Music Feature Update

Several people have emailed asking when the deadline is for submitting to our upcoming Music Poetry Feature--we'll be reading music poetry through the spring and accepting those submissions until our regular submission deadline of April 30, 2008. Please follow our general submission guidelines. It's helpful if you also mention in your cover letter (whether you're submitting online or via snail mail) that you are sending music poetry.

ALSO NOTE: The music poetry feature will appear in our Fall/Winter 2008-9 issue (due out in December 2008), not in the Spring 08 issue.

A Welcome December Diversion...

With all the holiday distractions (cookies, parties, eggnog, cookies, shopping), don't forget to sit a spell and relax with a good read. And why not start with the most recent installment of Philip Graham's dispatches from Portugal at McSweeney's online. Enjoy!

If You Haven't Heard...

For the first time, we will be accepting submissions via e-mail. You may use the link below:

https://www-s.art.uiuc.edu/ninthletter/submissions/

You may also send your submissions via snail mail to:

(Poetry/Fiction/Creative Nonfiction) Editor 
NINTH LETTER
University of Illinois
Department of English
608 South Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

Please review the submission guidelines.  Same apply, either way you want to share your work with us.  

AND, for the poets,  THIS JUST IN! 

Ninth Letter will reading in the Spring of 08' for a Special Section in the Fall/Winter '08 issue featuring poems about music. All music. Jazz, Blues, Classical, Reggae, Funk, Country, etc., etc., etc. 

Happy December from your Ninth Letter!

Ninth Letter Contributors Win NEA Grants

Congratulations to Brock Clarke, Carolyn Alessio, Christopher Chambers and Jacqueline Kolosov who were recently awarded 2008 NEA Fellowships for Literature in Prose.

Click here to see the complete list.

Woodbox Gang Goes to Washington

Illinois is well represented tonight in our nation's capital. The Woodbox Gang, Southern Illinois' very own "caustic acoustic trashcan americana" band will perform at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts at 6pm on the Millenium Stage, admission is free and no ticket required. If you are in the area try and get a seat. This group never disappoints with their eclectic instrumentation, vocal depth and lyrical genius - plainly said these boys bring down the house.

For more information on upcoming Woodbox Gang shows, mp3's and cds check out http://www.woodboxgang.homestead.com/index.html

Guess Who's Notable?

Let us give credit where credit is due - the New York Times 100 Notable books of 2007 list is out and it includes one UIUC professor emeritus, the talented Jean Thompson for her story collection Throw Like a Girl: Stories, and 2 Ninth Letter contributors Dave Eggers for What is the What, and Tom Bissell with The Father of All Things. Congratulations to these authors.



What are you waiting for? Read these books!

Get Thee to a Reading...Today!

Don't miss the opportunity to attend a reading by LeAnne Howe today at Illini Union bookstore (2nd floor Author’s Corner), 4:30 pm (11/14/07).

LeAnne will read from her new novel Miko Kings. A book that Rigoberto González describes as “an incredible act of recovery: baseball, a sport jealously guarded by mainstream Anglo culture, is also rooted in Native American history and territory. The irony behind its status as "the all-American pastime" is not lost on Howe as she weaves these compelling stories and narratives to expose the political games of the 20th century that Native Americans learned to play for resistance and survival."

LeAnne Howe, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is the author of three books, including the novel Shell Shaker (Aunt Lute 2001), winner of the 2002 American Book Award. In 2006-2007 she was the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi at Oxford. Howe wrote the screenplay for Indian Country Diaries: Spiral of Fire, a 90-minute PBS documentary released in November 2006. Her poetry collection Evidence of Red (Salt Publishing, UK; 2005) was awarded the 2006 Oklahoma Book Award. Currently, Howe is Associate Professor and Interim Director of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and teaches in the M.F.A. program there. She divides her time between her home in Ada, Oklahoma, and her academic life in Illinois.

Booksigning to follow the reading

Kenyon Review and Ohio too!

This weekend, Kenyon College hosted the Kenyon Review Literary Festival. The college is situated in arguably the quaintest town in the midwest. Truly hospitable folks, great cafe's, and a festival that culminated in a reading by Margaret Atwood. Could you ask for anything more?

Wait! It gets better... Jodee participated in a couple of panels and Ninth Letter was lucky enough to be situated between two great collegues, John Bullock (managing editor) from New Ohio Review premiering his second issue...

and M. Scott Douglass, editor and publisher of Main Street Rag.

Now, here's something you'll really like (as if the previous were not enough) we met a Michigan fan cheering for Illinois to win the big game. Yes, Illini Fans, there is a Santa Claus...Illinois 28-Ohio 21.

Congratulations to Kenyon Review for hosting such a successful event.

Festivals, Literary-Style

Adam and Russ survived Winter Wheat without burning down any buildings in Bowling Green (that I'm aware of). Check Adam's blog for the full report. Check back in this space for news about the Kenyon Review Literary Festival, where Ninth Letter was also well represented this past weekend.

In Memoriam

R.I.P. Norman Mailer
1923-2007

We're Talking Ohio!

The Buckeye State.  Birthplace of Aviation.  We're heading into the heart of it all this weekend at two (count 'em 2) literary events!

Find Ninth Letter at the Kenyon Review Literary Festival on Saturday, 11/10.  We'll have a spot in the Midwest Lit Mag Fair in the Gund Ballroom.  

Or, if you're a little more north and a shuffle to the west:

Winter Wheat 2007 is in Bowling Green, OH.  Hosted by the good people at Mid-American Review, it's a weekend of stellar-quality talks and events in a kickin' town.  We're at the Book Fair on Saturday.  (Plus, this year's festival includes talks by 9L contributors including Gary L. McDowell and Mary Biddinger and others!)

If you haven't gotten it already, swing through to get your copy of the latest issue, a new subscription, or renew the one you've already got at a price that's so low, it'll barely cover our gasoline to get it to you!  If you've covered your bases on all of that, just come by and say Hi!  

Hometown Writer Returns...

Katherine Min, a native of Champaign-Urbana, is on campus Wednesday, November 7th at 4:30 p.m. for a reading and book signing at the Illinois Union Bookstore (Author's Corner 2nd Floor).

Mim's first novel, Secondhand World was a finalist for the PEN/Bingham Award, and her short stories have been published in numerous magazines and widely anthologized. She is the recipient of an NEA grant and a Pushcart Prize. She currently teaches in North Carolina.

Don't miss this event!

Roy Kesey at UIUC

Roy Kesey, author of Nothing in the World and All Over will visit campus this Monday, November 5th at 4:30 for a reading and booksigning at the Illini Union Bookstore (Author's Corner, 2nd floor).

Kesey's work has been published in over 50 magazines and most recently appeared in Best American Short Stories 2007. Don't miss this opportunity to experience firsthand the work of a unique and talented writer.

Explore Greece in Poetry this Monday

This Monday, October 29th at 5pm, Donna Gelagotis Lee will read from her award winning poetry collection, On the Altar of Greece, at Illini Union Bookstore, 2nd floor Author's Corner. Gelagotis is a long time resident of Greece and the winner of the Gival Press Poetry Award,
Recipient of a 2007 Eric Hoffer Book Award: Notable for Art Category, and nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry.

The collection is a free verse exploration of one American woman's experience in the past and present of Greece.

Booksigning will follow the reading.

