabody, sent to 3819 North 13th Street
, Arlington
, VA
22201
. $20 gets you one of the 3 books of your choice; $30 gets you any two, and $50 guarantees you a copy of any (or all) three. Each will be limited edition paperback run of 1,000cc.
I’m heartbroken that the Jimi book is delayed in a morass of permissions hassles, MIA authors, and other problems. We’re still planning to publish it. Though it does appear certain that I’ll be looking for alternate stories to replace the ones I lose to the lawyers, sharks, and fees people.
Meanwhile we’re still considering work for Gargoyle #51. We’ll read until Labor Day. Looks like that won’t appear until next summer/fall.
I’ll be teaching a fiction workshop at Johns Hopkins in the fall. I’ll also be offering another edition of my Novel Class. Let me know if you have any interest. The class is limited to 5 students with completed manuscripts. I have four in place right now.
Happy Summer.
Richard Peabody
www.gargoylemagazine.com
Notes from the Bell Tower
News from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard Peabody
Happy Merry Everybody.
Time to fill you in on all the news–new reviews of Paycock publications, work, upcoming book launches, recent publications and the next Peabody novel workshop.
There are a bunch of new things up on our site. Gargoyle reviews in both Poets and Writers magazine and New Pages. Plus a review of Enhanced Gravity from The Pedestal.
The Montgomery County Gazette (MD) for 12/27/06 features Monica Hogan’s article on Enhanced Gravity. http://www.gazette.net/stories/122706/enteboo111756_31978.shtml
Launches for our two new books: Not What I Expected: The Unpredictable Road from Womanhood to Motherhood (ed. by Donya Currie Arias and Hildie S. Block) as well as Kiss the Sky: Fiction and Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix (ed. by Richard Peabody) are both due in March 2007. More info very soon. I can say that the Jimi launch will be held at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda on Saturday March 24th 7:30-9:30pm. We’ll raffle off the Experience box set among other things.
In other news:
Richard’s “Spaghetti Western Sestina” is up on the McSweeney’s Sestina site:http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/sestinas/27RichardPeabody.html
His story “Everybody’s Stoned (and So Am I)” is in The Pedestal.
http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/Secure/Content/cb.asp?cbid=5044
And his poem “Folding Laundry in My Dreams” is in The Chattahoochee Reviewhttp://www.gpc.edu/~gpccr/peabody.php
A couple of new mags are just up and running:
THE BROADKILL REVIEW, editor and publisher Jamie Brown. This will be a bimonthly review featuring poets and writers from the mid-Atlantic region. The mag is e-mailed in a pdf format to subscribers. Jamie runs the annual John Milton Festival in Delaware. Contact c/o John Milton and Co., 104 Federal St., Milton, DE 19968.
At the most recent conference in December 2006, a group of Delmarva editors and publishers joined together to create an alliance and announced the creation of The Delaware Poetry Review. This will be an online magazine/newsletter based in Delaware that will publish poems from writers both nationally and internationally, though a large focus will be on regional poets. As part of the cooperative joining together to make this project happen, we’re in search of a tech-savvy type who’s willing to become the managing editor. Interested persons should contact me for now. (I’ll pass e-mails along.) First issue is planned for Spring 2007 release and will be made up of entirely solicited material. Dennis Forney of The Cape Gazette should have a website up and running shortly.
Peabody’s Novel Workshop: Critique Your Complete Novel
Not Just a Couple of Chapters
It’s time for another round. Please pass the word to the usual suspects.
Limited to 5 students. We meet every two weeks on Wednesday day nights 7:30 until 10pm at my house in Arlington, Virginia. Four to five blocks from Virginia Square Metro station.
1. March 14
2. March 28
3. April 11
4. April 25
5. May 9
6. May 24 [Thursday]
7. May 30
Cost is $500 to be paid before the first night. Due to people dropping the class at the last minute and forcing me to cancel the entire session I now require that $125 of this fee be non-refundable and paid before the class begins.
Every participant turns in their complete novel and synopsis the first night along with 5 copies for everybody else and me. That way you get handwritten notes on everything from everybody. And you should feel free to recommend cuts, improvements, make suggestions, mark the manuscripts up at will. That’s what this class is all about. By meeting every two weeks each participant should have plenty of time to complete their critiques.
If you can’t attend every meeting (which I demand save for unforeseeable illness or death in the family as it’s a question of fairness and honor) please don’t bother signing up.
Why do I teach this class? Because you can go to your favorite bookshop and lift any number of contemporary novels off the shelf and read a few chapters only to discover that they fall apart at chapter four. Why? I’ve found that most MFA programs only critique the first three chapters of your manuscript. Plus, I’ve learned from the hands-on experience of teaching this course that a complete reading and critique is absolutely the best way (dare I say only way) to go. What’s the advantage of a small class like this one? There’s nothing quite like having five people discuss your characters as though they were living people for 2 ½ hours. What sorts of novels are eligible? Generally I handle serious literary fiction (both realism and experimental works), but the class has included YA, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Horror, Thriller, and Romance novels.
If you are interested do please email me a chapter and a synopsis. I’m only considering completed novels in the 250-350 dbl. spaced page range. (That’s one-sided, double spaced, 12pt. in Courier font.) Anything longer than that is pretty much wishful thinking right now due to grim market economics and politics. Most first novels are 300 dbl. spaced pages which equals 200pp. in book form. Simply a fact of the biz. Second novels are frequently a different story.
Katharine Davis (from the fall 2003 class) recently sold her novel to St. Martin’s Press. Alumni from Peabody’s 22 years of university, Writer’s Center, and private classes with filmed screenplays, books in print (or forthcoming) include: Mark Baechtel, Doreen Baingana, Toby Barlow, Maggie Bartley, Jodi Bloom, Sean Brijbasi, Peter Brown, Robert Cullen, Priscilla Cummings, Lucinda Ebersole, Cara Haycak, Dave Housley, Catherine Kimrey, Adam Kulakow, Nathan Leslie, Redge Mahaffey, Charlotte Manning, Meena Nayak, Matthew Olshan, William Orem, Mary Overton, Carolyn Parkhurst, Sally Pfoutz, Nani Power, Lisa Schamess, Brenda Seabrooke, Julia Slavin, and Yolanda Young.
