07/25/2009

Yes, we've been quiet. And there's a reason for that. The reason is that we're busy. We're working on the next issue (Richard's making movies, and I'm making faces at him, but that's a separate thing altogether). The next issue of Spork, Issue 9.1 (the first issue of our ninth year of existence, not our 9th volume, so you know) is being written right now.

For 9.1 we opted to forgo the submission and review process and instead selected five authors, each of whom is writing the middle of a book. They are not writing the beginnings of the books, they are not writing the ends of the books -- their instructions were to jump in as though they had already established everything, and knew exactly what they were talking about, to trust themselves and their readers. The experience is intended to be as though you walked into a movie, and there you were. And no, not like opening a book to a random page, since in that case you can just turn back to the beginning. We're doing this like movies. And it's, you know, it's really kinda hard. We're all struggling differently with it, but it's still coming along. We've pushed back our writing deadline a couple times, which has pushed back our talking about it out loud to you. We're feeling more confident now, so here's some information.

SPORK 9.1 - THE MIDDLES OF THINGS

7 Authors
1 Illustrator
6 Middles of Books
8 Interstitials

You'll notice the numbers don't match the earlier statements.

AUTHORS:
James DiGiovanna
Steven Tagle
Jana Martin
Megan Savage
Drew Burk
Amelia Gray
Shya Scanlon

ILLUSTRATOR:
Sharon McGill

6 MIDDLES OF BOOKS:
It's more like 5 and 1. James, Steven, Jana, Megan and Drew are writing middles, while Shya is ripping the middle of his book, Forecast, currently in serial publication in 42 online venues, and will be performing, with Drew, a kind of remix of the middle, so that it meets the spirit of the thing. The authors were selected, on varied and at times irrational or whimsical criteria, by Drew.

8 INTERSTITIALS:
Amelia Gray is writing the connective tissue. the places between middles.

The physical run of the issue will consist of 50 elaborate copies, and 200 nice copies. To fund the production of this issue of Spork we'll be creating a series of various limited edition items and offering them for sale, each item keyed to a different component of the book. Pricing of the items will depend upon the cost of the needed material and the number of pieces in the edition. The first will go to purchase the paper, and is a lovely letterpress print of a special author.

To be kept updated as details emerge, subscribe to our intermittent news updating apparatus thing. And keep coming back here, as we'll be featuring shorter pieces by all the authors in 9.1.

Thanks, and that's it for the moment.