Thursday, October 31, 2019

Emanations 8: Call for Submissions

 
International Authors and the editors of Emanations are happy to announce a Call for Submissions:

Emanations 8

Emanations is an anthology series featuring fiction, poetry, and essays. The emphasis is on alternative narrative structures, new epistemologies, peculiar settings, esoteric themes, sharp breaks from reality, ecstatic revelations, and vivid and abundant hallucinations.

In Emantions 8, we seek to emphasize graphics and visual pieces. We are especially interested in asemic writing and images, visual poetry, formalist experiments in prose, bricolage, new experiments in graphic representation, and visual narratives.  Artists are invited to prepare "compressed" portfolios (5-20 images) with an "artist's statement." Please bear in mind that the production will be in black and white.


The editors are also interested in literary material. We seek fiction and poetry that present unworldly ways of seeing, feeling, and describing. Recognizable genres -- science fiction, fantasy, horror, political dystopia, satire, mystery, local color, romance, realism, surrealism, and postmodernism -- are fine, but the chief idea is to make something new, and along these lines the illusion of something new can be just as important.

If an image, story or poem makes someone say, “Yes, it is good, but what is it?” then it is right for Emanations.  

Essays should be exuberant, daring, and free of pedantry. Accounts of unusual travels will fit well into Emanations 8. Length is a consideration in making publication decisions, but in keeping with the spirit of the project contributors should consider length to be “open.”

Our editorial vision is evolving. Contributors should see themselves as actively shaping the “vision” of Emanations.


Email files with brief cover note to:

IAsubmissions@hotmail.com

Review of Submissions begins January 4, 2020

Contributors should place their name in the subject heading, and they should include their name and contact information in the submitted file.


Emanations is a not-for-profit literary project and contributors cannot be compensated at this time. All proceeds from the sale of Emanations will support the efforts of International Authors to publish new voices from around the world. Contributors receive a copy upon publication. Only one complimentary copy will be sent to each contributor; the fortunes of the mail, particularly international mail, is beyond the control of International Authors.

The project is a collaborative effort, and as we share ideas the “vision” transforms, evolves, and grows. When we write stories and poems we hope to bring to bear the entire battery of modern and postmodern literary devices. More simply: we like good, strong writing. Our essays are incisive, precise, keen, challenging, and driven by the writer’s desire to advance an intelligent audience’s understanding of exotic subjects.


The Fine Print:


1) Submit files as follows: double space, Microsoft Word, Times New Roman size #11.  Set Tabs for .2” and set spacing at 15. Use smart quotes. This will help reduce the workload as the editors format book for publication.

2) No simultaneous submissions (contributors should get fairly quick feedback anyway, especially if their submission meets our needs). Material that is obviously pulled from a file and has nothing to do with the goals of the anthology won’t get any feedback beyond the initial acknowledgement.

3) Word count/line count? See details above. We’re flexible, but contributors should be sensible when considering what they send in. A novella? Well, maybe, and so on.... Rules of thumb: a) Stories: very short to 20-30 pages. b) Poems: send in 5-10 pages. c) Essays: 5-10-30 pages.

4) Published as hard copy only -- Emanations will be available on Amazon. Participants who make a substantial contribution of material, editorial work, or art will get a copy. It can take some time to get copies to contributors outside of North America. In the case of our first anthology, for example, it took forty-five days to get a copy to a contributor in to Nepal. As described above, only one copy will be sent to each contributor; the fate of the mail, particularly international mail, is beyond the control of International Authors.

5) International Authors is a consortium, and as such every contributor is a “member” of our community, and contributors are encouraged to help promote the anthology by sending review copies to newspapers, journals and relevant Web sites.

6) Copyright “reverts” to contributors upon publication. That is, after an accepted piece appears in Emanations, the contributor can publish their piece elsewhere. Contributors should understand that Emanations could remain for sale on Amazon indefinitely. All materials appearing in Emanations are under the exclusive copyright of the contributing writers and artists.

7) Note to poets: Please do not send poems as individual files. All poetry submissions should be sent as a SINGLE MircosoftWord file formatted in Times New Roman, size 11.  Please submit three to ten pages.


8) Note on calendar: The editors will not review submitted files until January 4, 2020


Contributors submitting work to Emanations agree to these points. 



Published by International Authors

Board of Editorial Advisors

Ruud Antonius, Netherlands/UK/Switzerland
Steve Aylett, UK
 Bienvenido "Bones" Banez, Jr., Philippines/US
Holly Baumgartner, US
Cedric Cester, Spain
Sushma Joshi, Nepal
Devashish Makhija, India
C. E. Matthews, N. Ireland
Aziz Mustafa, Kosovo
Michael Moorcock, US/UK
Kai Robb, US
Ebi Robert, Nigeria
Joel K. Soiseth, US
Stephen Sylvester, US
Don Tinsley, US



Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Writing about poetry, a quick reference

Possible topics/themes/approaches for writing about poetry; use these as prompts for body paragraph topics:

Stanza-by-stanza description and analysis
Structure: Forms/genre: sonnet, ballad, elegy, ode, sestina…
Occasion
Themes(s)
Plot (story, narrative)
Speaker
Character(s)
Symbolism
Language
Musical effects:
  1) Rhythm
  2) Alliteration
      a) Assonance
      b) Consonance
      c) Rhyme
Belief(s)
Philosophical questions (also theological)
Figures of Speech:
  1) Allegory
  2) Metaphor
  3) Simile
Vehicle/tenor
Meaning…
Subtext
Significance…
What you like…
What you dislike…
Imagery
Feelings
Author’s biography
Historical context
Allusions: biographical, historical, political, literary

Monday, October 28, 2019

Saturday, October 26, 2019

Progress Report: The Invisible Tower Trilogy

I've made considerable progress on Novel Two. I've completed the creative and continuity edits, and the manuscript has been sent to a reader for suggestions.  When I get it back,  I will make necessary changes, enlist aid from the copy-editors, then table the volume as I prepare the third novel, which is nearly finished. 

