Sententia, a great journal, I'm giving it away

Sententia is a new journal edited by Ryan W. Bradley and Paula Bomer. There is some great work in there by Lindsay Ahl, Keith Nathan Brown, Charlotte DeAth, Elizabeth Ellen, Meg Files, Roxane Gay, Howie Good, Rose Hunter, Drew Kalbach, Jen Michalski, Mary Miller, Mark Mirsky, Geoffrey Nutter, B.L. Pawelek, Sam Pink, me, Shya Scanlon, Fariel Shafee, J.J. Steinfeld, Robert Swartwood, Serena Tome, Steven Trull, Brian Wilkins, and Scott Wrobel.

I have an extra copy and will send it to the first commenter who doesn't have one already. First commenter at publishinggenius.blogspot.com, I mean, not Facebook.

I don't normally give away my extra things, for some reason, but sometimes I will, going forward (as we say at work).

I have an extra B&W laser printer and if someone wants that they will have to pay me about $30 for shipping. I would love to get rid of it though.

Win a Copy of The Difficult Farm, which is a book by Heather Christle

Here's an interesting contest from Heather Christle. Make a video of someone doing something while dizzy, and if your video (hosted at Youtube or Vimeo), gets the most votes, you can take home a copy of The Difficult Farm. And take it from me -- the dizzy life is awesome.

I'm a nerd so you can win stuff by preordering my book

If that picture doesn't make you want to order my book, what will?

(This is the ACTUAL COVER)

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How about a contest?

OK.

Here is the contest. It is simple.

Pre-order my book before the end of 2009, and you will be automatically entered into a drawing to win some excellent prizes.

If you already pre-ordered, you are already entered.

You will receive one entry for every order you make.

Here is the prize package:

One (1) bloody shirt, pictured below

One (1) police report

One (1) copy of everything Narrow House (my publisher) has released

Question mark (?) I might add more stuff later

The bloody shirt (I estimate 2 cups of blood) and police report are from when I got mugged in the springtime and three kids beat me up and smashed a bottle over my head. The shirt is really nice. It fit me really well and I liked the fabric a lot. It is gray. You can wear this shirt if you are size 15 1/2 and don't mind wearing a really bloody shirt. I haven't worn it since the mugging.

Everything that Narrow House has done is a lot. Two books and several (5-10) CDs.

Check out their website to figure it out.

Easter Rabbit Giveaway

This should be fun.

Announcing the Easter Rabbit giveaway, in which three entrants will receive an inscribed copy of Joseph Young's book.

It's a Write Like Joseph Young contest, judged by Ellen Parker.

It might be hard to prove that Joseph Young invented microfiction, but it's clear that he is its best practitioner. Read sample stories at Frigg and Lamination Colony to study up. And then, since he's the champ, it makes sense to try and emulate him. At least it makes sense in order to win a copy of his book.

To enter, submit three microfictions written in the style of Joseph Young. Entries can be funny or serious. They can be mocking or reverential. They only need to somehow copy Young's extremely distinctive style. Here, I just did one:

End
He stood out in the breakwater, his vacation pants rolled like clouds. You forgot to take the stone, she called from the shore. He remembered it there, on the nightstand, it's gray beating as a face to the wall.

Hey, that's pretty good. Why not see if you can beat it? There will be three winners.

Submissions are due by December 15, which is the official release date. Send them to editor@publishinggenius.com with the words "ER Contest" in the subject. (There is no charge for entering.) Spread the word.

MLKNG SCKLS contest (#2)

First of all, Brian Allen Carr received a second copy of MLKNG SCKLS and he's holding a contest. The prize includes his extra copy and PLUS

Amelia Gray's AM/PM

Larry Fondation's Unintended Consequences

and a year's subscription to Boulevard Magazine.

Holy wow! Go here for details on how to win.

SECOND OF ALL, congratulations to Bret McCabe, who won the MLKNG SCKLS IS NOT A CALLOUS VIDEO GAME contest. He was selected by Justin Sirois in a blind reading. (There were two other entries.) Bret walks away with a copy of the book signed by Justin and his Iraqi editor, Haneen Alshujairy.

MLKNG SCKLS contest update -- 7 days to play

You have until Friday, June 26 to submit cover copy for the new video game, 6 DAYS IN FALLUJAH.

The winner will receive:

• Justin Sirois's newest book, MLKNG SCKLS, signed by Justin and Haneen Alshujairy (the Iraqi refugee who consulted with him on the story)
• A print of the cover copy inserted into the game design (see picture, below)
• A drawing Justin has been working on all week

Here's part of one entry that I like a lot:

Oof! Kill that person! Are you going to ice that person? That one?

MLKNG SCKLS contest

Justin Sirois wrote MLKNG SCKLS with Haneen Alshujairy, an Iraqi refugee, and when I read it for the first time I thought, Cool, a post-apocalypse story like A Boy and His Dog or Road Warrior. Then I caught myself: Wait, this is real. This is here and now. Or to be precise, this is Fallujah 2004.

That’s when Marines stormed the Iraqi city in response to a vicious and grotesque attack on four Blackwater mercenaries. Sensing the impending retaliation, many of the city's residents fled, including the characters in MLKNG SCKLS who walk a hard trip up the Euphrates. And today Fallujah is a bombed out post-apocalyptic city after all.

That isn't discussed in MLKNG SCKLS, though. The inciting incident is hauntingly absent. Instead, Sirois presents the quiet hustle of Salim and Khalil as they itch for a swim, a nap or a smoke on their trek to safety. I think it's a smart way to treat the whole thing. People should care about what happened in Iraq, and it's the strength of fiction to give a human perspective.

It's the strength of video games to give the first-person shooter perspective, and the new game "Six Days in Fallujah" is a dirty bomb to drop. It presents the early days of the fight in 2004, when 48 Marines and thousands of insurgents were killed. You play as a soldier. You walk through the rubble and decide whether or not the guy in the tracksuit is someone you should shoot.


That's where THE MLKNG SCKLS IS NOT A CALLOUS VIDEO GAME CONTEST comes in. Here are the details:

What?
• The contest is to write back cover copy for the video game, “Six Days in Fallujah.”
• The prize for the contest is one copy of MLKNG SCKLS, an 11x17” cover illustration by Sirois and a Sirois-designed image of the video game packaging that shows your write-up (see the picture).
• Send 1-3 entries to adam at publishinggenius by June 26, the Friday before MLKNG SCKLS official release on June 30. Entry is free, judged by PGP editorial staff.

What?
• Entries should be about 50 words long.
• They should address the events of April, 2004 in Fallujah.
• They should address the video game.
• There is no constraint on criticizing the game as a good or bad.

What?
• An entry could be a straightforward description of the game or a description from the perspective of a civilian living in Fallujah in April, 2004.
• It could address the "Play Theory" that Johan Huizinga writes about in Homo Ludens, that playing is freedom, and is distinct from real life.
• It could be about how much fun you'll have pretending to shoot real people, if that's your thing.

What?
• Aside from promoting MLKNG SCKLS, the purpose of this contest is to consider again the horrible situation in Fallujah, and to care about it.