The book is available through a
variety of regional Amazon websites, including UK, France, Germany,
Italy, and Japan. I have also attached front
cover art to facilitate promotion. Please let your contacts know about
the book, and otherwise get the word out through email and social media.
Kindly order the volume for your institutional libraries, and contact
me if you know of a journal or web site that
is likely to review the book. Here is the description appearing on Amazon and the International Authors web
site.
The ninth volume of the critically acclaimed Emanations literary anthology series, Emanations: When a Planet was a Planet presents stunning new art, illustrations and writing from around the world. The forty-two contributors represent South Korea, Canada, India, Oman, France, Nigeria, England, Scotland, Germany, Spain, the Philippines, Sweden, Japan and the United States. Comprising a broad range of graphic and literary expressions, this new volume wonderfully sustains International Authors’ commitment to innovation and experimentation, with unusual visual pieces, intriguing artists’ statements, idiosyncratic memoirs, dynamic poetical constructions, and cutting-edge speculative fiction.
Jean-Paul L. Garnier of Space Cowboy book has sent me the following note. Jean-Paul will have a story in Emanations Nine, and he will announce the publication of the new volume in his newsletter. Soon!
To celebrate the launch of their new website Space Cowboy Books has created a free download ebook entitled Simultaneous Times Vol. 2.5. The book features writers and illustrators from Brazil, Germany, England, and the United States and serves as a companion piece to the Simultaneous Times science fiction podcast and paperback book series. The book features the science fiction writings of: Michael Butterworth, J. Jeff Jones, Cora Buhlert, Renan Bernardo, Brent A. Harris, Robin Rose Graves, Kim Martin, RedBlueBlackSilver, and Douglas A. Blanc – with illustrations by: Dante Luiz, Austin Hart, Douglas A. Blanc, Chynna DeSimone, and Zara Kand.
Vitasta Raina has at last received her contributors copy of Octo-Emanations. The mails to India have been very slow to "not working", so we arranged for an air traveler to bring the book to her from the United States.
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| Owl Mocked by Small Birds by Kawanabe Kyosai, circa 1887 |
Making progress, we are still accepting submissions...
Today I would like to recommend Eduardo Paolozzi at New Worlds: Science Fiction and Art in the Sixties by David Brittain.
The Amazon sales page (click the cover image) identifies J.G. Ballard as the author. This is an error. The author is actually David Brittain. Here is the Amazon description:
Beginning in the mid-1960s, New Worlds magazine, under the visionary editorship of Michael Moorcock, evolved from a small science fiction monthly to a radical publication that exemplified the collisions between art and popular culture at the time. Artist Eduardo Paolozzi, whose work was regularly featured, played a pivotal role in defining its examination of the increasingly technologised media landscape of the 20th century and science fictions new wave. With rare images and excerpts from an unpublished novel by Paolozzi, the book offers fresh insights into the way images and a fragmentary, collaged approach to writing drove breakthroughs in the visualisation of our future.
I wrote to publisher Michael Butterworth asking how the book came to be written. Here is his reply:
I commissioned the book after coming across David Brittain’s The Jet Age Compendium: Paolozzi at Ambit, published by Four Corners Books. David’s book was about Ballard as much as Paolozzi, and at the time was widely distributed in art cultural circles. I saw in it the beginnings of a possible discussion about the overlooked visual aspect of New Worlds, and asked David, who fortunately I knew through Corridor8, whether he would write a book about Paolozzi at New Worlds, focusing on the important visual side of the magazine. He agreed.Highly recommended. Please click the cover image (above) to visit the Amazon sales page.
For decades the only other book on the New Wave was Colin Greenland's The Entropy Exhibition, which, crucial as it is, focuses on the literary side of the movement. The visual side hadn’t been written much about, and I felt it was in danger of being overlooked, especially in America. To give one example of what I mean by this, when I interviewed Richard Kostelanetz for soanyway, about six or seven years ago, and the subject of New Worlds came up, he told me he had copies in his (vast) library. He left his laptop to go look for them, but it turned out what he had were the Panther anthologies, and it was clear from this that his conception of what New Worlds was all about came from these. He had no idea of the highly impactive large format editions from 1967-1970, or the interesting ‘samizdat’ large format editions that followed. I sent him a big package of what duplicates I could muster pretty quickly, to repair the hole in his collection.
The book took about a year for David to write – he had more to say about Paolozzi and Ballard – so the commission worked out well for both of us. He suggested I commission new artwork from Pam Zoline for the endpapers, which I did. John (Coulthart) then designed it, and then we, Savoy, published it. I managed to get it very widely distributed in bookshops and art galleries (eg The Tate and others) around the world. It sold out of its print run of 7,000 very quickly. We could have sold twice as many, but didn't have the money to reprint it. In full colour, the production costs were very costly, and what revenue it generated was needed on other projects. But it did what I wanted, spectacularly, and also brought New Worlds to the attention of a whole load of new contemporary readers.
It was a generous thing for David to do. I respect David a lot. He isn't your regular academic – and I didn’t want him to write anything overly academic in any case. As his write-ups testify his background is in journalism and broadcasting. For ten years he was editor of the photography magazine, Creative Camera, and he was also a contributor to BBC Radio Four and involved on the production of a series of documentaries for BBC TV’s The Late Show, including a profile of the photographer William Klein. He was who I wanted.
