MadHat's July Newsletter

Dear Friends:

We’re going sawed off shotguns with our new Blog and getting  impressive submissions to the MadHat Press  poetry chapbook contest,  judged by  CA Conrad.  So please consider submitting to either or both and spreading the word.  And don’t forget to tell every poor cooped up urban dweller about MadHat’s Little Mountain Retreat (& B&B) in gorgeous Asheville, NC.

Former & Forthcoming Review & Blog Contributors & Book Reviewers:

We’re seeking book reviewers to write short reviews  Review and Blog contributors’ new books for our Blog, which means that both putative reviewers and contributors with new books are invited to send requests with details/links to mhrblog@madhatarts.com.  If you already have a reviewer searching for a venue, have her/him send the review to us, bearing in mind the guidelines listed on the blog.  We will also publish a few reviews in our Review issues.   We are not ruling out reviews of art, inventive electronic literature, et al.  Query and we’ll respond.

Contributors are also invited to submit news of book publications and readings/performances.  Please write “NEWS” in the subject line of your email to our blog staff and limit your descriptions to seven lines max.

And:  Contributors are invited to curate MadHat/Review readings/performances/multimedia spectacles/fundraisers in their home towns.  Email askalice@madhatarts.com if you want to host an event.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

If you haven’t had a chance to peruse our new, inclusive organization’s website, please do.  We’re really excited about our new projects, which include the expansion of the reading series to Asheville, as well as maintaining a presence in NYC.  Our Mad Hatters’ Review Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes Series will be represented in NYC at 4 pm on July 30^th at The First Annual New York Poetry Festival on Governor’s Island.  Our next Asheville reading, once again at The Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, will take place on August 18^th, and I’ll be flying up to NYC in October for a Mad Hatters’ Review Editors’ Reading at our old haunt, The KGB Bar (October 27^th).  All readings and performances will be posted on the blog.

Contributors Jeff Davis (Issue 12) and Lori Horvitz (Issue 13) will join me in hosting a Mad Hatters’ Review radio show this Sunday on Jeff’s Word Play series.  Tune in to Asheville FM 5 – 6pm (EST USA) to hear recitations of works published in the Review.

MadHat Press is embarking on its first full-length publication, a book of poems by our wise and exceptionally prolific friend Hugh Fox.  We hope to have the book out by October.  It will be available for purchase via our Press page, as well as amazon.com, et al.  

The expenses of preparing to open a Retreat have been an enormous strain on the bank account of the Publisher.  There will also be expenses associated with the Press, the non-profit organization, and ongoing expenses to produce the Review.  So once again, I’m asking for contributions, fully deductible for US tax payers.  Your gift of any amount will no doubt yield beneficial Karmic consequences, as well as this Publisher’s heartfelt gratitude.  We need donations to survive!

Wishing you a wonderful, relaxing season without tornados, hurricanes, tsunamis, toxic spills, and nuclear fallout,

Carol Novack, Publisher

askalice madhatarts com

P.S.  If you’re on Facebook, please LIKE MAD ABOUT MADHAT ARTS.

ISSUE 12 OF MAD HATTERS' REVIEW IS OUT!

February 8, 2011

Dear Friends of Mad Hatters’ Review:

After a very long hiatus, during which The Mad Bunkers’ Mash Issue was emerging slowly, with birthing pains, we are back as an annual and in rarer form than ever with the largest issue since our first baby scream and gurgle in March, 2005. So now we are (nearly) six, way beyond the crawling and drooling stage and quite capable of distinguishing a raven from a writing desk. Well, on second thought . . . but I digress.

Our reading period for Issue 13 will be March 1 – 31. Please see our Submission Guidelines if you want to submit! Just bear in mind that the Hatters aren’t cliquish. If you’re a contributor in 12, you’ll have to wait till 14, et seq.

