Unspeakable, Unthinkable Fiction

Apparently, some fiction does not enjoy first amendment protection.

Consider the case of Dwight Whorley. This Virginia man authored an icky pornographic story that included pedophilia, then emailed his fantasy to likeminded internet friends, Wired reports. Whorley was convicted for possessing obscene Japanese manga and for possession of a filthy piece of print -- his pedophiliac fantasy.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to hear his case, setting the stage for a Supreme Court Appeal.

On the one hand, the production of written kiddie porn probably does hurt children by helping to create an atmosphere that suggests that it's ok, or by helping condition a person's orgasm to an illegal act that threatens the safety children. On the other hand, Whorley's being prosecuted for writing down a private fantasy and sharing it with others, an act that any writer will be familiar with.

The whole situation makes me uncomfortable. I generally think of writing as a safe space to experiment with concepts, situations, and characters that might make me uncomfortable in real life. This case pushes that conception to its limit.

I find Whorley's fantasies reprehensible, but the idea that the law could punish someone for expressing their feelings, no matter how deviant and disgusting, disturbs me as a writer.

I'll be interested to read what happens next.

Shout Out to Zahra Rahnavard

A big Fringe shout out to bad-a** mother-feminist Zahra Rahnavard, wife to Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's main competition in Friday's Iranian election.

After Ahmadinejad questioned Dr. Rahnavard's credentials during a televised debate with her husband, the spunky academe called a 90-minute press conference where she proceeded to excoriate Ahmadinejad for lying, humiliating women, and debasing the revolution.

"Those who made up this case against me wanted to say it is a crime for women to study, to get two graduate degrees, to become an intellectual or an artist," she said.

In addition, she threatened to sue Ahmadinejad for slandering her academic qualifications if he did not publicly apologize to her within 24 hours.

Dr. Rahnavard put on her feminist hat to woo young and female voters promising that, if elected, her husband will do away with the morality police, end discrimination, ensure that women are treated like humans, not second class citizens, and appoint women to cabinet posts.

For a woman in Iran (or anyone in Iran), this is ballsy busty styff, but because she's a woman, Rahnavard's been able to indict Ahmadinejad more strongly than any of his male competitors.

You can read more about her at the London Times, the AP, The New York Times, The New Internationalist Blog, and Wikipedia.

Chamber Four Interview

Check out this interview with Fringe editor-in-chief Lizzie Stark over at Chamber Four. Later on, we'll be posting an interview with the minds behind Chamber Four in this space, so stay tuned.

Fringe Contributors Rock: Poetry Edition

Here's the third of a series of semi-regular posts that will showcase the fine work of Fringe contributors past. Today we look at the loads of poetry that our former contributors have tossed onto the internet

• Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere poet BRAD JOHNSON has work up in Pank, Insolent Rudder, Clapboard House, the Kennesaw Review and Facets.
  
• COREY MESLER has a funky new chapbook out that's available on Etsy and at his own bookstore.
• HESTER MURMAN was our second featured artist, but now she's publishing poetry under her real name -- Gindy Elizabeth Houston, over at The Smoking Poet
• Artist PETER SCHWARTZ has also turned poet with pieces in Diagram, Cella's Round Trip, Frostwriting and Poetry Super Highway.

And please remember: Fringe is still in the midst of a fundraising campaign for our web redesign. We're so close -- only $299 away from success. We need to raise the funds in the next 30, so please consider a $5 or $10 donation. It'd make a big difference to a small literary journal.

Art: Zehra Khan's The Vinyl Studies, oil on vinyl record covers.

Fringe's Round Robin

Fringe Magazine (www.FringeMagazine.org) wants your help with our first ever Round Robin! We think you and your friends will make fabulous flash fiction writers, so give us your best shot at 26 sentences. Instructions are below. We'll be posting the results on our blog after June 15th.

1. Copy and paste the instructions and story into a fresh email/Facebook note.

2. Write the next sentence of the story below. Add your name to the byline at the bottom of the story. If you want to be emailed when your story gets posted, add your email address.

3. Tag one or more friends in the note, or forward the email to one or more buddies.

4. When the story comes to a natural end or reaches 26 sentences, email the finished product to FringeTheBlog@gmail.com by JUNE 15. We’ll give the pieces a light edit and post them, including author names, to the Fringe blog (www.thenounthatverbsyourworld.blogspot.com) under the tag “Round Robin.”

A few caveats: If a group of however many wants to tackle this, that’s fine – we don’t mind if people write more than one sentence, but do try to let the authorship to change with every sentence. You can try for something conventional, with a beginning, middle or end, or go crazy and experimental.

