When Daniel Y. Harris and I began writing together in 2009, we were immediately impressed with the (or at least our) collaborative process, how each of us experienced a heightened sense of creative freedom; venturing into fresh areas, thematically and stylistically; how we organically (and more often than not spontaneously) embraced new voices and forms, directions that, on our own, we probably would not have discovered, but that, when we generated together, clearly and boldly emerged as possibilities. It was later, with The New Arcana, released in 2012 by NYQ Press, that we began to mine (initially, perhaps, inadvertently, but subsequent to discovery with some degree of intention) the “mock” approach: mock academic, mock journalistic, mock memoir, etc. This style, we soon found, enabled us to combine clear and even prescribed forms with a broader fictional orientation, thereby allowing our individual and collective imaginations plenty of room to wander, explore, and invent, but within the precise forms and parameters often associated with certain kinds of exposition, academic writing, journalism, memoir, etc. This particular combination of freedom and structure has proven fertile....

          Chris Deliso’s “Some notes on the inflection of ‘lobster’” and Stephen Dawson’s “Kujawski’s ‘The Myth of Religion’: The Lost Presentation” mine the mock-academic in compelling and unique ways. Deliso’s piece is, in terms of mock-form, an etymological study, satirical but also subtly dystopian in its portrait of a possible future, and perhaps tips its hat to Orwell, particularly his commentary on language, how words shape thought, rendering certain reflections, conceptualizations, and even experiences possible, others impossible or at least unlikely. In this sense, language is a primary psychological and cultural control mechanism and inevitably a political matter. “Some notes…” is overtly a commentary on the evolution of (a) language but on deeper reading also a manifesto re history, sociological principles, and how ideals are often compromised when (unavoidably) faced with questions related to power.

          Stephen Dawson’s work centers more on questions related to textual stability or reliability, simultaneously exploring the notion of identity, both within a text and outside the parameters of text (the boundaries of which and between which are by no means indelibly drawn). Who is saying what? How do we know what was being said? How can we attribute a written or orally issued statement to anyone in particular when there are inevitable issues regarding source, context, and intention? Throw in the notion of a text being handled, filtered, and seemingly altered as it passed through numerous editorial hands (much like evidence compromised in an unknown chain of command) and we are left with an exploration that can offer no guarantees or provide longstanding answers, nothing that can transcend context/contextualization, which is ever-changing, impacted by both inter-textual and trans-textual elements.

          Andrei Guruianu’s “The Distant Beautiful” is a poetic and melancholy rendering by a diaristic voice that reads as timeless, as if it were written by a vampire, or perhaps related orally by some phantom of the centuries, recorded and then transcribed by a loyal follower or friend. The complementary images by photographer Teknari add a striking dimension to the piece, personalizing it, specifying it, furthering the haunting tone created by the text. This is a hybrid work par excellence, the visual and textual brought together to create an aesthetic gestalt that far exceeds the function of one without the other.

          Please see our guidelines regarding the December 2014 issue. It is our intention to continue seeking and publishing work that extends boundaries, defies categorization, and innovatively blends genres. In the meantime, I hope that you will enjoy reading the above-referenced works.

With best wishes,
John Amen


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