What I found most fascinating about this collection was the way these stories were arranged. Although none of them are connected (thematically or narratively), there is an impressive flow that forms between them as you read.

Leidner works with an engaging mix of realism and absurdism. In stories like “Under The Sea” and “Lost in Translation” the strangeness of the narrative is deeply rooted in our reality. A woman has an affair with someone she met at an arcade. A translator’s apartment gets robbed and he sends an email he shouldn’t have. In other stories, like “Avern-Y6” and “21 Extremely Bad Break-Ups” we are immediately pulled into the bizarre. This fluctuation between stories is what allows the collection to flow so well.

After “Avern-Y6” (a story about ants getting drunk as revolutionaries start a civil war) is the story “Garbage” (a story about someone having a rough day in a bougie cafe) and then after that “Void” (a battle of wits between a man and oblivion). This movement from light absurdism to heavy to light again keeps the reader on their toes. It prevents them from predicting what the next story will feel like, and from getting too familiar. Leidner expertly works within this eclectic frame.

The second story in the collection, “21 Extremely Bad Break-Ups” almost functions as a short story collection in and of itself (so much so that it was first published as a Newfound chapbook, a winner of the Newfound Prose Prize) and really accentuates this eclectic kind of absurdism. The piece constantly shifts between different perspectives. Moving from one vignette to the next, slowly piecing them together into something much larger. Lieder is not introducing a larger narrative but slowly creating the kind of fictional world that all of these relationships (and subsequent break-ups) could happen in: a place full of renegade buses, barhopping performance artists, and aliens assigned with protecting the Earth. Each time a new section begins, there’s no predicting in what direction it might head. The reader is forced to ease their grip on the wheel and let the car slowly curve off into a field or over a cliff.

This eclectic style is also aided by the multitude of narrators in “Under The Sea,” who each display very different and lively personalities. Never did I notice a narrator coming with me from one story into the next. April, the narrator in story “Bad-Asses,” shares little in common with the unlikeable middle schooler of “K-4” or the disheartened translator of “Lost in Translation.” Each of these characters makes for a story that can so clearly distinguish itself from those surrounding it. Leidner creates these fully formed humans with ease.

It’s rare that a short story collection flows as beautifully as “Under The Sea.” At times I thought that I might be reading a novel, perhaps a collage of short narratives in the style of “Soft Machine” by William S. Burroughs. A reader will never think, “We’re done here, time to move on to the next story.” Leidner is an exciting short story writer, working with original and playful ideas. “Under the Sea” is proof of this, and certainly worth your time.

Mike Corrao is a young writer and filmmaker working out of Minneapolis, where he earned his B.A. in film and English literature at the University of Minnesota. In 2016 he was an artist-in-residence for the Altered Esthetics Film Festival. His work has appeared in over 20 different publications, including Entropy, decomP, Cleaver, and the Portland Review. His first novel, Man, Oh Man will be released from Orson’s Publishing in the fall of 2018. Further information can be found at www.mikecorrao.com.

The post Eclectic Absurdism: Reading Mark Leidner’s Under The Sea appeared first on Newfound.

Intrigued by her work, I wanted to find out more about her writing and personal journey. Catherine describes herself in the following way:

Originally from Springfield, Massachusetts, I attended Catholic school and earned degrees from Bennington College and New York University. I’m a failed au pair with teaching experience. The only male psychiatrist I’ve met with asked me if I aspired to be anything more than a secretary.

If I ever pay off my student loan debt, I’d like to move closer to the forest. 

On Thursday evenings, I take Japanese classes.

Rebecca Henderson: Why did you choose to write this piece in short sections, rather than a traditional long-form story? 

Catherine Pikula: The smartphone is a kind of phantom and complex character in the background of this piece. It provides connection to the absent lover and thus comfort, but it is also a source of anxiety as well as a means of searching for answers. I wanted the form to mimic the kind of disruptions that have become more common in every day interactions.

It’s a product of the instinct, “Wait, let me Google it,” and the nervous checking of one’s phone. The piece is also very self-reflective so while the section breaks mark associative leaps allowing the speaker’s mind to wander, I hope they also welcome the reader to interject and have a dialogue with the text.

