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Monthly Dispatch #14 — June 2024
A Letter from the editor[s]
Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve published a series of short, original texts in Spanish — a first for us, but hopefully something we will be able to continue and expand in the future. As minor lits continues to evolve, it’s important not to lose sight of why it is we’re doing what we do.
Ten years ago, when it all began, one of our main goals was attempting to widen the field by taking into account the diversity of the global literary community. Now firmly established, it’s worth questioning what being established means, and asking ourselves what it might enable us to do. Opening a space outside the mainstream and offering a platform to underrepresented voices remain central, but in doing so there seems less and less reason to unthinkingly accept the idea that outsider and minoritarian literary expression should only come through the medium of English.
There are limits to what any small gang of volunteers can do, of course — but those kinds of practical concerns can generally be overcome when the spirit is willing. Recontextualising, decentring, disrupting and undoing are no less vital to what we do than anything else. It does us good to remember that the minor can’t be secured by consolidation, but rather by multiplication, infestation, and spread.
The Editor[s]
¿En Qué Piensa Félix? — Arcadia Molinas
“Bueno, pues he llegado al trabajo …”
Arcadia Molinas is a writer, editor and translator from Spain. Primeros Diarios, her Spanish translation of Virginia Woolf’s early diaries, was published by Funambulista in 2022. Her work, which often explores the body, sexuality and interpersonal relationships, has appeared in Worms, Write or Die, Motor and Coveteur. She currently works as the online editor of Worms. Twitter: @aaaarcadia
Un Asunto de Identidad Nacional — Juan Danza
“Desde hace un tiempo que se me dio por mirarme más al espejo …”
Juan Danza es un traductor profesional oriundo del interior uruguayo que asiste a distintos talleres literarios desde 2016 y centra su obra en la exploración personal y la mitología. Ganó el premio Tomás de Mattos 2017 en narrativa y terminó su grado en traducción literaria en 2023. Actualmente reside en Berlín. Twitter: @DoubtJuan
La Cena — Álvaro Cruzado
“La palabra azar, que principalmente se usa en los juegos de cartas o de dados, hace referencia a esas circunstancias que no se pueden anticipar ni evitar …”
Álvaro Cruzado nació en Granada en 1993. Varios poemas suyos aparecieron en Pero yo vuelo: antología de la más joven poesía en Granada (Ediciones en Huida, 2015). Fue seleccionado para la antología Cuando dejó de llover: 50 poéticas recién cortadas (Editorial Sloper, 2021). Su primer poemario Geometría interior fue publicado por Editorial Dieciséis en 2021. Algunos de sus poemas se seleccionaron para el número 6 de la Revista Casapaís en 2022. Twitter: @cruzado_alvaro
Towards an Enigmatic Method — Jeremy Stewart
“Now we see “in an enigma by means of a mirror.” So Léon Bloy glosses St Paul, according to Jorge Luis Borges …”
Jeremy Stewart is the author of the forthcoming I, Daniel: An Illegitimate Reading of Jacques Derrida’s “Envois,” as well as the experimental novella In Singing, He Composed a Song, and the poetry collections Hidden City and (flood basement. He once dropped a piano off a building. He lives in Vancouver, Canada. Twitter: @jeremydstewart
Supplication [excerpt] — Nour Abi-Nakhoul
“I fell backward into the emptiness in between all things, backward into the place that is the dream of the desire to keep everything apart …”
Nour Abi-Nakhoul is a writer and editor based in Montreal. Her work has appeared in a variety of Canadian and American publications. Supplication is her first novel. Twitter: @nourabinakhoul
Old World, New World — Addison Zeller
“An empty grid with stone jaguars. Used to be you wouldn’t get down the street for the crowd. Now you won’t see anyone—maybe a snake …”
Addison Zeller is a contributing editor for The Dodge and lives in Wooster, Ohio. His fiction has appeared in 3:AM, Epiphany, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. Twitter: @amhcrane87
In the Suavity of the Rock [excerpt] — Greg Gerke
“In Ireland I was a tourist again. There had been a time when I wasn’t. Young and wanting to fuck, I’d swapped my country for the continent and ended up in Heidelberg …”
Greg Gerke is an essayist and writer of fiction, based in New York. His work has appeared in 3:AM Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. He also edits the online literary journal Socrates on the Beach. His story collection, Especially the Bad Things, and a collection of essays, See What I See, are available from Splice. Twitter: @Greg_Gerke
Rockpools, Oaks [excerpt] — Timothy Thornton
“These two words represent something I knew once, for half a second, a brief revelation which I owe entirely to a friend. I will try to explain …”
Timothy Thornton is a writer and musician. His work was in Volume 2 of the new Penguin Modern Poets series, and he has published eleven books of poetry with small presses. “Rockpools, Oaks” is excerpted from his queer pillow book Candles and Water, published by Pilot Press.
“I can’t tell my protagonist what to do next. She has to make that decision for herself”: An interview with Nour Abi-Nakhoul — Cristina Politano
Nour Abi-Nakhoul is a Montreal-based novelist whose recent novel, Supplication, has garnered attention for its inventive style, which blends first-person stream of consciousness narration with supernatural horror devices. I sat down with her to discuss the recent UK release of the novel, writing at the intersection of religious allegory and body horror, and the way that the search for meaning has the dual potential to both enrich and undermine our sense of control of our lives.
Cristina Politano is a writer from New Jersey. Her essays and fiction appear in Return.Life, La Piccioletta Barca, and on her Substack. Instagram/Twitter: @monalisavitti
“If you go through things, the warp and weft of time, there comes a point where you’ll feel it, you’ll see that you’re writing your own sentences”: An interview with Greg Gerke — Tobias Ryan
In his debut novel, In the Suavity of the Rock, author and essayist Greg Gerke reflects on memory, and the impulse to seek — and impose — narratives as a way of making the inchoate of life cohere. We spoke over Zoom about the novel’s gestation, the importance of rhythm to the development of style, and the state of the contemporary literary scene.
Tobias Ryan is an English teacher and translator, based in Paris.
Better Shopping Through Living IX: Ever Expanding Fields
“Perhaps there’s no place better to experience “literature in the expanded field” than in an actual field outside of Lawrence, Kansas. Let me explain …”
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 (mostly) monthly. He has been inside the Castle.
marsh-river-raft-feather — Clarissa Álvarez and Petero Kalulé [18/06/2020]
This is writing from marsh-river-raft-feather, an experiment in collaborative ‘river-reading’ by Clarissa Álvarez and Petero Kalulé (@gogonolek).
“a marsh-river-raft poetics isn’t concerned with elucidation, it simply betides — letting others in”
Petero Kalulé (@nkoyenkoyenkoye) is a composer, poet, and multi-instrumentalist. Their first collection of poems Kalimba was published by Guillemot Press in May 2019.
Clarissa Álvarez is a poet and storyteller who belongs to the Río Bravo. They are currently writing about transborder indigenous experiences and practices along the rivered (border)land.
Coming in July …
New fiction from hiromi suzuki, Xaime Martínez (tr. Robin Munby), Martin Jackson, Z.H. Gill and DJP; an experimental text from Vivian Darroch-Lozowski; the latest Better Shopping Through Living, and more …