So on to address Issue 12, aside from the glorious fictions, poems, whatnots, wit & whimsies, non-fictions, the lone drama in homage to Beckett, the texts and vispo’s by our Knock Our Socks Off contest winners, and the mind-bending artworks and music accompanying contributors’ texts. On top of all that, we are thrilled to present two features: “Moving Words,” selected offerings of electronic literature co-edited by Camille Bacos and Jeremy Hight, who will stay on with us as “new media” editors; and “Back From the USSR,” an impressively comprehensive issue in itself, packed with fictions, poems, and artworks by a bevy of crème de la crème contemporary Russians and Ukrainians, mostly in translation. Thanks so! to guest editors Alexander Cigale and Mariya Gusev.

Thanks also to our former art director, Marty Duane Ison, and the poetry editor for this issue, the talented Jefferson Hansen. Welcome poet and visual artist art director Gene Tanta, and Ann Bogle, former contributor and our book review and “creative non-fiction” editor. Ann has a new fiction and non-fiction e-book out. Gene has a new non-virtual poetry book out. Read Gene’s fascinating interview of the eccentric New Zealand-born poet and visual artist Christina Conrad. Paul Gibbons, who created some fine music for this issue, will join Steve Kane, Don Meyer, Suchoon Mo, and Paul Toth in the music department.

We’re acquiring two brand new-to-us incoming editors. Marc Vincenz will join Ann Bogle on “creative non-fiction” and poetry. Born in Hong Kong of Swiss-British descent, Marc has spent much of his life on the road. He lived in Shanghai for 10 years before moving to Iceland where he now works as a freelance journalist and literary critic. His books include Benny & the Scottish Blues, Genetic Fires, and Upholding Half the Sky, which was released by MiPOesias in 2010. Susan Lewis, a contributor of whatnots in this issue, will join Marc Lowe (also the author of a recently published book, as well as a forthcoming one) and Matthew Maxwell as a fiction editor. Why a fiction editor when Susan writes so much poetry? Opines the publisher: that’s the best kind of fiction editor!

Our columnists for this issue include the infamous and insanely prolific Tom Bradley, who’s published far too many books, and Ann Bogle, who hasn’t published enough of them. We’re pleased to welcome back the former mayor of Ashfield, N.S.W., Australia, poet and gadfly activist Rae Desmond Jones, the astute political commentator, Fatima Shanaz, Professor of political science and President of the India Peace Organization, and the satirical Richard Haber, who stirs up trouble somewhere in the American desert. Poet Jeff Davis, of Asheville, NC, discusses the work of former Black Mountain College resident, poet Charles Olson. And I, Loopdeeloopy Lala, the author of Giraffes in Hiding: The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2010), present a bunch of unanswered love letters and a lawyer’s letter from my collection for (I hope) your amusement.

Expect news of MadHat Press’s first soft cover book: “Knock Our Socks Off: A Little Book of Curious Delights.” Marc Vincenz designed and laid out the collection of winning entries, and the book should be available soon. Also, expect news of our next contest.

Well, that’s the wrap, friends. We hope you enjoy our issue and please do let us know what you think! We’re open 24 hours 10 days a week at madhattersreview at gmail dot com, and we’re always happy to receive comments, suggestions, and donations that are tax-deductible for U.S. residents.


In dementia perpetua,


Carol Novack
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

THE FIRST MHR KNOCK OUR HATS OFF CONTEST

THE FIRST MHR KNOCK OUR HATS OFF CONTEST

 

Mad Hatters’ Review will consider submissions in FICTION or POETRY commencing on MARCH 1ST, 2010 (12 a.m. USA EST) and ending on June 30th (11:59 p.m.).

First prize winners in both genres will receive $250 (each) plus publication of their entries in Issue 12. The winning works of 5 runners-up in each genre will also be published in Issue 12.

All winning entries will be published in a print anthology called “Knock Our Hats Off: A Little Book of Curious Delights.” Each winner will receive a copy of this deluxe collector’s item.

The terms “fiction” and “poetry” may be interpreted broadly. Take a walk on the wild side through our pages. Take liberties. Governments are taking them away from us, so we’re giving them away free.

