Things I Read and Liked

February 28, 2010

The last few weeks really chewed me up and spit me back out at work, but I’ve finally regained something of my former shape. I’ve had the chance to read a couple of things that have been sitting on my coffee table and staring at me plaintively, and I haven’t been disappointed by either.

The fabulous fourth issue of PANK was every bit as good as the third issue and the online content and everything else this consistently good literary magazine puts out. Not only is the magazine itself beautiful (and PANK’s site, let me just point out, is one of my favorite lit mag sites of all, all time), but its lovely pages contain some of my favorite writers doing some of their best writing. My particular favorites: pieces by Matthew Simmons, Matthew Kirkpatrick, Matt Bell (why are so many of my favorite writers named Matt?) Bill Yarrow, Aaron Burch, Shane Jones, Jensen Beach, Kirsty Logan, Meg Pokrass, Ethel Rohan, Coralie Reed, Angi Becker Stevens, David Erlewine, Kevin Wilson, Jen Michalski, Karen Gentry, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Kyle Minor, JA Tyler….and on and on. This issue is nothing but net. So good. So expertly curated. If you haven’t picked it up yet or ordered it, please do. You won’t regret it.

Also fantastic/amazing/living up to the usual high standards: mlp: first year. JA Tyler has done nothing but good things at mud luscious, and the brand spanking new ml press continues on the same track with a fantastic bunch of chapbooks under its belt and as publisher of Molly Gaudry’s wonderful We Take Me Apart. mlp: first year is a compilation of the press’s chapbooks published in its first year, and there is a lot of good stuff here. Some I’d read, some I hadn’t, but even what I’d read reminded me, “Oh, yeah, ml press is so effing awesome.” Over and over again.  Great stuff from Blake Butler, Ken Baumann, shane Jones, Jimmy Chen, Brandi Wells, Nick Antosca, Sam Pink, James Chapman, Colin Bassett, Krammer Abrahams, Lily Hoang, Michael Kimball, Charles Lennox, Matthew Savoca, Ken Sparling, Kevin Wilson, Kendra Grant Malone, Brian Evenson, Molly Gaudry, Aaron Burch, Johannes Goransson, Kim Chinquee, Joshua Cohen, Craig Davis, Elizabeth Ellen, Ryan Call, CL Bledsoe, Jac Jamc, Eugene Lim, Josh Maday, Norman Lock, Kim Parko, David Ohle, Joanna Ruocco, Michael Stewart, Ben Tanswer, Lavie Tidhar, Mary Hamilton, and probably others I forgot to type but everything is good so just go here and look for yourself. Buy for yourself.