Story:

1. The first person to start the chain can choose from one of three initial sentences (or create your own!):

• "Alfred did not believe in voodoo, only in himself, and the power that a well-designed business card had over lesser beings"
  
• "Darcy Zicafoose, of the Washington Zicafooses, had a penchant for judo."
  
• "I was never young, but I remember being young in the same way that I cannot see color but I dream of it, lush and vivid, spreading before me like a banquet."
  

Authors: Lizzie Stark (FringetheBlog@gmail.com)



Fringe needs a new website! Consider a $5 donation at http://www.fringemagazine.org/Donate.html

Fringe Contributors Rock: Prose Edition

Here's the second of a series of semi-regular posts that will showcase the fine work of Fringe contributors past. Here's what the Fringe's prose writers have been up to:

• Feminism issue writerKIRSTIN CHEN has fiction up at Hobart and two pieces over at Juked.
  
• Issue 2 short short writer NATHAN LONG has a short story, "The Devil" up over at Failbetter.com.
• Enviro issue critic MOLLY GAUDRY has a whole passel of work up, available through links on her blog.
• Environment issue essayist ELIZABETH ENSLIN, has work up at In The Mist, the Oregon Literary Review, Fishtrap and on her dreamy blog.
• Nonfiction writer KELLY CALVERT will be driving her car around the US this summer in search of stories and vegetable oil to fuel her car. And she'll be blogging about it too.

And please remember: Fringe is still in the midst of a fundraising campaign for our web redesign. We're so close -- only $299 away from success. We need to raise the funds in the next 30, so please consider a $5 or $10 donation. It'd make a big difference to a small literary journal.

Art by Zehra Khan: "Diamond (both halves)" ink on paper.

Time Suck: Shakespearean Insult Generator

Like Shakespeare? Feeling too high on yourself? Let the Shakespearean insult generator cut you down to size.

Fringe Contributors Rock: Art Edition

Here's the first of a series of semi-regular posts that will showcase the fine work of Fringe contributors past. We'll start out with the supa-fly visual art by some of Fringe's former artists:

• TM GRATKOWSKI has work up over at Art Slant, YouTube, and the Saatchi Gallery
• Feminism issue artist DAVID BARNES has a new website that highlights his work.
• PETER SCHWARTZ has some keen new photography over at Cella's Round Trip and Foliate Oak.
• ZEHRA KHAN, whose "Back Words" is pictured here, has been hard at work too -- we'll be posting some of her photos this week as we roll out more of the Fringe army's accomplishments.
• The funky and un-categorizable artist/audio collage maven MICHAEL K. MEYERS has a sweet homepage with a bunch of new publication credits.

And please remember: Fringe is still in the midst of a fundraising campaign for our web redesign. We're so close -- only $299 away from success. We need to raise the funds in the next 30, so please consider a $5 or $10 donation. It'd make a big difference to a small literary journal.

The Age of Innocence

I woke up about a month ago and realized something shocking: I hadn't read any literary fiction in more than a month.  

I drove myself to the bookstore immediately to rectify this horror, and ended up selecting The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, because I love modernist literature and wanted to get myself back on track with something I knew I'd love.

This novel has got everything: a scathing indictment of the heteropatriarchal order that Wharton cleverly puts in the mouth of Newland Archer, a member of said order; an exotic Italian countess; star crossed lovers and tragic self sacrifice.

Instead of ending the book with a marriage, Wharton lets Newland Archer's nuptials with the conventional May Welland fall in the middle, because there is so much more story to tell.

From a writer's perspective, the book's ending is a perfect example of a "ten years later" ending, in which the writer flashes forward by a number of years in order to provide satisfying narrative closure. And Wharton's ending really makes the book.

The final scene moved me so much that I started crying when trying to explain the meaning of the scene to my husband, and I couldn't quite tell why I was crying.  The ending wasn't sad, but somehow Wharton managed to endow those five pages with a lifetime of emotion, and that is the stuff of great writing.

Target Women: Barbie

After checking out Nellie's excellent Barbie video post, I chanced across this gem and couldn't resist sharing.

 

Fringe Editors Get Posted

The Fringe editors have been busy, not just selecting, editing and polishing the new issue, but also getting published ourselves:

• New fiction editor Shuchi (formerly of our nonfiction section), had a piece over at the Phoenix on how Sarah Palin's candidacy led to a spike in Planned Parenthood donations.
• Blog maven Jill wrote an impassioned soap box for the Dig on the horror of bridesmaid duty and has some posts up at Vernacular.
• Poetry editor Anna Lena nabbed a 2008 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg poetry prize for her poems "Trillium-Hunting" and "If that mockingbird don't sing."
• I published two books pieces, a feature on Kathleen Rooney's Live Nude Girl and a Q and A with Jayne Anne Phillips over at the Daily Beast.
• New nonfiction editor Llalan (welcome, Llalan!), has had regular posts up at Vernacular and a frequent beer-blog spot at Bostonist.

