Keyhole Blog

Last day - Keyhole Subscription $15

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:51:00 PST

Last day to get the $15 Keyhole subscription!

PODCAST: Shellie Zacharia reads "Stitch"

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:11:00 PDT

"Stitch," by Shellie Zacharia...also appeared in Keyhole 3.

For iTunes users:

Shellie Zacharia has published stories in Hobart, Opium, Backwards City Review, Potomac Review, Inkwell, Washington Square, The Pinch, and elsewhere. She teaches in Gainesville, Florida.

Keyhole 3 Review on NewPages

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:09:00 PDT

Thanks to reviewer, Josh Maday, for saying nice things about the issue 3 contributors and Keyhole.

You can read the review here

Also, on Josh's blog there's a chunk that got edited out about Blake Butler's pieces in issue 3, and you can read that here

decomP also has a review
and New York Tyrant

Featured: Michael Kimball

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:20:00 PDT

Dear Everybody came out last week, and it's great. I read it from cover to cover in one sitting, on the passenger side of a trip from Dayton, OH to Nashville. I want to read it again. I think I will.

We've got a bundle of Michael Kimball-related stuff up on the Keyhole website (direct links below).

* Listen to interview with Michael Kimball:

- Download on iTunes

- Read the interview

* Review of Dear Everybody, by Blake Butler

* Feeling and Fiction: A brief conversation between Michael Kimball and Karen Lillis

* Excerpts from the Suicide Letters of Jonathon Bender (b.1967-d.2000)

What To Wear During An Orange Interview

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:02:00 PDT

Jason Behrends interviewed me for his blog, What to Wear During an Orange Alert, one of my favorite blogs.

Read here!

It's cool to see the first year's issues side by side.

New Website

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:18:00 PDT

The new website is up at www.keyholemagazine.com.

There are some things there for you to read as well: An interview with William Walsh, "Globe" by Kim Chinquee, "Tricks" by Thomas Cooper, "We Shoplifted" by Samantha Arlotta, "An Open Letter to Her Brother-in-Law, On His Regrettable Decision to Shoot Himself" by Alexandra Zobel, and Blake Butler interviews Tao Lin.

If you're a writer, we encourage you to sign up and submit through the website, though we will still accept submissions via email. We're looking for short fiction (less than 2,000 words), poetry, reviews, etc. We have added to the submission guidelines to include online submissions -- read them here.

We'll be phasing out the old website, but the pages will remain online so that there aren't a bunch of dead links to us. We're also phasing out the name "publications," and soon we'll have a new website for Keyhole Press: www.keyholepress.com.

Micah Ling's Life Story, by Michael Kimball

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:59:00 PDT

#62 Micah Ling: Outside of Time or Competition

Micah Ling’s name has always given her problems. She is not Asian or a man. She is Native American (mostly) and a woman (completely). Micah has a twin brother, but she was born first (by about 45 seconds), and her twin likes to say that she ditched him (which she would never do). She loves her family and thinks of her parents as her best friends. She started writing her mother little poems when she was about 7 years old. Her father drives a motorcycle and she started running with him when she was 10 years old. When she was 11 years old, she became a vegetarian after seeing how the turkey was killed on Thanksgiving. It made her sad, especially since she gives a name to every animal that she sees. Micah ran through high school and through college. Running is her meditation and she can think about things while she’s running without getting overwhelmed. Micah went to Indiana University for her MFA in poetry and MA in literature—and met her future husband, Nate, there in Bloomington. Nate drove a motorcycle and she would ask him to give her a ride on his bike every time she saw him. After about a year of asking, he did and that was the beginning of them. It is years later and she continues to live on his endless supply of kindness and forgiveness. It is years later and Micah is still running, but her feet are full of pains these days. In college, she ran the national race with a broken foot that still comes back on her. She wishes that she had never raced. She would rather just run outside of time or competition. Now she has the best job she could have, teaching writing and literature. And she still writes poems, often formal poems, so that she can break all the rules.