My address is 3819 North 13th Street, Arlington, VA 22201. My house is 2 blocks from Quincy Park and the Central Library on Quincy Street. We are 3 doors from Washington-Lee High School where Quincy crosses 13th Street. My phone number is (703) 525-9296. My cell is (703) 380-4893
Richard Peabody wears many literary hats. He is editor of Gargoyle Magazine (founded in 1976), has published a novella, two books of short stories, six books of poems, plus an e-book, and edited or co-edited fourteen anthologies including: Mondo Barbie, Mondo Elvis, Mondo Marilyn, Mondo James Dean, Coming to Terms: A Literary Response to Abortion, Conversations with Gore Vidal, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation, Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women, Alice Redux: New Stories of Alice, Lewis, and Wonderland, Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body, and Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area Women. Kiss the Sky: Fiction and Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix is forthcoming in March of 2007.Peabody teaches fiction writing for the Johns Hopkins Advanced Studies Program and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He lives in Arlington, Virginia. You can find out more at www.wikipedia.com and/or http://www.gargoylemagazine.com.
If that’s not your cup of tea I will also be teaching another round of “Experimental Writing” at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD. Their site and info are at http://www.writer.org/ My class runs for eight weeks on Thursday nights beginning March 8th. 7:30-10pm.
I’m on a panel at AWP this year called “Beyond the Book” which the amazing C.M. Mayo has assembled. That’s Saturday March 3rd at 1:30 I believe. So if you make it to Atlanta I hope to see you there. Mostly I’ll be standing behind a table at the book fair trying to get in as many of those fleeting “great to see you again” sound bytes as I can.
Richard is also on a panel this coming weekend January 13th at the Washington Independent Writers’ “Business of Fiction Writing” Conference.
1:30–2:45 p.m. Panel: “Getting Your Work Done”
Success begins with completing your short story or novel. What’s the best way to make time for your writing? When and where do you do it? How do you avoid distractions? How do you fit writing into the rest of your crazy life? A personal organizer joins with writers who have grappled with such issues to offer valuable advice on getting your act together
Moderator: Gerrie Beck, a professional organizer, often helps writers and other create order and make maximum use of their time. Operating under the name of Maxispace, she teaches the value of right brain thinking and how creative individuals can achieve more organized living.
Panelists:
Paula Whyman won WIW’s 2006 Washington Writers Prize in short fiction for a story that appeared in The Hudson Review. Her first story was published in the award anthology Virgin Fiction (Morrow, 1998). Her fiction has also appeared in the North Dakota Quarterly. She has also written for Worldview magazine, the Washington Post Magazine and Bethesda Magazine. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two children and is at work on a novel.
Richard Peabody is a poet, fiction writer and editor. He is the founder and co-editor of Gargoyle magazine and editor or co-editor of 14 anthologies including Mondo Barbie, Mondo Elvis, Conversations with Gore Vidal, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation and Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women. He is the author of the novella SugarMountain, two short story collections, and six poetry collections. He teaches at the Writer’s Center and Johns Hopkins University.
Mary Eccles is the author of By Lizzie (Dial, 2001), a children’s novel, and is working on a novel set in Washington, D.C., in the 1950s and 60s. Her short fiction has appeared in Fine Print and received an award from the Antietam Review. Formerly a journalist with the Washington Star, The New Republic and Congressional Quarterly, she earned a doctorate in public policy at Harvard and has written on labor and social welfare issues in a series of jobs on Capitol Hill.
More info at: http://www.washwriter.org/special.html#2
Looking into the future–Richard will be reading at The MinasGallery in Baltimore on Sunday April 15 at 4pm with Joe Harrison.
Richard Peabody
www.gargoylemagazine.com
Notes from the Bell Tower
News from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard Peabody
Happy Merry Everybody.
Time to fill you in on all the news–new reviews of Paycock publications, work, upcoming book launches, recent publications and the next Peabody novel workshop.
There are a bunch of new things up on our site. Gargoyle reviews in both Poets and Writers magazine and New Pages. Plus a review of Enhanced Gravity from The Pedestal.
The Montgomery County Gazette (MD) for 12/27/06 features Monica Hogan’s article on Enhanced Gravity. http://www.gazette.net/stories/122706/enteboo111756_31978.shtml
Launches for our two new books: Not What I Expected: The Unpredictable Road from Womanhood to Motherhood (ed. by Donya Currie Arias and Hildie S. Block) as well as Kiss the Sky: Fiction and Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix (ed. by Richard Peabody) are both due in March 2007. More info very soon. I can say that the Jimi launch will be held at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda on Saturday March 24th 7:30-9:30pm. We’ll raffle off the Experience box set among other things.
In other news:
Richard’s “Spaghetti Western Sestina” is up on the McSweeney’s Sestina site:http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/sestinas/27RichardPeabody.html
His story “Everybody’s Stoned (and So Am I)” is in The Pedestal.
http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/Secure/Content/cb.asp?cbid=5044
And his poem “Folding Laundry in My Dreams” is in The Chattahoochee Reviewhttp://www.gpc.edu/~gpccr/peabody.php
A couple of new mags are just up and running:
THE BROADKILL REVIEW, editor and publisher Jamie Brown. This will be a bimonthly review featuring poets and writers from the mid-Atlantic region. The mag is e-mailed in a pdf format to subscribers. Jamie runs the annual John Milton Festival in Delaware. Contact c/o John Milton and Co., 104 Federal St., Milton, DE 19968.
At the most recent conference in December 2006, a group of Delmarva editors and publishers joined together to create an alliance and announced the creation of The Delaware Poetry Review. This will be an online magazine/newsletter based in Delaware that will publish poems from writers both nationally and internationally, though a large focus will be on regional poets. As part of the cooperative joining together to make this project happen, we’re in search of a tech-savvy type who’s willing to become the managing editor. Interested persons should contact me for now. (I’ll pass e-mails along.) First issue is planned for Spring 2007 release and will be made up of entirely solicited material. Dennis Forney of The Cape Gazette should have a website up and running shortly.
Peabody’s Novel Workshop: Critique Your Complete Novel
Not Just a Couple of Chapters
It’s time for another round. Please pass the word to the usual suspects.
Limited to 5 students. We meet every two weeks on Wednesday day nights 7:30 until 10pm at my house in Arlington, Virginia. Four to five blocks from Virginia Square Metro station.
1. March 14
2. March 28
3. April 11
4. April 25
5. May 9
6. May 24 [Thursday]
7. May 30
Cost is $500 to be paid before the first night. Due to people dropping the class at the last minute and forcing me to cancel the entire session I now require that $125 of this fee be non-refundable and paid before the class begins.
Every participant turns in their complete novel and synopsis the first night along with 5 copies for everybody else and me. That way you get handwritten notes on everything from everybody. And you should feel free to recommend cuts, improvements, make suggestions, mark the manuscripts up at will. That’s what this class is all about. By meeting every two weeks each participant should have plenty of time to complete their critiques.
