I was twenty-five. My father and I were in his living room: the floors were overcast like marble and, along the walls, various prints featured animated Jazz musicians in suspended animation, frozen in creative glee. We spoke of my future, a topic-on-loop since I left Georgia. Back in New Jersey for the first time, full-time, in seven years, without a college degree or a sense of what I’d like to do in the “professional” arena, I relied on what was—and remains—my primary desire: writing.

“Well Dad,” I said, “I’m thinking about an English degree. I mean, I don’t know. Not much money in an English degree.”

“That is true,” my father said.

“I could teach.”

“You could. But you mentioned an MBA a few years ago.” Prior to my first marriage, days before maybe, I talked about attaining a business degree. For what purpose, I had no idea. In what hopes, no clue. “Business” was analogous to “stable” and in the midst of an impending marriage, stability, in all its forms, seemed appealing.

“It’s not what I want to do,” I said. “I’m not interested in being a businessman. Just seems like means to an end.”

“Right,” my father said, “so get a degree to help pay the bills. Who said you can’t work and write at the same time?”

What I thought was, “It’s not about time, Dad.” What I said was, “I hear you.”

Before my family was obliterated by divorce, we lived in a three bedroom home, an “A-frame” house, with wood siding and a deck that wrapped around half the building like an incomplete skirt, and a small front yard where my brothers and I, neighborhood kids included, engaged in whiffle ball, tackle football and foot races.

I was seven. My father, in school for his Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing, brought home a word processor: a fifteen inch monitor atop of a horizontal base where the computer’s inner-workings were housed. The computer was utilitarian: though it had the shape of more flexible PCs, it processed words…and nothing else.

Before the machine’s arrival, I had no discernible desire to write. I was atypical, I suppose. I didn’t care for reading as entertainment, I never scribbled stories in a spiral notebook. But I played with action figures, pretended to be a ninja and spoke to myself often. My mother thought I had an imaginary friend. When I told her, “No Mom, I’m talking to myself,” she frowned and said, “Dennis, only crazy people do that.” So sure, I had the makeup of a writer, after all.

Writing surfaced as a means to emulate my father and, therefore, garner his approval. He spent many nights on the terminal, keyboard “click-clacking” in the name of academia, of medicine. Being seven, I thought of cartoons and ways to piss off my younger sister. One day, I asked my father if I could use his computer.

“It’s a word processor,” he said.

“I want to write a story.”

“Really? Tell me about it.”

“I have to write it first, Dad.” He sighed and fumbled in a desk drawer and pulled out a plastic case. Inside were square, black disks. Each one had a colorful label to them: he handed me a blue one.

I sat down and inserted the disc, like I saw him do many times before. After that, I looked up for guidance. The screen had a black background with white lettering. There was no mouse. There were no Windows. Again, utilitarian. Myopic in its purpose. The screen displayed so many file options: open, close, erase, and a hundred more ways to create and handle a document. My father walked me through the process and, within minutes, I was confronted with my first blank screen.

“Press this button here,” he said, pointing at the keyboard, “when you want to save.”

I spent what now seems like days on my first story. “The Man Who Died And Came Back Alive.” I will admit that while my titles have improved over the years, I still lack a general feeling, a seventh sense, so to speak, and my titles still trip over themselves. That said, the printout was 1.5 pages long.

I don’t remember how the man died and, more importantly, what force brought him back to life. The idea itself was as fantastical as I could get. Defeating death—this was the secretive preoccupation of my childhood. My father, upon reading the story, was neither worried about my state of mind nor impressed. To give him some credit, maybe he was impressed that I actually did what I set out to do; the product, on the other hand, achieved a pat on the head.

“Good, Dennis. Good.”

“When I look back upon my life, it’s always with a sense of shame. I’ve always been the one to blame.”
Pet Shop Boys, It’s a Sin

Sometimes a phrase will turn on me as the years pass.

When I was younger and less secure, I thought I was deficient in many ways. I thought I was the reason for many things going wrong. I thought the blame could usually rest on me. I had been the one to blame.