Henderson: Did you write each short section individually and focus on one particular theme, or did you write a span of them?

Pikula: This piece first materialized as a diaristic purge over the span of a few weeks. What resulted was a tangled ball of anxiety from which I tried to cull what felt like the most cohesive and also necessary threads. (CA Conrad’s (soma)tic exercises come to mind as note-taking is utilized there as a means and not an end in itself—though I wouldn’t say my goal was to create an end but another means, if that makes sense.)

Shaping the piece took place over three years. Much of what fell away was the more poetic associations and sections that felt too musically, imagistically, or referentially self-indulgent that they began to stray too far from the main themes.

Henderson: What themes in the piece most resonate with you personally?

Pikula: All of it resonates. It is all me and also not me. It is me in flux.

On a macro level, the over-arching inquiry for me is: What does it mean to understand and exist in a grey area? In some way, all of the themes return to that inquiry and the image of the Venn-diagram.

There are a lot of dichotomies at work. To name a few: How does one define self in the face of the all-consuming loved other? What is healthy and self-destructive?  Right and wrong?  What is an orgasm during rape? What makes a “woman” a “woman” before a human? (I use quotes here to express unresolved discomfort.) And in what ways does language fail or succeed to offer a way out?

Henderson: Why did you choose to represent other characters with just capital letters, rather than full names?

Pikula: I should acknowledge that this is nonfiction. While it felt important to my version of truth-telling to preserve reality, I wanted to respect their privacy. Sure, people who are close to me will be able to identify some of the people but that is very much beside the point. I’m not interested in placing blame or casting judgement.

To the extent that it is possible or not, my intention was to aim toward the objective while using the subjective as the springboard.

Henderson: This piece discusses a lot of relevant topics on today’s social sphere. Did you hope to contribute to the discussion, or what was your intent with this piece?

Pikula: This goes back to existing in grey areas. How can one write about gender and sexuality in a way that is true to their experience but also inclusive? I don’t think I have the perfect answer to that, but I think it begins with respect, putting one’s ego aside, making room for others, welcoming critiques, offering critiques, recognizing faults and failures and trying to do better. My intent is to say we can communicate better, especially about things that are difficult to talk about.

Henderson: Love and sexuality certainly seem to be concepts the speaker has trouble defining and/or interpreting. Do you feel that as a society we need to have more open discussions about these ideas?

Pikula: Absolutely. Global media and art are teeming with examples of toxic love and these examples should be constantly examined, deconstructed, and built anew.

Sexuality is largely misunderstood, I think, like most things as something fixed. That’s not to say everyone is queer—though, that would be great!—but rather, even within heterosexuality there are elements of desire in flux.

I think our societal discussions should be better understood as dialectical in that there is all this history that has come before and the differing forces and opinions at work are not occurring within a bubble but within the dynamic global environment of which our actions, beliefs and words are all a part. And what’s more is that all of these elements are connected and changing—

Henderson: Is this piece part of a larger work? If not, do you think you’ll expand it?

Pikula: The piece fits thematically with a lot of poems I began around the same time and was a part of my thesis manuscript at NYU. While I can envision reworking the poems and including this longer piece into a full-length text, I am somewhat hesitant toward the necessity of expansion at this time—partly because I want to move on to other things.

Henderson: What projects are you working on right now? What can we expect to see from you in the future?

Pikula: I’m very much in a gestation period, reading widely, playing the sponge, taking notes. It’s daunting to begin new creative projects while working a full-time office job. I’d like to take a stab at sci-fi short stories or micro fiction as well as more formal essays on some of the themes here.

Henderson: Is there anything we didn’t talk about that you would like to mention? Any final words?

Pikula: I just want to express a lot of gratitude for all of the kinds of mothers, soon to be mothers, mothers that can’t biologically be mothers, mothers of every shape, size and color everywhere—as well as for acts of mothering.

You can find out more about Catherine Pikula on her website.