Utne Independent Press Award Noms

The Utne Reader has announced this year's nominees for the Utne Independent Press Awards, and 9L is proud to say we've been nominated in the category for Best Design. We're in stellar company, too--fellow nominees in design & other categories include Maisonneuve, VQR, The Believer, The Sun, Bookforum, and the Village Voice.

Thompson on the Short Story

A few days ago, author (UIUC alum, UIUC professor emeritus, and all-around awesome lady) Jean Thompson respond to Stephen King's "What Ails the Short Story?" with her own sharp, funny, dead-on assessment here in Maud Newton's blog.

We should have posted this sooner. We have been overwhelmed by page proofs. The new issue is coming in just a few weeks!

The Poetry Center of Chicago Presents…

a reading with A. Van Jordan and Tyehimba Jess, this Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 6:30 pm, SAIC Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan Avenue,Chicago, IL .

A. Van Jordan's first book, Rise, won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award and was a selection of the Academy of American Poets book club. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Tyehimba Jess' first book, leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. Jess received a 2006 Whiting Award, a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004, and was a 2004-5 Winter Fellow at Provincetown 's Fine Arts Work Center. He won an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Poetry for 2000 - 2001, and the 2001 Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award

The event is $10 for public, $8 for students, and free for members and SAIC students, faculty and staff.

Start Your Week with Power

Susan Power, author of award-winning novels Grass Dancer and Roofwalker ,will read Monday, October 15 at 4:30pm at Illini Union Bookstore (upstairs in the Author's Corner).

Recipient of numerous literary awards and honors, Susan is also an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a native of Chicago. Her writing was praised by Amy Tan as "pure magic", and that only begins to describe the experience of her lyrical fiction. Don't miss the chance to hear this amazing writer.

The Nobel Goes To...

the marvelous Doris Lessing, who was named this morning as the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. Lessing, who was born in Persia and raised in Rhodesia, now lives in London, and is described by the Swedish Academy as "that epicist of the female experience who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny."

The 87-year-old Lessing is only the 11th woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature since the award's inception in 1901. She is the author of nearly 50 books of fiction and nonfiction.

Get Your Bets In Now

We're not running a Nobel pool, but maybe somebody is...tomorrow the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature will be announced, and 9L's own Andrew Ervin has come up with handicaps for this year's top contenders:

Transtrommer (Sweden) 2:1
Achebe (Nigeria) 4:1
Adonis (Syria) 8:1
Magris (Italy) 8:1
Roth (United States) 12:1
Munro (Canada) 20:1
Murray (Australia) 50:1
Houellebecq (France) 100:1

Poetry for your enjoyment

Go over to The Scrambler to read a poem by 9L's own Adam Deutsch appearing in their fall issue. How cool is that?

Looking for a New Place to Send Your Work?

Look no further, send to The Normal School - a literary magazine now accepting: Creative Nonfiction. Story. Poem. Critique. Experiential Recipes.Quirky. Boundary-challenging. Energetic. Innovative in both form and focus. The Normal School is the equivalent of the kid who always has bottle caps, cat's eye marbles, dead animal skulls and other treasures in his pockets. Contributing Editors include Steve Almond, Tom Bissell, Beth Ann Fennelly, Jacqueline Lyons, Duncan Murrell, Laura Pritchett, Steve Yarbrough, and MORE.

Are you The Normal School material? Send your work to: The Normal School 5245 N. Backer Ave. M/S PB 98California State University, FresnoFresno, CA 93740-8001OR as an attachment in .doc or .rtf format only to submissions@thenormalschool.com
http://www.thenormalschool.com/

Please include an email address in your contact information and indicate genre to the best of your ability.

The FIXX is in

We're at the THE FIXX reading this Thursday the 27th 7:30pm at 3053 N. Sheffield Ave. in Chi-town.
Hobart is going to be there too.

Dig our gracious host, Amy Guth.

We'll be reading selections from the last issue or two, hooking up the crowd with specials on subscriptions, t-shirts, some free stuff, and a few other surprises!

See you there!

Carr Series Brings Pulitzer Winner to Campus

Natasha Trethewey, recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry with her third collection, Native Guard, will read at the Illini Union Bookstore, on Thursday September 27, at 4:30pm. Trethewey is a professor of Creative Writing at Emory University. Click here to read samples of her work or listen to her interivew on NPR. If your plans for Thursday don't include this event, consider changing them. As usual, the event is free, but the poetry is priceless.

Pygmalion Music Festival has Arrived!

Beginning today and runnng through Saturday(September 19-22), the 2007 Pygmalion Music Festival enlivens the Urbana-Champaign music scene with an impressive selection of independent bands. Diverse influences and sounds converge in this gathering which features a range of artists from the internationally known Andrew Bird, the unmatched originality of Dianogah, gospel phenomenon Yeasayer and the amazing local talent of Ryan Groff. And many, many more! Check out the full schedule and ticket info at http://www.pygmalionmusicfestival.com/ .

Love in the Time of Basketball

Arley McNeney, University of Illinois MFA student and Paralympic Medalist will read from her debut novel POST , this Thursday, September, 20th, 4:30 pm at Illini Union Bookstore (Author’s Corner 2nd Floor). Acclaimed by The Georgia Strait as “one of the finest Canadian first novels”, this book's got literary game. Arrive early for a courtside seat. Booksigning to follow.

Ninth Letter Wins Award for Editorial Design

Ninth Letter was recently awarded a SILVER AWARD, in the category of Editorial Design, in the 2007 Create Awards competition. This year's entries came from across the globe, and were judged by more than 20 leading professionals from eight creative industries. Only 235 awards were chosen out of the roughly 2,400 entries.

The Create Awards (www.thecreateawards.com) is produced by Create Communications, publishers of Create Magazine. The intense creative competition included 40 categories and 300 subcategories in eight major creative industries including: advertising and art direction, film and video, motion graphics, graphic communication, photography, printing and packaging, interactive, copy writing, self promotion, and student work from creatives all over the world.

The Only Place to be this Thursday is...

At the Emily Raboteau reading at 4:30 at IUB (September 13th). Fans of her debut novel, The Professor's Daughter, know this is a night not be missed. For anyone yet to read her work, take advantage of this opportunity to hear a live performance by a fierce storyteller. A book signing will follow the reading.

Get Your Arsonist's Guide

9L contributor Brock Clarke's new novel An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England is getting stellar reviews and promises to be his best book yet (which is really saying something). Get your copy today, and if you're in the Chicago area go hear him read at Barbara's Bookstore in Oak Park this Thursday, Sept. 13.




If you're on the east or west coast, here are some of Brock's other upcoming readings:
9/18—SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Books Inc., 7:00 pm

9/20—PORTLAND, OR—Powell’s Books, 7:00 pm

9/21—SEATTLE, WA—Elliott Bay Book Company, 7:00 pm

9/25—BUFFALO, NY—Contemporary Writers Series at Canisius College, 7:00 pm

9/26—BRATTLEBORO, VT—The Book Cellar, 5:30 pm

9/29–PROVIDENCE, RI–Brown University Bookstore, 4:00 pm

9/30—CONCORD, MA—The Concord Bookshop, 3:00 pm

October
10/1—SOUTH HADLEY, MA—Odyssey Bookshop, 7:00 pm

10/2—NEWTON, MA (Boston area)—Newtonville Books, 7:00 pm

10/3—MANCHESTER CENTER, VT—Northshire Bookstore, 7 pm

10/5—NEW YORK, NY—One Story Reading Series at Pianos, 6:30 pm

10/10—WASHINGTON, DC—Olsson’s, Dupont Circle, 7:00 pm

10/25—WICHITA, KS—Wichita State University, Time TBA

10/30—WICHITA, KS—Watermark Books, 7:00 pm

November
11/3—CINCINNATI, OH—Books by the Banks, Time TBA

Braille For The Heart

That's the name of the new book of poetry by Robert Vasquez. Pick it up for the love of poems. Pick it up for a brilliant Introduction written by 9L poet Diana Marie Delgado.