Next step: world domination.

Green Your Library

Eco-Libris and the Fringe Environment Issue go together like recycling and paper.  

Ever feel guilty about all the dead-trees lying around your house?  You can assuage your conscience at Eco-Libris, by planting a tree for every book you read at the bargain-basement price of $5 for 5 trees.  Eco-Libris has also been active in pushing publishers toward environmentally sustainable practices.

I had the opportunity to put a few questions to the CEO of Eco-Libris, Raz Godelnik about environmental writing, the Kindle, and how Eco-Libris actually works:

What prompted the founding of Eco-Libris? And why address your environmental concerns toward books and not, say, dishwashers?

For me it all started when I learned more about the environmental impacts of paper while doing some research for articles I wrote for an Israeli newspaper. I realized that it might take a while to get to the point where eco-friendly alternatives will replace virgin paper. Then, I talked with some friends about the idea of giving people the opportunity to balance out their paper consumption by planting trees and received good feedback about the idea.

The decision to focus on books was made after learning that only less than 10% of the paper used for printing books is made of recycled paper and because most books don’t have yet an online eco-friendly alternative, like magazines and newspapers. 

So, if you want a book, you usually find yourself purchasing the paper-made version. You also can’t tell people to stop reading books, because books are such a wonderful thing and an important part of our culture and education, so it seemed to me only natural to offer book lovers a new alternative to make their reading greener - planting trees for the books they read. I also love books - my mother is a librarian and I grew up in a house full of books - so it made me very happy to get myself occupied with a venture that is focused on books!

Btw - I read that using dishwashers can be in some cases more eco-friendly than hand washing.

Are there a few publishing companies that are doing an exceptional job of being environmentally conscious?

There are some big publishers that are ahead of the rest with greener practices, such as Random House, which set up a goal of increasing the use of recycled paper it uses to at least 30% by 2010 (from under 3% at in 2006), or Scholastic, the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books, which announced last year on a new green policy will increase its publication paper purchase of FSC-certified paper to 30% and its use of recycled paper to 25%, of which 75% will be post-consumer waste.

Photo of Raz Godelnik, CEO of Eco-Libris

I would like to mention especially two publishers:

One is another one of the big publishers - Simon & Schuster. On the general level, it will also increase of the use of recycled fiber from its 10% in 2007 to a 25% by 2012 for books printed and bound in the U.S. Also, their Children's Publishing Imprint created last fall a new green series of books for children - "Little Green Books". This is the first eco-friendly line of children’s novelty and storybooks, aimed at parents and children looking to learn more about the environment. 

Each book in this series is devoted to educating children about the benefits of being green, and all the Little Green Books are made out of recycled materials. This is a great educational effort of S&S that is aimed at both kids and their parents and we're actually very proud to collaborate with them in their educational efforts - we co-sponsored an educational contest with them celebrating the new series and you can also find our tips how to save in paper on the Little Green website (PDF).

The second publisher I would like to mention is a smaller one that sets up a unique example of how a green publisher is capable of shining even in days of trouble economy. I'm referring to Chelsea Green Publishing, which is one of my favorite publishers, not only because of their great green books, but also because they walk the talk and exercise many green practices, including "printing 95 percent of our books on recycled paper with a minimum 30 percent post-consumer waste and aiming for 100 percent whenever possible." 

Are small publishers and publishers of literary journals behind the curve on using recycled material, or ahead of it?

It depends. Some like Chelsea Green Publishing and Island Press are at the front. Others are lagging behind. Being small has its own advantages (more flexibility, it's easier to make changes) and disadvantages (more difficult to negotiate better prices because of smaller volumes) for a publisher, and I believe it has a lot to do with the people who lead the publishing and their values. All in all, today when the premium for using recycled paper is much smaller (in some cases there's no premium at all), it's easier for small publishers to do this move and shift into using recycled paper.

Why did you decide to make Eco-Libris a for-profit venture?

We did a lot of thinking before we decided to start operating as a for-profit. We chose the for-profit model because we got to the conclusion that this model is the most effective one to accomplish our goals.

I think that nowadays it’s more understandable that there is no contradiction between doing good and doing well, or as one of our partners once said "profits and the environment are not at odds—only greed and the environment conflict each other." Microfinance is a great example of how you can combine a business approach with social goals and do it very successfully. We aim to follow this model and, as a green business, to be committed to both making reading more sustainable and to the triple bottom line: environmental, social and financial.

