Wednesday, November 25, 2009

What Writers Are Going To Be in NOÖ 11?


THANK YOU FOR ASKING
VISUAL ARTISTS PENDING


Meakin Armstrong
Dennis Cooper
Sasha Fletcher
Dobby Gibson
Craig Greenman
Joe Hall
Charles Hale
Matt Hart
Jeannnie Hoag
A.D. Jameson
Thomas Patrick Levy
Davin Malasarn
Jordaan Mason
D.A. Powell
Charles du Preez
Erin Elizabeth Smith
Danika Kay Stegenan
K.M.A. Sullivan
Steven Trull
Donna D. Vitucci
Stefi Weisburd
Kate Wyer

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Daniel Bailey West Coast DRUNK SONNETS tour



SATURDAY NOVEMBER 21st: SEATTLE, WA
w/ Evelyn Hampton
7PM @ Pilot Books: 219 Broadway E, Seattle, WA

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 22nd: PORTLAND, OR
w/ Matthew Simmons + TBA
7PM @ Ampersand Books: 2916 NE Alberta St., Suite B, Portland, OR





MONDAY NOVEMBER 23rd: ASHLAND, OR

EMERGENT FORMS: A 21st-CENTURY READING SERIES
w/ Lacey Hunter
7PM @ Bohemia Gallery: 552 'A' St, Ashland, OR

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 25th: OAKLAND, CA
w/ Chelsea Martin, Bucky Sinister, & more
6PM @ Caldecott Office Space: 5251 Broadway, Oakland, CA

Thursday, November 12, 2009

rad poetry #11: for mel bosworth (by mark leidner)

RAD POETRY THANKS MEL BOSWORTH AND MARK LEIDNER!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

NOÖ Loves Everyone Including Its New Social Editor: Kendra Grant Malone

Kendra Grant Malone was born in Minnesota. She is the author of several chapbooks and e-books of prose and poetry, including All The Ways I Have Failed You (Achilles, forthcoming), Chasing Pigeons Makes Me Feel More Powerful (Bearcreekfeed, forthcoming), and Conor Oberst Sex (Happy Cobra Books 2009). Kendra joins NOÖ as our new social editor. She will be splendidly and cleverly conducting interviews and negotiating the presentation of our splendid contributors on this here bloggy-blog. To introduce you to Kendra, we had a little conversation. Enjoy! And welcome to the family, KGM!

How did you get started writing? What's your earliest memory of realizing that language could affect people?

I got started writing when I went to film school. I really adored writing scripts. I still do. I could never understand why a director would want to tell someone else's story, considering the time, money and unbelievable effort it takes just to complete a 10 min short film. I sort of found my way into poetry and literature accidentally. When I moved to NYC I had no friends really and came for a job writing copy for reality television. The first friend I made here on my own was Tao and he was really encouraging to me about writing more and looking into submitting things. I think at first it was out of boredom and curiosity and then things have snowballed into whatever they are now, but I like it so, cool.

I think I first learned how language could affect people when I was little and learned to lie to get my sister in trouble.

You have a background in film and visual art. Does your work in these mediums overlap at all with your writing?


I think my background in film has had a direct effect on how I write in a really silly way. When I was writing projects for film I constantly had to think "is this filmable? will i be able to afford the production value this requires?" and things like that, which made it very limiting. Inadvertently I fell in love with books and film that felt true to life, that were not about effects, fantasy, exclusive/flamboyantly educated language, or expensive cameras. My favorite director would be Lars Von Trier (go ahead everyone and roll your eyes) because of the Dogme95 movement, how the filmmaker was pushed to make a simple character narrative something attractive and exciting, by stripped means. It's funny though, I'm not a very visual person, for example, I dream in only touch and sounds like a blind person and always have. I'm also red green color blind, which I guess is rare for women. So I suppose it was a matter of time before I started to value story over image.

A lot of your writing seems both very honest and frank, and very aware of its own frankness, while still being urgent and unharangued by the self-indulgence of "confessionalism." What are your thoughts on frankness? How would you define honesty in writing?

Oh geesze, I feel like I have a conversation about what honesty is with various people every day. I find myself to be very dishonest personally. I lie a lot through omission, by keeping half truths to myself, by keeping secrets. Honesty is such a malleable idea to speak of. It seems so abstracted that what the word defines differs slightly for everyone. Personally my own exhibitionism is a bit compulsive. Sometimes I romanticize it to myself. Sharing one's own condition in life is seductive because of the desire to be seen and also the desire to alleviate confusion in the world. Every problem I see happen around me, I feel, can almost always be boiled down to people not being frank enough with each other. Speaking in stupid euphemisms because they are afraid to say what they want, to appear selfish. I get a lot of emails from women from all over about more humiliating things I've admitted to within my writing, and that makes me feel like, see this is good, you are doing good.