Our honorable judges:

Cris Mazza, Fiction
www.cris-mazza.com

Sheila E. Murphy, Poetry
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy


Our entry fee and modus operandi:
$12 per entry via PayPal to madhattersreview@gmail.com.
Poetry: 3 poems max per entry.
Fiction: 3000 words max per entry.
By all means, enter as many times as you wish.

All submissions must be sent to madhattersrev@yahoo.com with the following information in the subject line:

• Your Name
• Genre (Fiction or Poetry)
• Title/s of submission
• Word Count

Submitted works should be copied and pasted into the exquisite corpus of your email AND attached as an RTF Doc. If you’re submitting visual poetry or visual fiction, attach your entries as jpeg/s or gif/s. If you absolutely MUST, submit these offerings in PDF format.

Pages of texts should be titled, but your name should only appear on the subject line of your email, as submissions will be read blind. We’ll ask for your bio and optional pic if you’re a first place winner or runner-up.

Simultaneous submissions are expected. Just tell us immediately if some other lucky editor has grabbed your gem/s. But please realize that we won’t refund entry fees.

Winning entries will be announced by September 15th. Please address queries to madhattersrev@yahoo.com (subject line: QUERY).

MAD HATTERS' REVIEW ISSUE 10

Well, what kind of mad publisher am I? I forgot to announce the emergence of our most amazing issue yet (don't be offended, past contributors -- I always say that).
Enjoy!!!

CONTENTS:

Issue Cover (Vispo)
'Hanging onto Words'
by K.S. Ernst

POETRY
Michael Bassett
Ray Brown
Niels Hav
Steve Katz
Simon Perchik

AUDIO TEXT COLLAGE
The Memorials to Future Catastrophes Distant Early Warning System
The Memorials to Future Catastrophes Distant Early Warning System
Davis Schneiderman & Don Meyer

MUSIC
Gallery
Issue 10 Music Gallery



FICTION
Ann Bogle
Kane X. Faucher
Rebecca Goodman
Tim Horvath
Forrest Roth
Terese Svoboda
WHATNOTS
Tania Hershman
Allan Horwitz
Jalina Mhyana

DOCU-
FICTION
Harold Jaffe

CNFic
Ted Pelton

AUDIO FEATURE
Audio Feature by Larissa Shmailo
Larissa Shmailo

FEATURED
FILMS
by Army of Clowns
Featured Films
"A Human Being A Machine" &
"I do...I do...I do"



COLUMNS
Rich Andrews
Sir Castor Bayley
Tantra Bensko
Domenick Capobianco
Rae Desmond Jones
Carol Novack
Fatima Shahnaz


VISPO
Gallery
Curated by
C. Mehrl Bennett
Vispo Gallery
'Verbiage'
by Marilyn R Rosenberg

DRAMA
Raymond Federman
Issue 10
ART
Gallery
Issue 10 Art Gallery Slide Show

BOOK & WEBSITE REVIEWS
'Words & Junk' & 'My Kimono Book'by C. Mehrl Bennett
'Aqua Regia' by F. J. Bergmann
'Jesus Coyote' by Harold Jaffe
'100 Papers' by Liesl Jobson
'Line and Pause' by Forrest Roth
'A Cure for Suicide' by Larissa Shmailo

Fish Egg Philosophy
CARTOONS
Cartoons by Sheila McCann
by Sheila McCann


The FIRST COMBINATION SPECIAL VIDEO CONTEST
DEADLINE EXTENDED TO
JANUARY 1, 2009



INTERVIEWS
mIEKAL aND & Camille Bacos [Video]
Harold Jaffe & Terese Svoboda

"Interior Design"
CONTEST WINNERS:
Mary Hamrick
Jenna Caruso
Beebe Barksdale-Bruner

COVER MUSIC
by Austin Publicover
'Think Ridden But Think it a Bit More Quietly'

OCTOBER 10TH MHR READING! & SUBMISSIONS FOR THE MASHUP ARE OPEN!