PODCAST: Dennis Mahagin

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:29:00 PDT

Listen to Dennis Mahagin channel Harry Caray then read three of his poems, which we were happy to have in Keyhole 3.

For iTunes users:

Dennis Mahagin is a poet from the Pacific Northwest. His work appears widely, both on the Web and in print. A first collection of his poetry, entitled Grand Mal, is forthcoming in 2009 from San Francisco-based Suspect Thoughts Press.

William Walsh: The Sunny Side of Smut

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:13:00 PDT

William Walsh has a good interview and review of Without Wax in this week’s Providence Phoenix. Very good news in the second-to-last paragraph!

And Michael Kimball recently wrote his life story.

Issue 4

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 21:15:00 PDT

Thanks again to Sarah Stanley for the cover. I think this is my favorite of the 4. Based on Kevin Wilson's story "Steak and Eggs, Cow and Chicken."

CONTRIBUTORS:
T.J. Forrester
Jon Gingerich
Eugene Gloria
Jessica Hollander
Jason Huskey
Jason Jordan
Ilan Mochari
Karen Neuberg
Michelle Orange
Noel Sloboda
Jeff Wallace
Kevin Wilson

For full table of contents and contributor bios, head over here.

Or pre-order a copy here.

Video Podcast: Blake Butler Is On My iPod

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:32:00 PDT

Watch Blake Butler's mouth swell as he reads "Chris Farley" and "Andy Kaufman" from Keyhole 3.

And you can download it here:

(If it isn't showing up yet...push subscribe, go to Podcasts in iTunes sidebar, right click on Keyhole Podcast and select Update.)

Blake Butler is the editor of Lamination Colony. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fence, Unsaid, Ninth Letter, Willow Springs, etc. He lives in Atlanta. Visit his blog.

My (Peter) Life Story, by Michael Kimball

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:34:00 PDT

#50 The Farsightedness of Peter Cole

When Peter Cole was in the womb, his early-teens mother and 20-something father were on the run from the FBI, presumably because of statutory rape charges, and escaped to Mexico, which has often made Peter feel special but wrong. As an infant, Peter often stared at light sources, especially lamps, and his first spoken word was light, which his mother (who can hear the voice of God) believed to be a sign of his enlightenment. This also may have been the source of his crooked eyes and the reason he needed glasses early in life. Peter grew up in the church, watched The 700 Club, and prayed for his eyes to be healed. But his eyes didn’t heal and he couldn’t hear the voice that his mother heard either, which made him feel evil. In school, Peter was a chunky loner, so he started a punk band. He played music for years, but now that part of his life is over. Peter didn’t think that he would ever get married until he met the woman who would become his wife. Her name was Annie Dillard and they met, in part, because a mutual friend saw him reading a book by an author named Annie Dillard who is a different Annie Dillard. Peter doesn’t know much about cars, but he is the parts manager at an auto shop, a job he keeps because he hates shaving and cutting his hair. Recently, he stopped wearing regular clothes and only wears his work uniforms. He doesn’t know if he will ever go back to Mexico, but through his farsightedness Peter knows he will have a great, domesticated life with Annie, their beautiful beagle, Lilly, and their kids who are not yet born.

Since my story isn't just about me, here's a photo of my wife and our dog:

Postcard Life Stories

Having Michael Kimball write your life story is a very enjoyable experience. I highly recommend it.

Instructions from Michael Kimball: "If you want me to write your life story (on a postcard)—and trust me, I want to—then send me an email (postcardlifestories@gmail.com). There are two ways we can do this.

Easy: You to send me your telephone number and the best time/s to call; I'll call you and we can do the interview over the telephone.

Harder: You tell me your name, age, where you were born, where you have lived, what you do (jobs and hobbies), what you study (if you're in school), what you want to do with your life. Tell me about any important events in your life, any life changing decisions, any strange things that have happened to you, anything that makes you particularly you. Depending on what you tell me, I will probably ask follow-up questions.