I really like your project We Will Always Live In These Houses. There is something really striking in seeing the manicured privacy of those lawns and driveways and then reading your accounts of who exits those houses and how they move around the world. Struggles with privacy seems to abound in your work: bucking privacy for exhibitionism, the tenderness that arises from the privacy of feelings between two people, wanting to protect a loved one's privacy, the anxious privacy of always living in one's own head. I know talking about privacy might be just the flip of talking about frankness, but what do you think of how privacy works in today's culture? Do you feel your writing interacting at all with our cultural attitudes toward privacy?

Personally I struggle with my lack of personal privacy in public situations all the time. It bothers a lot of people to talk about a morning shit or the consistency of menstrual blot clots in casual conversation, I know this. And it's not that I don't care or empathize with how people meet might feel pushed and cornered by this kind of conversational offering. Watching people become uncomfortable makes me feel squeamish and embarrassed too. Often I get accused of using "shock value" to turn heads, for attention. The issue for me, in both conversations like this and in writing, isn't shock for shock's sake, but to encourage other people towards breaking out of mundaneness and claustrophobic speaking patterns by sort of lying down at their feet as an example, even if I get hated or humiliated along the way. For instance, once I had a boyfriend who was often irrationally cranky and irritable. It was months and months of dating before one day he told me that every day his stomach hurt in this certain way. Later that night I talked to my sister about it and she had the same thing years before. The next day he went to the doctor with her encouragement and it turned out he had a systemic yeast infection for years. He fixed it within the week. He had years of pain because he was afraid to talk about his shit. That moved me so deeply that I think about it while writing a lot.

How did you feel about that Guardian article bashing internet writers?

I was a bit confused by that. I thought, this person really hasn't done much research. I mean, although Tao and I get along well and some of the other writers named as well, I don't think I write much like them. I don't think I have ever used sarcasm as a tool. I'm pretty sure the Muumuu House writers all see me as too melodramatic and flowery. As far as the rest of the article it seemed very presumptuous. How do they know I'm "spoilt"? This person knows nothing of my background, my financial struggles, and the things I've overcome in life. And I don't think any of us need to qualify that. Also, for an article accusing us of being boring, he could have made it a bit less boring itself.

Boring is bad. Yes. Recommend for us some recent favorites that aren't boring: books, stories, poems, movies, etc

Books: Woman on The Edge Of Time, Blasted, Voyage in The Dark, Ask The Dust, Story of The Eye, Skies by Eileen Myles, The Lover by Marguerite Duras

Movies: The Idiots, 13 Tzameti, The Piano Teacher, The Butcher Boy, Breaking the Waves, My Dinner With Andre, The Dreamlife of Angels, The Celebration, Masculine/Feminine

What are your current projects/plans?

I've been reading a lot a screen plays lately because a producer solicited me for one. Any suggestions?

What is your favorite breakfast?

Dead cats.

What is your ideal shower experience?

I like when people watch me shower.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Win a copy of THE DIFFICULT FARM by Heather Christle


Why are there so many contests? Because we want to give you free books! Here's another way to get a free book. The book in question is the dazzling The Difficult Farm by Heather Christle, which I can best describe by saying that between the time I began this sentence and now, some kind of meadowlark slammed into my kitchen window but recovered and flew away. I also wrote some things here. Anyhow, this is how the contest works. First, read this poem by Heather from issue [3] of NOÖ:

A New Career
--Heather Christle

Be here at eight
said the group leader.
I was late but she
said that was okay
and handed me a kit
just like hers
a tin box full of nails
and a hammer.
I strapped my light
to my head which
was still in good shape
and began reinforcing
everything. When I
reinforced you
you seemed angry
and attractive. When I
reinforced the youth
the group leader
reinforced me and
her outfit looked great.
This job is not perfect
but the pay is okay
and I like working
outdoors. The group
leader respects us all
and at home the kids
love to shake
my tin box and think
of how close we once
were to collapse.

Now, to win a free book, post in the comments your best experience working with a group and your worst. That's it! You don't have to post much, maybe just a sentence for one and a sentence for the other. The NOÖ Journal team will pick our favorite and you'll win a Difficult Farm quite easily. Ready set arugula. DEADLINE: November 15th

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Drunk people reading DRUNK SONNETS



GET A FREE DRUNK SONNETS BY FILMING YOUR DRUNK FRIENDS READING DRUNK SONNETS: DETAILS BEHIND THIS CLICKY LINK