I’m hugely proud to be able to say that one of my pieces, Vaseline, has been published in the debut edition of Hippocampus Magazine, a new online publication devoted to creative nonfiction. You can check out my piece HERE - it might be familiar to long-time readers as a longer version appeared on the blog last year. If you like it, please leave a comment!
While you’re there, I think the rest of the first issue is well worth a look. The range of subjects, themes and styles in there is quite something and there are some brilliant pieces, including an excellent meditation on transience and permanence ("Everlasting Gobstoppers Aren’t Really Everlasting") and a lovely vignette depicting a dysfunctional father/daughter relationship ("Rig").
Hippocampus is accepting submissions monthly from now on, and I think a lot of you write excellent stuff which could quite possibly find a home there so please consider giving it a go. They also need people to spread the word about what they are doing - aside from the magazine they can be found on Facebook here and on Twitter here. I think they definitely deserve support as there are very few websites that accept creative nonfiction submissions, and fewer still that are dedicated to this kind of writing (I can‘t think of any others).
Personally I’m a little bit uncomfortable with the term "creative nonfiction"; it’s always struck me as an admission of defeat in the face of a general assumption that the only writing of literary merit is fiction. If I had five pounds for every time someone read my stuff and mentioned the N word ("do you have a novel?" "are you writing a novel?" "you should write a novel") I could self-publish from Bermuda and get on my private jet to plant copies in bookshops around the globe. All right, that’s not true, I’d have about fifty pounds, but the general principle’s still there. The suggestion is that the only way to give validity to the sort of writing I (and many good writers who blog) do is to package it all up as fiction and turn it into a novel; all a bit depressing and unimaginative, I reckon.
Of course, the flip side is to look on the bright side - not something which comes naturally to me - and to view the creative nonfiction genre as an attempt to carve out a niche for good non-fictional writing in light of that overwhelming bias towards fiction. So I’m going to try and see it that way instead. Anyway, I’ve never been too interested in writing about writing (it’s right up there with blogging about blogging, and that’s before we get on to the unique tedium of blogging about Twitter) so let’s leave it at that: I hope you enjoy Hippocampus, and I’m incredibly proud to be part of its maiden voyage.
Proximity, and Revelation.
-
Usually, things are just the distance away that they seem to be. Neither
closer, nor further away, just where they should be. Our eyes find them
and,...
1 day ago
Posts
24 comments:
its be slow everywhere MLS!!
I've been positively redundant for a while
saz x
I self-published a novel once. And it was fiction. Although, I tend think of that now as an angst chapbook, being different from what I'm doing nowadays.
Robbie - I love what you are writing nowadays so I can't feel like I'm missing out on your self-published novel. Please - promise me you will try submitting something to Hippocampus, I am a big fan of your stuff.
Oh, Sir, how you do go on. It's been a long time since I've tried submitting anything for publication, but I'll consider it.
I'll read Vaseline in a bit, but first a heartiest Congratulations is in order. Well done!
Yes, we all do need a break I think. I'm off to Auckland, north of the earthquake, for a couple of weeks. Cheers!
Grandpa
Life on The Farm
Yes, I too would like to extend my congratulations. It's a nice feeling having something published somewhere else.
Congratulations! That's fantastic news. I'm looking forward to checking out Hippocampus.
You're right; there aren't too many resources devoted to creative nonfiction. Would you like to come to New York and teach a course in it? I'd be the first to sign up for your class.
Your holiday sounds lovely. Enjoy yourself and don't worry about us. We'll all be here when you return.
I totally agree with you. Stories are stories whether they be fiction or non fiction. Congratulations on having the story published!
Great piece, and a good looking site.
Glad they have a very good writer to help kick off their debut!
I'll check it out today!
Read "Vaseline" and absolutely loved it. Haven't laughed that hard in ages.
Agreed agreed agreed... but where does fact end and fiction begin? And aren't we all being creative with our life stories?
Many congratulations, btw. And thanks for the link to the mag. Love the name - and did you know, the hippocampi of London cabbies are bigger than everyone elses?
Aaaw. Have a great and well-deserved holiday with your love. I'm off to check out Hippocampus and I'll give it a tweet as well.
Congratulations on the publication, MLS. The Vaseline Story is one of my favorites...so perverse, so well written. It makes you cringe and cheer for its heroine (or is it femme fatale?) all at once.
I agree with Colleen - if ever you're on this side of the pond to do anything literary, to instruct on the art of personal narrative, I'd sign up for that, as well.