Details can be found Right Here.

New Updates

Check out the new video podcasts on ninthletter.com--an interview with South African Information Science professor Archie Dick, folk singer/songwriter Bitch, and award winning Native American filmmaker James Fortier. All can be found here.

Get Your Levin Fixx

If you're in the Chicagoland area, you can witness the magic that is Adam Levin reading tonight along with Wendy McClure at Amy Güth's reading series The Fixx. Maybe if you're lucky Adam will read from his awesome story published back in the very first EVER issue of 9L.

Let's face it--you'll be lucky no matter what he reads. He's that good.

The Fixx Coffee Bar
3053 N Sheffield Ave.
Chicago
7:30 p.m.
Free


C. I. O.

The Great Kisser

David Evanier's new book The Great Kisser, a collection of eight interconnected long stories, got a sweet write-up in the New York Sun. Read the praise. Buy the book.

Get Those Stamps Ready

Only a couple of more weeks until the reading time starts up again. As of Sept. 1st, we'd love to read your poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. Need a refresher on the guidelines? Right here, baby!

Do you tend to make short video projects? We're open to submission of those too!

We can hardly wait to see everything you've been waiting thru summer heat to send off to into where we're at. Need a fix? Get cozy with the archive of podcasts! Or order your copy of the latest issue!

See you soon!

Philip White on Verse Daily

Check out a poem by Philip White on Today's Verse Daily. It's called "Lament" from his collection The Clearing.

You can read a new poem of his in the latest issue of Ninth Letter, "Veil" on page 105.

Nao Bustamante Podcast

Check it out, fresh out of the package on the main page.

Just because it's summer between reading periods doesn't mean we've got our feet upon the desks. Check back and see what we're up to and where we're going to be this Fall.

It's because we love you--especially as a friend. Especially if you're on myspace. Click on over!

Luna Park

Check out Luna Park, an online review of the world of little and literary magazines. This week they've highlighted Wayne Miller's "City" poems from the spring 07 issue of 9L. What a great resource Luna Park is going to be for us litmag aficionados.

Get All Over

Roy Kesey's forthcoming collection All Over is now available for pre-order through Dzanc Books. All Over won't be out until October but it's going to be such an amazing book you know you want to get your hands on a copy as soon as possible, so why not get your order in early?

Want to sample some of Roy's work ahead of time? Check out 9L's Fall 2004 issue, which features his story "Fontanel," or pick up our Fall 2006 issue, which includes another great Kesey story, "Nipparpoq."

9L at EWN

Two stories from our latest issue got a nice writeup over at the Emerging Writers Network during their Short Story Month in May. Kellie Wells's Threnody "packs quite a wallop," and Chris Abani's Three Letters, One Song, and a Refrain "was a story I wasn't anxious to see end," quoth EWN's Dan Wickett.

Of course, we agree!

Trinie Dalton reading in NYC

9L contributor and all around cool chick Trinie Dalton is reading this Thursday, June 21, in NYC--if you're in the area, check it:

DEXTER SINISTER
VS.
FROZEN TEARS III

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Launch of John Russell's FROZEN TEARS III – THE TRINITY

A two-part event:

7.30-9pm installation and book launch
at Dexter Sinister
38 Ludlow St. (at Hester St.)

9-11pm performances/readings
organized by Mark Beasley for Creative Time
205 Club
205 Chrystie St. (at Stanton St.)

INCLUDING READINGS/PERFORMANCE BY:

HILLARY RAPHAEL
GENESIS P ORRIDGE
TRINIE DALTON
ILANA HALPERIN
ROXY PAINE
MARK HARRIS

Book published by Article Press; info
With support from the British Council

More about Dexter Sinister

Vs. is an ongoing monthly series curated by Creative Time at 205 Club.

Ninth Letter on Portuguese TV!

Check out the Camara Clara archives--they did a segment on Philip Graham's reports to the US from Lisbon and highlighted his video postcards published on this blog via YouTube. The segment aired last week on June 10, so go to the Camara Clara site and select "Arquivos," then choose "10 de Junho de 2007." Philip comes in just before the 11th minute mark. It's mostly in Portuguese, but you can get the gist of it...

Cool! International TV stars!

And a Happy Birthday

...to our resident Superman, Richard Powers. He was born on this day in Evanston, 1957.

I don't know his feelings on small cupcakes with single candles, but you can check out his National Book Award-winning novel, The Echo Maker, and see if the answer isn't between the lines.

End of an Era

Don Lee, who has edited the venerable litmag Ploughshares for 19 years, will be stepping down from the post to join the faculty at Macalester College. This truly will mark the end of an era in literary journal publishing, as Don has been a strong and influential force in the business for as long as many of us have been editors and writers. Fortunately, he'll still be part of our community as a writer, with his new novel Wrack and Ruin due out next year.

Paige Ackerson-Kiely interview

Paige Ackerson-Kiely talks with Kate Greenstreet about her first book of poetry, In No One's Land, winner of Ahsahta Press's Sawtooth Prize.

Go read this

Over at Miami University's Oxford Magazine they've got a new story by 9L's own Andrew Ervin (or is he??). Read this "Self-Portrait." It's meta. You like meta.

Loyalist that he is, Drew represented 9L well on his recent sojourn in Budapest:

Calling Video Artists

Hey, are you, or is someone you know, an artist working in video? Ninth Letter is calling for video submissions for our Featured Artists section of ninthletter.com. Check out the submission guidelines here. And pass the word around to your artsy friends.

Lit Mags in NYC

Just back from New York and the Magathon--great reading on Saturday at the New York Public Library, where a bunch of editors of journals old and new read terrific selections from their publications. Highlights included Tom Roberge of A Public Space reading from an essay by Delia Falconer; Caroline Lord from Short Story reading a story by David Wright (not our David Wright, though), and Hannah Tinti reading from Austin Bunn's story "The Ledge" which appeared in One Story.

On Sunday, Housing Works Used Book Café hosted a big crowd of lit lovers looking for bargains among the racks and stacks of literary journals all on sale for only $2 a copy. All proceeds went to benefit Housing Works. It was great to meet new people (shout out to Pei-Ling at One Story, Caroline at Short Story, and Whitney S. and Kristin at Pindeldyboz) and it was super-iffic to see old friends like Jed from jubilat and of course especially my boy Jason, shown here modelling the latest in designer litmags.

To see more pics of the weekend's festivities, go to flickr. I took them with my blackberry, so apologies in advance for the quality.

Poetry is on the map

The Academy of American Poets has launched the coolest new feature ever: a National Poetry Map. Click on a state (say, Illinois, and learn about its poetry history, regional poetry centers and publications, upcoming poetry events, and more! Now no matter where you are, you can find a little poetry near you...

Dave Eggers in The Independent

Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng are featured in The Independent discussing their first meeting, which would lead to What Is the What.

William Meredith R.I.P.