Either way, I will write up your life story and then mail you the postcard so you can put it up on your refrigerator."

Nashville Is Reads

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:35:00 PDT

I couldn't say it better than the Publishing Genius.

I'm extremely excited to be working with Publishing Genius on bringing their outdoor journal to Nashville. Is Reads is such a great idea and I'm sure a great reading experience, and we're thrilled to be involved.

Smoke

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:52:00 PDT

SmokeLong is one of my favorite websites (if you're a smoker and you find yourself bored while you smoke, then this is the site for you). I hadn't planned to mention the new issue of SmokeLong since it's been all over my RSS reader today, but I was happy to see Rosanne Griffeth in the list of contributors and wanted to direct you to her story, Memento Mori. She lives in the eastern part of Tennessee, which is where I spent just about every weekend and large chunks of summers growing up. Her stories are like memories. And they're really good. Be sure to check out the interview too. Four of her stories are in the current issue of Keyhole.

And of course these two SmokeLongs are great: Blake Butler and Shellie Zacharia--both are in Keyhole 3 as well.

A SmokeLong editor had this to say about Shellie Zacharia, and I'm going to have to agree...I'm usually just about this happy to see her name anywhere: "I have a bit of a crush on Shellie Zacharia. It's kind of embarrassing, actually. I see a story by her and I clap my hands and squirm in my seat and lean in closer to the screen, or the page, until the words enter me as if through osmosis. See? I'm excited just by the thought of a Shellie Zacharia story!!...What is it that I like so much about her? She's fun. She never bores me. Even when her stories are serious, they still have that authentically delightful Shellie Zacharia quality. (Apparently her name is pretty spectacular, too, because I can't quit saying it.) Anyway... thank you, Shellie, for gracing us with your presence."

BLOOMSDAY

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:06:00 PDT

Celebrate Bloomsday with Keyhole!

On June 16th, Keyhole will be hosting a Bloomsday celebration at the Keyhole headquarters in Nashville. Bloomsday is a celebration of the greatest book ever written - James Joyce's Ulysses - and its main character Leo Bloom (the entire novel takes place on June 16). So if you happen to be in the Nashville area on June 16th, come and celebrate with us and throw down a pint of Guinness - 7pm. If you would like more information, including directions, send an email to jon@keyholepublications.com with "Bloomsday" in the subject line.

If you show up and aren't wearing green socks you will be asked to leave (unless you have Guinness with you).

Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:20:00 PDT

"If you want me to write your life story (on a postcard)—and trust me, I want to—then send me an email (postcardlifestories@gmail.com). Tell me your name, age, where you were born, where you have lived, what you do (jobs and hobbies), what you study (if you're in school), what you want to do with your life. Tell me about any important events in your life, any life changing decisions, any strange things that have happened to you, anything that makes you particularly you. I will follow up with questions, then write up your life story, and mail you the postcard so you can put it up on your refrigerator with a magnet."

This is fantastic.

http://postcardlifestories.blogspot.com

Keyhole 3 Is Here

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:44:00 PDT

We're running behind schedule, but at least we're running. Issue 3 is in hand and ready to be shipped out. $10 + $2 shipping.

Here is the table of contents and here are the contributor bios.

Or if you already know you want it, buy it here:

We're out of copies of issues 1 and 2. We aren't planning to print more for a while, if ever. Though they are for sale at Powell's Books, so add Keyhole to your order and save on shipping. issue 1 is $4.95 and issue 2 is $10

