So I received the first volume of the Avery Anthology in the mail a few weeks ago. And although I couldn't read it immediately because of other busy things, I took it with me on spring break to see just exactly how these people had realized their vision. And, to be honest, I had a personal interest in their publication, since they’d rejected one of my stories with a very nice note last fall. So after a nonstop read on the flight down to the beach, I must say that I am genuinely happy for Adam, Andrew, and Steph, the founding editors.
A quick history: I first caught wind of the project sometime last spring, and so throughout this past year I checked on them to see how they were doing as they traveled the long road to press. Their blog tells of their ups and downs (non-profit applications, printing issues, marketing/advertising, reading and selecting fiction, etc), and it's a fairly interesting look at the effort, more than a year long for this crew, needed to get a small, non-profit journal up and running.
As for the future, the editors of Avery seem to be on a rolling schedule as opposed to a semi-annual or quarterly schedule like most journals. But they also say that they plan to publish two “anthologies” a year. So I'm still unsure about the whole anthology versus journal thing; I guess I just don't see how it's any different, but perhaps time will tell.
The issue itself weighs in at just over a pound (acc. to their blog), costs 10$ plus shipping, and runs to 245 pages or so of fiction. The design is nice; it looks as though their art director, Seth Sanders, has taken the time to paint or create an illustration and title page for each of the 19 stories, as well as the startling cover, which seems like a lot of work, but it adds a nice, personal touch to the journal. As for the contributors, they all seem to be fairly experienced writers, who range from the popular to the obscure (but no less able). The editors have picked up a piece from Ander Monson, and an excerpt from Stephen Dixon's forthcoming novel, which is great I think for the inaugural issue. Their other contributors seem to have solid publishing backgrounds as well, and more noteworthy, those backgrounds vary: the contributors notes mentions Tin House next to elimae and Juked; Best American Short Stories credits next to small press releases. And of course, there's an "emerging author" in there somewhere, though I would have liked to see "this story is the author's first publication" appear once or twice in the contributor's notes as well.
But obviously though, it comes down to the stories, not who an author is or where they’ve published.
So, to the fiction.
I can't touch on all of it, since this post has become a bit longer than I wanted, but I'd like to mention a few that grabbed me, that “knocked my socks off.” I’ll start with Dominic Preziosi's “Aftermath.” Preziosi's story takes place in the apocalyptic landscape of New York City shortly after the attacks, though the narrator finds a way around the obvious pitfalls such a story might encounter by focusing more upon the characters (a husband, a woman, and a lecherous, one-eyed priest) rather than the event itself. The piece reminds me of those news stories and legends that we all heard concerning men and women long presumed dead, who returned home after having wandered around in the smoky haze of the city for several days. In the story, the main character spends a few days with a stranger, a women he's met after the collapse, and, with the help of a one-eyed priest, they try to make sense of what has happened before he finally thinks of returning to his wife.
“The Importance of War” by Dean Bakopoulos is a three-page story about a squad of soldiers, who stay in a trench and wait for a fellow soldier to die in a nearby field. They sit around, play cards, and try to light bong resin, since they’re too scared to go outside and fight or help their dying comrade. Apparently, the enemy has poison gas and nail bombs. The soldiers say things like, “I’m getting damn sick of pork and beans,” and “I’d give my left nut for a cold six-pack today.” They debate whether or not they should put the dying soldier out of his misery, and eventually one of them rolls a grenade over the side with the pin still in it, so as to leave the final decision up to him. Instead, the dying man treats them to a delirious operatic concert in Italian. When one of the soldiers says, “We should ask him to sing us something American,” the narrator responds:
“Nothing beautiful comes from America anymore,” I said, but nobody paid attention to me anymore when I said things like that. The war was too important. I didn’t blame them.
Anyhow, I thought it was a sad story.
My favorite story in the anthology is “Incidental Music” by Daniel Levin Becker, which is about a billing clerk, named William, who works at Amity Credit where he opens the incoming envelopes and files payment checks. He begins to receive from a certain man random bits of intricately drawn sheet music, which the man has folded around his checks. William takes the sheet music to a neighbor, Lenore, a librarian, and together they play the music on her piano. As the months go by, they fail to make any sense of the various kinds of music, but they do become attached to each other. They fall in love. One day the checks stop coming, and William finally seeks out the mystery composer. I won’t give away the ending, but I will say it’s a great story about how one life’s coming to an end leads to the beginning of another man’s life.
