From Tom Dooley, Managing/Fiction
Welcome to the summer of 2024, Eclectica-wise.
I had a lot of fun putting together this issue, in part because due to the departure of Evan Martin Richards, for the first time in more than a couple decades, I got to read and select poems. As fun as it was, and as packed as this issue's poetry section is, I'm stoked to announce Christine Potter is not only this issue's Spotlight Author, but she has agreed to take the reigns going forward as our new Poetry Editor! Chris is no stranger to our pages—when I asked her if she would be willing to do it, I joked that once an author has appeared in Eclectica a dozen times and earned a Spotlight nod, it's kinda obligatory they join the staff. Not obligatory, but certainly deserved, and I have no doubt she is going to crush it.
I also had the pleasure of putting together the Fiction section, which features Spotlight Runner-up Stewart Engesser's relevant "Blue America," a fifth appearance (!) for Steve Vermillion, the return of (dare I say, legendary?) Alex Keegan, and newcomer Shane Jimenez.
Marko will speak to the Nonfiction section below, but let me just congratulate Kristina Garvin for being our Spotlight Runner-up in that category for her biting essay on our food-obsessed, reality TV culture and the status-obsessed world of academia.
Quick announcement: If you're reading this and have a hankering to work for no pay and even less glory, Eclectica needs a Review Editor and a Travel Editor. If interested, please drop me a line.
Former contributor news:
• Andrew Bertaina's new collection, The Body Is A Temporary Gathering Place, came out last month, and it includes two essays, "On Being 35" and "This Essay is About Everything," which originally appeared in Eclectica.
• "Who Won the War?" an essay we published in 2017 by Seth Lorinczi, eventually became his first book, Death Trip: A Post-Holocaust Psychedelic Memoir, also published last month.
• Pre-orders are now available for Peter Cherches' Pelekinesis: Everything Happens to Me, described as an "episodic novel (that) chronicles the trials and tribulations of Peter Cherches, an obscure Brooklyn writer who suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous tormentors, most notably his next-door neighbor."
• Eli Cranor is on a book tour this summer promoting his latest novel, Broiler. Also out, "In Order to Write" is a six-minute mini-documentary shot, edited, and directed by Heath Whorton about Eli's creative process.
• Rusty Barnes has a collection of stories called Half Crime out this summer. It's his fourth collection of short fiction and his 16th book overall.
• Zdravka Evtimova's celebrated fifth short story collection Blood of a Mole has just been published in Germany.
• Jessica Anya Blau appeared in one of our earliest issues back in 1997, and since I didn't bring it up at the time, I'll take this opportunity to mention her critically acclaimed novel Mary Jane published back in 2021. It landed an "Editor's Pick" on Amazon, among many other accolades.
That's by no means a comprehensive list. If anyone has any news I've missed, please post it on our Facebook group page or send me an email.
Finally, if you'll permit me to climb up on my soapbox, I want to acknowledge the many Cuban artists, pirated photos of whose works adorn this issue. Like the island and its people, they are vibrant, complex, and generally exploited. In this case at least, no one is profiting monetarily at their expense, and I'm hoping readers will find these works compelling enough to engender interest in the country Donald Trump designated one of the four countries on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list (the other three are North Korea, Iran, and Syria) in order to curry political favor among Florida Republicans. The world is a complicated place, and US-Cuban relations equally so, but sadly, much of the Cuban people's suffering at this specific juncture in history can be traced to some Cabinet meeting during the first (and God willing, only) Trump Administration, when the former President allegedly justified changing course on Cuban foreign policy by saying, "We need to keep Marco (Rubio) happy."
This issue is dedicated to the more than 11 million Cubans who are not "sponsoring terrorism" but trying to live their lives under the yoke of a reinstated US embargo.
From Marko Fong, Nonfiction
Is the embrace of "low culture" a source of individuality against the forces of conformity?
Kristina Garvin's rant opens with an episode of Dance Moms and segues to the frustration of her career as a scholar of early American history. Intellectual excellence should be the criterion that matters most, but Garvin inveighs against the consequences of not looking the part (being overweight and not dressing in sufficiently sophisticated fashion), being from the wrong school, being from the wrong part of the country, not pretending to listen only to PBS or reading The New Yorker, not being part of the old boys/girls network. In a country that mythologizes Lincoln's birth in a log cabin and its tradition of stubborn individuality triumphing over conformity, rigid but not always explicit social expectations still seem to rule. Garvin suggests they may be most persistent with American History scholars.
In a similar vein, Lydia Buchanan celebrates the onetime ordinariness of Dunkin' Donuts, while questioning its descent from a well-defined identity as humble regional purveyor of donuts and coffee to international corporate brand dabbling in pizzas, t-shirts, and/or any product—edible or not—that might turn a profit. My favorite was her description of the two older women who ran the night shift and maintained the store's sanity by routinely defying all the company's protocols.
Meanwhile, I'm back to looking forward to watching the last installment of Cobra Kai.
And introducing Christine Potter, Poetry
Greetings, friends!!
I can't believe how tidy Eclectica left this desk for me. It's simply pristine, and a great issue just went live and… and… welp, here I am. Poetry Editor. Insert trumpet fanfare.
First: I wish I could take credit for the poetry section you'll be reading in this issue, except I cannot; that was all done by the time Eclectica hired me. But I'm impressed by everything in it, and you will be, too. I urge you to enjoy a good roll in it at your earliest convenience.
So, what am I planning to do with my time here? I hope to curate many batches of powerful, brave, vivid poems. I want to honor the Eclectica tradition of reaching a hand out to good, new voices, as a hand was reached out to me years ago. Eclectica was one of the original online 'zines. Since I used to moderate a certain online poetry workshop named The Gazebo (check your favorite time machine), that makes this job an especially comfortable fit. I've been a poet since I was seven. I've published around pretty much. I also used to teach creative writing and poetry in the local public high school, and some of my old students are now appearing in places that won't even add an encouraging note to me on their rejections. (Yeah, I totally get it about rejections.)
What am I looking for? I like free and metrical verse both. I'm not a formalist, although I have dabbled in it a bit, and my own work has a kind of form of its own. I like poems that are ABOUT something. I need an emotional center. Bruce Springsteen once likened songwriting and performance to a magic trick, and I think that also applies to poetry. No, I don't believe song lyrics and poems are the same thing, but that magic, that finger-snap, that turn? Gets me every time. I like a strong, unexpected-but-totally-relevant ending. I like vivid, exact imagery. Imaginative leaps. And fearlessness. Mark Twain had Huck Finn say, "You can't pray a lie." I believe that about poetry. One of my big fights with Robert Frost is that for all his brilliance, I believe he often tried to dissemble. We can discuss that someplace else, though.
I love Robert Bly and Anne Sexton both, which speaks to my generation. I also really like Thomas Lux and Gerald Stern and Dorianne Laux. And Jane Kenyon. And for his quiet wisdom, Ted Kooser. And many others.
I used to DJ music shows on the Internet, and I'm a voracious consumer of all kinds of music, pop and classical. And since I mentioned Bruce before, let me identify myself as an appreciator of his music, but no mega-fan. I would stand out in the rain to hear Robyn Hitchcock, though. And have. And I know how to fake ringing changes on the tower bells of a church. Ask me sometime. I hope these utterly random facts will inform your next submission.
So I'm glad to be here—glad and grateful. Send me, as they say, your best. And also include that poem that you secretly think is awesome but no one else gets it. Mix it in with the others and see what happens. Glad to be here, thanks, Tom Dooley, and let's go team!