Frankly, I'd like to make you smile.
Words addresssing evil won't turn evil back
but they can give heart.
The cheer is hidden in right words.
(from "The Cheer" by William Meredith)

A great statesman of American poetry took his leave of us today at the venerable age of 88. R.I.P. William Meredith.

Store back up--new swag!

The Ninth Letter web store is up and running again, and if you didn't get a cool 9L t-shirt at AWP this year, you're in luck, because you can now buy them here.

June 9th & 10th, We're Everywhere!

I know, I know. You're reading our blog and sobbing, "But I can't go to the NYC LitMag Extravaganza because I live in Chicago...."

It's okay, baby. We'll be there too!
Catch us:

The Printer's Row Book Fair
June 9th & 10th (10a - 6p both Saturday & Sunday)
Table 301 near Clark & Polk in Chicago

We'll have copies of the New Spring/Summer 2007 Issue that everyone's talking about, plus t-shirts and some free back issues.

Come by, get free ones, and save some dough on your subscription by getting it at a Special Book Fair Rate!
We'll see you there!

NYC LitMag Extravaganza

Come see me on Sunday, June 10, at the Housing Works Lit Mag Fair, snag some cheap-and-chic journals, and support a very worthy cause...

LIT MAG MARATHON WEEKEND


June 9th and 10th
All events are free and open to the public


New York, NY—The magazines may be little, but the weekend is big, big, big! It’s time once again for CLMP’s annual Lit Mag Marathon Weekend, a massive showcase of America’s diverse literary magazines and journals.


EDITORS UNLEASHED!

The Magathon
New York Public Library's DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Room, 5th Ave. at 42nd St.
Saturday, June 9th from 4–6:30 PM

The Magathon kicks off the weekend with a celebratory “marathon” reading. Over a dozen readers—editors representing journals of every size and style, from promising upstarts to the oldest, most established—will present favorite selections from their latest issues.


BARGAINS! BARGAINS! BARGAINS!
8th Annual Literary Magazine Fair at Housing Works
Housing Works Used Book Café, 126 Crosby Street in Soho
Sunday, June 10th from 12–5PM

Lit fiends can take home armfuls of lit mags discounted more than 50% at only $2 a copy! Choose from hundreds of magazines from all over the country and hobnob with many of the editors who’ll be there in person to meet and greet. Proceeds go to Housing Works, a nonprofit organization serving homeless people living with AIDS, and to The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, a nonprofit organization serving independent literary publishers.


The fair was founded in 2000 by editors Jenine Gordon Bockman of Literal Latte and Rebecca Wolff of Fence, and has connected thousands of readers and writers by raising the profile of exceptional literary publishers.


The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) was founded in 1967 to serve independent publishers of exceptional fiction, poetry and prose through technical assistance and advocacy. This program is made possible with support from the NEA, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs -- and is co-sponsored by the Humanities and Social Sciences Library of The New York Public Library, Housing Works Used Book Café, Fence and Literal Latte.

Temporary store problems

Oops! Looks like our web store is experiencing technical difficulties. We should have it fixed promptly, but in the meantime if you're eager to purchase a subscription ($21.95 for a year, $37.95 for two years) or a copy of the new issue ($14.95), email me at editor@ninthletter.com and we'll get you set up pronto.

Utne Reader Shouts Out to 9L

Our latest issue gets a nice blurb in the Utne Reader's weekly "From the Stacks" column.

P.S.

Have you got your new issue yet? Well, what are you waiting for? Go get it!

SWINK is sweet

Swink, a semi-annual high-class literary journal after our own hearts, now has a hot new web site complete with new original web-only content. Features include fiction, poetry, essays, humor, and various other literary sundries. Check it out, and pay special attention to 9L contributor Jo Scott-Coe's essay "Data Will Save Us".

We're in Ann Arbor

We're at the Ann Arbor Book Festival for the weekend. Come by and visit us to pick up the new issue, maybe a stylish t-shirt, or just say hello.
Check back, as always, for more to come!

Woman Reading to the Sea

Barnard College has announced that Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Joyce Carol Oates has selected Lisa Williams and her collection of poems, Woman Reading to the Sea, as the winner of the 2007 Barnard Women Poets Prize. The prize, which is awarded annually to a female poet for her second book of poetry, means Williams' manuscript will be published in the spring of 2008 by W.W. Norton & Co. Lisa Williams' poetry appeared in the Spring 2005 issue of the Ninth Letter.

Of Williams' forthcoming collection, Oates notes that it contains "poems of arresting intelligence, precision and beauty....Lisa Williams takes us into eerily imagined worlds--the interior of a jellyfish and the interior of a glacier. She beguiles us with the most seductive of poetic possibilities."

To read more about Williams and her work, visit here

Calling all writers

Poets, fiction writers, nonfiction writers, everyone in between--if you want to submit work to Ninth Letter, better step to it, because our reading period ends April 30 (postmark date). Check out our guidelines here. Our spring issue will be out in just a couple of weeks, with some fantastic new work by Chris Abani, Brock Clarke, Kim Dana Kupperman, Ben George, Kellie Wells, Thom Ward, and lots more!

2007 Pulitzer Prize winners

The news was nearly lost yesterday amid the coverage of the tragic shootings in Virginia, but the 2007 winners of the Pulitzer Prize were announced. Notable among these were novelist Cormac McCarthy for The Road (he must be over the moon, winning this on top of being selected for Oprah's book club), and Emory University professor Natasha Trethewey for her poetry collection Native Guard. Jazz musician Ornette Coleman won for Sound Grammar, making him only the second jazz artist to win in the prize's history. Special citations were also given to two American legends, author Ray Bradbury and saxophonist John Coltrane.

On a day of sadness, it's good, if bittersweet, to honor those who bring beauty to the world.


(P.S. I just have to note here also that UI's own Richard Powers, beloved teacher and friend, was a Pulitzer finalist this year for his National Book Award-winning novel The Echomaker.)

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt

"I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did'."--Kurt Vonnegut


Yes, they did, Mr. Vonnegut, and so did you. RIP Billy Pilgrim.


1922-2007

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month, and this means it's time to celebrate. But if you're running short of ideas, don't sweat it. The Academy of American Poets, which began NPM in 1996, features on its web site 30 ways you can pay homage to poetry. Some of my top picks are memorizing a poem (who doesn't want a poem stuck in their head? I recommend memorizing while exercising), putting poetry in an unexpected place (for someone else to happen upon and enjoy), and starting a commonplace book, or a notebook in which you copy your favorite poems and quotations. Commonplace books make fantastic keepsakes, as you can look back over them later and recall what you were reading during particular eras of your life.


In addition to the "30 Ways to Celebrate," you can keep up with the most recently published poetry by taking advantage of the Academy’s “Poem-A-Day” and “Spring Books List.” Poem-A-Day offers readers the chance to receive one poem from a new book each day via e-mail during NPM while the Spring Books List details all the latest books of poetry. The list notes anthologies, such as Cave Canem’s just released The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, as well as translated work, including new translations of Baudelaire and Lorca. We see new volumes of work from established poets such as John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Galway Kinnell, Mark Strand, and Charles Wright on the list, as well as many first books and new books from younger voices.