What place do you think the environment has or should have inside literature? Any favorite nature writers?

Environment is becoming a more significant issue in our life and our culture, and I think this shift is also translated into literature as well as to other cultural forms such as films and music. Still, this process takes some time so you don't see yet a flow of books on green themes, but there's definitely a growing number of them. Some of my favorite green writers are Bill McKibben ("Deep Economy"), Michael Pollan ("In Defense of Food", "The Omnivore's Dilemma") and Kelly McMasters ("Welcome to Shirley").

 Slate's Green Lantern column has suggested that carbon offsets may not be worth it, depending on how efficiently an organization spends money on recapturing carbon. So, in light of your plant-trees-to-offset-books program: Does planting a tree for every book you read really negate the carbon footprint of buying a book? 

I believe much depends on the quality of the operation, whether you plant trees or invest in projects that generate alternative energy for example. If you do things right (like planting the right trees in the right place and manage the planting area later on properly) you can definitely receive the added value you're seeking in terms of carbon reduction.

We don't calculate the carbon offsets as we don't offer carbon offsets - our offer is very simple: to plant one tree for every book you read, sell, write or publish. The difference is not only in wording , but in the approach. 

Our approach is a much more holistic approach - we don't see trees only as carbon sinks, but as a precious natural resource that should treat with much more respect, as they provide many important benefits to the soil, water resources, living species and local communities. It's similar to the approach of UNEP's (United Nations Environmental Programme), which sees the overall benefits and significance of planting trees, on both environmental and social levels. That’s the concept behind the Billion Tree Campaign initiated by Nobel Laureate, Wangari Maathai (the campaign, by the way, also featured us on their website).

Why did you choose communities in Central America and Africa as places to plant trees -- why not plant trees in the US? How does planting tree help the communities you've chosen?

Eco-Libris partnered with three highly respected US and UK registered non-profit organizations (AIR, SHI and RIPPLE Africa) that work in collaboration with local communities in developing countries to plant these trees. These trees are planted in high ecological and sustainable standards in Latin America (Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Belize, Honduras) and Africa (Malawi), where deforestation is a crucial problem.

We chose to focus on these regions because we wanted to plant the trees where they have the most value. Planting trees in these places not only helps to fight climate change and conserve soil and water, but also benefits many local people, for whom these trees offer many benefits, such as improvement of crops (some trees are interplanted with crops to conserve the soil and organically fertilize the crops), protection of important water resources, assistance in decreasing the chances for natural disasters such as floods, and additional food and income (from fruit trees for example). 

So it's a very good feeling to know that these trees not only help the environment, but also provide these local communities with an opportunity for a better future and we're very proud in that. You can visit our planting partners' website to read more on their work with these communities (links to their websites are available at our partners' page).

Do you think that electronic publishing is going to overtake the dead-tree publishing world through devices like the Kindle? Or is the feel of paper against one's hand so magical that it will endure?

Firstly, I'd like to say that we don't know yet if e-books are better to the environment than paper books. Electronic books indeed don’t need paper and therefore no trees are cut down for their production. They don’t need transportation or physical storage and therefore no extra costs and extra footprint are required to bring the e-book from the publisher to the reader. Yet, there are other factors to be considered, such as their production, materials used, energy required for the reader’s use, and how recyclable they are. We follow articles and research done on this issue on our website.

So what’s the verdict? We still don't know yet as we’re lacking a full life-cycle assessment of reading e-books using Kindle (or Kindle 2 now) or other similar electronic book readers. Until we have that, we can’t really tell if and to what extent e-books are more environmentally-friendly in comparison to paper made books.

In respect with the question if e-books will rule the book business, I agree with Margo Baldwin of Chelsea Green Publishing that we'll continue to see significant growth in sales of e-books but their market share will remain relatively slow for the near future. I believe we'll need to see a cultural shift that will take a couple of decades before e-books will take the place of paper made books as the main platform of reading.

Fringe @ Eco-Libris

Today the Eco-Libris blog gave the environment issue of Fringe a really nice shout out, including an interview with Editor-in-Chief Lizzie Stark.

Watch this space tomorrow for Lizzie's interview with Raz of Eco-Libris, as well as some commentary on the environment issue.

A Final Post on Updike (Part X)

I knew Fringe had to run a tribute to Updike when I broke the news to the editors and received this email in response:

“Damn! No more girl-at-the-supermarket-has-nice-legs i'm-a-bastard-but-i-said-so-so-i'm-immune-from-criticism stories! Wait . . . . that's probably not true at all.”

