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Minor Dispatch #11 — March 2024
A Letter from the editor[s]
Easter weekend seems an appropriate time to say a word or two about faith. If not in a religious sense, at least in terms of committing to an idea, belief, or way of life that consistently challenges one’s ability to uphold it. Isn’t that what we do when we engage in literary activity, after all? Believing in its value — personally, socially and yes, even, spiritually — despite everything that might persuade us to abandon it, whether that be self-doubt, lack of material reward or a clear-sighted view of our degraded cultural landscape.
Inside the Castle, whose tenth anniversary we celebrated this month, provide a perfect example of what faith can achieve. They have been here for a decade now, doing what they do for no other reason than a belief in the value of doing it. And who could argue with the benefits their existence has brought, from the pure pleasures of the objects they create to an acknowledgment of the space they have opened up, one in which we are all encouraged to push our sense of what literature is and can be to its absolute limits.
Here’s to the next ten years and beyond, and here’s to the faithful — be joyful, keep it up.
The Editor[s]
P.S. As of tomorrow, we are opening submissions for a series of short texts about PARIS, guest edited by Ben Libman, and set to run in the lead up to our minor [i]ncident event in October. More info here. Should you want to, you can also contribute to the event via Kofi.
What is the Deal with Books? — John Trefry & al.
Anamnesis [excerpt] — Caroline McManus
“You are always this station through which the noumena passes into signal”: A conversation with Garett Strickland — Alina Ştefănescu
Belfie Hell [excerpt] — Shane Jesse Christmass
On the Inertness of Books — A conversation with John Trefry & Mike Corrao
Massive [excerpt] — John Trefry
Additional Parking: Field Notes — Mark Robert Lewis
“The idea for Additional Parking, the video, started in the early 2000s when I was working as an adjunct Art teacher at various community colleges in what is sometimes referred to as the Southland. On different days of the week, from my apartment in Silverlake, I would drive out along the northeastern foothills to Rancho Cucamonga, down the South Central corridor of Los Angeles to the beach adjacent border of Gardena and Torrance …”
Mark Robert Lewis is an artist who lives, writes, and works in Los Angeles, CA. His studio art practice is grounded in non-representational painting, drawing, sculpture, and experimental video. His work has been exhibited in the United States, Japan, and Europe. Instagram: @markrobertlewisart
Three American Lives — Seph Murtagh
“In the winter of 1825, a mysterious young man shows up in the seaside village of Little Compton, Rhode Island. Pale and thin, wearing an air of haggard sorrow, he cuts an ungainly figure, roaming the streets in an ill-fitting overcoat …”
Seph Murtagh is a writer living in Ithaca, New York. His fiction and essays have appeared in 3:AM Magazine, Socrates on the Beach, and The Missouri Review. He’s a winner of the Jeffrey E. Smith Editors Prize from The Missouri Review, and his work has been cited as notable in Best American Essays. Twitter: @sephmurtagh
On Your Feet: A Novel in Translations [excerpt] — Jacqueline Feldman
“Allez.
Du blanc cassé, le canapé de Marine Le Pen représente une vision de la traduction comme la partie réprimée de toute une vie, la vie passée ailleurs. Idem pour l’arbre à chats …”
Jacqueline Feldman is the writer of On Your Feet and Precarious Lease, which is coming out later this year. Twitter: @jacquefeld
The Poets [excerpt] — William Walsh
“At birth, the poet scored 1 out of 10 on the Apgar scale—it’s a wonder he survived …”
William Walsh is the author of Forty-five American Boys, ON TV, Questionstruck, Unknown Arts, Without Wax, Pathologies, StephenKing StephenKing, and Ampersand, Mass. Twitter: @Questionstruck
I Lead a Pleasant Life — Michael Jeffrey Lee
“You may say I’ve lost my mind, living here, but I ask you friend, who needs a mind? God loves a simple soul, and here I am, nice and simple and loving life …”
Michael Jeffrey Lee lives in Berlin. His first short story collection, Something in My Eye, was published by Sarabande Books in 2012. His stories have appeared in N+1, The Rupture, and BOMB, among others.
Crisis in the Timemachine — Louis Armand
“There is a tendency in narratives about the avantgarde to devolve into trenchant debate about its revenant failures, its historical discontinuity & its contemporary impossibility. Conspicuously, the locus of much of this debate isn’t a material history of the avantgarde itself, but a subjective psychodrama around another supposed “failure,” that of 1968 …”
Louis Armand is a writer, artist & theorist. His most recent works of criticism are Entropology (Anti-Oedipus Press) and Festins de Desmando, trans. Jorge Pereirinha Pires (Barco Bêbado), both 2023. He directs the Centre for Critical & Cultural Theory at Charles University, Prague. www.louis-armand.com
“There’s nothing to be preserved”: An interview with Jacqueline Feldman — Tobias Ryan
In On Your Feet, Jacqueline Feldman uses a short story by Nathalie Quintane to probe what translation is, does, and of what it is capable. Presented as a novel, this hybrid text is comprised of her translation of Quintane’s ‘Stand Up’, depicting a visit by Marine Le Pen to a provincial French town, an essay/travelogue on Feldman’s encounter with the author, and her Master’s thesis — in French — which focuses on theories and processes of translation. The following is based on a conversation which took place over Zoom at the end of January.
Better Shopping Through Living VII: No Step
“Flying home from Seattle to Love Field staring out the airplane window over the wing where I see the words no step on the part of the wing that curves over the edge and I imagine stepping there where it’s forbidden on that forbidden ledge slowly falling slipping over easing into oblivion in slow motion …”
Writer and translator Frank Garrett shops in Dallas, Texas, and is essays editor at Minor Literature[s]. His series Better Shopping Through Living will appear monthly. He has begun a journey of a thousand miles with not even one single step.
The Quarantine Hotline #12 — John Trefry [14/07/20]
An interview series in which we beat the lockdown blues reaching out to friends for a nice and informal telephone chat. In our twelfth episode, Fernando Sdrigotti talks to John Tretry, writer and editor of Inside the Castle, an indie press based in Lawrence, Kansas, USA.
Some of the topics discussed: the work of Inside the Castle, avoiding easy labels when discussing challenging literature, the cliché of the writer suffering with the chore of writing, books as texts, the influence of architecture in John’s writing, Crocs (yeah, Crocs, sorry), et cetera.
Coming in April …
Fiction from Martin Lechner and Drew Gummerson, excerpts from new books by Nathan Knapp, Rainer J. Hanshe and Mauro Javier Cárdenas, interviews with Mauro, Lily Meyer and Alexander Dickow, the latest column from Frank Garrett and more …