On my personal list of recommendations is Against Which by Ross Gay, Quantum Lyrics: Poems by A.Van Jordan, and Bucolics by Maurice Manning. I would also like to give shout outs to poets with new books whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Ninth Letter: Janice N. Harrington, whose first book Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone was selected from over 900 manuscripts to win BOA’s A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize; and Philip White, whose book The Clearing received the Walt McDonald First Book in Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Texas Tech University Press; Bob Hicok, This Clumsy Living, (U. Pittsburgh); Susah Hahn, The Scarlet Ibis (Northwestern UP); David Kirby The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems (LSU); and James Hoch, Miscreants: Poems (W. W. Norton).



Finally, the Academy web site offers something called “Life Lines,” a section giving readers the opportunity to share their favorite line(s) of poetry. So, in this same spirit, I would like to invite you to post your favorites here on the Ninth Letter site. What better way to celebrate than to fill up the comments section with poetry.

For more information and additional resources for teachers, librarians and booksellers, visit the Academy’s NPM section here.

Huzzah, poetry!

Bring Me the Head of Diogo Alves!

Philip Graham’s wanderings in beautiful Lisbon lead him to discover art in some out-of-the-way (and unsettling) places. Body parts, serial killers, Morlock-esque performance artists, awe-inspiring Victorian-era machinery, and disconcerting photos: watch and listen as PG leads you through some of the more fascinating and macabre corners of Lisbon’s cultural scene.

Can't get enough of living in Lisbon vicariously? Visit McSweeney's Internet Tendency to read PG's regular reports from his year abroad.

That Song "Africa" by Toto: A Meditation and a Memoir

Several years ago, I was driving from my hometown in Kentucky to nearby Lexington. Along for the ride was my old friend Justin, an effeminate little sprite, who, our sophomore year of high school got the cuffs for a failed attempt to steal chapstick from a Wal-Mart Discount Store. He perched in the passenger’s seat and chattered in incessant circles about old boyfriends and people who don’t wear belts (“They should be shot. Belt police. We need belt police on campus”), the book he was reading by Chuck Palahniuk, Brad Pitt’s “Tyler Durden,” Diesel or Seven for all Mankind, a mix tape he made me high school with only part of a Barenaked Ladies song on it (“Only about half that song’s good”) and some woman at the gas station who referred to another woman as “Oriental” (“Rugs are ‘Oriental,’ honey,” he told her. “Not people.”), until, finally, when all of this had been sorted out, we contemplated with sincerity that song “Africa,” by Toto.

This is when I made my faux pas: “Oh,” I said. You mean the one that goes ‘I guess it rains down in Africa,’ right?”

“What?” Justin turned his whole body. “Those are not the words to that song. It’s ‘I bless the rains down in Africa’ not ‘I guess it rains down in Africa,’ dummy.” It was, Justin continued, clearly a guy singing about his lover. Such songs of heartbreak and loss have no time for asides concerning the general state of the weather down in Africa.

“It’s the chorus, for Christ’s sake,” he sighed. Clearly, I was hopeless.

“Maybe he didn’t know what to say, so he decided to ‘talk about the weather,’ right?” My comment did not justify a response. What Justin didn’t understand was that, in my version of the song, which was clearly the more interesting one, it wasn’t about the remark about the weather itself, but rather what it was concealing with its casual facade.

Besides all this, I’m not sure how long I intend to entertain thoughts about a song whose lyrics also include the line “Her moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me toward salvation.” That, I heard, and heard as the sound of two abrasive somethings being scraped together near my ear.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve misheard lyrics. In my world, there is a “Secret Asian Man” and a family of feet about which one declares “Six Feet Home Tonight” rather than “Take Me Home Tonight.”

And then there are the lyrics that you wish you’d misheard but didn’t, i.e. a pained Patrick Swayze really does whisper the troubling simile, “she’s like the wind through my trees.” This is a simile that no one can ever quite work out –what are his “trees?”–but which still manages to sound vaguely unsavory. Unless, of course, we know it’s being sung by a lovelorn apple picker.

I was still hanging around my playpen in ‘83 when “Africa” topped the charts, but, lucky for me, the radio exists so that we might continue to celebrate the accomplishment of such great musical feats as the release of Taco’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “Mr. Roboto” by Styx. “Africa” is, in fact, number 24 on the list of the top 100 songs of ‘83, sandwiched between Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science” and Prince’s “Little Red Corvette.”

I like to imagine that all of the songs on the list refer to the same two people, one male and one female, who are entangled in a passionate and sometimes sordid love affair. That is, I like to think the “she” of “She Blinded Me With Science” is the same “she” who “works hard for the money,” and who is “Sexy + Seventeen.” She goes by the name of “Billie Jean,” but not exclusively. Her many aliases include “Gloria,” “Eileen” (most often uttered in conjunction with the phrase “Come on!”), and, behind her back, folks have been known to whisper “Maneater,” offering the foreboding phrase “Watch out, boy! She’ll chew you up!” to her would-be suitors.

But, as one half of the couple commemorated in such breathtaking duets as Eddie Rabbitt and Crystal Gayle’s “You and I,” and “We’ve Got Tonight” by Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton, she will prevail, and the two of them will stroll on down “Electric Avenue,” kissing and strutting in their Members Only jackets.

Yet what to do with Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney floating out in the ether somewhere, serenading one another with “The Girl is Mine” or Don Henley lamenting the loss of his washing machine whilst breathing only through his mouth in that catchy little number “Dirty Laundry.”

Stranger still is something called “Pass the Dutchie” by Musical Youth, which seems to suggest a group of musically inclined schoolchildren passing around a tiny Dutch man. Interestingly, it goes something like this:


Music happen to be the food of love
Sounds to really make you rub and scrub

I say: Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side
It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance
It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance


Ah, 1983, a time with a particular affection for love, loss, feathered hair and the hightop sneaker.

It was also the year that Boy George opined, “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?”, a query which can be resolved most succinctly by posing a second question: “Do You Really Have To Ask?”

In My Language: Inside the Autistic Mind

The video begins with the sound of otherworldly singing, singing sans words, and the image of a woman poised in front of her apartment window, back to the camera, rocking back and forth, flailing her arms and fluttering her fingers. Next we witness the scraping together of two abrasive objects, plastic or metal things possibly. We watch as the woman’s hand repeatedly strokes some unidentified surface. She shakes a dangling necklace with one hand, hits it with the other, all the while chanting like some possessed shaman. The camera cuts to record the long spiral of an orange slinky from the inside, an aesthetically pleasing shot which recalls the neon tunnel of some amusement park ride. Stroking ridges with her fingernails, fondling the knob of a dresser–these are motions any of us might make in an idle moment, while on the phone or lost in thought. Yet Amanda Baggs is not like the rest of us; she is autistic, and she stopped making eye contact and using verbal communication a long time ago. She interacts with the world in a way most of us would regard as meaningless or non-sensical. For most of us, these moments are anomalies, not a way of life. We watch as she opens a book, not to read but to rub her face against its pages. Palms flat on the cover, she moves her head up and down and presses her nose into the binding, taking obvious pleasure in the texture and smell of the pages.

The second half the video, which was made entirely by Amanda herself, is titled “Translation.” Through the use of a special computer which vocalizes what she types, Amanda shares the following insight with respect to her behavior: “Far from being meaningless, the way that I move is an ongoing response to what is around me." Ironically, others describe this constant dialogue with the external world as being in a world of her own.. She explains that if she limits herself to responding to fewer stimuli, presumably other human beings and spoken language as is customary or “normal,” only then do people feel she is opening herself up to "true interaction with the world." Her thinking is only taken seriously if she learns the language of others. Only then is she said to be communicating, is she thought to be aware, intelligent, a person.

