1. The Spoken Word Network is an interesting web space devoted to poets, storytellers and performance artists. Their newsletter, Shout!, is running an original interview with Allen Ginsberg. Worth checking out.
2. The LOWELL CELEBRATES KEROUAC gang (Lowell was Kerouac’s hometown) is soliciting entries for the annual Jack Kerouac Literary Prize. They will accept typed, double-spaced manuscripts containing stories (no more than three) up to thirty pages, or poems (no more than eight) up to fifteen pages. Entries must be received by August 1, must be accompanied by a 3×5 index card containing the author’s name, address, telephone number and manuscript title (the author’s name may not appear on the manuscript), and must also be accompanied by $5 checks made out to LOWELL CELEBRATES KEROUAC. Submit all manuscripts to The Jack Kerouac Literary Prize, P.O. Box 8788, Lowell, MA 01853-8788, or write to this address for further details. The winner will be part of the annual Kerouac celebration that takes place this year on October 3-6.
3. Wisdom’s Maw, Todd Brendan Fahey’s novel about some semi-imagined strange activities involving the CIA, LSD experiments and several well-known Beat figures in the 1960’s, has been available in a web version for some time now. Fahey recently found a publisher for the book — get the details here.
4. Wow, there are so many things I have to announce! Here’s another: Ron Whitehead, who runs a publishing/happenings organization called RANT For The Literary Renaissance, is producing an event in New Orleans on August 16-18. The RANT eats New Orleans 48-Hour Non-Stop Music & Poetry INSOMNIACATHON at The Howlin Wolf Club will feature Douglas Brinkley & The Majic Bus, Diane di Prima, David Amram, Ed Sanders, Hunter S. Thompson,
Lawrence Ferlinghetti and others.
5. There’s a very insightful article about Gregory Corso in the June 6 issue of the London Review of Books. It’s written by Iain Sinclair, and the first sentence is: “There may be only two writers, currently at work in America, who can bring themselves, unblushing, to use the phrase ‘drinky poo'” (The other, if you were wondering, is Carl Hiaasen). If, like most of us, you do not live in London: check your library, they probably have a copy.
6. One new thing in LitKicks this month: Andrew Burnett’s passionate and well-researched exploration of Neal Cassady’s historic Denver. It’s put together in the form of a “Beat Baedeker”including three separate guided tours, and if you’re interested in Neal Cassady you’ll definitely discover interesting things
here, in Neal’s Denver.
While we’re on the subject of Neal, I should mention Tom Christopher’s exhaustive new publication, “Neal Cassady.” This is the first of what will be several volumes documenting Neal’s mysterious life in groundbreaking detail. This first publication is about Neal’s early days and includes many reproductions of school documents and city records. It’s looks more like a zine than a book, and can be found in most Beat-conscious bookstores (like, for instance, City Lights in San Francisco or Water Row in Massachusetts)
7. Enterzone, now in its second year as a great non-profit webzine for experimental/underground art and fiction, has moved to a new URL (see link above). You can also now enter the Zone at a different level by going to the base URL http://ezone.org,
where you see the wider, universe that surrounds this zine.
Enterzone was favorably reviewed in The New Yorker last week, in their Summer Fiction Issue (June 24/July 1, p. 26), and a piece I contributed to Enterzone with a friend was also mentioned in the review. Kind of cool that us indie web writers and artists are finally being noticed by the world out there. Still, though, to
paraphrase Kurt Cobain — snooty literary magazines still suck! (Okay, I feel better now that I’ve said that.)