As I grew older, I became more confident, but more judgmental. I was selfish, overly secure and had no problem blaming others for (what I considered) their inadequacies. I had been the one to blame (others).

Thank god I grew more.

We would like to congratulate Summer Block and Rachel Swirsky for taking first and second place, respectively, in the 2010 storySouth Million Writers Award. Well done!

This week kicks off with work from Kuzhali Manickavel at AGNI and hey, she has a chapbook coming out soon.

Ethel Rohan interviews Sean Lovelace at Dark Sky Magazine which, if you haven’t noticed, is a fine fine publication with a really interesting range of content.

In the new issue of Negative Suck, a poem from xTx. She also had some things to say about the smoking baby.

Night Songs, a poetry collection by the really talented Kristina Marie Darling, is now available from Gold Wake Press. You should buy it.

More cosmos have been added to the new issue of Blue Print including work from Mel Bosworth (who loves the Lakers) and Peter Schwartz.

Listen to J. Bradley on the Full of Crow Poetry Hour from this past Sunday.

The Spring 2010 issue of Thirst for Fire includes writing from David Erlewine, Alan Stewart Carl, Sheldon Lee Compton, J. Bradley, and other writers with either two or three names.

Congratulations are in order for Laura Marello whose novel, Claiming Kin, is a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize for 2010.

Donal Mahoney has Two Appliques at amphibi.us.

This week at Dark Sky, Ethel Rohan interviews Tania Hersman and Mel Bosworth reads Amber Sparks.

Blake Butler reviews Witz in the June issue of The Believer.

In the Redivider June Contributor Spotlight, Matthew Salesses shines a little light on Matt Bell.

The June issue of elimae includes Meg Pokrass, JA Tyler, Kyle Minor, Chris Heavener, Greg Gerke, Bonnie ZoBell, and Eric Burke. Eric also has poetry in the June issue of decomP where he is joined by Eric Beeny.

BJ Hollars is Mr. May at American Short Fiction.

Are you going to be in NYC on Friday, June 4? Fiction, DOGZPLOT and Senentia are hosting a poetry and fiction slam. You should go.

If you’ve been published in PANK and a host of other magazines, you can publish your book for one day, with Word Riot. Now this is an exciting idea. Dig out those manuscripts.

Check out a story from Roland Goity at Metazen.

At Necessary Fiction, Gary Moshimer and as part of my Writer in Residence, check out Homesick, by Paula Bomer.

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the summer kickoff and barbecuing and otherwise being festive. I’m not but that’s okay. As long as you all are having fun, I will live vicariously through you.

Did you know that sometimes writers reject a rejection? They do. And I’m not making any judgments here but 100% of the time, that writer is a man, at least in our experience.

When you receive a rejection containing feedback that was perhaps quite candid but always well intended, and you disagree with that feedback, that’s your right. Our feedback is subjective and your writing is, in some cases, apparently beyond reproach. We were not aware of that when we communicated with you. Pardon our error. It’s just that when you use ellipses more than thirty times in a story, we will feel compelled to point that out because perhaps, that was something you overlooked. And maybe you use too many modifiers or say things like “I feel” too much, and maybe the ending doesn’t work or the beginning doesn’t work or there are some tonal inconsistencies. When we point these things out, we are not attacking you as a person. We are not saying you are a bad writer. We are not saying that your writing is irredeemable. We’re saying the writing in question is simply not right for PANK and we’re providing you with a little information as to why so that the next time you send us something, you might have a better sense of what we’re looking for. We’re offering you one opinion about your work that you can take or leave. We are not right. We are not wrong. We are not infallible. We are certainly not being mean.

