In October 07, melissamann.com launched Beat the Dust, a new space for writers to flex their literary muscle and showcase their latest work. Our manifesto is to encourage inventive, hard-hitting, intelligent, thought-provoking poetry and prose, and we are especially interested in writing that involves some kind of contradiction or breaks a rule or convention in some way. The first issue of the online litzine is below.
DEBUT ISSUE OF BEAT THE DUST
Author:
Justin Hyde interviews himself
Q: Are you a Bukowski copycat? A: Not by design or premeditated intent. I feel more kinship with Raymond Carver than I do Bukowski. Q: What the hell are you doing in Iowa? A: Shell-shocked and debauched by what my friend Sartre called the “practico-inert” just like the rest of us. Q: Why do you write? A: It’s an ephemeral way of reconciling our philosophical impotence. The heat of the creative act allows us to get some distance from it. But like I said, it’s ephemeral. Q: Do you like to use big words to sound smart? A: No, but the language of philosophy has given me a framework for battling the absurdity of our existence. Q: What is something nobody knows about you? A: I flunked English my junior year of high school. Q: Seriously? A: Yes.
Submission Date:
20 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
cobbling days together like torn kites
Excerpt:
every couple of months i need a solid week on the couch in my cool...
Q: So who the hell are you? A: I'm a happily married happily knocked up bat shit crazy writer of poems, blogs, novels and grocery lists. I'm a maker of collages. I'm a karaoke Mexican beer road trip MySpace fanatic. I'm a lulu.com freak. I'm Kim Wu and Koko Loko. Q: Where do you live? A: I currently reside in Albuquerque, New Mexico but will soon return to my native land, the Lone Star state. Don't hate me for that, please.
Submission Date:
19 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
sympathy for the scrappers (jay’s monologue)
Excerpt:
unlike you, these girls don’t have a mommy and daddy to run back to in s...
Dan Fante was born and raised in Los Angeles. At twenty, he quit school and hit the road, eventually ending up as a New York City resident for twelve years. Fante has worked at dozens of crummy jobs including: door to door salesman, taxi driver, window washer, telemarketer, private investigator, night hotel manager, chauffeur, mailroom clerk, deck hand, dishwasher, carnival barker, envelope stuffer, dating service counselor, furniture salesman, and parking attendant. Fante is married and has a two year old son named Michaelangelo Giovanni Fante. He hopes eventually to learn to play the harmonica. Visit his website here.
Submission Date:
13 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
mom at eighty-nine
Excerpt:
Today at the home I read her some of my new stuff while she squin...
Interviewing myself didn't work out too well. I was a total asshole:
Q: How old are you? A: 38. Q: Aren't you old enough to know better then? A: Fuck off and die. Q: I mean, seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? A: I wouldn't even know where to begin.
Submission Date:
10 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
footnote from the decade of burnt toast
Excerpt:
december when you find your father in a room no bigger than a bad d...
Q: How do you pronounce your name? A: It's the same as Jeremy. My mother used the French spelling by sheer luck. She was a stoned 17 year old who thought it'd be fun to spell it differently. My middle name is completely made up. Q: Is your writing autobiographical? A: Yes, for the most part; all writers embellish. I am not clever enough to write about what I have not personally experienced. I have battled with drug addiction for about 4 years now. Q: What new writers do you read? A: I am not a fan of new writers. I am also not a fan of most old writers. I did not like anyone new until I found Tao Lin's poetry and short stories. He writes of loneliness in a way that most others have not touched upon. I also enjoy Tony O’Neill. The reasons should be patent if you've read him before. I am also a fan of Buddy Wakefield (although I do not care for Slam Poetry much). Q: Do you have a blog? A: Yes, I recently started one. It is more of a diary though. I know people are going through their own struggles and do not want to hear me complain about mine. The blog is weak-signal.blogspot.com.
Submission Date:
10 Oct 2007
Category:
Short story
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
little saigon
Excerpt:
“I’ll have a ca fe.”
“Ca fe su da?”
“No, no just a ca fe.”
“Oh, that’s very strong.”
“I know darling.” I smile at her. She acquiesces and walks behind the counter to get my order. I go through this exercise at every Vietnamese coffee shop....
Q: Luis, where were you born? A: I was born in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. Q: Where can I find poems, like Crazy Fuckers, influenced by people struggling with mental illness? A: My first book, Raw Materials. It was published by Pygmy Forest Press. Also, Kendra Steiner Editions published my first chapbook, Without Peace in July 2007. Q: Where can I read samples of your work? A: I have a blog at myspace.com/cuatemochi.
Submission Date:
10 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
crazy fuckers
Excerpt:
I like to take small steps when I walk around here. You never know...
Q: Who are you? A: Emily Louise McPhillips. Q: Nicknames? A: Emmy Squirrel, Electro Magnetic Pulse, Emails. Many words beginning with E. Q: Your favourite books? A: Far From the Madding Crowd. I love Thomas Hardy. Bathsheba Everdene is a favourite heroine of mine, her faults make her very likeable, so much so that I want to open up my own cafe eventually and call it Bathsheba's; you must come! And books by Tove Jansson too - they're so wonderfully lovely. Q: Your most embarrassing celebrity crush? A: I'm not too embarrassed about it, but I did used to have a major thing for Angus Deayton, a little bit odd for a 13 year old girl though. Q: Plans for the rest of 2007? A: I desperately want to learn Ballroom Dancing, oh and take some Spanish lessons too, oh and writing, more writing.
Submission Date:
10 Oct 2007
Category:
Short story
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
freddie and anika
Excerpt:
You don’t want to go to the ice rink, Anika had her fingers sliced off and they stuck to the ice and then Freddie came over and licked the blood up like jam from a doughnut. The medics had to cut his tongue out with a surgical knife. He signs fuck you to the kids that push him ...
Brain: Hmmm, why do I write? Bones: Because I bully you into it! Brain: But my neurons contain the language and the skills. Bones: Yeah, but I make you not bullshit like other poets. Brain: That's true I must admit. Bones: You better say that, the skull is made up of 14 bones, you're outnumbered, you bastard!
Scurvy: Why do you write? Bastard: To keep from going sane. S: Is it true that Shane MacGowan, among others, was a regular in your DJ booth at Dingwalls during the early 80's? B: Shane was never a "regular" anything but he was often in the clutter and that booth had more chopping going on than the French Revolution. S: Speaking of The Pogues, Ron Kavana wrote that you were,"The world's greatest roadie and party animal." Have you mellowed? B: Mellowed, yellowed and the banana's gone acoustic. S: You have been living in Northern California for the last 10 years. How do you like it? B: A truly beautiful slice of the sphere. Downside is that it's full of Californians, but the gods are working on that. S: Whose round is it anyway? B: Ours.
Submission Date:
10 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
blood train
Excerpt:
Mama can't sus the new-speak Silver bitch gotta rusted switch Your mi...
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