If you can’t attend every meeting (which I demand save for unforeseeable illness or death in the family as it’s a question of fairness and honor) please don’t bother signing up.
Why do I teach this class? Because you can go to your favorite bookshop and lift any number of contemporary novels off the shelf and read a few chapters only to discover that they fall apart at chapter four. Why? I’ve found that most MFA programs only critique the first three chapters of your manuscript. Plus, I’ve learned from the hands-on experience of teaching this course that a complete reading and critique is absolutely the best way (dare I say only way) to go. What’s the advantage of a small class like this one? There’s nothing quite like having five people discuss your characters as though they were living people for 2 ½ hours. What sorts of novels are eligible? Generally I handle serious literary fiction (both realism and experimental works), but the class has included YA, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Horror, Thriller, and Romance novels.
If you are interested do please email me a chapter and a synopsis. I’m only considering completed novels in the 250-350 dbl. spaced page range. (That’s one-sided, double spaced, 12pt. in Courier font.) Anything longer than that is pretty much wishful thinking right now due to grim market economics and politics. Most first novels are 300 dbl. spaced pages which equals 200pp. in book form. Simply a fact of the biz. Second novels are frequently a different story.
Katharine Davis (from the fall 2003 class) recently sold her novel to St. Martin’s Press. Alumni from Peabody’s 22 years of university, Writer’s Center, and private classes with filmed screenplays, books in print (or forthcoming) include: Mark Baechtel, Doreen Baingana, Toby Barlow, Maggie Bartley, Jodi Bloom, Sean Brijbasi, Peter Brown, Robert Cullen, Priscilla Cummings, Lucinda Ebersole, Cara Haycak, Dave Housley, Catherine Kimrey, Adam Kulakow, Nathan Leslie, Redge Mahaffey, Charlotte Manning, Meena Nayak, Matthew Olshan, William Orem, Mary Overton, Carolyn Parkhurst, Sally Pfoutz, Nani Power, Lisa Schamess, Brenda Seabrooke, Julia Slavin, and Yolanda Young.
My address is 3819 North 13th Street, Arlington, VA 22201. My house is 2 blocks from Quincy Park and the Central Library on Quincy Street. We are 3 doors from Washington-Lee High School where Quincy crosses 13th Street. My phone number is (703) 525-9296. My cell is (703) 380-4893
Richard Peabody wears many literary hats. He is editor of Gargoyle Magazine (founded in 1976), has published a novella, two books of short stories, six books of poems, plus an e-book, and edited or co-edited fourteen anthologies including: Mondo Barbie, Mondo Elvis, Mondo Marilyn, Mondo James Dean, Coming to Terms: A Literary Response to Abortion, Conversations with Gore Vidal, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation, Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women, Alice Redux: New Stories of Alice, Lewis, and Wonderland, Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body, and Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area Women. Kiss the Sky: Fiction and Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix is forthcoming in March of 2007.Peabody teaches fiction writing for the Johns Hopkins Advanced Studies Program and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He lives in Arlington, Virginia. You can find out more at www.wikipedia.com and/or http://www.gargoylemagazine.com.
If that’s not your cup of tea I will also be teaching another round of “Experimental Writing” at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD. Their site and info are at http://www.writer.org/ My class runs for eight weeks on Thursday nights beginning March 8th. 7:30-10pm.
I’m on a panel at AWP this year called “Beyond the Book” which the amazing C.M. Mayo has assembled. That’s Saturday March 3rd at 1:30 I believe. So if you make it to Atlanta I hope to see you there. Mostly I’ll be standing behind a table at the book fair trying to get in as many of those fleeting “great to see you again” sound bytes as I can.
Richard is also on a panel this coming weekend January 13th at the Washington Independent Writers’ “Business of Fiction Writing” Conference.
1:30–2:45 p.m. Panel: “Getting Your Work Done”
Success begins with completing your short story or novel. What’s the best way to make time for your writing? When and where do you do it? How do you avoid distractions? How do you fit writing into the rest of your crazy life? A personal organizer joins with writers who have grappled with such issues to offer valuable advice on getting your act together
Moderator: Gerrie Beck, a professional organizer, often helps writers and other create order and make maximum use of their time. Operating under the name of Maxispace, she teaches the value of right brain thinking and how creative individuals can achieve more organized living.
Panelists:
Paula Whyman won WIW’s 2006 Washington Writers Prize in short fiction for a story that appeared in The Hudson Review. Her first story was published in the award anthology Virgin Fiction (Morrow, 1998). Her fiction has also appeared in the North Dakota Quarterly. She has also written for Worldview magazine, the Washington Post Magazine and Bethesda Magazine. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two children and is at work on a novel.
Richard Peabody is a poet, fiction writer and editor. He is the founder and co-editor of Gargoyle magazine and editor or co-editor of 14 anthologies including Mondo Barbie, Mondo Elvis, Conversations with Gore Vidal, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation and Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women. He is the author of the novella SugarMountain, two short story collections, and six poetry collections. He teaches at the Writer’s Center and Johns Hopkins University.
Mary Eccles is the author of By Lizzie (Dial, 2001), a children’s novel, and is working on a novel set in Washington, D.C., in the 1950s and 60s. Her short fiction has appeared in Fine Print and received an award from the Antietam Review. Formerly a journalist with the Washington Star, The New Republic and Congressional Quarterly, she earned a doctorate in public policy at Harvard and has written on labor and social welfare issues in a series of jobs on Capitol Hill.
More info at: http://www.washwriter.org/special.html#2
Looking into the future–Richard will be reading at The MinasGallery in Baltimore on Sunday April 15 at 4pm with Joe Harrison.