Dear Assorted Friends & Colleagues ---- In case you missed this announcement: I hope you can join us


FRIDAY, OCT. 10TH, 7-9 pm

Mad Hatters' Review
Poetry, Prose & Anything Goes Reading Series
Curated & Pickled by Publisher/Editor Carol Novack

KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, N.Y.C.

Featuring

Jonathan Baumbach, the author of 15 books, including: YOU or the Invention of Memory, B, On the Way to My Father's Funeral, D-Tours, Separate Hours, Reruns, Babble, The Life and Times of Major Fiction, A Man to Conjure With. His short stories have been widely anthologized, including O.Henry Prize Stories and Best American Short Stories. A former chairman of the National Society of FilmCritics, he co-founded Fiction Collective, the first national fiction writers' cooperative in America.

Harold Jaffe, the author of 14 volumes of fiction and "docufiction," including: Sex for the Millennium, 15 Serial Killers, Jesus Coyote, Terror-dot-Gov, Beyond the Techno-Cave: A Guerrilla Writer's Guide to Post-Millennial Culture, and Eros Anti-Eros. He's the Editor-in-Chief of Fiction International, a yearly journal devoted to innovative and committed writings. Jaffe is also Professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University. One of his docufictions, and a mutual interview of and by Jaffe and Terese Svoboda, may be found in Issue 10 of Mad Hatters' Review.

Sheila E. Murphy Her most recent full-length books include Collected Chapbooks (Blue Lion Press, 2008) and Permutoria, visio-textual art with K.S. Ernst (Luna Bisonte Press, 2008). Murphy co-founded and coordinated the Scottsdale Center for the Arts Poetry Series for twelve years. She has engaged in a broad range of poetic styles over nearly three decades of writing and publication. She has also joined forces with many poetic collaborators. Several of her poems may be found in Issue 9.

Publications by the authors will be offered for sale by Mobile Libris.

For further info, email: madhattersreview@gmail.com (type READINGS in the subject line)


ANYONE WISHING TO JOIN STAFF & READERS FOR DINNER AFTER THE READING (AT NOMAD RESTAURANT) MUST RSVP!


__________________________________________________________________________________

& in case you haven't read our entertaining submission guidelines for our MASHUP ISSUE:



We're calling works for an unprecedented mashup of two stately publishing venues:

The Mad Hatters' Review & Bunk Magazine

Wedding date: Spring/Summer 2009
Reception: The Mad Bunkers' Mash & Racket Club, Bronx, NY & Somewhere off the L.A. Freeway, date TBA

****************

Mashup is the spirit of the day (second only to dementia): Mash a Democrat and a Tory. Mash a Hip Hop CD with Beethoven's Ninth. Mix the movie Dark Victory with a modern Japanese horror movie sound track. Cross eclairs with ecosystems, a Bush speech with a toilet brush. Of course, writers have been mashing for quite some time with their cutups and exquisite corpses.

Mashup is what happens when content is no longer king, usurped by the mischievous jester adept at standing on his head and hands, spouting irreverent nonsensical sense, walking with frivolity on ceilings, pirouetting on paradoxes, ridiculing rules and rulers, and turning rapid somersaults -- all for the pleasure of the jester, her audience, and his sagacious self.

in homage

WE WILL BE OPEN FOR EMAIL SUBMISSIONS ONLY (madbunkers@yahoo.com cc: madbunkers@gmail.com) ON SEPTEMBER 1ST. Deadlines vary according to category.

FULL GUIDELINES



KEEP THE MAD HATTERS ALIVE! MAKE A TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION! https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/contribute/donate/580

A lovely informal review of Mad Hatters' Review

From Martha Engber, MARTHA ENGBER:


Tuesday, May 27, 2008
A New Animal

My dad in Connecticut likes to send me articles he clips from the Wall Street Journal. While eating my lunch today — toasted banana walnut bread with a healthy schmeer of peanut butter — I read yet another article about the coming, and irreversible, tide of change from the printed word to that of digital.