Rebecca Henderson holds a Master’s in German and a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing. Best expressing herself through the written word, she enjoys the smell of burning rubber and can recite the ABC’s of the automotive world upon command. Rebecca hopes to shift your world perspective through her words, because looking out the same window every day hardly makes for an interesting life.

The post “I’m fine, how are you?” An Interview with Prose Prize Winner, Catherine Pikula appeared first on Newfound.

Author Jacqueline Kirkpatrick took the time to share a bit more with us about her process in creating “Alpha Bet”.

Delaney Kochan: One thing I love about how you wrote this piece is how clearly it teaches the power of sharing emotion by showing scene. When it appears easy, you know you’re reading a talented writer who’s crafted each sentence to be unencumbered with internal narration. What was your editing process like?

Jacqueline Kirkpatrick: It’s probably a terrible thing to admit, however, the most honest response I can offer is that I don’t edit much. One of the first writers I fell for was Jack Kerouac and not long after I started reading him I found the “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose.” I’ve been writing based on that method since. Most of my work is stream of conscious. I pop on headphones, queue up the tunes that bring back certain memories and I close my eyes. I’ve been lucky that it makes sense most of the time but I run the risk that it sounds absolutely bonkers. Those pieces stay safe and in the dark in the filing cabinet.

I almost never edit content. How I write something the first, for me, is the purest form of self-exploration. I usually don’t change it. There were entries I wrote that didn’t make it into the full piece but that I had to get out out of the way to keep going. Those are the 2 a.m. pieces. The ones we have to write in fury, collapse with a breath that we didn’t realize we were holding, have a drink to it and then save it in a file named, “Not Yet”. The One Day work. Ha!

Having said all that, my kryptonite is the comma. Knowing that commas kill me so quickly I started the habit in middle school of writing short, concise sentences that don’t allow me the opportunity to mess up. I’ll do a lot of things in life to avoid red pen marks on my pages.

Kochan: You chose a very interesting structure for this piece. How has this specific organization helped order the chaos in your life as you look at it?

Kirkpatrick: I started a piece in my late 20s before “Alpha Bet” that listed, alphabetically, the lovers I’ve had. At the time, I thought it was interesting and a bit bold to just put it all out there. Here’s their name, here’s what they did, here’s what I did, and here’s why I’m heartbroken, but I realized after the second entry that I was just writing it so that I could complain about a recent ex. So, I scrapped it.

But the idea never left. Having a piece that was an encyclopedia of who I was that someone could cross reference or understand the whole picture without a boring chronological telling was important to me. It also really helped me in coping while I was writing it. If I felt anxiety or pain in one section I could change my tone the memory in the next.  I like this set up not just so I didn’t get bogged down in pain while writing it but that the reader wouldn’t have to be either.

Kochan: How difficult is it to tell the past truthfully and compassionately? How did you train yourself to do it?

Kirkpatrick: Good question. I think it’s so difficult it’s impossible. I know I’ve hurt others in how honest I’ve been in my work and while I want to apologize, I’m at the point in my own unraveling process where I’m trying desperately to say fuck it. I can’t water down or negate suicide or rape or struggling with my place as a woman or a mother. Basically, now I’m at this point where I’m saying, “Here’s the plate, eat what’s on it. If you don’t like it, starve.”

I’m not saying it to be a jerk to my parents, or my lovers, or even my own daughter, I’m saying it because I’ve felt it. A writer always hurts themselves first. That’s the best training guide I have as a reference in any attempt I make to be more compassionate when writing about things that could potentially hurt others. I know how much I hurt myself by the things I write so I know how much I’ll hurt you. It may not seem it, but I’ll try to do my best.

Kochan: As someone who tends to write prose in a non-narrative form, I’ve recently realized that my tendency is rooted in an educational emphasis in poetry in addition to the natural inclinations of my thought-patterns. Where does your writing history originate? How did it help produce this piece?

Kirkpatrick: Poetry was my first love. Before Kerouac, I read Sexton, Dickinson,  Parker and Plath. Plath was (and still is) my number one. She had this ability to reveal her emotions in such a raw way but also maintain grace turned me on as a writer in my teens. I imitated her work for a long time before found my own voice. Then once I read Allison, and Oates, and Kerouac, and created a library I could depend on, I felt more secure in letting myself feel free to get down to the nitty-gritty of what I was feeling, or more importantly, what I wanted to feel.