Our Town

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:33:00 PDT

Having just moved to Nashville 9 months ago, I've found myself feeling obligated to dig back in to musicians and artists that I associate with Nashville: music city. While there's plenty of horrible music in Nashville these days, the heart of the city seems to remain healthy with folks like John Prine and Emmylou Harris constantly feeding it. A few months back I was able to snag a front-row seat at the Station Inn to see Mr. Prine and Mac Wiseman perform for Bill Cody's radio show, early on a Friday morning. Bill introduced me to John and we got to talking about poetry. John admitted that he was ashamed for quite some time that he wrote songs, even though he had done so long before he finally told anyone. Prine mentioned several artists that he admired, and one of them was Iris DeMent; he has done several duets with DeMent and I recently picked up her first album: Infamous Angel. Since its release in 1992, her song, "Our Town," has become more and more popular, maybe because it's becoming more and more relevant. My fiancee and I moved to Nashville from a tiny town in south-central Montana, and experienced a place where "town" = a library, a 5-isle IGA, a post office and a bar. I've decided that Nashville ain't so bad, traffic and all. But I just might find myself back in Big Sky country after a while...

Noel Sloboda Interview

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:01:00 PDT

For iTunes users:

Noel Sloboda currently lives in Pennsylvania, where he serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Festival and teaches at Penn State York. His poetry has appeared in a number of places, including Chronogram, Waterways, BLOW, Cape Rock, Blue Earth Review, Ghoti, Free Verse, erbacce, and the Ottawa Arts Review.

This summer sunnyoutside will be releasing Noel's chapbook, Shell Games.

We take all things Keyhole-related very seriously...here's an example of our dedication to making things happen (note from the interviewer, Brandon Schultz):
"I decided that I'd conduct the interview at work because it’s quiet in the afternoons after everyone leaves. So I chose the small conference room and got all of my stuff in there: laptop, power cable, mouse and mouse pad, a can of soda. I stepped outside to get one last thing and the door shut and locked behind me. I started freaking out a little because the interview was in fifteen minutes. I pulled and yanked on the knobs and crammed credit cards into the crevice of the door, anything I could think of to get inside. But of course I didn’t get the door open. A guy that works evenings in the lab, came down the hall and asked if he could help. He tried everything I tried—crappy library cards in the door slot and an unfurled paperclip in the keyhole. But then I got an idea: go through the drop down ceiling in an open office adjacent to the small conference room. I had a stepladder in my office, but it was far too small, so Stephen offered to let me climb on his back. Now I’m sure this looked rather funny: I’m about 130 pounds soaking wet and Stephen is closer to 300 pounds (also, as an aside: he looks exactly like Kevin Smith and is always eating chocolate cake and reading the funnies). Anyway, I heaved myself over the giant walls and came pummeling down to the ground like John Candy hanging Christmas lights. Hurt my ankles a little bit and had a whole bunch of insulation in my hair, but I was otherwise ok. The interview went well. Noel’s a nice guy, and you'll get to hear him talk thanks to my catlike reflexes and my ninja skills."

Micah Ling

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:06:00 PDT

We've recently added Micah Ling to our editing team. She has been a big help and she reads faster than the rest of us combined. She's also a very good writer (poetry and fiction). You can find some of her stuff at these journals right now:

Poetry forthcoming in Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine
Poetry forthcoming in Harpur Palate, Summer 2008
Poetry forthcoming in New Southerner, Summer 2008
Poetry in Flyway Magazine, Spring 2008
Poetry in Fifth Wednesday, Spring, 2008
Poetry in wind: a journal of writing & community, Spring 2008

Keyhole 3 Cover Art

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:12:00 PDT

Artwork by Sarah Stanley--really, an amazing job of fusing elements of pulp and anime. The characters on the cover are based on Joshua Diamond's story "Pumpernickel." I like to think of this issue's content the same way, a fusion of different voices and styles. Also, previously we've separated fiction and poetry, but in this issue we're letting them mingle. Since I didn't write any of it, I'm not tooting my own horn by saying issue three is really a great read.

It will be available in a couple of weeks and I'll be adding pre-order links sometime this week.