Richard Peabody
www.gargoylemagazine.com
|
| Notes from the Bell TowerNews from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard PeabodyTwo Things:Announcing Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area WomenThe 18th publication by Paycock Press (begun in 1976 and named for Irish playwright Sean O’Casey’s play Juno and the Paycock) is Enhanced Gravity, the second volume in a trilogy of anthologies that in the end will gather works by 115+ women from the area and total a massive 1000+ pages. Are there really that many women writing fiction in this town? Here’s the proof. What are they writing about? Sex, death, love, hate, birth, murder, children, parents, revenge, the endless war, grim choices in an even grimmer world.Original Fiction (only six reprints) by: Stephanie Allen, Christina Bartolomeo, Kate Blackwell, Hildie S. Block, Lisa Boylan, Carole Burns, Susan Coll, Jennifer Cutting, Ramola D, J.H. Diehl, CM Dupre, Patricia Elam, Herta Burbach Feely, Robin Ferrier, Sara Fisher, Lee Fleming, Colleen Franklin, Amy Fries, Dorothy Hickson, M.H. Johnson, Alma M. Katsu, Wendi Kaufman, Susan Land, E.J. Levy, Meena Arora Nayak, Vanessa Orlando, Michele Orwin, Sibbie O’Sullivan, Saideh Pakravan, Ginger Park, Suzanne Picard, Judith Podell, Elizabeth Poliner, Judy Pomeranz, Stephanie Siciarz, Rozanne Gooding Silverwood, Julia Slavin, Rose Solari, Sally Steenland, Venus Thrash, Julie Wakeman-Linn, Sarah Louise Williams, and C. Jenise Wriston. Cover by Jody Mussoff.“What do women write? These stories shout, Everything, from as many points of view. Think potluck of pungent diversity. Think rough-edged visions, as opposed to neatly hemmed samplers from Culture, Inc. Enhanced Gravity surprises and entertains; it horrifies and hurts. And it enlightens, by modeling a rich, inclusive world.” —Mollie Best Tinsely, author of Throwing KnivesJoin us for the book launch featuring ten of the authors on Saturday June 17th at 6pm at Politics & Prose Bookstore Coffeehouse, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008, (202) 364-1919. Check out their website www.politics-prose.com for directions.C.M. Mayo will be our MC. Panelists: Kate Blackwell, Susan Coll, Robin Ferrier, Wendi Kaufman, Meena Arora Nayak, Sibbie O’Sullivan, Elizabeth Poliner, Rose Solari, Sally Steenland, and Venus Thrash.Critique Your Complete Novel, Not Just a Couple of Chapters: Peabody’s Novel ClassLimited to 5 students. We meet every two weeks on Wednesday day nights 7:30 until 10pm at my house in Arlington, Virginia. Four to five blocks from Virginia Square Metro station.1. June 21 2. July 12 3. July26 4. August 9 5. August 23 6. September 6 7. September 13Cost is $500 to be paid before the first night. Due to people dropping the class at the last minute and forcing me to cancel the entire session I now require that $125 of this fee be non-refundable and paid before the class begins.Every participant turns in their complete novel the first night along with 5 copies for everybody else and me. That way you get handwritten notes on everything from everybody. And you should feel free to suggest cuts, improvements, make suggestions, mark the manuscripts up at will. That’s what this class is all about. By meeting every two weeks each participant should have plenty of time to complete their critique.If you can’t attend every meeting (which I demand, save for unforeseeable illness or death in the family, as it’s a question of fairness and honor) please don’t bother signing up.If you are interested do please email me a chapter and a novel synopsis. I’m only considering completed novels in the 250-350 dbl. spaced page range. (That’s one-sided, double spaced, 12pt. in Courier font.) Anything longer than that is pretty much wishful thinking right now due to grim market economics or politics. Most first novels are 300 dbl. spaced pages which equals 200pp. in book form. Simply a fact of the biz. Second novels are often a different story.Alumni from Peabody’s 20+ years of university and Writer’s Center classes with books in print (or filmed screenplays) include: Mark Baechtel, Doreen Baingana, Jodi Bloom, Sean Brijbasi, Robert Cullen, Priscilla Cummings, Katharine Davis, Lucinda Ebersole, Cara Haycak, Catherine Kimrey, Adam Kulakow, Nathan Leslie, Redge Mahaffey, Charlotte Manning, Meena Nayak, Matthew Olshan, William Orem, Mary Overton, Carolyn Parkhurst, Sally Pfoutz, Nani Power, Lisa Schamess, Brenda Seabrooke, Julia Slavin, and Yolanda Young.My address is 3819 North 13th Street, Arlington, VA 22201. My house is 2 blocks from Quincy Park and the Central Library on Quincy Street. We are 3 doors from Washington-Lee High School where Quincy crosses 13th Street. My phone number is (703) 525-9296. Richard Peabody wears many literary hats. He is editor of Gargoyle Magazine (founded in 1976), has published a novella, two books of short stories, six books of poems, plus an e-book, and edited or co-edited fourteen anthologies including: Mondo Barbie, Mondo Elvis, Mondo Marilyn, Mondo James Dean, Coming to Terms: A Literary Response to Abortion, Conversations with Gore Vidal, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation, Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women, Alice Redux: New Stories of Alice, Lewis, and Wonderland, and Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body. Peabody teaches fiction writing for the Johns Hopkins Advanced Studies Program and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. You can find out more at www.wikipedia.com and/or http://www.gargoylemagazine.com.Richard Peabody www.gargoylemagazine.com |
Notes from the Bell Tower
News from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard Peabody
Two Things:
Announcing Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area Women
The 18th publication by Paycock Press (begun in 1976 and named for Irish playwright Sean O’Casey’s play Juno and the Paycock) is Enhanced Gravity, the second volume in a trilogy of anthologies that in the end will gather works by 115+ women from the area and total a massive 1000+ pages.
Are there really that many women writing fiction in this town? Here’s the proof. What are they writing about? Sex, death, love, hate, birth, murder, children, parents, revenge, the endless war, grim choices in an even grimmer world.
Original Fiction (only six reprints) by: Stephanie Allen, Christina Bartolomeo, Kate Blackwell, Hildie S. Block, Lisa Boylan, Carole Burns, Susan Coll, Jennifer Cutting, Ramola D, J.H. Diehl, CM Dupre, Patricia Elam, Herta Burbach Feely, Robin Ferrier, Sara Fisher, Lee Fleming, Colleen Franklin, Amy Fries, Dorothy Hickson, M.H. Johnson, Alma M. Katsu, Wendi Kaufman, Susan Land, E.J. Levy, Meena Arora Nayak, Vanessa Orlando, Michele Orwin, Sibbie O’Sullivan, Saideh Pakravan, Ginger Park, Suzanne Picard, Judith Podell, Elizabeth Poliner, Judy Pomeranz, Stephanie Siciarz, Rozanne Gooding Silverwood, Julia Slavin, Rose Solari, Sally Steenland, Venus Thrash, Julie Wakeman-Linn, Sarah Louise Williams, and C. Jenise Wriston. Cover by Jody Mussoff.
“What do women write? These stories shout, Everything, from as many points of view. Think potluck of pungent diversity. Think rough-edged visions, as opposed to neatly hemmed samplers from Culture, Inc. Enhanced Gravity surprises and entertains; it horrifies and hurts. And it enlightens, by modeling a rich, inclusive world.” —Mollie Best Tinsely, author of Throwing Knives
Join us for the book launch featuring ten of the authors on Saturday June 17th at 6pm at Politics & Prose Bookstore Coffeehouse, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008, (202) 364-1919. Check out their website www.politics-prose.com for directions.
