ISSUE EIGHT: Contents & A Note
featuring: KARAN KAPOOR, LYNN STEGER STRONG, JORDAN DAVIDSON, JOHN CHROSTEK, and CASSANDRA JENKINS with watercolors by AARON BURCH
KARAN KAPOOR
We didn't bury him we burnt him
there's nothing left of him
he is the earth and the rivers
LYNN STEGER STRONG
At the Beach
JORDAN DAVIDSON
A Quiet Afternoon
JOHN CHROSTEK
Knucklehead
CASSANDRA JENKINSDelphinium Blue (print only)
A Note:
I got an email from a librarian in Alabama after she found copies of the last issue stashed in her stacks. It was a micro-distro mishap! When requesting Issue Seven, a reader checked the box for extra copies and dropped them in the Fairhope Public Library’s teen section, clandestine.
“So I found a pile of Little Engines stashed in the periodicals section of my teen space, along with the stickers and note you sent to C——, urging him to share the extras. I don’t know who C—— is, but I wanted to give you a pro tip when working with libraries—most of us want to or are required to control the content in our collections … If your readers are regularly encouraged to drop them off at libraries you will likely end up with a lot of magazines in the recycle or trash bins. No good to you, your potential readers, or our global resources.”
Bless you C——, sorta. While I’m a little miffed at the tone of the complaint—pro tip can’t be used in earnest anymore, right?—the truth is that the micro-distro gag is meant to encourage a hand-to-hand thing, with consent.
Going forward, I’m making the explanation clearer. I’ve added further details next to the micro-distro checkbox on the website. I’m working on a postcard to include with the micro-distro packages for this issue. NO LIBRARIES, GODDAMMIT!
To be fair, the librarian went on to say the magazine looked interesting and well put together, and that she’d share it with her director to see if they could display it for readers. “I remember when I was in college in the ‘90s and we used to make tiny zines and stash them all over the place!” she confessed in her note. OK!
Anyway, please give this magazine to people. Great stuff inside.
JOHN CHROSTEK’s story of a man fighting was the first I accepted from early submissions when the magazine re-launched, but it hadn’t found its place until this issue. I like the way it sits with JORDAN DAVIDSON’s and KARAN KAPOOR’s poems, which are both weird!
Jordan’s hints at a fight—it never gets there, but you know it’s coming. Karan’s is more of a surrender, and it keeps surprising me each time I read it. I love a listing poem, but then that extra bit at the end. What the fuck!? Yes!
I read and loved LYNN STEGER STRONG’s novel Want while working on the comeback issue in late 2020, in strange Covid times. I contacted Lynn to tell her I loved the book, and I’ve been sending her each issue of the mag, asking her to let me publish something. It’s fitting that her piece, a hypnotic recounting of an isolated time, has the pandemic woven into it. When all the forecasts of an unnecessary glut of wack pandemic writing were going around, I thought: But there will be people doing it right.
CASSANDRA JENKINS contributes her first-ever published poem (but only as an insert with the newsprint edition), though she told me it’s becoming a song, now, too.
Each writer’s work is accompanied by an original collage by this issue’s artist in residence, KEVIN SAMPSELL. Kevin is an accomplished writer, an adventurous publisher, a crucial bookseller, and his collage work shows up often in quality pubs, attached to much cool writing. Kevin showed Little Engines love during version 1.0, long ago. I remember packing up copies to send to Powell’s, thinking about the great shit they’d be sitting next to on the shelves there.
No returning alumni this time. I’ll fix that next go-around. I’m chasing more poems from MC Taylor, for one. He says he’s got a bunch. I assume you’re bummed out, like I am, that Mike Nagel doesn’t appear this time. I asked him to send something, but he’s worried about overstaying his welcome. That’s stupid, of course, and I hope he’s back next time.
The newsprint is available now, free while they last.
I’m including a stand-alone short story of my own with the packages. Enjoy!
Best,
Adam
Nashville, February 2023
ISSUE EIGHT’S
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE:
KEVIN SAMPSELL
Kevin’s book of collages and poems, I Made an Accident, was published by Clash Books in 2022. He lives in Portland, Oregon and runs the small press Future Tense Books. In 2020, he launched an online collage gallery with artist Cheryl Chudyk for international artists called Sharp Hands Gallery. His fiction and essays have appeared in Southwest Review, X-R-A-Y, Diagram, The Rumpus, Joyland, Longreads, Tin House, Kolaj Magazine, and elsewhere. Find more on Kevin’s website or his Tumblr.
