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1. Red Number One from Rebecca Cook at The Cortland Review.Â
2. Salt from Issue 03 of The Common by Jane Satterfield.
3. The Rumpus interviewed Emily St. John Mandel.
4. Three Poems from Brian Henry at Conjunctions.
5. RECEIVED from Lily Brown at Epiphany.
Chosen by: Alicia Kennedy
Original Publication Date: 1996
Sometimes I think, I miss the places I used to go in those books I used to read. I don’t really know what it means. Do I miss being adolescent, spending weekend days lying on the living room couch with whatever book I judged by its cover at Borders? Of course. But what I’m getting at with this vague thought is more about missing how lost I could get in another world, with characters who felt like friends, whose lives I felt I was living a little bit, too.
My transition from reading young adult fiction to adult fiction was pretty sudden. In sixth grade, I was reading series books about girls a little bit older than me who were getting their periods and making out with boys for the first time. In seventh grade, I stumbled upon Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero. It was a whole new, nihilistic world. And then there was Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting and an intense Kafka phase (that still hasn’t really ended). The book from that time that I read over and over again, though, wasn’t dark at all. It was Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs, and I picked it up because of the cover’s deliciously clean lines, cute Lego man, and the pages of numbers and repeated words and weirdly sized text I saw while flipping through it. Unlike a lot of the other stuff I tried to get my mom to buy me, this was an easy sell after she read the jacket copy. That could not keep me immune to its charms.
1. Have you ever wondered how a print issue of [PANK] is born? Have you seen our fancy video yet?
2. Stop by and say hello at HousingWorks bookstore, Sunday, June 17! We’ll be participating in the annual CLMP Lit Fair.
3. We’re still seeking the best of the best for our Special Pulp Issue. Submit yours here.
1. THIS VIDEO.
2. “Live Forever” from B. J. Hollars at The Rumpus.
3. Mel Bosworth Every Laundromat in the World Release Contest.
4. The Collagist Chapbook Contest.
5. “Neighbor,”  poetry from Chad Redden at Punchnels.
Last Memorial Day weekend I went to Rasputin – the music/movie store from Berkeley, not the ‘Mad Monk’ from Siberia – to get a war flick, not a magic dick. I planned on honoring our country’s fallen soldiers by lying on the couch for days, smoking bowls of The Bay’s finest buds, giving my pooch belly rubs, and watching Hollywood’s stars die in emulation of Washington’s pawns. But I couldn’t find a good war flick – all the good war flicks are anti-war flicks – so I got Straw Dogs.
The 1971 Straw Dogs is Sam Peckinpah’s best flick and, though not a traditional war flick, it captures the violence and madness behind war. . . or at least behind the men behind war. As written in the Tao Te Ching, “Heaven and Earth are heartless / treating creatures like straw dogs.†In the spirit of Memorial Day, I wanted Peckinpah to illustrate how Heaven and Earth heartlessly treat us – especially those who die in wars – like straw dogs. But I got the wrong flick. Yes, it was titled Straw Dogs. . . but it was a 2011 remake. Continue reading
1. If your in New York City, look for [PANK] at the upcoming CLMP Lit Fair, June 17th at Housing Works!
2. While regular submissions are currently closed, you still have just under a month to submit to the Special Pulp Issue. Submissions are open until July 1st.
3. Tip jar submissions remain open for the summer.
Did you read Shut Up/Look Pretty? You can win goodies from Tiny Hardcore!
Each chapter of my contribution to the book, Local God (a novella about four boys in a terrible punk band at Stirling University), is titled with a song by a Scottish band. For example, the first chapter is ‘A Space Boy Dream’ after this song by jangly doom-mongers Belle & Sebastian:
The first three people to email kirsty@pankmagazine.com with the band names for all nine chapters will each win an e-book of their choice from Tiny Hardcore Press. This includes books by Tyler Gobble, Brian Oliu, Christopher Newgent, Robb Todd, Brandi Wells and xTx.
If you don’t have the book yet but want to be in with a chance to win, you can get the e-book of Shut Up/Look Pretty for $6.50.
Now go! Win!
This month I’ve only written one Forsley Feuilleton – I’m writing the second right now. I blame my lack of productivity on my lack of brain activity, and I blame my lack of brain activity on my lack of nourishing meals, and I blame my lack of nourishing meals on my lack of income, and I blame my lack of income on my lack of writing talent, and I blame my lack of writing talent on my lack of brain activity, and I blame my lack of brain activity on my. . . you get the picture. And if you don’t like the picture you get, ship a bag of apples, a box of sardines, and jar of multi-vitamins my way so next week’s Forsley Feuilleton will more closely resemble a picture of a naked Scarlett Johansson than the leopard pattern spandex and a rusted tinfoil sailor hat wearing street schizophrenic that this week’s Feuilleton resembles.
The picture you get from this week’s Feuilleton – the one I’m writing right now – doesn’t have the solidness and smoothness of a naked Johansson. . . it has the randomness and ruggedness of that street schizophrenic who, just yesterday in San Francisco, grabbed my little tattooed arms and said: “Franz Kafka should have spent his time shooting dice with confidence on the corner instead of writing letters in confidence on the paper.â€
1. “Memorial Day,” from Raymond Gibson at Fictionaut.
2. “Busy About You,” from M.G. Martin at Conveyor.
3. “Dairy Queen,” from Jennifer Pashley in Smokelong Quarterly.
4. “Watching Mysteries with My Mother,” from Ben Marcus at Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading.
5. “I Was Not Even Born When You Asked Me For a Diet Coke,” from Wendy Xu and Nick Sturm at La Petite Zine.
Prepare yourself, get the facts:
Co-hosted with Vol. 1 Brooklyn.
7 pm.
WORD, 126 Franklin Street.
Readings by Mensah Demary, Sean Doyle, Jennifer Pashley, Robb Todd, M.G. Martin, Tess Patalano, and Roxane Gay.
See author bios and RSVP here.