C.M. Mayo will be our MC. Panelists: Kate Blackwell, Susan Coll, Robin Ferrier, Wendi Kaufman, Meena Arora Nayak, Sibbie O’Sullivan, Elizabeth Poliner, Rose Solari, Sally Steenland, and Venus Thrash.
Critique Your Complete Novel, Not Just a Couple of Chapters: Peabody’s Novel Class
Limited to 5 students. We meet every two weeks on Wednesday day nights 7:30 until 10pm at my house in Arlington, Virginia. Four to five blocks from Virginia Square Metro station.
1. June 21
2. July 12
3. July26
4. August 9
5. August 23
6. September 6
7. September 13
Cost is $500 to be paid before the first night. Due to people dropping the class at the last minute and forcing me to cancel the entire session I now require that $125 of this fee be non-refundable and paid before the class begins.
Every participant turns in their complete novel the first night along with 5 copies for everybody else and me. That way you get handwritten notes on everything from everybody. And you should feel free to suggest cuts, improvements, make suggestions, mark the manuscripts up at will. That’s what this class is all about. By meeting every two weeks each participant should have plenty of time to complete their critique.
If you can’t attend every meeting (which I demand, save for unforeseeable illness or death in the family, as it’s a question of fairness and honor) please don’t bother signing up.
If you are interested do please email me a chapter and a novel synopsis. I’m only considering completed novels in the 250-350 dbl. spaced page range. (That’s one-sided, double spaced, 12pt. in Courier font.) Anything longer than that is pretty much wishful thinking right now due to grim market economics or politics. Most first novels are 300 dbl. spaced pages which equals 200pp. in book form. Simply a fact of the biz. Second novels are often a different story.
Alumni from Peabody’s 20+ years of university and Writer’s Center classes with books in print (or filmed screenplays) include: Mark Baechtel, Doreen Baingana, Jodi Bloom, Sean Brijbasi, Robert Cullen, Priscilla Cummings, Katharine Davis, Lucinda Ebersole, Cara Haycak, Catherine Kimrey, Adam Kulakow, Nathan Leslie, Redge Mahaffey, Charlotte Manning, Meena Nayak, Matthew Olshan, William Orem, Mary Overton, Carolyn Parkhurst, Sally Pfoutz, Nani Power, Lisa Schamess, Brenda Seabrooke, Julia Slavin, and Yolanda Young.
My address is 3819 North 13th Street, Arlington, VA 22201. My house is 2 blocks from Quincy Park and the Central Library on Quincy Street. We are 3 doors from Washington-Lee High School where Quincy crosses 13th Street. My phone number is (703) 525-9296.
Richard Peabody wears many literary hats. He is editor of Gargoyle Magazine (founded in 1976), has published a novella, two books of short stories, six books of poems, plus an e-book, and edited or co-edited fourteen anthologies including: Mondo Barbie, Mondo Elvis, Mondo Marilyn, Mondo James Dean, Coming to Terms: A Literary Response to Abortion, Conversations with Gore Vidal, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation, Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women, Alice Redux: New Stories of Alice, Lewis, and Wonderland, and Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body. Peabody teaches fiction writing for the Johns Hopkins Advanced Studies Program and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. You can find out more at www.wikipedia.com and/or http://www.gargoylemagazine.com.
Richard Peabody
www.gargoylemagazine.com
|
| Notes from the Bell TowerNews from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard PeabodyUpcoming EventsApril 22Chapters: A Literary Bookstore Time: Saturday, April 22, 2006 5:00 PM Title of Event: Hal Niedzviecki Culture critic Hal Niedzviecki (Winston Churchill h.s. grad, and now prominent Canadian author, editor, and bon vivant), perfectly analyzes the zeitgeist with his new book, Hello, I’m Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity, which Naomi Klein calls a “sure-footed guide through a surreal landscape.” And he and poet /publisher Richard Peabody will cap the reading and discussion by judging The Most Special Person Ever Contest afterwards.Chapters info here: http://www.chaptersliterary.com/NASApp/store/IndexJspApril 25The F.Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference’s Spring event, “Juggling Genres: A panel discussion of mysteries, science fiction, and historical fiction” will feature Donna Andrews, Margaret Whitman Blair, and Brenda Clough, three writers who will come together to talk about their work, their particular type of fiction and their successes in the publishing world. The event will be April 25th, 7p.m. at Glenview Mansion in Rockville Civic Center Park. Cost for adults is $10 and $7 for students. FSF literary conference members are free. For more information, call 301-309-9461. For directions to the Mansion, call 240-314-5004. Donna Andrews is author of No Nest for the Wicket, and several other titles in her series which features a Virginia blacksmith detective; Margaret Whitman Blair is author of three Civic War travel books for young adults and The Roaring Twenties; Brenda W. Clough is the author of Doors of Death and Life.April 29Please join me at the Writer’s Center’s 13th Annual Small Press Conference and Book Fair, Saturday, April 29, 2006. I’m on one of the publishing panel “From Print to Pixels” 9:30-11:30 in the morning and will be manning my book table in the afternoon. I wish some sort of coalition of small publishers and magazine editors could reinvigorate this annual event. I miss seeing all of my literary friends and this is one of the few local endeavors where we can still get together. It’s not about $, or even paying for a table, it’s about community, a gathering of the tribes. I’ve driven to events in Florida and Georgia and Delaware in the past year or so in order to rediscover that tribal feeling. Why is it so hard to find in the DC area?The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh St, Bethesda, MD 20815. Try here: www.writer.orgMay 19-21BookExpo 2006 at the DC Convention Center We’re sharing a table with Robert Giron of Gival Press http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/App/homepage.cfm?moduleid=42&appname=288June 17Launch for Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area Women, the second volume of my planned trilogy that will in the end collect work by 115+ local women fiction writers and total more than 1,200 pages, will be at Politics and Prose on Saturday June 17th at 6pm. The book is 500pp. and features work by 42 women fictioneers. C.M. mayo will handle the microphone and those on hand to talk about women writing in these times will include: Christina Bartolomeo, Kate Blackwell, Susan Coll, Robin Ferrier, Wendi Kaufman, Meena Arora Nayak, Sibbie O’ Sullivan, Elizabeth Poliner, Rose Solari, and Venus Thrash.Info here: http://www.politics-prose.com/News & Notes & StuffIt’s no secret that I’m a huge A.M. Homes fan, but imagine my surprise when I found Stephen King praising her new novel, This Book Will Save Your Life, in Entertainment Weekly as one of the best American novels ever. “I told you one book on my list wasn’t available yet; this is it. I get tons of soon-to-be-published novels, and happened to pick this one up because of the unusual title. And couldn’t put it down again. I think this brave story of a lost man’s reconnection with the world could become a generational touchstone, like Catch-22, The Monkey Wrench