Someone whose death could inspire such a sarcastic email surely deserved a deeper investigation, possibly from people who actually revered and were troubled by Updike (or Updick, as one ladies' book club dubbed him many years ago).  

 Sure, we’ve run a project trying to speed the demise of the all-white all-male canon , and personally, I’ve spent a fair amount of time being angry at the canon, and by extension Updike, Melville and Cormac McCarthy, but while I'm feeling generous toward the dead, I'll say that it wasn’t Updike’s fault that people liked him, and his prolific output alone makes him worth emulating and eulogizing.

I was surprised that when I heard the news about Updike, I felt a little sad. I only read his work when my MFA workshops forced me to. During our discussion of “Pigeon Feathers” I’m sure I used phrases like “hetero-patriarchal order,” which is one of my favorites to say aloud because it has so many syllables.

But Updike had his finger on the pulse of a certain kind of life. Certain passages in “Pigeon Feathers” are stunning, and even if they’re tapping into the white hetero-patriarchal zeitgeist that our culture thrusts upon us, at least they tap into something real.

For some time now, my anger at the canon has been receding and the likelihood that I’ll read a Rabbit novel has been rising. As one of my mentors might say, I’m lucky to have Updike to look forward to. And I’ll get right on it once I’m done with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And The Age of Innocence. And Middlesex. And writing my book.

John Updike, American man of letters, we’ll miss you.

Cross posted at LizzieStark.com

Reading Aloud Makes a Comeback at My House

In three short weeks I'll be getting married to a physicist. Needless to say, our tastes in books are wildly different.

As an MFA, I'm required to at least say that I prefer experimental literature, the less comprehensible, the better, with added points going to literature that references french existentialists, incorporates snatches of Urdu poetry or contains sentences which require footnotes.

The fiance prefers genre fiction -- anything with aliens, gadgets, supernatural phenomena or Nero Wolfe.

Lately, we've found a peculiar middle ground: the Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris, which stars Sookie Stackhouse, a young cocktail waitress cum telepath who has grit, brains and beauty. Recently, the series was made into an HBO show called True Blood. The books combine vampires, mystery and a little romance novel sensibility.

Rather than watch TV after dinner, we've been reading these novels aloud to each other, and it's proven a wonderful way to spend time together. I find it soothing to listen to his voice, or to talk myself. The act recalls many dinners of my childhood -- my mother used to read to me all the time. We talk all the time about whether Sookie will end up with Bill or Eric (both vampires) and who is behind the latest hijinks that Sookie has stumbled into.

The Sookie Stackhouse books are perfect for reading aloud because they're plot driven. Now that my life is busy with work and book-writing and Fringe, I appreciate being able to simply let a story unfold without exercising too much of my brain power.

We've gotten ourselves in trouble several times by staying up to 2am, desperate to find out what happens next, but it's totally worth it.

VOTE

Be a "real" American. Get out to the polls today.

Copyeditor Needed

Fringe is looking for a few good people who have a dorkily intense love of the English language as expressed through grammar.

We're in need of:

• a chief copyeditor to coordinate collection, correction and return of lit work to editors, and to be an extra set of eyes on all copy.
• 3 to 4 copyeditors to read specific genres, including poetry, and to make sure our issues are grammatical and make sense.

It's a great way to get involved with Fringe, learn the inner workings of a lit mag and be a part of the literary community.

Want to join the team? Email fringeeditors@gmail.com and let us know which position you're interested in.

Because Women Don't Poop.

You gotta love Sarah Haskins. Watch her decode the messages behind marketing aimed at women.

Jonathan Safran Foer Talks with Slate

Check it. One of the greats of our generation talks about his life and his process. And Sam -- I'm totally into the reading binge. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close really delivered the goods. Cool that Slate is taking on the task of talking with living writers. I'll be interested to see who they talk to next.

Dickens lives again in Alexander McCall?

Back in the day, Dickens novels ran in serial form in newspapers -- and apparently he was paid by the word, one of the reasons for his legendarily lengthy novels.

Now, the British paper the Telegraph has renewed the trend. No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency author Alexander McCall Smith is producing a novel called Cordouroy Mansions that will run for the next 20 weeks, with a new chapter -- available in audio form and written form -- each day.

I think it's a brilliant idea to bring back this old form. People are used to going to websites every day to get an update on a story, whether it's the story of a forum, a graphic novel or a blog. I know I do.

And think of the writer! Instead of spending 8 billion years writing the manuscript and getting a book deal, she or he could write in small installments. Now, thanks to the Internet, authors can get feedback from their writers immediately.

I've gotta hand it to the Telegraph and to McCall Smith -- way to take it back to the old skool.