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Lisa’s Story
The Other Shoe
by Tom Batiuk
Published by The Kent State University Press

Tom Batiuk spent several years as a middle school art teacher before creating the comic strip Funky Winkerbean in 1972. Originally a “gag-a-day” comic strip that portrayed life in high school, Funky has evolved into a mature series of real-life stories examining such social issues as teen dating abuse, teen pregnancy, teen suicide, violence in schools, the war in the Middle East, alcoholism, divorce, and cancer.

In 1999, Lisa Moore, one of Funky’s friends and a main character, discovered she had breast cancer. Batiuk, unsure about dealing with such a serious subject on the funny pages, decided to go ahead with the story line. He approached the topic with the idea that mixing humor with serious and real themes heightens the reader’s interest. Lisa and husband Les faced the same physical, psychological, and social issues as anyone else dealing with the disease.

After a mastectomy and chemotherapy, Lisa was cancer free. She finished her law degree, opened a practice, and had a baby daughter, Summer. Then, in the spring of 2006, the cancer returned and metastasized. Lisa’s Story: The Other Shoe is a collection of both the 1999 comic strips on Lisa’s initial battle with cancer and the current series examining her struggle with the disease and its outcome. Additionally, it contains resource material on breast cancer, including early detection, information sources, support systems, and health care.

Tom Batiuk is a graduate of Kent State University. His Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft comic strips are carried in over 700 newspapers throughout the U.S. In 2006, he was honored by the American Cancer Society and presented its Cancer Care Hall of Fame Award for his sympathetic work in highlighting the experiences of those with cancer.

Portions from the sale of this book will go towards cancer research and education. Visit Lisa’s Legacy Fund to learn more or to make a direct donation.

My Mother Wears Combat Boots
A Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us
AK Press
November 2007

“Jessica Mills is a touring musician, artist, activist, writer, teacher, and mother of two. Disappointed by run-of-the-mill parenting books that didn’t speak to her experience, she set out to write a book tackling the issues faced by a new generation of moms and dads. The result is a parenting guide like no other. Written with humor, extensive research, and much trial and error, My Mother Wears Combat Boots delivers sound advice for parents of all stripes. Amid stories of bringing kids (and grandparents) to women’s rights demonstrations, taking baby on tour with her band, and organizing cooperative childcare, Jessica gives detailed nuts-and-bolts information about weaning, cloth vs. disposable diapers, the psychological effects of co-sleeping, and even how to get free infant gear. This book provides a clever, hip, and entertaining mix of advice, anecdotes, political analysis, and factual sidebars that will help parents as they navigate the first years of their child’s life.”

NewPages has been experiencing some technical difficulties with the site this weekend. (And though that looks like the computer is hungover, it’s not, and neither are we, really – it’s a TECH problem…) If you’ve have any trouble accessing the site, it should now be taken care of. Please post to the blog if you experience any difficulties accessing the site so we can take care of it pronto. Thank you!

“Namarupa, Categories of Indian Thought, is a new journal that conveys the vast scope of sacred philosophical thought that has emanated from the land and people of India over many millennia.” Issue Number 7 (November 2007) of Namarupa features The Beatles on the cover and the article “The Beatles in India” by Paul Saltzman.

As if the idea of owning and operating an independent bookstore hadn’t been de-romanticized enough, enter Paul Constant’s “Flying Off the Shelves: The Pleasures and Perils of Chasing Book Thieves” published in Seattle’s The Stranger. Yet, for all the possible laments, Constant expresses pleasure in his literary taunting of literate unlikelies who come in with the “top five” fencable books to check his inventory. And given the comment on the masturbating chain-store security guard, staying independent and investing in a good pair of running shoes seems the better alternative. Maybe independent isn’t so unromantic after all.

“A group of international movie-goers announced today that they are backing filmmaker Jessica Mae Stover’s fundraising project around her original motion picture, Artemis Eternal, and are inviting other film fans to do the same. On the official site for the project, visitors can explore an interactive map of the movie’s development, track progress and impact production by contributing funds directly. By relying on contributors to promote the website, reach out to local press and even create press releases [such as this one], Stover has cut out the middleman, and allied with the audience to break ground on a new formula for film finance, production and exhibition.”

Check out the interactive press release, which includes a YouTube video interview. Stover makes some great comments on the need for independent ventures and the essential nature of marketing, as well as offers a detailed discussion of filmmaking.

