Editors Meeting

The editors meet this week to decide on the poetry and fiction to be included in the 3rd anniversary edition of Perigee. They will also be introducing the readers to Franz. (You'll have to wait to find out more.)

With several inches of submissions to go through, each of the editors is busy reading and considering their favorites. We thank those of you who have submitted work. You will hear from us within two weeks with a decision.

Myers and Graham Reading

The Community and World Literary Series will feature former Perigee contributor Sherre Myers, and K. Lorraine Graham. If you are in the San Marcos area (San Diego County), we recommend attending.

Thursday, April 6 at 7pm in CSUSM's Grand Salon at M. Gordon Clarke Field House. (Campus Maps and Directions)

The Rejected Quarterly

So much blog space has been given lately to rejections that we couldn't help but bring this unique publication to your attention. That's right, it's called The Rejected Quarterly and all the work published has previously been rejected. Rejected at least five times, in fact. The journal is published by Black Plankton Press and put out three times a year.

The publication itself is clearly low-budget, with simple layouts and even the occassionally hokie design element. But the writing (and isn't that what matters in the end?) is worth reading. This unusual journal is certainly worth checking out, if only to laugh or groan over the grammatical and spelling errors in the "Rejections Selections" at the back: "Your story is simply to long for me to consider."

Duff Brenna Reading

An excellent writer and friend of Perigee, Duff Brenna, will be giving a reading this week at Southwestern College, in Chula Vista (San Diego County). If you are in the area we recommend attending. The reading will be hosted by Pushcart poet Steve Kowit.

Southwestern College, Thursday March 23rd, 7:00pm, room L 238

An Open Letter to Howard Junker

One of the journals to which I regularly submit my fiction is the West Coast oriented Zyzzyva, run by the dedicated and hard working Howard Junker. He has been considering my submissions (and rejecting them, I'll add) since October of 1998. Over just the past 10 months I have sent Zyzzyva seven of my most sweated upon short stories.

Each of my submissions has received the exact same rejection letter, pseudo hand written "Onward!" and all (see images). Just a few moments ago, before sitting down to write this blog entry, I received another identical rejection. While I am ever grateful for the time it takes to consider my work—and the opportunity to submit it—frankly, Mr. Junker, I think it is about time you drafted a new rejection letter.

And while I'm at it, you can stop including the "subscribe to Zyzzyva" insert; save the penny, I'm already a subscriber!

Now I know it is nothing extraordinary to send work to an editor for eight years. Plenty of writers are equally patient. My point here is that the exact same rejection letter, word for word, has been photo-copied and sent to countless potential contributors since the late 20th century. As an editor myself I understand the mechanics of responding to hundreds or thousands of unsolicited submissions. But come on, Howard, throw us a bone.

After all, some of us have been doing this for quite some time now.

R J Woerheide
Editor in Chief and Hardened Rejectee

Post Script: To be fair, I must thank Howard for his continued timely response to my submissions. I rarely have to wait more than a month to hear back from him. Credit must be given where credit is due.

Submission Period Transition

(John and Sue discuss a poetry submission)

The submission period for our upcoming 3rd anniversary issue closes tomorrow. That means if you want your worked considered, and a quick response of four weeks or less, this is your last day to submit your poetry or fiction via our main web site.

Beginning tomorrow we will be collecting submissions for our July/August/September issue.

I Propose a Holy Vacuum Cleaner

Last night my wife and I attended Ben Taylor, followed by Tristan Prettyman, at the San Diego House of Blues. Both musicians performed well and demonstrated their respective talents. A talent not on display by the standing-room only audience was common sense consideration.

Behind us were some of the rudest folks I've encountered lately. The kind of people lacking the specific intelligence to put themselves in another's shoes, to empathize, to see how their actions might effect someone else. I ask myself why I bother even leaving the house, my writing, my cats, my surround sound, when the world is full of such people: They crowd our highways, they tax our environment and our resources, they don't bother voting, they talk during the movie, they spoil a night of music for a half dozen people with their loud, drunken irrelevancies.