In this article, The Digital Future of Books by Gordon Crovitz, he refers to how new electronic gadgets have put us on a diet of info-snacking, whereby we nibble here and there at tasty, but nutrition-less content. He longs for a day when electronic readers like the Kindle allow us to once again absorb richer and more enduring literature.

But rather than be books in digital form only, Crovitz, and the experts he cites, predict the combination of digital literature and the Internet will create a new animal, one that will not eat us whole like T Rex by crushing what's left of our time and attention span with the grinding power of even more information. Rather, this new combination will blanket us in a Bambi-like charm by incorporating more of our senses. Some ideas bandied about involve the ability to store favorite passages, send them to friends and clink on links that allow us to see videos and find more information regarding the subjects we're reading about.

While the last seems like more information glut, I do believe we're moving toward a place where reading will be an all-sensory experience, as evidenced by forward-thinking online journals that have gone beyond just posting stories you can read from a website. Instead, they pair stories with artwork, animation, mood music and the option to hear the author read the work.

One such online journal is Mad Hatters' Review, which besides standard material — short fiction, flash fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and drama — accepts what the journal calls "Whatnots," or multi-genre work "including vispo (visual poetry), audio recitations, collages and texts that defy easy categorization."

Rather than find myself overstimulated, I was surprised by how much I liked the music that opens the issue, the video collages, video interviews with artists and the option to listen to the music that accompanies each story like that of Delvaux Centennial by Jason Everett.

MAD HATTERS' REVIEW ISSUE 9 HAS EMERGED!

Poetry

F. J. Bergmann
Louis E. Bourgeois
Andrei Codrescu
Alan Davies
Sheila Murphy
Jordan Sanderson
Siel Ju

Fiction

Jeremy M. Davies
Rosemary Jones
Martin Nakell
Stefani Nellen
M. E. Parker
Yuriy Tarnawsky

Creative Non-Fiction

Rachel Weiss

Whatnots

Jeff Crouch & Christopher Woods
Charles Freeland
Kyle Hemmings
Janis Butler Holm
Louise Norlie
Jim Spitzer

Wit & Whimsy

Ashley Kaufman
Rob Reynolds

Audio Features

Penn Kemp & Chris Meloche
Michael K. Meyers

Audio Text Collages
by Davis Schneiderman &
Don Meyer

Jesus Epidemic

Featured Film

In & Oz by Steve Tomasula

Book Reviews

'The Case of the Lost Objective (Case)' by Sheila E. Murphy
'xiii' by J.D. Nelson
'Settlement' by Martin Nakell
'Like Blood in Water' by Yuriy Tarnawsky
'Retelling' by Tsipi Keller

Foreign Feature
Translated from Portuguese by Guest Foreign Editor, Peter Vaudry Brown

Brazilian Writer Roberto Drummond

Columns

Rich Andrews
Sir Castor Bayley
Tantra Bensko
Domenick Capobianco
Pete Dolack
D. A. Eis
Lockie Hunter
Rae Desmond Jones
Carol Novack
Helen Ruggieri
Fatima Shahnaz

Comics, 'Toons & Parodies

Keep it Weird by David Lineberger
Coconuts by Phil Nelson
Patriotic Polly by Carol Novack & Phil Nelson
Tristan, Miss Julie & Steve
The Fuck You Guy by Marja Hagborg
& others

Contests

Video Contest Guidelines
The First Combination Special Video Contest
"Mad About You" Winners: Phyllis Jean Green, Catherine Berg, Lise Whidden
Contest "Interior Design" Guidelines
February 15th Deadline!

Galleries

Michael Hafftka: Featured Artist Gallery
Issue 9 Art Gallery
Issue 9 Music Gallery

MAD HATTERS' REVIEW is BLOGGING!

They thought it would never happen, but guess what? The Mad Hatters arose from their stupor and created a BLOG: HERE

Drop by and comment!

