FANZINE

So in case you don’t know, I recently began editing the Southerly portion of Emily Schultz’ and Brian J. Davis’ short fiction site Joyland in addition still to much of Fanzine (big thanks to Benjamin Bush the last few months for procuring a lot of our new content. Having a new baby, it’s a bit hard to juggle a lot of reading and writing. But we did get our son insured, just prior to the historic bill being passed. And it’s a joy – i.e., all good people who want to, yes have children. Gotta outschool the idiot Tea Baggers lambasting the Hill. Then again, as the generational dialectic goes – am thinking Hegelian again – he’ll likely be a Republican accountant and I’ll still love the heck out of him sans judgement.

Butler argued once in Vice magazine that one of the tips to being a great writer is to never have kids. I can see that, but then again Raymond Carver once said he had no idea what he was doing writing wise till he had his first child. I’m betting on the latter…. Still, here nor there, Butler is one to listen to, to savor, and appreciate – a youngish (but who am I to say that? he’s described as something between an 8 and 80 year old I think, somewhere, and that’s a fucking compliment, duh) gem beyond the mire of a zillion MFAs yearning to breathe… (free and in print). From what I’ve seen, read, he’s outside of all that, artistically. Free from the circumnavigation of politics… yet still besting politics with wisdom and voice and timelessness. Check his books out currently, Scorch Atlas and Ever, read the posts on HMLGIANT he writes and edits, and this excerpt from a novel on Joyland South. Thanks, CM.