“Alpha Bet” is a combination of a lot of memories and writing forms and styles, synthesizing. It was fun for me to create this piece because it’s so many things: an ode, a prose poem, a memoir, a eulogy, a confession, an apology and a choose-your-own-adventure all in one. 

Kochan: Tell me about your desires for this piece and its existence in the world? What do you hope the reader receives? 

Kirkpatrick: The original piece is over 110 pages. It’s a complete encyclopedia.

For this contest, the complete manuscript didn’t fit the requirements, but I still felt I couldn’t sit on it another second. I went through it and trimmed it down to the most important bones. The interesting part for me long after the contest submission was that I went back through it and realized if I had to submit it again, that day, I would have picked different entries. And today, I’d probably do the same.

Every day we wake up just a little different and who I loved the most yesterday might be different today or what I thought made me who I am Tuesday might not be it on Thursday and I love that. It’s the most organic thing I’ve ever written because it’s these quick snapshots of very pure memories for me. I want the piece to be out in the world not just because it’s this mosaic of people and places and experiences, but because I think so much of what I went through, and still go through, speaks a language universal. I would love a reader to pick up the piece, read it and feel like even though they just read MY history, and MY outlook on things, they know themselves a little more, or better yet, want to create their own encyclopedia feeling a newfound sense of bravery or that they could be loved and accepted on what admissions they have to reveal.

Kochan: What was the most difficult part about writing this piece?

Kirkpatrick: I think the hardest thing, while it may not seem it on the surface, was the title. Of course, the basic first reaction would be that the piece is in alphabetical order, so it makes the most sense but it worked out that way as a third or fourth reason to keep it.

Kochan: What makes this “Alpha Bet” special to you?

Kirkpatrick: The piece covers my first half of life. The beginning. The choices I made or wagered on to get me here. It’s also the strongest attempt I’ve made at covering so much in one piece. It’s the most risk I’ve taken at revealing so much, so quickly and honestly.

Delaney Kochan is a poet and essayist published in Under the Gum Tree, Ruminate, Red Clay, and other literary magazines. She served as Managing Editor of The Forager, a lifestyle magazine, and now writes for the online city guide, My Colorado Springs and various online publications in addition to Newfound. Find her work at www.delaneykochan.com

The post “Alpha Bet”: An interview with Jacqueline Kirkpatrick appeared first on Newfound.

Today I want to share our process of making chapbooks that approach novella-length page counts, which we make for winners of our Newfound Prose Prize. Whether you’re a curious writer or a budding press, I hope you enjoy this look into our work.
 

Challenges

A prose chapbook presents immediate challenges. To bind 40-70 pages—double the size of our poetry standard—folding and stitching the pages would appear bulky and amateurish. To even consider hand-binding a work of that volume is a little nuts. Additionally, we need to publish titles in runs of 100 or 200. So, performing an elaborate binding method isn’t reasonable time-wise. Exactly for these reasons, presses send books out to be perfect bound. We stubbornly resisted the idea of a mass market look. Thankfully, after we brainstormed and did some R&D, a solution was born.

Our prose chapbooks include a spine to keep them prose-y. We also went with simple stab stitch to keep the spine its principal design element.

We decided on a Japanese stab stitch method for binding. Which is all well and good until you consider how you’re going to put holes through a stack of paper quickly and perfectly aligned.

We fooled with drill methods recommended by various presses. We found drilling paper to be a messy process. The paper bunches, adding to the thickness, and we couldn’t make accurate or quick holes.

The solution? A needles press, or what Winking Cat calls a “home-made version of the old Rossback Piercer machine.” It doesn’t punch out paper, but slices through a surprising amount of pages in an effortless pull of the lever.

