Beat the Dust's July 09 issue features an exclusive extract from Heidi James' new novel Carbon. You'll also find Lee Rourke's interview with Heidi, which he did specially for this month's BTD. Not only that, we have new writing from Karl Koweski, Mather Schneider, Joe Nikita, Mathias Nelson, Zach King-Smith, Trevor Mitchell and A D Winans plus a selection of deathbed playlist videos. The August 09 issue of Beat the Dust is again open to all writers and has a theme - Love & Hate. So open up a vein (done at writer's own risk) and get scribing, dudes. Submission deadline 31st July 09. Sub guidelines are here in case you need 'em.
JULY 09 EDITION OF BEAT THE DUST
Author:
Heidi James
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
I want silence on my death bed, or certainly nothing man-made. Perhaps just birdsong.
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Novel extract
In Chap-book
Title:
Carbon
Excerpt:
I am shorter. I can still reach the light switch as before, I can still reach the shelves, my clothes don’t trail, I appear to inhabit the same proportion of space as always; but I am shortening. My cumbersome mouth flaps about my morning mug of tea, morning again. I have become peripheral to myself, to my body. It’s slumped around me, tripping me up. I move about the house avoiding the critical surface of the mirror; what do I care what it reflects?
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Poems: Forced Poem - Melissa Hansen and Surreptitiously Kissing - Denis Johnson Novel: A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole Songs: Idiot Prayer - Nick Cave and Big Balls - AC/DC Film script: A Christmas Story – Jean Shepherd
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
little kindness
Excerpt:
I’d been fishing around for a compliment for the better part of a week, ever since we consummated our affair
and I thought I’d fucked her for all I was worth, sweating out nearly three pounds of water weight during the night
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Favorite novel: Journey to the End of the Night - Celine Poem: Bluebird - Charles Bukowski Song: Tomorrow Is Such a Long Time - Bob Dylan Play/film script: I honestly can't think of anything
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
the nature of the oozing material
Excerpt:
Ray has a weeping hole in the back of his head. He thinks a spider bit him. The hole is about the size of a penny and his hair is matted up around it. Ray is thirty eight years old, about five feet tall with his cowboy boots on and maybe a hundred pounds with his knife on his belt.
Joe Nikita was born, lived and died in Los Angeles. He died of skin cancer and/or smog inhalation.
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Flash fiction
In Chap-book
Title:
adam’s rib
Excerpt:
“How’s bout it, baby?” says Matthew as he jabs his open palm into Aunt Fiona’s ribs. She crosses herself and shakes her head, looking at the big boy in front of her, over six-feet tall now, close to six-five maybe. But she will never know exactly how tall until he stops wearing his hair like a wildflower.
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Poem: The Strongest of the Strange – Charles Bukowski. Novel: The Road - Cormac McCarthy. Song: Ain't Talkin' - Bob Dylan. Film: There Will Be Blood – Paul Thomas Anderson based on the novel Oil by Upton Sinclair.
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
battle island
Excerpt:
At Black Hawk Recreation Park I crouch with my six year old nephew and gaze into Bad Axe River once tainted red with the blood of fleeing Indians. all who surrendered were massacred — women, children, warriors.
Heidi’s novella, The Mesmerist's Daughter was published by Apis Books in July 07. Her novel Carbon will be out on BLATT later this year and has been published in Spanish by El Tercer Nombre. She has collaborated on projects with numerous artists, including Delaine LeBas, Marisa Carnesky and Tara Darby. Her essays and stories have appeared in various publications and anthologies, including Dazed & Confused, Brand, 3:AM Magazine and pulp.net. She is currently studying for a PhD in London on the poetics of autotrauma as parenthetical gesture.
Lee Rourke’s novel The Canal is due out later this year on Melville House and follows on the heels of his anthology, Everyday published by Social Disease.
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Interview
In Chap-book
Title:
the same fake snow – Lee Rourke’s interview with Heidi James
Excerpt:
Heidi James: I wanted to create something exultant, in a language that exceeds that which it describes. It's an attempt to exploit idiom, but not a pastiche. I hope its hyper aesthetics attempt a move, a dynamic....
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Song: Hope There's Someone - Anthony and The Johnstons Film: I'm Not There - Todd Haynes and Oren Moverman Poem: For Jane - Charles Bukowski Novel: Vanity Of Dulouz - Jack Kerouac
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
before she left me
Excerpt:
but now the bones in the ground are crying for us you aren't dead just in another bed but i'm grieving
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Poem: Old Dust - Li Po Novel: Journey to the End of the Night - Celine Song: Avalanche - Leonard Cohen Play: Breath - Samuel Beckett
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
a world class customer focused organisation
Excerpt:
The cunt clocks me before I'm even through the door. He ostentatiously examines his cheap wristwatch before raising his arm, beckoning me with a come hither motion like he's fingering an omniscient G-spot.
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Poem: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock – T.S. Eliot Novel: The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway Song: Desolation Row – Bob Dylan Film script: Barfly – Charles Bukowski
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
untitled
Excerpt:
I order a boilermaker dressed in My blue-collar worker garb Eye the old swamper With a wheel barrel stomach Who pays me no attention
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