I anticipate releasing both the second and third novels simultaneously, possibly as early as January, 2020.

In the meantime, the first volume of the trilogy is available. Please click
HERE.


Friday, October 25, 2019

New Japanese Horizon




New Japanese Horizon: The WAH Center’s 23rd Anniversary Year
"Nii-san Anniversary Year"
 
Chief Curator: Yuko Nii
Section Curators:
Sonomi Kobayashi, Mieko Mitachi, Yuko Nii, Kiriko Shirobayashi 

Show Dates:  October 26 – December 29, 2019
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 26, 4 – 6 pm



Thursday, October 24, 2019

Bestiary of Philosophical Conceptions: #427 Synthesis or Concretion confronting its Abstract Nature






Although duly reified according to the inviolable principles of the Dialectic, ideational entities remain abstractions.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Stonehenge Live Stream

I was searching for the "And the Kitchen Sink Live Stream" but instead found this.  Please click HERE.


Tuesday, October 15, 2019

MAXI J1820+070



Please click HERE for discussion.

Friday, October 11, 2019

Questions Poetic and Questions Philosophic, continued

Poetry = Myth (and here myth includes "intellectual mythology" and the credulous grammar where intellectual mythology makes its home)

I came on the formulation after reading Milton, Hawthorne and Melville; after talking to and reading Peter Hacker and Anthony Kenny. As an academic subject--as a path of inquiry producing new knowledge--the subject of Philosophy is
passé (compare astrology, maybe)--and that in its place the proper subject of inquiry is rather the history of philosophy. I am being somewhat contrarian to underscore a point. Walking forward from this, I should recall the idea I've here before, that philosophy is in no small measure the practice of "gossiping about school teachers and the things they say and do." One has to be careful with such characterizations, but I am very sure this is a journalistic project.

My uncle was a professor of ancient history with a PhD in Hittitology from the University of Chicago. When I was still a lad, he taught me that the history of the past 2000 years was "mere journalism". Some years later, I shared my uncle's idea with a person I was close to back in Scotland, the former Dean of Arts at St Andrews University, Donald Bullough, who was a fellow of St John's College, Oxford, and an historian with books on Charlemagne and Medieval Europe. Anyway, as I shared my uncle's idea with Donald, he winced; but then a rather bemused expression as of remembrance or "a happy insight" came over his face, and with a warm smile he insisted, "Your uncle is absolutely right!" What this means for philosophy I can't say precisely, but one would expect philosophers to include in their repertoire an understanding of the full expository possibilities given by the English language, which obviously should include a "poet's sensitivity" to the fine nuances of credulity and conceptual illusion that the language has a tendency to conjure; as well possessing a deep and imaginative knowledge of the historical contexts that frame philosophers as they exercise themselves and say remarkable (and curious) things.


Jacques-Louis David,  "Minerva Fighting Mars"  (1771)

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Is "What is the Meaning of Life?" a philosophical question?

Casually, such questions appear "mostly harmless". When such questions, however, are entertained in earnest, is a philosopher really doing philosophy?

Often philosophers resort to discussing questions that are not properly philosophical questions at all, but are rather poetic questions (eg. "the meaning of life"). Not that we shouldn't read and discuss poetry, but let's not "do poetry" and call it "doing philosophy."

The distinction comes into especial focus when a "philosopher" is "doing poetry", and moreover is unaware that he or she is talking about dull poetry, and, what is even more tedious, is unaware that his or her dilation is a dull conversation about poetry.


The distinction between poetic and philosophical questions compares to what is central in Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy, I believe. 

Athena Instructs Odysseus




Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Earth is passing through the stream of debris left behind by Comet Halley, October 2 to November 7: The Orinid Meteor Shower

"If you find the shape of Orion the Hunter, the meteor shower's radiant (or point of origin) will be near Orion's sword, slightly north of his left shoulder (the star Betelgeuse) . . . "




 











 Sources:  Here and Here.

And--October 8 and 9--don't forget the Draconid shower, here.

Monday, October 7, 2019

Sunday, October 6, 2019

from Philosophical Investigations...

"276. (On Color Blue)" by Joseph Kosuth, 1993. Neon tubing, transformer, electrical wires.

















Saturday, October 5, 2019

Thursday, October 3, 2019

68 Cantos by William Weiss

Some weeks ago, I mentioned the forthcoming publication of William Weiss's 68 Cantos, a sophisticated, lengthy, and masterfully realized "cut up" based on the writings of Michael Butterworth.

This is a brilliantly sustained effort. It pushes the notion of "story" right to the edge--properly confusing yet consistent enough to create illusions, suggestions and impressions of a continuous and deep narrative. It satisfies the aesthetic measure:  "It is very good, but what is it?" 

To discover what it is, please visit Michael Butterworth's description (HERE) and the Amazon sales page (HERE).

Congratulations, William Weiss!