![Minor Literature[s]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_80,h_80,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0117ca3-2d00-451e-b0c5-d09def5e487b_400x400.png)
![Minor Literature[s]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_36,h_36,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe0117ca3-2d00-451e-b0c5-d09def5e487b_400x400.png)
Monthly Dispatch #2 — May 2023
A letter from the editor[s]:
Welcome to the second edition of our monthly newsletter!
Lots of great stuff this month, big changes in Minor Literature[s] too, and good things coming.
F. — who launched the magazine in 2013 — announced he is stepping down come July. Yanina — who was already co-editing the mag with him whilst running the experimental prose section — will continue, now joined at the helm by Tobias, who’ll also edit the fiction section. We thank F. for ten years of service and wish him the best for the future. Safe travels, Captain!
We have now officially moved to Oleada, a submissions manager by our peers at Sublunary Editions. We will open a short fiction window in early August. Don’t miss out! And familiarise yourself with our magazine before sending us anything — our fiction editors are famously picky.
If you’ve done your maths so far you will have realised we are turning 10 in July. Our last party was when we turned 5. The world was different then and time flies, doesn’t it? Since the editors are scattered all over the world it’s hard to mark this occasion as we should. But keep your eyes peeled as we might organise something for the first week of July, when several editors and former editors coincide in London. Stay tuned.
Now over to our wonderful May pieces:
Republic [excerpt] — Nerys Williams
“There comes in your 30s the urgent need to… Become a rock star, a performing poet, a somebody who can handle a wardrobe, speak to crowds without falling prey to your own ego. It is an indescribable need, not for fame, but the need for something that exceeds the self.”
Nerys Williams is an Associate Professor in poetry and poetics University College Dublin, a Fulbright alumnus and is originally from Carmarthenshire. She lives in Kells Co. Meath. Her third collection Republic is published by Seren Books. Twitter: @archifsain
Text To A Complete Text [excerpt] — Bhanu Kapil
“Now I am here, on the beach. I’m sorry I do not have more to say about the period of submergence that preceded my arrival. I am not interested in it. I do not recall it. I … It was only when my car stopped that I realised what I had to do, on my own terms, with my own two legs: get going. Is that how you say it? Get up and go.”
Bhanu Kapil was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022. Her most recent book, How To Wash A Heart (Liverpool University Press), won the T.S. Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book Society Choice. She is the author of six full-length collections. Incubation: A Space for Monsters is available now from Prototype.
What’s Today — Andrew Key
“What’s, what’s today today which is it can you today which is today which today is it can you show me in here—today—which is today I’m not sure which today is it can you show me I’m sorry, love, I’m sorry, I’m just, I’m sorry, I haven’t—I just—I’m sorry, oh, I am sorry, God bless you”
Andrew Key is a writer and former mental health support worker. His first novel, Ross Hall, was published by Grand Iota in 2022. His essays have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Point, Vittles, Parapraxis, and elsewhere. Twitter: @rolandbarfs
Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel — Ellen Dillon
"Not alone, not alone, not alone. Where there is an and, we follow it. Or they, if you're on the outside. And means more than one and more than one means not alone, not alone."
Ellen Dillon is a poet and teacher from Limerick. Her latest book, Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel, is forthcoming from HVTN Press and tentatives is just out from Pamenar Press. Twitter: @altkrelb
Still Life with Scholar & Lake — David Capps
“The lake was clear. And the sky above the lake. And the stars beyond the sky which had begun to twinkle at the arrival of dusk, as though they were posing a question, or perhaps opening a gift. Tomorrow, or night; no rush.”
David Capps is a philosophy professor and poet who lives in New Haven, CT. He is the author of four chapbooks. His On the Great Duration of Life, a riff on Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life, is now available from Schism Neuronics.
I Know These Things — Attalea Rose
“Miriam put her hand on Edith’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, love,” she soothed. She tried to brush a lock of hair behind Edith’s ear. Edith batted her hand away, casting a scornful glance, which Miriam seemed to not notice.”
Attalea Rose is a fiction writer native to the Pacific Northwest currently residing in the South. Her debut novella, When the Flowers Breathe, was published by Red Rook Press in April 2023. Twitter: @attalearose
Grimmish [excerpt] — Michael Winkler
“Joe Grimm, the boxer, who was recently remanded for medical examination, has been removed to the Claremont Lunatic Asylum. He struggled desperately this morning when requested to enter the vehicle to take him to Claremont, and shrieked at the top of his voice that the police were trying to murder him. It was necessary to strap his arms and legs.”
Michael Winkler is a writer from Melbourne, Australia, living on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. He is the author, co-author and editor of numerous books. His novel Grimmish, was shortlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Award. Twitter: @micwink
Walser On Walser — Simon Wortham
“In 1925, just as things were beginning to decline, Robert wrote a short text about himself. It begins by informing the reader that they’re going to hear the writer, Walser, speaking; but the addressee is in fact himself, Walser, the writer.”
Simon Wortham is the author of a trilogy of books published by Ma Bibliotheque: The small (2020), Early Mass (2021) and Berlin W (2022), as well as of many academic books in the fields of modern European literature and philosophy. Twitter: @simonwortham
The Area Has Not Yet Been Cleared of Mines: On Heinrich Böll, Germany, and Fascism — Marcel Krueger
“On the night of May 28, 1993, three days after the conservative government of Helmut Kohl had agreed on changing Paragraph 16 of the German constitution, which basically ended the right for unrestricted asylum in Germany, four young men aged 16 to 23 and belonging to the far right skinhead scene set fire to the house of a large Turkish family in Solingen.”
Marcel Krueger is a non-fiction writer and translator living in Ireland, writing in English and German. His articles and essays have been published in The Guardian, The Irish Times, New Eastern Europe, Catapult, and by CNN Travel, among others. Twitter: @kingofpain666
“All you need is a story and to find the best way to reach the person reading it”: An Interview with Michael Winkler — Tobias Ryan
“[T]here’s nothing glib, ultimately, about our conclusions about Grim. We know that he existed, but we don’t even know exactly why he did what he did. Certainly, we don’t know how he managed to do it.”
Michael Winkler is a writer from Melbourne, Australia. His novel Grimmish, is now available from Coach House Books in the US and Peninsula Press in the UK.
Tobias Ryan is an English teacher and translator. He lives in France. Twitter: @tobiasvryan
اَلْغَوْل — Palvashay Sethi [25/02/2016]
“The accursed ghazal occupies a specific but significant place in Pakistan’s socio-cultural milieu. Specific, because its subject concerns women – particularly those of a certain ilk, and significant because despite excluding men from this aesthetic and speculative enterprise, it does little to prevent them from talking about it. And talk about it, they do.”
Palvashay Sethi is content to exist on most days. She’s completed an MSc in Literature and Modernity from the University of Edinburgh and lives in her home town Islamabad, where she is in the throes of a second adolescence. Twitter: @Palvashits
Coming next month …
Fiction and prose from J.L. Bogenschneider, Jaroslav Hašek, Alina Ştefănescu, Addison Zeller, Laura Paul, Kristof Smeyers, Sam Liptzin, and Judson Hamilton; Clare Archibald interviews Maria Fusco, Margaret Salmon and Annea Lockwood; Adam Steiner on Bowie and the death of John Lennon …