The video occurs to the viewer as something like performance art, a conceptual piece done by some member of the avant-garde. Yet what it offers is a rare glimpse into the austistic mind, and for many, it is simply life. Watch and be moved.

HOTlanta

Ninth Letter will be at the AWP Annual Conference and Bookfair in Atlanta this week, February 28 through March 3, selling and giving away all kinds of cool stuff. Stop by our bookfair table (#286) if you're in the area.

NEA International Literature Awards

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded three $10,000 grants to literary presses for the support of literary works in translations. The honored presses are Archipelago Books, Etruscan Press, and the newly-Champaign-based Dalkey Archive Press.

Quoth NEA Chair Dana Gioia: "Translation provides Americans with as direct a connection as possible to both the individual voice of the author and the heart of a culture." Ninth Letter agrees. Good on the NEA for supporting these fine presses in their efforts to promote international literature to American audiences.

Who is Barack Obama?

By now most of us voters have acquainted ourselves with one Barack Obama. In addition to being a prominent U.S. Senator, Obama recently confirmed what has long been suspected: he will seek the 2008 Democratic nomination for president. What’s more, if elected, Obama would become the first African-American president.



But who is Barack Obama, and what’s with the funny name?

The child of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961 and lived part of his childhood in Indonesia. He attended Columbia and Harvard universities, serving as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He went on to practice civil rights law in Illinois and to teach at the University of Chicago Law School.

Elected to the Illinois state senate in 1996, he served four years before campaigning unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives. After being reelected to the state senate in 2002, Obama participated in a television interview in which he criticized a possible war in Iraq and noted that he would have voted against the Iraq Resolution. Two years later, Obama ran for an open seat in the U.S. Senate, winning by a landslide vote of 70% in November of 2004. His visibility during the campaign was assisted by the keynote address he delivered at the Democratic National Convention. He has since garnered further national attention with the publication of two best-selling books, “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity Hope.”

Ever-ambitious, Obama has talked relentlessly about hope and the possibility of change. Since announcing his decision to seek the Democratic nomination for president, he has expressed his desire to “take our country back and change the fundamental nature of our politics.” If elected, Obama has pledged to address difficulties such as poor schools, economic instability, oil dependence, and to seek universal health care for Americans.

And there’s the war. While Obama was not yet elected to the Senate when Congress granted President Bush the power to go to war, he delivered a speech in 2002 in which he noted that Saddam Hussein was in fact not an immediate threat and that any invasion would result in an occupation plagued by unforeseeable costs and ramifications. He has since proposed a bill that would prevent Bush from increasing troop levels in Iraq and would bring U.S. forces home by March 31, 2008. Of course, such legislation will never become law while Bush is president.

Yet it is perhaps Obama’s ambition, more than anything, that has caused many to identify him as Senator Hillary Clinton’s chief rival. Clinton makes one tough adversary; in addition to the name-recognition factor, Clinton, who has been campaigning for years, begins with $11 million at her disposal and is attempting to raise $75 by 2008. Conversely, Obama is asking the Federal Election Committee to consider letting him take money from donors now and give it back later in order to keep his options open in terms of using the public financing system to support his campaign if he becomes the Democratic nominee.

However, one area where Obama may come out ahead of Clinton is the war. Clinton has not recanted her 2002 vote with which she authorized the invasion of Iraq, much to the skepticism of potential supporters. However, if she does recant her vote, she will likely be charged with indecisiveness, meaning she is generally between a rock and a hard place. She has likewise never proposed a specific plan for removing troops from Iraq.

Obama, commenting upon this, said “I know she’s stated that she thinks the war should end by the start of the next president’s first term. Beyond that, though, how she wants to accomplish that I’m not clear on.”

While only time will tell who has the right stuff to win the Democratic nomination, the possibility of the first African-American president and the first female president is certain to make for an exciting and potentially inspiring race.

Who said there's no money in it?

Illinois resident Rodney Jones was named winner of the 2007 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his collection Salvation Blues (Houghton Mifflin). The Tufts Award is given annually to a mid-career poet and comes with a $100,000 prize, one of the largest monetary awards available to U.S. poets.

Jones, who is a professor of English at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, is an Alabama native who was also a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for his collection Elegy for the Southern Drawl (Houghton Mifflin). The author of six other books, Jones has been the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and a National Book Critics Circle Award, among other honors.

We love our Carbondale neighbors and colleagues. Congratulations, Professor Jones.

Stranger Than Fiction: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith

Anna Nicole. The name, like Marilyn or Madonna, is recognizable sans surname. Yet despite Anna Nicole’s seemingly iconic status, in the aftermath of her untimely passing, there are far more questions than answers. Ultimately, one wonders who was “Anna Nicole,” the person behind the constant facade and strange persona, presumably offered up for the benefit of the ever-present camera?

She was born Vickie Lynn Hogan on November 28, 1967 in Houston, Texas. Her mother, Virgie Mae Tabers, married her father, Donald Eugene Hogan, February 22, 1967; she was 15, he was 19. Her father then drifted off, leaving young Vickie Lynn to be raised by her mother and maternal aunt, Elaine. Virgie Mae would marry four more times between 1971 and 2000, setting an unfortunate precedent for her daughter.

The parallels between Vickie Lynn’s early life and her mother’s are apparent. Vickie was just 15 when she dropped out of her sophomore year at Mexia High School and got a job as a waitress at Jim’s Krispy Fried Chicken in Mexia, Texas. There she met Billy Wayne Smith, the restaurant’s cook and her future husband. They were married April 4, 1985, when she was 17 and he was 16. Their son, Daniel Wayne Smith, was born the following year.



One imagines their Chicken House Romance as the stuff of a forgotten Lifetime movie, or Tarantino-like strange at best, she casting enticing glances over the fryer and he grinning sheepishly. “He was sweet and he was so cute back there, cookin’ chicken,” she remarked in a 1993 interview for People magazine. A promising start, to be sure; but, like her parent’s tenuous union, the marriage wouldn’t last. The couple separated in 1987 and, just as Vickie Lynn’s own father had done, Billy Wayne disappeared, leaving Daniel fatherless. Determined to support her son, Vickie Lynn moved to Houston where she found work as a Wal-Mart check out girl and as a Red Lobster waitress before finally settling on a career as a stripper.

Yet even Vickie Lynn’s life pre-Anna Nicole is not without controversy, as her mother has implied that the facts may have been exaggerated and romanticized by Vickie in an effort to receive greater publicity. Virgie maintains that Vickie actually spent most of her young life in Houston, where she was born, rather than the much smaller town of Mexia, and that they were not “dirt poor” but rather middle-class.

Despite such discrepancies, it is clear that Vickie Lynn’s desire to provide for her son was not only very real but life-changing as well; her decision to become a stripper marked the beginning of her transformation to “Anna Nicole.” Taking off her clothes meant she would use her voluptuous body, all 5'11" 155 pounds of it, and striking features to get her where she wanted to go. Thus began her love affair with the camera and with one J. Howard Marshall, an elderly Texas oil tycoon and billionaire.

