The Weekly Atticus (03/10/2018)

Let's Do This Thing Together | The Weekly Atticus

A recap of the week at Atticus Review, along with some extras.

Dear ,

I turn 30 next week, which also marks a decade that I’ve been doing The Thing – the submitting, the rejections, the acceptances, the residencies, the journal duties, the networking with other writers. The day this letter arrives in your inbox, a lot of you may be at the AWP Conference, an integral part of The Thing.It’s at times like this that I – and I imagine others like me – wonder if they’re in it for the long haul. We’ve gone through the wash cycle a couple times. We’re not new off the rack anymore, but we’re not vintage – yet.2018 was going to be the year I really focused on the novel that’s been knocking about for several years. Unlike my MFA thesis, a mish-mash of literary experiments, it has that right cocktail of familiarity and mystery where I knew it was a story I could tackle, but it wouldn’t fit any predictable arc. The type of story that couldn’t resolve easily, but full of possibilities. A real novel.Here’s a confession: I haven’t spent a single day in 2018 working on it. I’ve been teaching a full load, working a side job, and now having joined the Atticus masthead this year, working with writers on their awesome reviews. And it’s been rewarding at every step. I like being busy, and I like it even more anytime it has to do with words. But sometimes we get too enamored with what is happening in our writer life, while forgetting about what could be in our writing life. Lately, I’ve been getting into speculative fiction, partially because of Black Panther goodness, partially because of Vandana Singh’s amazing just-released collection Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories. I’m still learning the genre, but what’s intriguing is how it is sort of defined by anachronism; negotiating the reality we know with the imagined one that can never be, or never was. That’s also a way to look at the creative process:  The writing life keeps us in these simultaneous temporalities young and old, experienced and amateur, succeeding and failing at the same time. AWP, in its own way, is just a massive LARP (Live Action Role-Play) of The Thing. Everyone’s there eager to see old friends, make new connections, sit on a panel about an area of their expertise, and listen in on one that they know nothing about. But there’s no shared storyline we’re following. No matter where each of us are in the trajectory of our writing life,  it is ours and ours alone. We’re living in our own speculative worlds, rife with possibility, and should remain unburdened by the outside reality.I’ve written copious pages of that novel I’m working on. Enough to fill a book, sure. But while that’s been going on, life has too. Not just my own, but generally, in the world, and it’s had me constantly redefining what the story should be, rather than thinking about what it could be. Maybe there’s something to embracing the speculative spirit. We don’t have to fake it to make it. We can just, well, make the work itself.Thanks for reading. We’re glad you’re here.

Aditya DesaiBook Reviews Editor

ATTICUS NEWS

We've been so glad to meet everybody who's come by our table at AWP 2018 in Tampa!

If you haven't already, come visit us:

TABLE 340

. 

We'll have our new

available for purchase. And if you stop by today (Saturday) with the secret word "

HESTER

" you can get a FREE branded Moleskine with purchase of the Print Annual! 

Congratulations to Jennifer Lynn Christie - Her story "Alien Love" (originally published on Atticus Review ) was chosen for Sundress Publications's Best of the Net 2017!

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FERAL TOWN by Adam Gustavson

BOOK REVIEW:EVEN THE LEAST PLANETS ARE BEAUTIFUL IN THE EYES OF THE EMPIREA Review of House of Women, by Sophie GoldsteinReview by Ashley Miller"House of Women broaches familiar scenarios of jealousy, emerging sexuality, and colonialism in not-so-new ways, and its conclusion ultimately leaves more questions than it answers; but the experience of Goldstein’s work is decidedly rich due to Goldstein’s embodiment of the story through her stark, black and white art."READ ON

FICTION: A SLIVER OF BLUE OCEANby Benito Vergara"Why is it not singing? the children asked. How do we hear it?"READ ON

POETRY: HOW TO PLAY A ONE-NIGHT STANDby Andrea Rogers"You’ll walk into a bar with friends,and there he’ll be: Lust himself..."READ ON

POETRY: THE SAME GODby Jonathan Duckworth "...who made the starsclose enough to seemade them too far awayto ever reach."READ ON

CNF: NEW YORK: A GHOST STORYby Amy Shearn"He still has the key to that building that no longer exists. A ghost key to a ghost job for ghost offices for ghosts."READ ON

THREE VIDEO POEMS FROM SWOON Swoon (aka Marc Neys) is a composer / video-artist from Belgium. As one of the leading and most prolific figures in modern videopoetry he has made videopoems for and with writers from all over the globe and has inspired new creators through his workshops and showcases on videopoetry.READ ON

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