It’s Almost March and All That Crazy but I Would Like to Introduce You to February

Have you seen our February Issue? Dependent on approach and disposition it may eat you alive or you will eat it alive all the same.

From Nuncio Casanova there are giraffes and illustration and collage and story.

Jenny Sadre discusses the biographies of teenagers and what we should write “before what happens to us.”

Bret Shepard describes parts of humanity in “Place Where Presence Was.”

As long as you’re his enemy, Alexander Lumans does not wish these plagues upon you.

I’ll leave the rest to your exploration.

Introducing the First Online Issue of 2013

Welcome to the New Year we hear it will be life-changing and exciting and inspirational. Welcome to Friday (also often touted as exciting and life manipulating, at least temporarily). Welcome to the January Issue (8.1) of PANK.

Be sure to read: two poems from CJ Evans, Contributing Editor at Tin House.
In Lieu of Questions from Rae Gouirand may have you asking yourself some questions.
A first time published author, Brianna P. Stout wrote this poem and it’s awesome. Welcome.
Do not under any circumstances miss How to Date a Stalker: Declarative Verb Edition from Lisa Nikolidakis.
Two Poems, Tara Boswell.

Also: fiction from Lynne Beckenstein, Amanda Hart Miller, Gregg Murray, and Bridget Menasche and, we’ll admit to being a bit poetry centric this time around, not that we have any shame in that in fact we are quite excited so be sure to read these pieces from Sam Sax, Anis Shivani, Changming Yuan, and Stephen Massimilla: all of that is here. 

I AM HOLDING YOUR HAND Official Release

In case you missed it amongst the holiday/New Year’s/list obsession hoopla, we are excited to announce the official release of I AM HOLDING YOUR HAND from Myfanwy Collins. A mixture and collection of both short stories and flash fiction, I AM HOLDING YOUR HAND brings tender, stark, and lost souls all of which are “in search of that which eludes them: an acknowledgment of a shared past, the fulfillment of a secret desire, a tenuous connection made whole.” Start your 2013 reading off right, order your copy here.

An official book signing of I AM HOLDING YOUR HAND will take place on Saturday, March 9th at 1 pm, during AWP Boston. Stay tuned for further announcements, reviews, and events.

PANK's 2012 Pushcart Nominations

Each year it gets harder and harder to choose only six PANK writers to nominate for the Pushcart and this year was no exception.

Our nominees for this year are:

Homosexuals Threaten the Sanctity of Norman’s Marriage by John Warner (PANK 6)
Illuminated by Karrie Waarala (PANK 6)
The Sins of My Father by Ashley Ford (PANK 6)
Bayeux, Normandy by Caitlin Horrocks (PANK 7)
Lorenzo in His Cups by Mark Neely (PANK 7)
What We Bury by Jacob Victorine (August 2012)

The August Issue and We’ll Tumbl For Ya

Check out our August issue featuring Jen Knox, Rhoads Stevens, Kejt Walsh, Ross McMeekin, Emma Smith-Stevens, Michael Lupi, Becky Kaiser, Owen Duffy, Kimberly Bunker, Christopher Shipman, Jacob Victorine, Quinn Wolf-Wilczynski, Rion Scott, Ben Tanzer, Jane Otto, Emily Howorth, Amy Benson, and Ruth Howard. Start with Owen Duffy’s story, Dead Girl. You will not be disappointed then check out Jen Knox’s compelling Getting There, and Rhoad Stevens odd but wonderful Pork Pie. The whole issue will pull you in. Once you read one…

 

We’re also on Tumblr now so we’d love for you to follow us over there, too.

Announcing [PANK] 7

Marking the first of our move to bi-annual print issues, we are proud to announce the scheduled release of [PANK] 7 for September 1, 2012. [PANK] 7 is a yearbook of literature, a dense periodical filled with the author’s you need to remember, to watch, to meet up with again, to re-read the hand written notes of; not afraid to put next to one another the traditional and the rebellious, the senior and the amateur.

Issue 7 features new writing from Matthew Baker, Rusty Barnes, Jeremy Bauer, Nathan Blake, Sommer Browning, Elizabeth Cantwell, Sérah Carter, Rebecca Cook, Brandon Courtney, Michelle Dean, Alicia Erian, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Alia Hamada, Kathleen Hellen, Caitlin Horrocks, Kathryn Houghton, Simon Jacobs, Hilary S. Jacqmin, Eugenia Leigh, DW Lichtenberg, Michael Martone, James May, Mark Neely, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, Terrance Owens, Scott Pinkmountain, Kevin Sampsell, Cheryl & Janet Snell, Dennis James Sweeney, Sarah Tourjee, Jordan Wiklund, and Kelly A. Wilson.

152 pages of awesome. Much better than your high school yearbook, a remnant, but certainly not one to be stowed away. Read sample pieces here. Pre-order your copy here.

 

CLMP Hosted a Great Event

Last weekend saw the annual CLMP Lit Mag Marathon Weekend. The two day event began with a “Magathon” reading at the New York Public Library’s DeWittt Wallace Periodicals Room on Saturday afternoon. It was a pleasure to read with so many other great magazines including: Mandorla, Conjunctions, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Moonshot, Ep;phony, St. Petersburg Review, Bellevue Literary Review, The Literary Review, The Dirty Goat, The Common, A Public Space, NANO Fiction, and  The Cortland Review.

Reading for The Cortland Review. Photo courtesy Cortland Review.

 

You can listen to a podcast of the event here, courtesy of the New York Public Library.

.

Reading for PANK. Photo courtesy The Cortland Review.Â

Reading for NANO Fiction. Photo courtesy The Cortland Review.

 

Sunday afternoon was the literary magazine book sale at HousingWorks Bookstore Cafe, where shoppers could pick up copies of all the participating magazines for only $2. The event started at 11 and [PANK] was all sold out by noon! It was great to see so many people enthusiastic about [PANK]. I was enthusiastic about you too.

Thanks to everyone who came and supported CLMP, [PANK], and HousingWorks.

We Want Pulp

Pulp is story. Plot. Forward progression. Uncut and unabashed entertainment. For the Pulp Special Issue, tell me a story. Sex and high adventure, fun and guns, splatter and solemnity. Or any other category you can come up with. As long as it arrives in the form of a story.

It is perhaps axiomatic that there exist a finite number of plot lines, that every story that can be told, has been told. Pulp shrugs at this supposition, then casts an unflinching spotlight upon the shades of human endeavor in action, aka The Moment: the grace under pressure, the cowardice. What to do when the cement shoes are being poured? When the aliens have landed? When bad men are at the door and your children ask, Mom, what do we do? When you stand at the edge of a moiling dusty plain with no clue as to its extent, a bounty on your head, a half-empty canteen, four shells remaining? Pulp reworks cliche and controverts convention to emerge, often badly scathed, with a story that somehow we have never heard before. Therein lies the pleasure and the plain fun.

Continue reading