For a new book project to be published by Southern Methodist University Press, entitled “Immortality,” we’re seeking new essays from a variety of perspectives on recent scientific developments and the likelihood, merits and ramifications of biological immortality. We’re looking for essays by writers, physicians, scientists, philosophers, clergy–anyone with an imagination, a vision of the future, and a dream (or fear) of living forever.
Essays must be vivid and dramatic; they should combine a strong and compelling narrative with a significant element of research or information, and reach for some universal or deeper meaning in personal experiences. We’re looking for well-written prose, rich with detail and a distinctive voice.
For examples, see Creative Nonfiction #38 (Spring 2010).
Guidelines: Essays must be: unpublished, 5,000 words or less, postmarked by August 6, 2010, and clearly marked “Immortality” on both the essay and the outside of the envelope. Please send manuscript, accompanied by a cover letter with complete contact information (address, phone, and email) and SASE to:
Creative Nonfiction
Attn: Immortality 5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15232
The Meadowland Review is an online literary journal comprised of a small group of writers and editors who share a commitment to providing a public space for thoughtful and original material. We welcome and encourage both emerging and established writers of short fiction and poetry.www.themeadowlandreview.com
Submission Guidelines
We will be reading submissions for our fall issue from July 1-September 1
The Meadowland Review will not accept material that has appeared in other online or print publications. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but you must notify The Meadowland Review if your work has been accepted by another publication. All work MUST be original.
We accept submissions of:
poetry: up to five poems, 80 lines maximum per poem
short fiction: up to 7,000 words
photography: up to 3 photographs
The Meadowland Review will claim first rights to all accepted work and the right to archive all work on this website. Rights to all work in The Meadowland Review will revert to the author/photographer upon publication.
How to Submit
Please indicate either poetry, short fiction, or photography in the subject line
For poetry and fiction, please paste the text of your submission into the body of the email.
Poetry or fiction submissions sent as attachments will not be read
For photography, please provide the title of the photo in your email and attach your image. We accept images only in the following formats: GIF, JPG, PNG or TIF.
Please include your full name, email address and 1-5 line bio with your submission
Please do not submit more than once during a reading period
When the editorial staff has made its selections, you will receive an email notification about the status of your submission. Please expect a response within 3 months.
For any additional questions about the submission or publication process, please see our FAQ page, or contact us directly via email.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the July issue of Synchronized Chaos Magazine! Thank you very much for sticking with our publication for almost two years, and welcome to the newcomers as we grow and mature.
Our theme this month materialized as Moving Past First Impressions, as many of the pieces point out through drama, poignancy, or humor the need for continuing investigation and thought as we get to know others and our surroundings.
Finn Gardiner’s poetic works illustrate the power of the imagination to fill in gaps left by initial impressions, as his speakers wait until the very last minute to acknowledge they do not even know the names of the objects of their elaborate and romantic flights of fancy. His longer piece, Mnemosyne, has the speaker personify and thus externalize and detach from his memories. Here, Gardiner’s speaker steps back from the lingering fallout of his specific emotions and experiences and reflects upon the dual nature of memory itself, the possibility of both comfort and torment. Unlike the speakers casually musing in the coffeehouse, who record a certain naive emotional state in exquisite detail, Mnemosyne goes beyond and leaves behind the particular people and episodes which sparked its speaker’s thought, and reflects a less personally involved, but perhaps at times more psychologically manageable, state of mind.
Kandake Brockington’s epic novel characters seem to lack the luxury of time for abstraction, as they must stay alert in a world of shifting loyalties and violent upheaval. The pharaohs, concubines, slaves, priests, deities and other characters in Journey through Darkness survive in part by literally going beyond first impressions, always looking over their shoulders for spies or rivals, who may come from among their former trusted friends, and changing their own strategies and alliances with new information. Even with such a harsh, challenging environment, many of them turn to spirituality and religion to abstract, revere, and personify aspects of life which they feel connected to or dependent upon, such as sun, rain, war and courage, self-sacrifice, or beauty. The perpetual jostling among the gods for position in the pantheon reflects the struggles of many competing characters and civilizations. Brockington suggests through the various characters’ responses to the continual instability that people may find greater happiness by contenting themselves with living a worthwhile life, rather than desperately seeking immortality.