Gang, or The Catcher in the Rye. There’s a lot of uplift here, but Homes’ deadpan delivery keeps it from feeling greeting-card phony. So does the novel’s ambience, which is 21st-century L.A. Weird. This Book Will Save Your Life won’t be published until April, but I read it in October, so it belongs on this list. And hey, maybe it will save somebody’s life.”Our Jimi Hendrix anthology is due to appear in March 2007. We’ve located almost everything it appears we’re going to obtain permission for in the book. We’re reconciled now to losing about six of the pieces. But if anybody knows the whereabouts of Willie A. Howard, I’d appreciate a head’s up. I’d like to reprint the Jimi poem he had in Danny Shot’s mag, Long Shot.Re. the Jimi Hendrix anthology. I’m not faring too well with my cover choices. I struck out with the Linda McCartney estate. I wanted to run her photo of the Experience atop the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park as the cover. (Partly because that was the cover Jimi wanted for his Electric Ladyland album.) And then I struck out with Mark Ryden, whose Jimi atop a Porterhouse steak is a pretty fabulous painting. So now we’re open to ideas. We don’t pay anything but if you have some artist friends who think they can provide us with a great cover please tell them we’re still searching. I have told 4-5 artist friends of mine and given them carte blanch to do anything they want. But I need to start seeing sketches or ideas or mock pdfs by September. My test for a book cover still holds—if the book is face out will the cover draw me across the room to pick up the book? If not, the cover won’t work for me.I have a new story up at Carve Magazine. Check it out at: http://www.carvezine.com/March%20stories/exit_strategies.htmThe wonderfully kind folks at Ahadada Books have a video of my Boog City gig in NYC from January 2005 up on their site. I was in pretty fine form and I’m pleased with the results. If you ever wondered what I’m like live—well, there ya go. I think it’s about 15 minutes long. Click here: http://www.ahadadabooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40&Itemid=46If you haven’t been to the Gargoyle site recently you’ll note our recent announcement. We’ve decided that with the 30th anniversary issue (#51) appearing this summer/fall, that we deserved a break. We won’t be considering anything for the magazine until Summer 2007, when we’ll open the door again to submissions for #52.Time to drum up students for my Novel Class. The class is limited to 5 students who have completed novels in the 200-350 double space page range. That’s in Courier font. Classes will run on Wednesday nights. 6/21, 7/12, 7/26, 8/9, 8/23, 9/6, 9/13. Cost is $500. I need to see two chapters and a synopsis before I’ll consider a student. And from now on I will require a $125 nonrefundable deposit upon acceptance. If you are interested I can send you the complete nuts and bolts about the class, which meets at my house. I plan to offer the class again in the fall.Richard Peabody www.gargoylemagazine.com |
|
| Notes from the Bell TowerNews from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard PeabodyUpcoming EventsApril 22Chapters: A Literary Bookstore Time: Saturday, April 22, 2006 5:00 PM Title of Event: Hal Niedzviecki Culture critic Hal Niedzviecki (Winston Churchill h.s. grad, and now prominent Canadian author, editor, and bon vivant), perfectly analyzes the zeitgeist with his new book, Hello, I’m Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity, which Naomi Klein calls a “sure-footed guide through a surreal landscape.” And he and poet /publisher Richard Peabody will cap the reading and discussion by judging The Most Special Person Ever Contest afterwards.Chapters info here: http://www.chaptersliterary.com/NASApp/store/IndexJspApril 25The F.Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference’s Spring event, “Juggling Genres: A panel discussion of mysteries, science fiction, and historical fiction” will feature Donna Andrews, Margaret Whitman Blair, and Brenda Clough, three writers who will come together to talk about their work, their particular type of fiction and their successes in the publishing world. The event will be April 25th, 7p.m. at Glenview Mansion in Rockville Civic Center Park. Cost for adults is $10 and $7 for students. FSF literary conference members are free. For more information, call 301-309-9461. For directions to the Mansion, call 240-314-5004. Donna Andrews is author of No Nest for the Wicket, and several other titles in her series which features a Virginia blacksmith detective; Margaret Whitman Blair is author of three Civic War travel books for young adults and The Roaring Twenties; Brenda W. Clough is the author of Doors of Death and Life.April 29Please join me at the Writer’s Center’s 13th Annual Small Press Conference and Book Fair, Saturday, April 29, 2006. I’m on one of the publishing panel “From Print to Pixels” 9:30-11:30 in the morning and will be manning my book table in the afternoon. I wish some sort of coalition of small publishers and magazine editors could reinvigorate this annual event. I miss seeing all of my literary friends and this is one of the few local endeavors where we can still get together. It’s not about $, or even paying for a table, it’s about community, a gathering of the tribes. I’ve driven to events in Florida and Georgia and Delaware in the past year or so in order to rediscover that tribal feeling. Why is it so hard to find in the DC area?The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh St, Bethesda, MD 20815. Try here: www.writer.orgMay 19-21BookExpo 2006 at the DC Convention Center We’re sharing a table with Robert Giron of Gival Press http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/App/homepage.cfm?moduleid=42&appname=288June 17Launch for Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area Women, the second volume of my planned trilogy that will in the end collect work by 115+ local women fiction writers and total more than 1,200 pages, will be at Politics and Prose on Saturday June 17th at 6pm. The book is 500pp. and features work by 42 women fictioneers. C.M. mayo will handle the microphone and those on hand to talk about women writing in these times will include: Christina Bartolomeo, Kate Blackwell, Susan Coll, Robin Ferrier, Wendi Kaufman, Meena Arora Nayak, Sibbie O’ Sullivan, Elizabeth Poliner, Rose Solari, and Venus Thrash.Info here: http://www.politics-prose.com/News & Notes & StuffIt’s no secret that I’m a huge A.M. Homes fan, but imagine my surprise when I found Stephen King praising her new novel, This Book Will Save Your Life, in Entertainment Weekly as one of the best American novels ever. “I told you one book on my list wasn’t available yet; this is it. I get tons of soon-to-be-published novels, and happened to pick this one up because of the unusual title. And couldn’t put it down again. I think this brave story of a lost man’s reconnection with the world could become a generational touchstone, like Catch-22, The Monkey Wrench Gang, or The Catcher in the Rye. There’s a lot of uplift here, but Homes’ deadpan delivery keeps it from feeling greeting-card phony. So does the novel’s ambience, which is 21st-century L.A. Weird. This Book Will Save Your Life won’t be published until April, but I read it in October, so it belongs on this list. And hey, maybe it will save somebody’s life.”Our Jimi Hendrix anthology is due to appear in March 2007. We’ve located