Big thumbs up on the Hippo publication. You're on your way... :)
Sloth is the new black, Hippo is the new you and blogging about blogging about blogging is the new old new old bobble wobble.
Congratulations on your placement in Hippocampus. I will check it out. I love the idea of creative non-fiction -- I mean, why not? It's about the writing, and it's about writing well. Words placed properly are compelling -- whether they're based on truth or imagination.
Thanks to everybody who commented here or at Hippocampus. Please, if you do go and look at Hippocampus, go and read the other pieces. There are some great ones in there and they so deserve support. The early issues when they’re trying to get off the ground must be especially tricky.
Robbie - Glad to see you are considering it. You have so many good posts that I didn’t even know where to start suggesting one but you need to find one which is under 2000 words and perfectly self-contained. I think you’ll have a pretty good idea what your best/favourite ones are.
Grandpa - Thank you very much! I hope your holiday is excellent, and that mine is too.
Tennyson - Thank you. Yes, it is. We all have high standards about what goes on our blogs but it’s always a great feeling when somebody else believes in your stuff.
Colleen - I know this is not a popular thing to say in general, or to you in particular with your writing circle taking apart short stories on a regular basis, but I remain unconvinced that writing can be taught. This seems to be a peculiarly American preoccupation with all the MFA courses out there. I think you just write and you get better. It helps to have other people to talk about things with, but I’m just not convinced about teaching writing. I think writers embrace it because writing alone doesn’t make enough money. I know I’m probably on my own in believing that, or that at least it’s a particularly British perspective. So no, you wouldn’t want lessons from me and they wouldn’t be any good. The two or three bloggers who occasionally get me to look over their posts before they hit the publish button would probably agree.
Technogran - Interestingly a lot of the emphasis in Hippocampus is on memoir. I’m not sure how I feel about that either, it seems to be saying it’s okay to tell true stories but they should still be crammed into a novelistic form. For me that’s a halfway house. But I am fast giving up on the idea that people make books of small essays, so maybe they’re on to something. It’s very frustrating though that stories have to be dressed up as fiction. I’m sure a large proportion of first novels are an autobiography with some names changed.
The Jules - Thank you. It does look good, doesn’t it - it doesn’t quite work properly on iPhones and iPads yet but otherwise it’s very handsome.
Danger Boy - Thank you! In fairness they have a number of excellent writers to kick off their first issue, I hope you checked some of the others out too.
Miss OverThinker - Hello! Long time no see. Glad you liked this one, I love the idea that my writing makes anyone laugh.
The Dotterel - Well exactly. I don’t think because something is nonfiction it means that everything described is gospel fact and exactly how things happened. Imagine how dry nonfictional writing would be then! That’s what’s so fascinating about all writing, that the narrator has such a big effect on things as the filter that’s placed between events and the reader. I didn’t know that about cabbies, but I suppose it’s not a surprise.
Lady Jennie - Thanks, but I’m not off on holiday for another two and a half weeks. Although I have already bought new sandals, a whole pile of paperbacks and some shorts and am counting the days. Hope you like Hippocampus, will be interested to hear what you think of it.
Alyson T - Thank you, it was always one of my favourites which is why I thought I’d give it a whirl. It’s actually really hard to submit to the debut issue because there’s no track record of the kind of things they publish. And now I suppose I am part of that track record, which is in itself a lovely thing. The idea of me being the other side of the Atlantic doing anything remotely literary is the stuff that pipe dreams are made of, one day perhaps. But like I said to Colleen, I am not at all convinced that this stuff can be taught. I think you write how you write, and maybe you can get better at it, but people will either like it or they won’t. I read a fair few US literary websites/magazines and a lot of them are full of people all trying to write in exactly the same way in the hope that they’ll get published. What’s the point in that?
Jayne - Thank you. On my way to what, I wonder? Obscurity!
Whirl - One day I may understand what that means.
Katie - Thank you for the comment. Yes, I agree, good writing is good writing and stories are stories. Truth, falsehood or the grey area in between which makes up much of life are just different types of stories, that’s all. Hope you like Hippocampus.
I'm sorry I've been a terrible bog reader lately for various boring reasons but congratulations on this- it's a great read and the magazine seems ace. Perhaps I will give being a published writer of 'creative non- fiction' (which I agree is a totally whack way of saying it) a go!
Oh and this is Rose by the way- wrong log in!
I extend my congratulation because it was an awesome novel. Fantastic news too. MLS is very nice and The Vasline Story is my favourite.
On the publication of MLS I congrats. The Vaseline Story is one of my favorites. I agree with Colleen. I read "Vaseline" and loved it.
Post a Comment