In a much less serious manner, returning short-story author Tony Long shows the discord jealousy can create among a previously fraternal gang of North Beach writers, and how envy, even while cleverly camouflaged as concern for higher principles of craft, can cloud our impressions of each other. Through increasingly ridiculous remarks and attitudes, the writers attempt to exorcise the specter of their friend’s impending commercial success, with camaraderie briefly restored when his book deal almost falls through.
Also with humor, returning vignette artist Patsy Ledbetter regales us with a summer tale of advice regrettably snubbed at first glance, then reconsidered in light of the consequences. Her husband will likely wear sunscreen wherever he goes from now on, even in the winter! Essayist Narmin Kamal advises her fellow Azerbajanis to re-examine their social mores, encouraging people not to give primary importance to a woman’s looks and allow her time and permission to develop her conscience and intellect. She develops her ideas further, highlighting the explicit and implicit ways in which women become hidden away and treated as human ‘shrinking violets,’ unable to express themselves or share their insights and talents with a world which needs them. And, finally, she urges women to find solidarity with other hunted and confined living creatures in the natural world, rather than in effect competing with the personified feminization of ‘Mother Nature’ through conspicuous consumption rather than dismantling the social structures which restrict both human women and wild animals and plants. Women (and men) can get beyond their first impulse to buy new leather and fur clothing to demonstrate wealth, success, and beauty, and find that confidence and strength from within their own minds and characters.
Our imperfect knowledge as human beings often brings about the need to re-examine our initial thoughts on any topic – often, even if our judgements are not incorrect, they are incomplete. Returning academic writer and photographer Reuben Rutledge explores the intersections among language, art, and human experience, elucidating how we use art to convey and represent ideas and phenomena which go beyond what we can express even through language. The present limitations of our ability to understand everything we encounter also prevent us from directly naming and expressing those transcendent phenomena, so we develop systems of aesthetics as symbolic languages to convey the transcendent.
We don’t just struggle with grasping transcendent phenomena, but often find it difficult to understand ordinary human beings and everyday conversations and emotions. Artist Murphy Adams illustrates intense moments in relationships, times when people become very angry or sad, and suggests that what we can interpret as rudeness or lack of self-control can actually represent desperation to be heard, or to connect on an emotional level, to finally convey one’s emotions in a manner that the other person will understand.
Linda Lee-Smith’s soft, gentle artwork seems to stem from a quiet desperation, an inner need to convey to the rest of the world to get beyond our snap judgements of abused and/or incarcerated people and to see the entire picture of their lives as complete human beings capable of transformation. Lee-Smith does not use her greeting cards or artistic images as a soapbox to preach or a megaphone to force herself to be heard. Instead, she speaks most effectively through creating a calm, muted ambiance, demonstrating stillness and dedicated craftspersonship, focusing on the art and images in themselves. Her experiences and her past do not define her or hold power over her current life, as she creates her own sanctuary and inner life through her work.
Visual artist and children’s book writer Laura Lagomarsino details how her artistic process involves combining and musing over different images and ideas. With the metaphor of a clothesline, she describes allowing projects to overlap and blend with each other, and observing when each becomes ‘dry’ and ready for final touches. Lagomarsino experientially lives out the month’s theme, not ignoring her first impressions and thoughts, but not remaining tied down to them, either. She knows how to play with and re-examine plot and picture elements, working with them over time, staying attuned to their implications and effects on the rest of the project, doing for her art what Narmin Kamal wishes society would do for its attitudes towards gender.
Architect and collage artist Keith Farrell works via a process somewhat like Lagomarsino’s, taking the natural setting of a potential building or outdoor landscape as a starting point, like the first item on a clothesline, and then incorporating various design elements over time, like the elements of a collage. He and his partners have worked in the United States and various South American countries, adapting their style and vision to the financial and environmental requirements of the project for which they are contracted.
Some artists aim to harness ‘first impressions’ to intentionally bring us back to an earlier state of wonder and curiosity. Mixed media artist Jamie Banes seeks to recreate the fascination many of us felt as children looking at big-city architecture, allowing us to explore and play and remember the days when everything was huge, and we wished to find out how it all worked.
We at Synchronized Chaos Magazine hope that you will find fascination and pleasure within the posts of this issue, and encourage you to think deeply about what you see and read. We encourage you to contact the authors and artists directly if something touches you or inspires you, and wish you a restful and pleasant month of July!