almost everything it appears we’re going to obtain permission for in the book. We’re reconciled now to losing about six of the pieces. But if anybody knows the whereabouts of Willie A. Howard, I’d appreciate a head’s up. I’d like to reprint the Jimi poem he had in Danny Shot’s mag, Long Shot.Re. the Jimi Hendrix anthology. I’m not faring too well with my cover choices. I struck out with the Linda McCartney estate. I wanted to run her photo of the Experience atop the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park as the cover. (Partly because that was the cover Jimi wanted for his Electric Ladyland album.) And then I struck out with Mark Ryden, whose Jimi atop a Porterhouse steak is a pretty fabulous painting. So now we’re open to ideas. We don’t pay anything but if you have some artist friends who think they can provide us with a great cover please tell them we’re still searching. I have told 4-5 artist friends of mine and given them carte blanch to do anything they want. But I need to start seeing sketches or ideas or mock pdfs by September. My test for a book cover still holds—if the book is face out will the cover draw me across the room to pick up the book? If not, the cover won’t work for me.I have a new story up at Carve Magazine. Check it out at: http://www.carvezine.com/March%20stories/exit_strategies.htmThe wonderfully kind folks at Ahadada Books have a video of my Boog City gig in NYC from January 2005 up on their site. I was in pretty fine form and I’m pleased with the results. If you ever wondered what I’m like live—well, there ya go. I think it’s about 15 minutes long. Click here: http://www.ahadadabooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40&Itemid=46If you haven’t been to the Gargoyle site recently you’ll note our recent announcement. We’ve decided that with the 30th anniversary issue (#51) appearing this summer/fall, that we deserved a break. We won’t be considering anything for the magazine until Summer 2007, when we’ll open the door again to submissions for #52.Time to drum up students for my Novel Class. The class is limited to 5 students who have completed novels in the 200-350 double space page range. That’s in Courier font. Classes will run on Wednesday nights. 6/21, 7/12, 7/26, 8/9, 8/23, 9/6, 9/13. Cost is $500. I need to see two chapters and a synopsis before I’ll consider a student. And from now on I will require a $125 nonrefundable deposit upon acceptance. If you are interested I can send you the complete nuts and bolts about the class, which meets at my house. I plan to offer the class again in the fall.Richard Peabody www.gargoylemagazine.com |
Notes from the Bell Tower
News from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard Peabody
Happy Merry Everybody.
Time to fill you in on all the news–new reviews of Paycock publications, work, upcoming book launches, recent publications and the next Peabody novel workshop.
There are a bunch of new things up on our site. Gargoyle reviews in both Poets and Writers magazine and New Pages. Plus a review of Enhanced Gravity from The Pedestal.
The Montgomery County Gazette (MD) for 12/27/06 features Monica Hogan’s article on Enhanced Gravity. http://www.gazette.net/stories/122706/enteboo111756_31978.shtml
Launches for our two new books: Not What I Expected: The Unpredictable Road from Womanhood to Motherhood (ed. by Donya Currie Arias and Hildie S. Block) as well as Kiss the Sky: Fiction and Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix (ed. by Richard Peabody) are both due in March 2007. More info very soon. I can say that the Jimi launch will be held at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda on Saturday March 24th 7:30-9:30pm. We’ll raffle off the Experience box set among other things.
In other news:
Richard’s “Spaghetti Western Sestina” is up on the McSweeney’s Sestina site:http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/sestinas/27RichardPeabody.html
His story “Everybody’s Stoned (and So Am I)” is in The Pedestal.
http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com/Secure/Content/cb.asp?cbid=5044
And his poem “Folding Laundry in My Dreams” is in The Chattahoochee Reviewhttp://www.gpc.edu/~gpccr/peabody.php
A couple of new mags are just up and running:
THE BROADKILL REVIEW, editor and publisher Jamie Brown. This will be a bimonthly review featuring poets and writers from the mid-Atlantic region. The mag is e-mailed in a pdf format to subscribers. Jamie runs the annual John Milton Festival in Delaware. Contact c/o John Milton and Co., 104 Federal St., Milton, DE 19968.
At the most recent conference in December 2006, a group of Delmarva editors and publishers joined together to create an alliance and announced the creation of The Delaware Poetry Review. This will be an online magazine/newsletter based in Delaware that will publish poems from writers both nationally and internationally, though a large focus will be on regional poets. As part of the cooperative joining together to make this project happen, we’re in search of a tech-savvy type who’s willing to become the managing editor. Interested persons should contact me for now. (I’ll pass e-mails along.) First issue is planned for Spring 2007 release and will be made up of entirely solicited material. Dennis Forney of The Cape Gazette should have a website up and running shortly.
Peabody’s Novel Workshop: Critique Your Complete Novel
Not Just a Couple of Chapters
It’s time for another round. Please pass the word to the usual suspects.
Limited to 5 students. We meet every two weeks on Wednesday day nights 7:30 until 10pm at my house in Arlington, Virginia. Four to five blocks from Virginia Square Metro station.
1. March 14
2. March 28
3. April 11
4. April 25
5. May 9
6. May 24 [Thursday]
7. May 30
Cost is $500 to be paid before the first night. Due to people dropping the class at the last minute and forcing me to cancel the entire session I now require that $125 of this fee be non-refundable and paid before the class begins.
Every participant turns in their complete novel and synopsis the first night along with 5 copies for everybody else and me. That way you get handwritten notes on everything from everybody. And you should feel free to recommend cuts, improvements, make suggestions, mark the manuscripts up at will. That’s what this class is all about. By meeting every two weeks each participant should have plenty of time to complete their critiques.
If you can’t attend every meeting (which I demand save for unforeseeable illness or death in the family as it’s a question of fairness and honor) please don’t bother signing up.
Why do I teach this class? Because you can go to your favorite bookshop and lift any number of contemporary novels off the shelf and read a few chapters only to discover that they fall apart at chapter four. Why? I’ve found that most MFA programs only critique the first three chapters of your manuscript. Plus, I’ve learned from the hands-on experience of teaching this course that a complete reading and critique is absolutely the best way (dare I say only way) to go. What’s the advantage of a small class like this one? There’s nothing quite like having five people discuss your characters as though they were living people for 2 ½ hours. What sorts of novels are eligible? Generally I handle serious literary fiction (both realism and experimental works), but the class has included YA, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Horror, Thriller, and Romance novels.