Wigleaf Top 50 [Very] Short Fictions of 2008

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:52:00 PDT

I'm sure you've heard about this already, but I wanted point out that Stephanie Johnson is on the list. It's not anything that Keyhole published, but it doesn't matter. Stephanie Johnson is a great writer and you should check her out. Here's the link to the story of hers that made the list:

My Neighbor Doesn't Remember Everything She Forgets

If you check out her blog she has links to a bunch of her other stories.

Issue 3: Topics, Authors, and "The" Trivia

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:51:00 PDT

Topics:
2 comedians, a rapper, an actress, a drug-addict-punk's girlfriend, mango trees, miscarriages, a smoking relapse, fingernails, a cure for asthma and/or loneliness, Flintstones vitamins, alien porn stars, 2 baseball bats (one dragged, one swung), two-headed calves, spousal vengeance, a gutted rabbit, a womanizing lawyer, and the wrath of God...

Authors:
Joshua Diamond
Brian Brown
Monica Kilian
Tim Keppel
Elizabeth Ellen
Rosanne Griffeth
Blake Butler
Dennis Mahagin
Shellie Zacharia

"The" Trivia:

A few of the Keyhole editors and our friends go to Flying Saucer in Nashville for trivia night every Tuesday. We've been going for a few months now and have yet to win. Came in 4th and 5th a couple of times, but we always blow it on a question or two. Tonight we did blow it on the first question, which cost us 1st place. However, we got 2nd place and a $25 bar tab. Yeah, that doesn't sound very glorious, but one of the questions tonight was something like What's the population of Alberta divided by the length of the Gangi river.

Well, I feel like playing some more, so the first person to guess the right answer within 20 (or the person closest if no one guesses within 20 by next week) will get a free one-year subscription to Keyhole.

And since you're reading this on the internet and the internet knows everything, this will have to be something I know Google doesn't know:
How many times does the word "the" appear in Keyhole issue 3?

Email your answers to peter@keyholepublications.com, or leave your answer in a comment. Just one guess, please.

Book Reviews and New Website

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:47:00 PDT

We're working hard on the new Keyhole website. When it's finished you'll be able to sign up for an account (for free of course) and submit fiction, poetry, book reviews, music reviews, movie reviews, opinions, and anything else really. You'll also be able to write blog posts and have a profile and make friends. Hopefully--setting that up is the last hurdle we have to jump. There's no set launch date, but it most likely will be ready to go in the next month. We're definitely not doing away with the print journal. We just want to have a website that is more than a storefront.

On that note, we're accepting reviews. If you've got a book or movie or record that you want to review or have already reviewed, please send it to us. Or if you've written a book and would like us to write a review for you, then you're welcome to send them as well. Just email submissions@keyholepublications.com and attach as pdf (or .doc if you have to). Include brief synopsis, contact info, release date, and in the subject of the email: author, title, genre, and the word "review." Can't guarantee that we'll review everything, but we'll do what we can.

Poetry Chapbook Contest

info@keyholepublications.com (Keyhole Magazine) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:18:00 PDT

We're running a poetry chapbook contest through July. The details are below. I believe we will be making them by hand. Micah Ling is in charge of it all, so if you have questions you'll probably get a better answer from her: micah@keyholepublications.com.

Poetry Chapbook Contest
Judge: Eugene Gloria
Prize: $250 and 25 copies
Entry fee: $15
Deadline: July 30, 2008

Eugene Gloria is the author of two books of poems Hoodlum Birds (Penguin, 2006) and Drivers at the Short-Time Motel (Penguin, 2000), which was selected for the 1999 National Poetry Series and the 2001 Asian American Literary Award. He is an associate professor of English at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.

Guidelines:
Manuscripts must be between 18 and 36 pages--not including the title page. Please include the title and contact information on the title page. Poems may span multiple pages, but please do not put more than one poem per page. Simultaneous submissions are allowed. The reading fee is $15. Payment accepted through the paypal.

If you have any questions or problems, feel free to email Micah Ling at micah@keyholepublications.com.

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