A Sample of Absolutely Atrocious Poetry

by our new celebrity judge of poetry entries in the UNOFFICIAL MAD HATTERS'REVIEW ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS CLICHES CONTEST

A Mystical Moment

By Stephen Morse

The diaphanous butterfly in the night's rose-garden
fans lightly the faery blessed stem of some foreign

flower planted lustfully in a random miasmatic fitfulness
by the heavy thighed, scaly man, confident in his loathsomeness.

The almost tumescent butterfly remembers the heaving of oceans
the dark waters dragged fitfully by unending moons and delicate
notions,

the nascent moments unjoyously heralding the fall of infinite Edens,
the heaving and falling of many delicately penetrated maidens.

The echo of pollen laden wings beat softly, mourning the beast lover
who posed as a friend until the sated Unicorn within sighed, "it's over"

The heart broken butterfly beats a delicately silent pantomime of
loneliness
in the night rose-garden's sweet, erotic, dark crystal of shattered
fantasies.

You will always be remembered in the dark times ahead.

ANNOUNCING THE UNOFFICIAL MHR ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS CLICHES CONTEST

The Unofficial MHR Absolutely Atrocious Cliches Contest

Submit one micro flash (under 500 words) or poem (under 500 words) to madhattersreivew@gmail.com, subject line: Absolutely Atrocious Cliches Contest.

We gotta raise some money in order to continue publishing our out of this cyberworld mag, so I'm asking for $3.00 per piece to enter (via paypal to madhattersreview@gmail.com) if you want your entries to be considered for publication. Send no money if you simply want me to post your stuff on my blog here, at my whim and wish.

One absolutely atrocious poem and one absolutely atrocious fiction/whatnot will be chosen by an undisclosed judging committee of one, two, or three (whomever we can get). There may or may not be Honorable Mentions. MHR reserves the right to decline from publishing any entries if none of them meets the abyssmal standard set by the undisclosed judging committee. Editors of MHR (past, future, and present) may not enter the contest. Barking dogs, spitting, forni*at**g, and sm*king are not allowed.

Deadline: January 1, 2008

Here's a sample of an AAC fiction.

Satisfaction

By Carol Novack (original version published in Skive a long time ago)

We walked along the beach, holding hands. The sun was descending into the sea, offering a rosy fingered, late summer sunset that promised an autumn of shiny red apples and colorful, dappled, falling leaves. Nicole and I had met only hours before and already we knew that we were destined to be together forever. Her long golden hair gleamed in the rays of the sighing sun; her hand was feverish in mine. She stooped to pick up a clam shell and smiled as she brushed off the tiny dots of ancient mountains.

“Oh, Maurice,” she exclaimed. “This will be our first shell. We shall keep it on the mantelpiece and guard it as a legacy to our grandchildren.”

I smiled as I gazed into her blue eyes, the color of the western sky back in Arizona, where I was raised. I thought of those days of hardship, my poor, skeleton of a mother, cook, laundress and tender of pigs. And my salesman father, with his callous hands and birch canes. I remembered his sour whisky breath, how he’d return from his trips, cursing. Me and my six brothers and sisters would attempt to flee the minute he entered the house, bellowing for his dinner and his whiskey. Mom would stand by the door, meek as a mouse, her tongue caught by Tom, the housecat.

“Oh mamma, oh mamma,” I would plead, “don’t let the dog in, please, oh mamma.”

I would crawl on the ground and clasp her spindly legs in my arms. But she wouldn’t listen. She’d brush me off like a fly. Like she was in a trance, she let the dog of my father in and gave him whatever he wanted, which never satisfied the old man. Nothing satisfied him. So he killed my mother one day. But they could never find him.

Nicole sensed that I wasn’t altogether there, by the sea. She squeezed my hand so hard I had to laugh. And then suddenly, without warning, she stripped off her nifty Ralph Lauren jeans and diaphanous, gossamer Calvin Klein top. I gazed at the bursting brown bud nipples of her opulent breasts as she pulled me down onto the warm sand. A gull screeched happily as we kissed deep and long as eternity. I knew then that I was nothing like my old man. I was satisfied as the sun disappeared beneath the pounding waves.