Funny- The Art of Short Story Writing

Great Literary Websites

1. Single-Servings

• Awesome People Reading: Where to see what famous people read.
• Cover Spy: Where to see what MTA passengers read.
• Lisa Simpson Book Club: Where to see what Lisa Simpson reads.
• Bookshelf Porn: The SFW (despite its title) spot to ogle bookshelves.
• Slaughterhouse 90210: The middle of the television/literature Venn diagram.
• The Art of Google Books: Who’s scanning those books? Whose hand is that?
• The Final Sentence: An effort to spoil every book’s ending.
• Better Book Titles: Where spoilers and humor coexist.
• n+personals: As Malcolm Harris put it, the apex of The New Sincerity.
• Ransom Book Quotes: Title supposedly wasn’t meant to be “random.” Sure.
• Writers No One Reads: Neglected authors and philosophers.
• (un)justly (un)read: Same as above, but perhaps even more obscure.
• 50 Watts: Book design from around the world and across the ages.
• The Books They Gave Me: The intimate details of books gifted by exes.
• The Collected Blurbs of Gary Shteyngart: The man gets around, doesn’t he?
• Poor Yorick Entertainment: Now-defunct, but a must-see for all fantods.
• Lady Journos!: Highlights the best female journalists and their work.

2.     Reviewers

• The Los Angeles Review of Books: Rapidly increasing L.A.’s literary cachet.
• The New Inquiry: The Times can look down its nose all it wants. Who cares?
• The Boston Review: Loose updates from the Boston non-profit.

3.     Booksellers/Libraries/Foundations

• Housing Works Bookstore Café: Dispatches from a great cause.
• New York Public Library: The epicenter of literary Manhattan. (& its events)
• McNally Jackson: One of New York City’s favorite bookshops.
• WORD Brooklyn: One of New York City’s favorite bookshops across the river.
• 57th Street Books: One of Chicago’s favorite bookshops.
• Tattered Cover: One of Denver’s favorite bookshops.
• Powell’s: One of Portland’s favorite bookshops.
• PEN American Center: Great quotations from the PEN folks.
• 92nd Street Y: One of New York’s best curators of cultural entertainment.
• Books and Books*: Originally on the Wish List below, they’ve since come around. Welcome aboard!

4.     Marginalia

• Proustitute: A highbrow, poetry-heavy mental treat.
• Dostoesvky: All things Fyodor.
• Russkaya Literatura: All things Fyodor, Lev, Anton, Mikhail, etc…
• F*ck Yeah Manuscripts: Like LettersOfNote, but exclusively authors.
• John Jeremiah Sullivan: Dispatches from the essayist’s book tour.

5.     Publishers (Big Six) — Bear in mind: most of these lean pretty heavily
towards being just marketing tools.

• A. A. Knopf: The intersection of books and borzoi.
• Harper Perennial: The most exciting Big Six imprint in the game right now.
• Farrar, Straus & Giroux: Welcome aboard, newcomers! Way to get off on the right foot.
• Scribner: Bookish miscellany from the Simon & Schuster imprint.
• Doubleday: One of the more stereotypically Tumblr-like publishing Tumblrs.
• Vintage & Anchor: Great stuff from Random House’s paperback wizards.
• Pantheon Books: Image-heavy in a great way.
• Classic Penguin: It’s about time the Penguin folks joined the Tumblr crowd.
• Viking Penguin: Updates from the Viking & Penguin publicity team.
• Riverhead Books: Penguin’s got the most imprints on Tumblr, bar-none.

6.     Publishers (Littler Guys)

• W. W. Norton & Co.: Plus ten points for their GZA post.
• NYRB Classics: The inimitable publisher of overlooked classics.
• Fantagraphics: The premier publishers of alternative comics in the U.S.
• New Directions: Come back, guys! You were great while you lasted.
• OR Books: Small, politically-minded indie publisher.
• Ugly Duckling Presse: Photos from one of the best book designers in the U.S.
• Bloomsbury Publishing: The U.S. office of London’s reputable house.
• Verso Books: Very #OWS-heavy of late.
• Nouvella Books: The most Downton Abbey-obsessed publishers around.

7.     Magazines

• Longreads: Looking for something to read? Not anymore.
• Hobart Pulp: They came here to drink bourbon and publish stories.
• BOMB Magazine: The best of the BOMBsite.
• The Missouri Review: Multimedia posts from the underrated journal.
• Lapham’s Quarterly: Witty and smart, and with a great design to boot.
• The Atlantic: A steady stream of interesting links.
• Utne Reader: Good stuff from the Minneapolis (and soon Topeka) institution.
• The Believer: Special features from the monthly magazine.
• Specter: Not to be confused with the James Bond villains.
• The Atavist: More people should know about these folks!
• Poetry*: Originally on the Wishlist, they’ve since joined the fun. Happy 100th birthday!

Joseph Chinnock Short Fiction Officially Published!

We wanted to make you aware of two short stories that explore the dark side of love, revenge and redemption, both by Joseph Chinnock.

Legally Ted is the story of a parole who is just barely able to keep his cool until he meets Ted in a Group and has to contend with guilt, despair,  regret, rage, Clock-work Orange-like treatment systems, retro-reunion revival bands, the profound differences between Styx and Journey and his own diminishing hopes for redemption.

Published in the spring 2013 issue of The Gettysburg Review

Grinding Machines is the story of a desperate man offered a chance at freedom through the retelling, by a cagy Gurkha, of the conversion of the great Tibetan saint Milarepa though in a decidedly modern way. The protagonist must choose his path as they discuss scorpions, the Pinkertons, black magic, revenge, sexual politics, pension plans, the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and the recursive nature of revenge over cheap whiskey and Bollywood movies.

An online version is available at http://thedirtynapkin.com/issue/054/03/

Joseph Chinnock is the director of A Writers’ Collective, a consortium of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduates. Grinding Machines is an excerpt from his most recent book, The Alchemy of Nourishment, the story of a post-Catholic, B minus Buddhist who joins a cooking class in the new-age Mecca of Boulder. The class is put on by a charismatic Wise-Woman with a dark past, and her precocious teenage daughter, resulting in a love triangle that explores the very limits of hunger, food, love, betrayal, madness, revenge, Clock–Work Orange-like programs, organized resistance to such programs and ultimately—redemption. His next project is about a Hindu Sherlock Holmes, a Brahmin postal worker in the British Raj who uses Hindu logic to solve crimes. In his free time Joseph writes, reads, broods, drinks way too much coffee and listens to New Order. 

www.josephchinnock.wordpress.com

www.awriterscollective.wordpress.com