Feminist Studies
Volume 33 Number 2

From the preface:

“Is there such a thing as feminism in the mass media? What does it look like? These are some of the questions explored in this volume. Covering texts as diverse as Hollywood movies, Taiwanese women’s magazines, the HBO series The Sopranos, and science fiction, the writers represented here all argue that in some complex way mainstream films and bestselling publications are developing their own feminist language, whose alphabet we still need to learn. Does the gendered violence in The Sopranos simply reproduce misogynist prejudice, or does it challenge it? Does the emphasis on beauty and fashion in the coverage of feminism in women’s magazines in Taiwan challenge Western Second Wave ideals of what feminism should be? Is the Borg Queen in the Star Trek movie First Contact really a feminist role model? Are the beauty parlors in films like Desperately Seeking Susan and Legally Blonde represented as oppressive or liberating for women? Twenty-first century mass media offer possibilities for the creation of feminist spaces and the discovery of feminist voices that often constrain as much as they liberate.”

A note from Andrei Codrescu, Editor of Exquisite Corpse:

Did you miss us? We missed you. It’s only been a brief eon but the idiots have taken over the world, and the internet is seducing us all into trading in our brains for beads. Welcome back to the Post-Katrina Resurrection Corpse, back from a dank hiatus of one year in a formaledehyde-poisoned FEMA trailer. We festered, we raged, we contemplated suicide, and in the end, voted for life because we are a Corpse already and we hate to keep on dying, just like the ideals of the Republic.

Our guest-editor for this issue is the formidable poet, publisher, New Orleanian, and homme-du-monde-et-de-lettres, Bill Lavender. Bill has ploughed through the accumulated debris in our trailer, turning over towers of submissions and lovingly removing mold and giving new lustre to tarnished but potent weapons of poesy, crit, and story-time. We will continue to exalt, irritate, surprise, be loving, merciless, and obscene, just like you.

Our Bulgarian genius, Plamen Arnaudov, has updated our technology so that the Corpse may flow continually, with updates posted as quickly as the zeitgeist requires.

We also welcome Vincent Cellucci, poet and chef to Our Gang, so that we might eat well while we tryst and plunder.

Readers, please come back, visit, and, most importantly, re-register to join our raiding parties, and ride with the Resurrected Corpse. You don’t need to bring your own horse to the raiding parties because we are planning (secretly) to offer ship cruises to our subscribers (it costs nothing to subscribe).

The Corpse is back.

Electronic Literature
New Horizons for the Literary
N. Katherine Hayles
Notre Dame Press
March 2008

“Hayles’s book is designed to help electronic literature move into the classroom. Her systematic survey of the field addresses its major genres, the challenges it poses to traditional literary theory, and the complex and compelling issues at stake. She develops a theoretical framework for understanding how electronic literature both draws on the print tradition and requires new reading and interpretive strategies. Grounding her approach in the evolutionary dynamic between humans and technology, Hayles argues that neither the body nor the machine should be given absolute theoretical priority. Rather, she focuses on the interconnections between embodied writers and users and the intelligent machines that perform electronic texts.

“Through close readings of important works, Hayles demonstrates that a new mode of narration is emerging that differs significantly from previous models. Key to her argument is the observation that almost all contemporary literature has its genesis as electronic files, so that print becomes a specific mode for electronic text rather than an entirely different medium. Hayles illustrates the implications of this condition with three contemporary novels that bear the mark of the digital.

“Included with the book is a CD, The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1, containing sixty new and recent works of electronic literature with keyword index, authors’ notes, and editorial headnotes. Representing multiple modalities of electronic writing—hypertext fiction, kinetic poetry, generative and combinatory forms, network writing, codework, 3D, narrative animations, installation pieces, and Flash poetry—the ELC 1 encompasses comparatively low-tech work alongside heavily coded pieces. Complementing the text and the CD-ROM is a website offering resources for teachers and students, including sample syllabi, original essays, author biographies, and useful links. Together, the three elements provide an exceptional pedagogical opportunity.

“N. Katherine Hayles is John Charles Hillis Professor of Literature and Distinguished Professor in the departments of English and Design/Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles.”

Apple Valley Review
Volume 3, Number 1 (Spring 2008)

The Apple Valley Review is an online literary journal. It is published twice annually, once in spring and once in fall. Each issue features a collection of poetry, short fiction, and essays.

This issue features fiction by Kathy Anderson and John Lowry; poetry by Pat Daneman, Anna Evans, Lucia Zimmitti, Laurie Junkins, Brian R. Lutz, Lyn Lifshin, David N. DeVries, Elizabeth Barbato, Lori Huskey, George Moore, Tammy Ho Lai-ming, Julie L. Moore, and Mark Thalman; and cover art by Cynthia Tom.