I realize that these quick write-ups don't do the stories justice. I'm sorry. The best thing would be for you to read them yourselves and see what you think. So that’s about it for this post. Sorry about the sudden cut and stop and such. I’m tired and it’s time to do other things. Check out Avery though if you can. It's a new journal that I'd like to keep track of.
A quick history: I first caught wind of the project sometime last spring, and so throughout this past year I checked on them to see how they were doing as they traveled the long road to press. Their blog tells of their ups and downs (non-profit applications, printing issues, marketing/advertising, reading and selecting fiction, etc), and it's a fairly interesting look at the effort, more than a year long for this crew, needed to get a small, non-profit journal up and running.
As for the future, the editors of Avery seem to be on a rolling schedule as opposed to a semi-annual or quarterly schedule like most journals. But they also say that they plan to publish two “anthologies” a year. So I'm still unsure about the whole anthology versus journal thing; I guess I just don't see how it's any different, but perhaps time will tell.
The issue itself weighs in at just over a pound (acc. to their blog), costs 10$ plus shipping, and runs to 245 pages or so of fiction. The design is nice; it looks as though their art director, Seth Sanders, has taken the time to paint or create an illustration and title page for each of the 19 stories, as well as the startling cover, which seems like a lot of work, but it adds a nice, personal touch to the journal. As for the contributors, they all seem to be fairly experienced writers, who range from the popular to the obscure (but no less able). The editors have picked up a piece from Ander Monson, and an excerpt from Stephen Dixon's forthcoming novel, which is great I think for the inaugural issue. Their other contributors seem to have solid publishing backgrounds as well, and more noteworthy, those backgrounds vary: the contributors notes mentions Tin House next to elimae and Juked; Best American Short Stories credits next to small press releases. And of course, there's an "emerging author" in there somewhere, though I would have liked to see "this story is the author's first publication" appear once or twice in the contributor's notes as well.
But obviously though, it comes down to the stories, not who an author is or where they’ve published.
So, to the fiction.
I can't touch on all of it, since this post has become a bit longer than I wanted, but I'd like to mention a few that grabbed me, that “knocked my socks off.” I’ll start with Dominic Preziosi's “Aftermath.” Preziosi's story takes place in the apocalyptic landscape of New York City shortly after the attacks, though the narrator finds a way around the obvious pitfalls such a story might encounter by focusing more upon the characters (a husband, a woman, and a lecherous, one-eyed priest) rather than the event itself. The piece reminds me of those news stories and legends that we all heard concerning men and women long presumed dead, who returned home after having wandered around in the smoky haze of the city for several days. In the story, the main character spends a few days with a stranger, a women he's met after the collapse, and, with the help of a one-eyed priest, they try to make sense of what has happened before he finally thinks of returning to his wife.
“The Importance of War” by Dean Bakopoulos is a three-page story about a squad of soldiers, who stay in a trench and wait for a fellow soldier to die in a nearby field. They sit around, play cards, and try to light bong resin, since they’re too scared to go outside and fight or help their dying comrade. Apparently, the enemy has poison gas and nail bombs. The soldiers say things like, “I’m getting damn sick of pork and beans,” and “I’d give my left nut for a cold six-pack today.” They debate whether or not they should put the dying soldier out of his misery, and eventually one of them rolls a grenade over the side with the pin still in it, so as to leave the final decision up to him. Instead, the dying man treats them to a delirious operatic concert in Italian. When one of the soldiers says, “We should ask him to sing us something American,” the narrator responds:
“Nothing beautiful comes from America anymore,” I said, but nobody paid attention to me anymore when I said things like that. The war was too important. I didn’t blame them.
Anyhow, I thought it was a sad story.
My favorite story in the anthology is “Incidental Music” by Daniel Levin Becker, which is about a billing clerk, named William, who works at Amity Credit where he opens the incoming envelopes and files payment checks. He begins to receive from a certain man random bits of intricately drawn sheet music, which the man has folded around his checks. William takes the sheet music to a neighbor, Lenore, a librarian, and together they play the music on her piano. As the months go by, they fail to make any sense of the various kinds of music, but they do become attached to each other. They fall in love. One day the checks stop coming, and William finally seeks out the mystery composer. I won’t give away the ending, but I will say it’s a great story about how one life’s coming to an end leads to the beginning of another man’s life.
I realize that these quick write-ups don't do the stories justice. I'm sorry. The best thing would be for you to read them yourselves and see what you think. So that’s about it for this post. Sorry about the sudden cut and stop and such. I’m tired and it’s time to do other things. Check out Avery though if you can. It's a new journal that I'd like to keep track of.
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