I propose, if there is a God, she plug in her holy Hoover and suck these people off the face of the earth. They are a waste of air, of energy, and they are continuing to pollute our collective Karma.

This is something I've proposed before in private conversation. I present it here so that if anyone reading these words has a direct line, he or she might make the call. It's getting dirty down here. Have you noticed?

(R J Woerheide)

Blog Error Fixed

If you attempted to visit the Perigee blog recently you may have experienced a problem viewing it. Users not employing the very latest version (1.5.0.1) of Mozilla Firefox encountered a blank page due to a javascript error in our index template.

All jargon aside, the problem is now fixed and we hope you will read the last few posts below to catch up with our humble little blog.

(Webmaster)

Poetry vs. Fiction

I couldn't help but notice, over the past four years since Perigee began, that poetry is far more popular these days than fiction. I would estimate that 70 percent of our submissions for each issue are poems, and it is true that our poetry contest far exceeds our fiction contest when it comes to participants. I'm beginning to wonder why.

The dichotomy here is that poetry is distilled: every word must count, every syllable, every sound. Fiction (and I'm talking about short fiction here) is quite distilled in its own right: every sentence must either reveal character or advance action. Yet fiction of any length enjoys freedoms poetry does not, cannot, allow. The dichotomy lies in the fact that fiction takes more of an investment, I believe, than poetry; in today's world of instant-gratification, writers and readers have less time for fiction than for a five, or ten, or twenty line poem. A poem which gives them an immediate, easy emotional response--like a shot of tequila or a skydive from a Cesna.

Fiction, I fear, is falling to the wayside if only because it takes longer (although it shouldn't) to write: If you have talent you can cheat a poem; even talent can't forego the time it takes to construct and write a story. Fiction takes time, it takes deliberate concentration.

All of this is a sign of the times, yes, but it isn't what I expected four years ago when I established Perigee. How odd that the most potent distillation of language is becoming the easy fix, the least imposing, the convenient. None of which makes it good. None of which improves it.

R J Woerheide
Editor in Chief

Worst Movie of the Year?

Richard Kim, of The Nation Magazine, recently posted on the publication's blog that he felt the recent Academy Award Winner for Best Picture, Crash, was the worst film of 2005. He even went so far as to say he would have left the theatre if not forced to watch the entire movie.

For your consideration, my message to Richard Kim:

"Wow. I have also studied film and I have to say that I am surprised by your assessment of Crash. To take issue with one of your specific statements (which reveals an overall misunderstanding of the themes and the execution of story in the film), the "racist cop"--as you erroneously put it, couching something in platitudes when the presentation is in fact much broader--is anything but a "good guy" in the end. Surely you can see the larger picture here.

He is in fact, like nearly every character in the movie, round. If you've studied story craft you'll know this is the best and truest type of character: a round character reflects all of us, as no one is without moments of both selfish prejudice (in the broad sense) and genuine humanity. This is one of the strengths of Crash, that it is able to reflect humanity, its machinations and its miracles, with such effectiveness.

Clearly, Crash is far from the worst movie of the year. Or have you not gotten around to seeing Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo? I think in fact both your post's title and your disgust are manufactured. If not, they are certainly hyperbolic."

R J Woerheide
Editor in Chief

"Writers Who Play" (Austin, TX)

Close friend and former Perigee feature article subject Brandon Cesmat (CSU San Marcos professor and ever more renowned poet) is busy writing and touring these days. For those of you in the Austin, Texas area Cesmat will be in town on March 9th as part of the "Writers Who Play" showcase at the Ritz Theater, 320 East 6th Street. Cesmat will be performing at 11:30 pm and we definitely recommend you catch him if you are able. His appearance is part of a two night sideshow to the AWP conference.

A copy of our interview with Cesmat can be viewed by clicking this link.

(The Editors)