When you receive a rejection, and you have a strong reaction to it, you can vent and otherwise rail against the many ways in which we are misguided, arrogant, delusional or otherwise mistaken, to your priest, therapist, wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend, nuclear family, the guy on the street corner, your blog or other means of social networking. You can hire a skywriter or take out an ad in a major newspaper. Whatever you need to do to deal with that rejection, we understand. We’re writers too and we get rejected frequently and enthusiastically. We, for example, generally blog about our rejections and find that quite satisfying. We very much understand that rejection sucks. Sometimes, it stings. We understand feeling misunderstood. We understand thinking that the editor just doesn’t get it. We accept that we may not get it. All of that is fine. What is less acceptable is sending your rude and abusive emails to us. It really really isn’t okay. We do not need to know about your inappropriate emotional reactions. We don’t want to know.

Most rejections of rejections involve bad words and angry sentiments and personal attacks that basically boil down to this: “I don’t care what you think about my writing. I think you suck.” What confuses us is this: if you don’t care what we think, why do you submit? If you are only looking for a “Yes,” you’re perhaps not cut out for the publishing game. More often than not, the answer is going to be no because any magazine can only publish so many writers. We’re basically full through October online and about 90% full for our next print issue. The majority of the writing we receive is great but we, like most magazines, are in a position where we can only publish the writing that really grabs us, that really makes us fall in love, that really moves us.

Whether we send form or personal rejections, writers enjoy writing back, striking back, and otherwise making it clear where we can go stick our rejections. Why in the past four days alone, the following missives were sent our way:

“Why don’t you take your gut and shove it up your ass.”

“I certainly don’t mind being rejected, but I do take issue with the arrogant and disrespectful “criticism” you passed along. As a writer, editor and professor, I must say that I find your it reactionary, gratuitous and completely unprofessional. As a student who wishes to join the ranks of academia and a fledgling writer seeking respect, you should really think about your attitude and approach. Neither one of them are doing you any favors.”

“Fuck you and your magazine.”

I know I shouldn’t post this, what with my being a fledgling writer and all, but this is just not the week. We look forward to your next submission. Truly.

All things considered, it is very easy to start a literary magazine. It is infinitely more difficult to start and then sustain a great literary magazine and do so for ten years.  Pindeldyboz managed to do so with wit and grace. It is a  bittersweet moment,to read that on their tenth anniversary, they are bringing to magazine to an end.  They were one of the first literary magazines I ever read and I liked that the writing didn’t feel as… conservative as what I read in other magazines.    I have read incredible stories in Pindeldyboz and what I appreciate most is the range of stories and writing styles they have featured. As a writer, I am particularly grateful for Pindeldyboz because they took a chance on a story of mine that was a little different, where I was trying to do something new. We’re sad to see them go but so damn happy to have had the chance to read really great writing from them through the years.  They never seemed to limit themselves about what they could appreciate. Thank you, Whitney Pastorek and everyone who ever had a hand in making Pindeldyboz the fine magazine it is and will always be.

It seems to me that when people have conquered the two/too/to fiasco, or the there/their/they’re conundrum, they give up, convinced of their mastery of the English language. And I know I’m probably going to sound  kind of like an  asshole for saying this, but I’m just going to say it anyway, because I know when to use “lie” and when to use “lay” in a sentence, and that gives me an undue sense of entitlement, which I plan to milk for at least the next three paragraphs.

It’s crazy the number of submissions I read that have lie/lay mixups in them. Some of them are really great stories, too. And then I stumble over a  I want you to lay down. Okay, I’ll say this, and you can write it on a post-it note: you  lay something on the table, and you  lie down on the couch. Is it a pen? Are you putting it somewhere? You  lay it.  Lay requires a direct object (the pen).  Is it your body? Are you throwing it into that hot bartender’s bed? You  lie down. You lie down sexily.

The past tense is a little trickier, because the past tense of  lie is  lay. (Last Wednesday, we lay down in the grass.) The past tense of  lay is  laid. (Henry laid the fork down instead of stabbing Julie.) You can put that on the post-it note, too. It’s not really cheating.

Yes, this means that the Snow Patrol song “Chasing Cars” is grammatically incorrect. Sad as it is, it can’t be undone. But you now hold the key to constructing proper sentences using lay and lie. And we all know there’s nothing sexier than proper grammar.