Marshall, born in 1905, graduated from Yale Law School where he later took a job as assistant professor. He worked briefly for the government during WWII before finally entering into the oil business. Although Marshall was business savvy, he was somewhat less cautious in his romantic endeavors. Married twice (his second wife died in 1991), Marshall carried on a decade-long affair with an eccentric Houston socialite, Jewell Diane “Lady” Walker, a woman best known for her gold nails (painted with real gold) and her stock of Rolls-Royces, with which she coordinated her attire. “Lady” died in 1992 at the age of 48, and Marshall began the process of trying to retrieve the nearly 6 million dollars worth of assets he had given to her as gifts over the years after learning she had been with other men during their courtship.

It was in 1991, shortly before his previous mistress died, that Marshall met Vickie Lynn in a Houston strip club and began a relationship. They would marry in June of 1994, amid much controversy. In the meantime, however, she sent pictures of herself to Playboy in response to a search launched by the magazine and was subsequently chosen by Hugh Hefner to grace the March 1992 cover (under the name Vickie Smith). A centerfold followed in May, and in 1993 she was named “Playmate of the Year,” at which time she finally became “Anna Nicole.”



Anna’s photos in Playboy garnered the attention of Guess? jeans advertisement executives who hired her to replace Claudia Schiffer in their ad campaign. The ads were black-and-white throwbacks to old Hollywood glamour and highlighted Anna Nicole’s resemblance to sex symbol Jane Mansfield. In short, they were absolutely stunning.



Smith herself commented at the time, “"I didn't know what Guess jeans were. I just shopped at Wal-Mart and Kmart and stuff like that."

But following this perhaps long-deserved run of good luck, Anna found herself embroiled in a 5 million dollar lawsuit against New York magazine in October of 1994. According to Smith, the magazine told her she was being photographed to represent an all-American-woman look. However, what they ultimately used was a photo which Smith claimed was taken for fun during a break from the actual shoot. The image ran as the cover and featured Smith in an unflattering pose, squatting in a short skirt and gnoshing on Cheez Doodles, under the headline “WHITE TRASH NATION.”

On the heels of this came the death of her second husband, J.Howard Marshall in August of 1995, and thus began her lengthy battle with Marshall’s son over his estate. To put it bluntly, he claimed she was a gold digger and deserved nothing, while Smith maintained that she loved her husband and that he had promised to look after her. Naturally, from the outside, it is hard to imagine what Anna saw in a man 62 years her senior, if not his billions. Yet Anna never wavered from her declaration of true love; it seemed she had convinced herself, if no one else, that she really did love Marshall. When he died, she celebrated his life with a memorial service that can only be described as a three ring circus. People magazine reported the following at the time:

“To begin with, the widow wore white – a dress with a plunging back and a neckline that plunged further. She also wore the white veil from her wedding. Her son, Daniel, 9 – from a brief teenage marriage to Billy Smith, a coworker at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken – wore a white tuxedo and matching patent-leather shoes and carried a small black dog. J. Howard Marshall II lay in a burnished wooden casket draped in white roses and lilies, and adorned with a gold – glitter banner reading "From Your Lady Love." Nearby decorations included two white teddy bears and a framed picture with a label identifying it as Mr. and Mrs. J. Howard Marshall II. As harp music played, some 30 mourners gathered. Conspicuously absent was anyone who appeared to have known Marshall during his first 89 years of life. “

A staffer further commented of Anna’s wishes that the service might have been even stranger:

“She wanted to take the coffin out to her ranch and set him up on the patio deck. I had to talk her out of it – I could just see him sliding into the swimming pool."

The year before her second husband died, Anna appeared in such well known films as The Hudsucker Proxy and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, but her film career nevertheless failed. In 2002 she launched her own reality television series, The Anna Nicole Show, which was received poorly by critics but achieved a cult following among fans. But the show did nothing to reveal the person who was Anna Nicole (or was she Vickie Lynn?) in her private life, when the camera wasn’t rolling, because the camera was always rolling, and Anna was always acting, seeking attention for her often bizarre antics.

One imagines that if there is anyone who might have known Vickie/Anna (perhaps even better than she knew herself), it was her son, Daniel. He was, by all accounts, the love of her life and the person to whom she was closest. Known to be fiercely protective of his mother, Daniel Smith was perhaps the only individual who wasn’t with Anna Nicole because he wanted her money, and was thus the only person she felt she could trust.



Those who knew her best feel Anna Nicole never recovered from her son’s death, which itself is surrounded by nearly as much controversy as her own. Daniel was not known to have a problem with drugs. But why, then, was he taking two antidepressants in combination with methadone, a drug commonly used to ween heroin addicts? This is not a cocktail any doctor would in good conscience prescribe.

Furthermore, why did Anna Nicole commit herself to her lawyer and longtime friend Howard K. Stern in a ceremony just days after her son’s death? The relationship came as a surprise to many and has likewise produced suspicion that Stern took advantage of Smith during a time in which she was incredibly vulnerable. Some of these allegations stem from Smith’s family, from whom it should be noted she was estranged, and in particular from her mother, a woman Stern claims Anna “despised.” Anna herself claimed that she pursued Stern and that he was “the shy one.” Nevertheless, it seems Virgie Arthur made an eerie prediction regarding her daughter’s death. In an interview that took place immediately following Daniel’s death, Arthur told CNN’s Nancy Grace:

"There was only three people in that [hospital] room. ... Now if Howard Stern marries [Anna] and she ends up dead, then who does the money go [to]?"

On the other hand, the commitment ceremony that Smith and Stern held last September 28th is reportedly non-binding. This means that, barring any other arrangements that may have been made in a will (if said will even exists), Stern will not receive any inheritance, making Anna’s daughter her sole heir. Yet little Danielynn is currently in the care of Stern and his family and is at the center of a paternity dispute involving Smith’s former boyfriend, photographer Larry Birkhead, as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, who now claims to have had a 10 year affair with Smith. Smith’s mother has reportedly joined forces with Birkhead, allegedly fearing for the safety of the child as long as she remains with Stern. However, despite the suspicion and “conspiracy theories,” the fact remains that foul play is not suspected in the death of Anna Nicole or her son.

What is clear here is that the death of Daniel changed Anna Nicole, and the pictures taken during her commitment ceremony illustrate her transformation. Ever-conscious of the camera, Anna Nicole rarely turned her gaze from the lens. Yet on her wedding day, she never faces the camera. Excessively tan rather than trademark porcelain, she hides behind giant false lashes and heavy makeup, looking further and further from herself.

Whether or not one loved Anna Nicole in life doesn’t seem to matter much now; I’m not sure I thought of her at all, yet I find myself haunted by the pictures that resonate with something I can’t quite place, like a word I’ve never heard, a name none of us ever knew.



R.I.P. Anna Nicole Smith, November 28, 1967 - February 8, 2007

Branded and On Display

As I began a recent article posted to the UIUC web site, entitled “Multi-artist exhibition explores culture of consumption,” I was greeted with a bland statement of the obvious—one such as I often encounter when sifting through the endless stacks of essays penned by freshmen rhetoric students. Offering the brand of enlightenment typical of Fox News, the author proclaims:


“It’s no wonder Americans are heavily invested in a culture of consumption. As targets of ubiquitous corporate branding campaigns and marketing mania, we are bombarded 24/7 on all fronts – through every conceivable form of mass media and product packaging, at sporting and entertainment venues, and even lobbied by the apparel of friends and family.”


Hesitant, I nevertheless read on, expecting to be informed that it is also no wonder American children who spend hours in front of the television are growing fatter, lazier, and more ill-read by the day.