So, step one of making a prose chapbook is…
 

1) Build a Needle Press
What you will need:

• Arbor press: PHASE II Heavy-Duty Bench Top Arbor Press, 1/2 Ton
• Needle: Organ titanium 7X3 794 DYX3 industrial sewing needles (140/22)
• Bit: Quick Change Chuck For Dremel 4486 multi-function tool-9/32-40 grinder
• Base: Cork, wood, or any surface you feel comfortable working on

The entire machine cost us ~$70 to build, including shipping. Be sure to find an arbor press that already has a hole drilled in the ram (the thing that goes up and down). Otherwise, you’ll need to go to a shop that can bore the hole for you. The rest is easy to assemble. The raised base upon which you do your punching should have a hole in the center to keep the needle running cleanly through your paper, so as not to dull the point. Ours is cheaply made out of stacked cork board and some very classy duct tape.

Questions? Comment below.

2) Punch Interior
What you will need:

• Two binder clips
• Hole guide
• Chapbook interior pages

Punching holes is easy on the needle press. Simply binder clip your hole guide onto your interior pages and punch. The extra thick sewing needle makes a hole big enough to pass 4-ply linen thread twice through.

Make the reusable hole guide on a piece of card stock that fits the size of your chapbook. You’ll reuse the same guide for punching the cover holes.
 

3) Score & Punch Covers
What you will need:

• Chapbook covers
• Hole guide
• Japanese screw punch
• Scorer: See below

Hand-made books are amazing because of the range of inks, papers and designs at your disposal to make the physical book as special as the content. We’ve used various printers and printing methods for covers, including screen printing, color laser, letterpress, and risograph. There are positives and negatives to each method, but really the decision will come down to budget and what best suits the design. Whatever method you use, once the covers are cut to fit the book’s dimensions, they must be scored, creased and punched.

Cover stock needs to be scored to ensure a clean crease without cracking. For poetry chapbooks, an easy one crease can be run quickly with a bone folder and ruler on a cutting mat. For the prose chapbook with a spine, however, each cover needs to scores.

If attempting to score 100+ covers by hand accurately is a feat beyond your patience, there are easier solutions. For our first prose chapbook, we worked with a local printer to score the covers. Recently, we purchased a manual scoring machine (MBM GoCrease 3000) to do the work in-house. You can score hundreds of covers with a manual scorer in no time. Just set your guides and go. Electric scoring machines are much pricier, but faster.

Next, if you’re binding with a stab-stitch, you’ll need to punch holes in your covers with your guide and a screw punch tool. We use the AITOH screw punch with a 1 mm bit. I don’t recommend using the needle press on the covers. You want your covers to look as slick as possible, and the needle press will leave them pretty jagged.
 

4) Bind
What you will need:

• Punched covers and interiors
• Thread: 4-ply waxed linen thread
• Bookbinding needle
• Scissors
• Ruler or dull blade

Once you’ve got your holes punched through interiors and covers, it’s time to bind. Binding is the most labor intensive part of the bookmaking process, but it’s also the most fun.

There are numerous ways to thread your pages together. For our prose chapbooks, we use a single, 28 inch length of the linen thread. Due to the spine, we didn’t want any thread to wrap around the cover, as in many typical Japanese stab stitch designs. We came up with a minimal design of three arches, what we’re calling our Newfound signature binding. Though simple on the outside, the thread lattices the interior quite a bit for integrity. Once double knotted in the center bottom of the book, the thread ends are clipped to 1 inch and tucked down into the spine with the ruler or dull blade.

Whatever your style, aim for structural integrity and aesthetic in line and color.
 

5) Trim & Finish
What you will need:

• Stack cutter
• Eraser

Last but not least, you’ll likely have to clean your edges with trimming. We use a Triumph MBM 4300 stack cutter. It’s nearly impossible to punch and bind the chapbook to an exact fit within the cover, so cleaning the edges allows you to create beautiful books without the pressure of needing to be a chapbook god.
 

Questions?
Have a question about our prose chapbooks, gear, or process? Comment here or write us anytime at info [at] newfound [dot] org. We are happy to give back to the literary community that has been so kind to us.
 
Want to see your prose work in a beautiful chapbook edition? See our Newfound Prose Prize guidelines.

Thank you again for supporting our efforts to bring important books into the world.

The post The Prose Chapbook appeared first on Newfound.