News from the Editor: Apple Valley congratulates writers whose work previously appeared in AV: Kerri Quinn’s short story,“How to Leave,” was selected by fiction judge Merrill Feitell for Best of the Net 2007. Quinn’s story was one of only six selected for this annual compilation. “Pageant Queen,” an essay by J. W. Young, and “Island Fever,”a poem by Edward Byrne, were selected by series editor Nathan Leslie and guest editor Steve Almond for Best of the Web 2008. This print anthology, forthcoming from Dzanc Books, has an anticipated release date of July 2008.

We will accept submissions for our Fall 2008 issue until August 17, 2008. For more information, please review our submission guidelines.

Authors with Tattoos
Excerpted from AbeBooks

Authors just don’t spring to mind as the most likely people to have tattoos. But authors are showing their tattoos in publicity shots, they are arriving at award ceremonies with tattoos clearly visible, and they are loud and proud about the words and images that adorn their bodies.

Get that stereotyped picture of tattooed sailors and truck drivers out of your head. Tattoos are mainstream and have been for several decades now, plus the literary world actually has a long tradition of wearing tattoos and also writing about them.

Herman Melville wrote with humour about South Pacific tattooists and the tattooed in his 1846 novel Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life and George Orwell, who rarely conformed with the British establishment, had blue spots tattooed on to his knuckles. In 1951, Ray Bradbury published a book of short stories called The Illustrated Man – all the stories were linked together by a tattooed vagrant. Each one of the character’s tattoos had a story to tell. America poet and writer Dorothy Parker had a star on her elbow. Sylvia Plath wrote about The Fifteen Dollar Eagle, while Franz Kafka wrote about a nightmarish tattoo machine in his short story In The Penal Colony. The list goes on.

In fact, the book Dorothy Parker’s Elbow – edited by the tattooed duo of Kim Addonizio and Cheryl Dumesnil – reveals how writers have addressed the issues surrounding the needle and the ink including the actual process, the tattooists and their work, the reaction of friends and family to the artwork, mirrors, meanings, and even the tattoos forced upon prisoners in German concentration camps…[read the rest at AbeBooks.com]

“The Key West Literary Seminar has been drawing lovers of literature to our small island in the subtropics for more than a quarter of a century. Each January an audience of passionate readers gathers together under the tropical sun for three and a half days of conversations, readings, panel discussion, lectures,and festive Key West parties where it is possible to mingle with the world’s most illustrious writers.

“In 2009 we will explore HISTORICAL FICTION and The Search for Truth. Speakers will include Andrea Barrett, Geraldine Brooks, E.L. Doctorow, Allan Gurganus, Thomas Mallon, Barry Unsworth and Gore Vidal among others. This is sure to be one of our more popular events, and we highly recommend early registration.”

30 Years of J. Hoberman
Brooklyn Academy of Music
March 10 – April 3

BAM: “J. Hoberman is one of the greatest film critics to emerge from his generation—his writing is adventurous, erudite, and provocative, while simultaneously expressing a boundless pleasure in the art of cinema. To celebrate his 30th year as film critic for The Village Voice, we’ve asked Hoberman to select films that have sparked some of his most stimulating reviews and articles, as well as a few personal favorites. All text excerpted from reviews by J. Hoberman.”

The site includes a PDF of J. Hoberman’s reviews and articles for each of the films featured in this series. A MUST for avante garde film fans.

John Del Signore interviewed Hoberman for the Gothimist (March 5). Here’s an excerpt:

JS: Besides Manhattan, can you cite some films you reviewed that you feel differently about now?

JH: There are some films I like less, certainly. I liked Diva when it came out but I don’t think that held up as well. There are some movies I possibly appreciate more now than when I first saw them and Eraserhead would be one of those. I liked it but I didn’t realize how good it was when I saw it. I think there were filmmakers I was initially cool to; Abbas Kiarostami would be an example. It took me a while to appreciate what he and others were doing.

Unmarketable
Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity
The New Press

“For years the do-it-yourself (DIY)/punk underground has worked against the logic of mass production and creative uniformity, disseminating radical ideas and directly making and trading goods and services. But what happens when the underground becomes just another market? What happens when the very tools that the artists and activists have used to build word of mouth are coopted by corporate America? What happens to cultural resistance when it becomes just another marketing platform?

“Unmarketable examines the corrosive effects of corporate infiltration of the underground. Activist and author Anne Elizabeth Moore takes a critical look at the savvy advertising agencies, corporate marketing teams, and branding experts who use DIY techniques to reach a youth market—and at members of the underground who have helped forward corporate agendas through their own artistic, and occasionally activist, projects.

“Covering everything from Adbusters to Tylenol’s indie-star-studded Ouch! campaign, Unmarketable is a lively, funny, and much-needed look at what’s happening to the underground and what it means for activism, commerce, and integrity in a world dominated by corporations.”

Read the eXpress Milwaukee for a review and commentary by Michael Carriere.