Fiction Archives — As in guillotine...

Spindle: New Content for March

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:March 9, 2009
Post category:Personal
Post comments:0 Comments

Just in time for our impromptu open mic/party tonight -- Spindle gets a little bit LOUDER -- I've posted another round of great content up on Spindle for your reading pleasure! * New poetry by Celeste Doaks, Don Pomerantz and Jacob Rakovan * New short fiction by Diane Simmons and David Winter With this latest update, I've now published over 100 poems, stories, articles and photos by 62 different contributors! Stop by and check out the latest contributions, and poke around and catch up on any you might have missed. I'll be reading a couple of my favorites at the…

Why Your Book Will Never Be in Borders

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:October 24, 2008
Post category:Media Personal
Post comments:3 Comments

The odds are pretty slim, and not just because they’re on the verge of going out of business:

“I market books for a living, so I can tell you an unpleasant truth: the order for any book, from any account, starts at zero,” [Andrew Wheeler, a marketing manager at Wiley] warns. “The publisher’s sales rep walks in the door with tipsheets and covers, past sales figures and promotional plans, to convince that bookseller’s buyer to buy that book… Sometimes, that buyer is not convinced, and the order stays at zero.”

(h/t GalleyCat)

The distribution system in publishing is arguably broken, partly a result of the industry’s major players’ short-term thinking, and partly because the overwhelming number of books being published these days is more than the system can support.

(Writer’s Digest publishes an aptly titled book: Some Writers Deserve to Starve! Think about it.)

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March Madness

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:March 18, 2008
Post category:Personal
Post comments:0 Comments

No, it’s not the basketball tournament…it’s the one-week-late March edition of your favorite NYC-centric literary journal, Spindle Magazine!

Log on now for new poetry by Roger Bonair-Agard, Gerard Sarnat, Jeanann Verlee and Beverly Wilkinson; short fiction by Tim Clancy; and creative non-fiction by Anne Germanacos.

Plus, keep an eye out next week for our featured columns: Coffee & Brooklyn, Myers Music Machine and On the 1.

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Last night at the Slam

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 19, 2008
Post category:Personal
Post comments:2 Comments

It’s been a while since I judged a slam (publicly, at least!), especially at 13 where I know several of the regulars personally, so I was surprised when Lynne asked me to judge last night’s open slam. I was happy to do it as a critical listening exercise, though, because I think my ears have become much less sharp ever since I launched Spindle, and my focus has shifted to the page.

Way back in the day, I used to believe in never giving anyone less than 7 points for their work, respecting the effort it takes to simply get on stage and perform in front of an audience, but that floor dropped to 5 points last night for a terrible rhyming poem in the first round. Overall, it was a solid slam with no real standout performances and my scores were almost always the lowest or second lowest of the night with one surprising exception.

I wrote notes on each of my scores and here’s some of my favorites:

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Spindle: February ’08

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 12, 2008
Post category:Personal
Post comments:0 Comments

In the midst of all the political blogging I’ve been doing lately, I had a Spindle update looming on the calendar for today and stole time here and there over the past two weeks to sift through the surprisingly steady stream of submissions that have come in since last month.

I was worried in mid-January that the aggressive “official launch” schedule I’d set up for January, posting 15 new pieces over three weeks, would deplete my inventory and leave me scraping through some marginal work to get something up this month but it all worked out nicely in the end as we have new work from Alan King, Eric Payne, Rachel L. Olivares and Julian Taub, plus new columns from Stephanie R. Myers (Myers Music Experience) and Brooke Wacha (On the 1).

Log on now and get into a New York state of mind @ http://www.spindlezine.com

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On self-discipline and self-flagellation

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 28, 2008
Post category:Personal
Post comments:0 Comments

The most difficult aspect of writing, for me, has always been the self-discipline required to write every day, no matter what. I simply don’t have any. (Not just for writing, either, but that’s a whole other post!)

There are a number of legitimate ~~reasons~~ excuses I could put forward to explain why it’s so difficult to find the time to write on a regular basis, not the least of which are family and work obligations as well as my ruthless internal editor, but even if I won the lottery tomorrow and didn’t ever have to work again, I would still probably lack the self-discipline to stick to a regular routine of writing. (Blogging doesn’t count.) I envy those people who can wake up early in the morning to get a couple of hours of writing done before they start their day, but that’s not an option for me as my weekdays start at 6am without any writing, and staying up late comes with its own obstacles, not the least of which is sleep deprivation doesn’t make for very good writing.

I especially envy the old me who used to crank out at least one new poem each week, slam it at the Nuyorican on a Wednesday night (or later, read it every Monday at 13), and then move right on the next one, rarely looking back. Most of those poems weren’t very good, but the gears were always turning and I’d eventually revisit a few and edit them into something good whenever I hit a dry patch. Most of that writing was done at Botanica, a couple of nights each week after work, usually before the Nuyorican on Wednesdays and Fridays.

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Spindle State of Mind

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 7, 2008
Post category:Media Personal
Post comments:0 Comments

It’s kind of hard to believe it’s 2008 already and that Spindle‘s official launch is less than 36 hours away!

I spent a lot of time this weekend preparing the content for Tuesday’s update, sending off the last of a handful of acceptances and rejections, the latter of which have gotten no easier since the first one — though my basic rejection letter has gotten a lot nicer, if more impersonal — especially when it involves people I know personally. One of the biggest differences between running a reading series vs. a publication is that the latter is less welcoming by definition as there is no open mic. Whatever I accept for publication is not just a reflection on Spindle and myself, it’s also a reflection upon everyone else whose work I accept and I want to ensure that Spindle is viewed as a quality outlet for a variety of work and not someplace that publishes just anybody. It’s something I take very seriously and can make for some awkward moments when rejecting people I know and respect.

Some acceptances and rejections happen immediately upon first reading, and some I come back to several times over a few weeks, or more. Most are purely my call while some poems get passed on to my editors for their opinions — and some, eventually, will come directly from their own solicitation efforts — especially when it comes to certain forms as I am not a big fan of formal poetry. Or rhyming. That said, I bring the spirit of the open mic to my reviewing of submissions, being as open to everything as I reasonably can be, and have already published a few poems that at first glance I wouldn’t have thought I’d liked.

All in all, the “soft launch” has worked out better than I hoped it would as the past six months of tweaking the site — first behind-the-scenes and then, as of September 12, 2007, live with regularly updated content — have paid off not only in it being ready for primetime on January 8th, but in there being more strong content already posted than I imagined I’d have at this point.

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