Before this book, who in the SF field had written the whole story about New Worlds? If it is read in tandem with The Entropy Exhibition, it completes the story.
International Authors and the editors of Emanations are happy to announce a Call for Submissions:
Emanations 9
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 Emanations 9, 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 9. 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 June 1, 2021
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 June 1, 2021.
Contributors submitting work to Emanations agree to these points.
Published by International Authors
How might we describe our civilization--indeed, how might we describe our very psyches--to visitors from another planet?
Reflect that, in our civilization, the subject/predicate formulation is the basis of how we view the
world. The way we organize knowledge and understanding of
the world is built right into our grammar: subject/predicate: something doing
something. We organize knowledge like
this at all levels or scales.
Level or Scale
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Something
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Doing Something
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Sentence
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Subject
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Predicate
|
Paragraph
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Topic
Topic Sentence
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Points about the topic
Supporting Sentences
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Essay
|
Thesis (subject or proposition)
|
Main points (paragraphs)
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Book
|
Thesis (subject or proposition)
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Main points (chapters)
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We put our finger on something, and we say something about it. Any questions?
Highbrow readers might recall Philippine writer Phillip Somozo's review of Emanations: Third Eye, which I posted HERE in April, 2014. I have now received another review by Mr. Somozo, this one treating Emanations: Chorus Pleiades (click the cover image at the end of this post to view additional descriptions). I think readers will be impressed by the review, which is both a representation of and a tour through the book:
The cosmic soulmill had presently discharged into the solar system seven-billion degenerative organisms that suffer from feeble self-will. It is unfortunate they settled on and populated the beautiful blue planet, destroying natural habitats, and consuming other lifeforms.
They will soon literally eat up each other. It is already happening in cosmetic metaphors. Vegan human ham would be the prime cut on select grocery shelves of the future. This is where the conventional literary tongue is leading humankind to.
Guided by the tastebuds as compass, the literati subliminally affirm Eve’s reckless propensity so that the Fall continues, the abyss deep. Avarice and lust ramified the fruits of the Forbidden Tree with gorgeous dresses, precious jewelries, luxury cars, fashionable houses... human artefacts all that took toll on the natural environment. The tongue, instead of getting educated by transcending taste gratification, spread the Fall’s effects pervasively through all the sensory and motor organs.
Before the word was spoken (and later written) it was formed by the tongue. The tongue, the tastebuds (literally and metaphorically), and the spoken and written words are one in hardwiring today’s human brain. The senses besiege the brain while the latter mobilized the motor organs for interaction with and alteration of the objective world—Nature. The brain asked questions and came up with answers that made life more comfortable.
Through time the questions raised as well as the answers became less sensible, degenerative. It became apparent the planet’s apex predator is, in fact, a smiling moron mindlessly cutting off his very own lifeline. All the narratives generated by the tongue are revealed by Shakespeare as “...tedious as a twice-told tale...”
There is a nexus between the mortal sin committed in the Garden of Eden and the Anthropocene’s advent. By the way the Holocene extinction is blasting off, the establishment is bound to be subverted when grocery shelves run out of eatable goods. The Anthropocene milestone would be broken as it was with the Moses tablets. The vandal on the wall will say “Welcome to Zombiedom!”
The Amazon is now less known as the planet’s most diverse bioregion, but as electronic ecosystem of books written by the dictates of the tastebuds. The virtual world either diminishes or retains the population of serious intelligent readers. With the Holocene extinction already set into unprecedented motion, the noun Idiot should have been redefined under its context. If and when it is accomplished, Bingo! The road to God’s kingdom come on Earth shall be cleared of major obstacle.
Meantime, the only way to circumvent Zombiedom is by jumping off the conventional titanic ship of conformist society. The doomed liner will collide with the immensity of its illusion and sink down the ocean of oblivion, like Atlantis of old. By jumping off, one finds oneself not falling, but suspended on air, on outer space where the stars are far apart, like chess pieces with limitless move options.
The stars of Pleiades in fact are embedded as one’s brain neurons. The firmament, one discovers, is within the Self. The flip from micro to macro happens because the cerebral patterns of old are loosed. Jumping off is the required act of courage. Thus, suspended on open space, one’s superconciousness awakens. Brain cells sensitize like billion bits of a jigsaw mirror, searching for and reflecting light, self-organizing and forming a new image of the human. A new dialog, a fresh conversation with the universe, then, commences.
Creativity thus is the sole human antidote to Zombiedom. Encapsulated creativity is the essence of the anthology Emanations: Chorus Pleiades. This reviewer will not deprive the reader of the pleasure of reading by elaborating on how the diverse authors looked at and interpreted the world in ways very few others before them did. With this tome the vast field of reality opens with novelty.
Generating causal synapses of creativity resonating out from their collective brain, converging and organizing invisible subquantum particles, the International Authors are forming the building blocks of manifestation for the matrix of a higher type of literary emergence.
Move over, Hemmingway, Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, and the rest of you who now inhabit august library shelves. The world is transitioning. The intellectual intercourse you have initiated impregnated fertile imaginations, giving birth to illegitimates that are superior to the conservatives. May your tribe further increase.
The Pleiades beacons. Hail! The new season for planting is come!
Phillip Somozo was a visual artist (still paints) and writer (still writes) who is now a biodynamics farmer. In the Pacific islands once called Maharlika (now Philippines), the appearance of the Pleiades in the nightsky traditionally signals the beginning of a new planting cycle among indigenes.