While the article itself leaves something to be desired, one hypothesizes that the exhibit it describes aims not to simply tell us what we already know, but to show us what we might otherwise miss. The beauty of art, in the words of novelist David Lodge, is that it is able “to overcome the deadening effects of habit by representing familiar things in unfamiliar ways.”


“Branded and on Display,” an exhibit at the U of I's Krannert Art Museum that might be termed a socio-economic commentary regarding our “culture of consumption,” features the work of UIUC’s own School of Art and Design faculty members Conrad Bakker and Laurie Hogin, along with the work of some 20 other artists from around the globe. The progressive showcase encompasses various forms of media, including photography, painting, sculpture, but also video, sound and installation.


“Branded” will remain on display through April 1st and “Commerce and Consumption” through May 13th. For more information, visit

http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/07/0116branded.html


If you need a little impetus to make the trip, consider this quote from Victor Shklovsky, who himself coined the term "defamiliarization:" "Habitualization devours work, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war...And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life."





From the exhibit, Hank Willis Thomas’ “Branded Head,” a digital C-print mounted to Plexiglas.

The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky

The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky: The Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, edited by Robert Dale Parker (Univ. of Penn. Press), is now available for purchase. A milestone in American Indian literary history, this volume presents for the first time a complete collection of writings by Jane Johnston Schoolcraft or Bamewawagezhikaquay (her Ojibwe name, which means Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky). Schoolcraft, an author of stories and poems in English as well as a translator of traditional Ojibwe songs and texts, is one of the earliest known Native American literary writers. Samples of her poetry can be found in the current issue of 9L, thanks to Professor Parker and the University of Pennsylvania Press, and this new collection is a must-read for anyone interested in American literature and American Indian studies.

Philip Graham Reports: International Short Story Conference in Lisbon

Author and erstwhile 9L fiction editor Philip Graham reported to us this summer from the 2006 International Conference on the Short Story in English, which was held in the beautiful city of Lisbon, Portugal. Many stellar writers from across the globe participated in this year’s conference, including Portuguese author Gonçalo Tavares and Irish author William Wall, both of whom have new work featured in the latest issue of 9L. Former 9L contributors Katherine Vaz and Robert Olen Butler were also among those who shared their talents. Thanks to Philip and to video producer Nathaniel Gottlieb-Graham, we can get a taste of this amazing literary event…

(PS: You can also read Philip's dispatches from Lisbon at McSweeney's Internet Tendency)

Tee-riffic Art Apparel

Among the plethora of internet-based companies providing unique apparel, Threadless (www.threadless.com) and Waffo (www.waffo.com) are two outfits worth looking into, particularly if one is in quest of the ever-elusive perfect t-shirt, a certain staple in any wardrobe.

Threadless screen prints its shirts primarily on American Apparel tees. In fact, although I have not researched the matter extensively, one could easily hypothesize that the Los Angeles-based American Apparel, a company that prides itself on being sweatshop-free, and on providing superb benefits and excellent working conditions for its employees (the web site notes that the company pays "the highest wages in the garment industry"), is seemingly the primary provider of tees for internet-based screen printing companies, particularly those of the more artistic variety ( you can read the American Apparel mission statement here: http://www.americanapparel.net/mission/).

In addition to the American Apparel web site, storefronts are now in place in more than 25 states. But the best part is, while a bit pricier than non-American tees, the shirts and other items are, in my experience, well-made and able to withstand significant washing and wearing (never mind the fact that buying American Apparel means you can feel good about supporting a fair-minded and ethical company). Among my personal favorites are the basic tees and, for women, the cotton spandex jersey bandeau dress (which can be worn in a variety of ways and also doubles as a skirt), and the totally adorable boy brief, which comes in an assortment of fabrics and colors.



However, be warned that despite the site’s models, which are both exotic and "real" in the sense that their bodies are average in size, the clothing itself caters to the fit and trim. This means that you will likely need to order items at least one size larger than you normally would.

Much of the merchandise offered by American Apparel, particularly the t-shirts, screen prints beautifully, which is why companies like Threadless have found such success with the tees. For those unfamiliar with Threadless, a large part of the appeal is the ability for anyone to submit an original t-shirt design to the site. Registered users can then vote for their favorite entries, with the winning designs then manufactured by and available for purchase through Threadless. Most of the designs are eventually retired, although the more popular the tee, the greater the likelihood that it will stay in print. The shirts are first and foremost aesthetically pleasing, but additionally, many convey some sort of message through the illustration, whether it be a light and clever pun or a political or environmental commentary.



While Waffo offers far fewer designs than Threadless, with the designs themselves stemming from Waffo employees rather than customers, the t-shirts, while not American Apparel, are unbelievably soft and comfy. The designs themselves range from playful skeleton and tuxedo-printed tees to a black tee emblazoned with a large white "8 ½," an obvious nod to Fellini’s classic film of the same name.



I myself am the proud owner of the now discontinued "Fuck Heineken Drink Pabst Blue Ribbon" tee. The best part of the web site itself is the "arcade" section, which offers browsers the opportunity to play such classic video games as "Space Invaders," "Donkey Kong," and "PAC-MAN" on-site, with no downloads.

Check out www.threadless.com and www.waffo.com for killer tees and more information, such as select storefront locations.

So, we’ve all heard of alcohol poisoning, but..."water poisoning?"

According to Wikipedia, "water poisoning," also referred to as water intoxication or hyperhydration, entails "a potentially fatal disturbance in brain function that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is pushed outside of safe limits by a very rapid intake of water."

Ideally, excess moisture leaves the body in significant amounts when we sweat or urinate, or more gradually as we exhale carbon dioxide and small amounts of moisture into the atmosphere. Yet when water is consumed more quickly than it can be removed, a potentially fatal electrolyte imbalance within the body’s fluids results. This imbalance is due primarily to the dilution of sodium compounds (a particular kind of electrolyte), which must be kept within a very small window of concentration.

Hyponatremia, the most common cause of water intoxication, results when this overdilution of sodium occurs within the blood plasma, causing an osmotic-type reaction in which the water outside of the cell filters into the cell. The cell will then swell and likely shut down. When hyponatremia occurs within the cells of the central nervous system and brain, it causes water intoxication. Thus, it would seem that water poisoning is every bit as possible as alcohol poisoning; but does it ever actually happen?

As unlikely as it sounds, less than one week ago, CNN reported that twenty-eight year old Jennifer Strange of Sacramento, California was found dead after participating in KDND radio station’s "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest. The contestants, competing for a Nintendo Wii, were to drink vast quantities of water without urinating. The contestants were reportedly told not to continue if they felt their health to be at risk.

This truly bizarre occurrence comes on the heels of another death by water intoxication that took place in February of 2005 at California State University in Chico. As part of a Chi Tau fraternity hazing, twenty-one year old Matthew Carrington was to drink large amounts of water while completing various physical tasks when he collapsed and died due to water intoxication.

But, before all of us hypochondriacs go freaking out and boycotting Evian, let us note that while dehydration is fairly common, hyperhydration is incredibly rare; hydration, then, is more important than fretting over hyperhydration.

Water intoxication occurs more frequently in infants, presumably because of their relatively small stature, and in those who both sweat excessively and consume large amounts of water, such as long-distance runners or workers functioning in extreme heat and humidity. Obviously, to avoid water intoxication, you want to keep your body’s intake of electrolytes and water at pace with your losses. Avoiding inane contests, or any contest, really, that contains the phrase "Hold Your Wee," is advised.