If you are interested do please email me a chapter and a synopsis. I’m only considering completed novels in the 250-350 dbl. spaced page range. (That’s one-sided, double spaced, 12pt. in Courier font.) Anything longer than that is pretty much wishful thinking right now due to grim market economics and politics. Most first novels are 300 dbl. spaced pages which equals 200pp. in book form. Simply a fact of the biz. Second novels are frequently a different story.
Katharine Davis (from the fall 2003 class) recently sold her novel to St. Martin’s Press. Alumni from Peabody’s 22 years of university, Writer’s Center, and private classes with filmed screenplays, books in print (or forthcoming) include: Mark Baechtel, Doreen Baingana, Toby Barlow, Maggie Bartley, Jodi Bloom, Sean Brijbasi, Peter Brown, Robert Cullen, Priscilla Cummings, Lucinda Ebersole, Cara Haycak, Dave Housley, Catherine Kimrey, Adam Kulakow, Nathan Leslie, Redge Mahaffey, Charlotte Manning, Meena Nayak, Matthew Olshan, William Orem, Mary Overton, Carolyn Parkhurst, Sally Pfoutz, Nani Power, Lisa Schamess, Brenda Seabrooke, Julia Slavin, and Yolanda Young.
My address is 3819 North 13th Street, Arlington, VA 22201. My house is 2 blocks from Quincy Park and the Central Library on Quincy Street. We are 3 doors from Washington-Lee High School where Quincy crosses 13th Street. My phone number is (703) 525-9296. My cell is (703) 380-4893
Richard Peabody wears many literary hats. He is editor of Gargoyle Magazine (founded in 1976), has published a novella, two books of short stories, six books of poems, plus an e-book, and edited or co-edited fourteen anthologies including: Mondo Barbie, Mondo Elvis, Mondo Marilyn, Mondo James Dean, Coming to Terms: A Literary Response to Abortion, Conversations with Gore Vidal, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation, Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women, Alice Redux: New Stories of Alice, Lewis, and Wonderland, Sex & Chocolate: Tasty Morsels for Mind and Body, and Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area Women. Kiss the Sky: Fiction and Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix is forthcoming in March of 2007.Peabody teaches fiction writing for the Johns Hopkins Advanced Studies Program and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He lives in Arlington, Virginia. You can find out more at www.wikipedia.com and/or http://www.gargoylemagazine.com.
If that’s not your cup of tea I will also be teaching another round of “Experimental Writing” at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD. Their site and info are at http://www.writer.org/ My class runs for eight weeks on Thursday nights beginning March 8th. 7:30-10pm.
I’m on a panel at AWP this year called “Beyond the Book” which the amazing C.M. Mayo has assembled. That’s Saturday March 3rd at 1:30 I believe. So if you make it to Atlanta I hope to see you there. Mostly I’ll be standing behind a table at the book fair trying to get in as many of those fleeting “great to see you again” sound bytes as I can.
Richard is also on a panel this coming weekend January 13th at the Washington Independent Writers’ “Business of Fiction Writing” Conference.
1:30–2:45 p.m. Panel: “Getting Your Work Done”
Success begins with completing your short story or novel. What’s the best way to make time for your writing? When and where do you do it? How do you avoid distractions? How do you fit writing into the rest of your crazy life? A personal organizer joins with writers who have grappled with such issues to offer valuable advice on getting your act together
Moderator: Gerrie Beck, a professional organizer, often helps writers and other create order and make maximum use of their time. Operating under the name of Maxispace, she teaches the value of right brain thinking and how creative individuals can achieve more organized living.
Panelists:
Paula Whyman won WIW’s 2006 Washington Writers Prize in short fiction for a story that appeared in The Hudson Review. Her first story was published in the award anthology Virgin Fiction (Morrow, 1998). Her fiction has also appeared in the North Dakota Quarterly. She has also written for Worldview magazine, the Washington Post Magazine and Bethesda Magazine. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two children and is at work on a novel.
Richard Peabody is a poet, fiction writer and editor. He is the founder and co-editor of Gargoyle magazine and editor or co-editor of 14 anthologies including Mondo Barbie, Mondo Elvis, Conversations with Gore Vidal, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation and Grace and Gravity: Fiction by Washington Area Women. He is the author of the novella SugarMountain, two short story collections, and six poetry collections. He teaches at the Writer’s Center and Johns Hopkins University.
Mary Eccles is the author of By Lizzie (Dial, 2001), a children’s novel, and is working on a novel set in Washington, D.C., in the 1950s and 60s. Her short fiction has appeared in Fine Print and received an award from the Antietam Review. Formerly a journalist with the Washington Star, The New Republic and Congressional Quarterly, she earned a doctorate in public policy at Harvard and has written on labor and social welfare issues in a series of jobs on Capitol Hill.
More info at: http://www.washwriter.org/special.html#2
Looking into the future–Richard will be reading at The MinasGallery in Baltimore on Sunday April 15 at 4pm with Joe Harrison.
Richard Peabody
www.gargoylemagazine.com
Notes from the Bell Tower
News from Gargoyle Magazine/Paycock Press/ and Richard Peabody
Quick Notes:
The launch for Enhanced Gravity: More Fiction by Washington Area Women will be held at Politics and Prose (http://www.politics-prose.com/directio.htm), 5015 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 20008, (1-800-722-0790), on Saturday June 17th at 6pm. There will be a panel of ten contributors (definite so far are: Christina Bartolomeo, Kate Blackwell, Susan Coll, Wendi Kaufman, Meena Arora Nayak, Elizabeth Poliner, and Rose Solari) who will read a few lines from their work and answer audience questions. I wish we could have all 43 women on stage but the venue can’t handle something that large. We may have a second reading in Virginia eventually.
In other news:
Johns Hopkins hasn’t offered Richard a course for the spring though he will be advising two thesis students. Beyond that he’s looking for editing work. He charges $2 a dbl. spaced page to critique manuscripts (fiction and poetry for the most part). Richard worked on 9-10 complete novels in 2005 and would be available though June if anybody’s looking for a new set of eyes.
Richard also teaches a private novel workshop in his home, which involves 5 students with complete manuscripts in the 250-350pp (dbl. spaced in Courier type) range, meeting seven times over a period of 13 weeks. Each novel manuscript is thoroughly critiqued by 5 other sets of eyes and discussed over one complete 2 ½ hour session. One novel every other week. If this sounds good to you do please get in touch ASAP. The next session (his seventh) is scheduled to begin on February 2nd if there’s enough interest. An eighth class is planned for May-July. Complete boilerplate available on request.
Richard Peabody
www.gargoylemagazine.com