A spectre is haunting the Caffe Trieste – the spectre of Success. All the poets of the Wise Men have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: post-modernist and Quatrainist, writers of ode and free verse, balladeer and beat.
On a wet, cheerless day, they huddle in the back of the café beneath the mural of the Italian fishermen, huffing and bellowing, fueled by wine, gray heads bobbing up and down like ducks on a choppy pond. The mood is agitated.
One of their own, Kazimir Clegg, is on the verge of publishing a collection of his work through a major New York house. It’s pay dirt, the big score. Worse, he expects everyone else, whose publishing histories are confined mainly to Pip Printing and mimeograph machines, to be happy about it.
“When was the last time he took part in one of our readings?” says Carl Rhys, his sleepless, red-rimmed eyes moving coldly from one poet to the next. Mimicking Kaz’s high, nasally voice, Rhys continues: “‘I have nothing to read. I haven’t written anything in ages.’ What a piker. What a load of crap.” There’s a murmur of assent.
“He’s always had an air about him,” says Gregory Genet, an aggressive post-modernist sporting a white goatee and a bad dye job. “How did you like the way he strutted around here the other day, shaking hands and gloating? Give him his fifteen minutes of fame. He’ll come crawling back on his belly. You’ll see.”
Only the youngest poet, Zachary Nova, remains silent. He ponders what’s left of his cheap red wine – sheep dip, the boys call it. Rhys notices a subtle shaking of Nova’s head, the mildest suggestion of dissent, and pounces.
— by Tony Long, San Francisco artist and writer who haunts many a North Beach cafe to exorcise the old Beatniks’ ghosts and send them back to their Underwood typewriters. His short story Leaving So Soon? was published in our January issue, and can be read here:https://synchchaos.com/?p=1449
Sunscreen and Sympathy
I am a sunscreen fanatic. Four of my children tan easily and my oldest daughter and her father do not. They have gotten burned enough times for me to insist they use sunscreen. My husband who usually cooperates decided against being sympathetic to my phobia and refused it. He was about to play an instrument in a Memorial Day Concert and he kept saying that when he arrived, he would be given a hat and would not need the sunscreen. I reluctantly accepted his explanation and vowed to dismiss it in my mind. When he arrived, unbeknownst to him, the concert started earlier than he thought so he was late. There was no hat in sight and there he was, unprotected bald head in the sun for two very long hours. I kept trying not to look at his head until my mom arrived and spoke of nothing else…..She was full of “whys? I just said, “I tried!” In our discussions following the concert and his sunburn the next day, he kept informing me that at least the news station supported him and his hatless head as he was on TV that very evening!!! We all got a good laugh out of it and I have vowed to continue my fanatical approach to sunscreen in the future.
Patsy Ledbetter plays classical violin, lives, and writes in San Lorenzo, California. She may be reached at patsyled@sbcglobal.net
Suckerpunch What I want is your fire;
your glorious suckerpunch kisses;
and your ardent pumpjumping spirit,
standing five feet tall
Acid-wash skinny jeans
with zippyrip tatters
and spikey whiteblond hair
poured from a 500 ml bottle of transformation
with carmine beestung lips
Give me your suckerpunch kisses,
deepily deep and up and down and around
and all over again, till we wear out, you and me
You’re magical, so magical
I just wish I knew your name
and not just your face.
Boanerges
I call you Boanerges
Son of Thunder, six feet tall
Magnificent temper, crackling wit
You stand there, ordering macchiatos and lattes
(and two biscotti, I won’t forget)
Even then, you are thunderous, magnificent
(even when you’re asking for sugar)
Boanerges, Son of Thunder
If only I knew what to call you, but Boanerges.
Both pieces from Finn Gardiner, a San Francisco-based poet, writer, scholar, science lover, philosopher, and human rights activist who may be reached at sodalitas.paludis@googlemail.com
Mnemosyne, give me succour;
the present and its impulsions haunt me;
and your voice is my only friend.
Your whispers are my shelter;
your speeches my hearth;
your visions my hiding-place.
Mother Mnemosyne,
look after me; shield me from Today;
give me this day Yesterday’s truth,
and I will overlook the transgressions of the Present.
~*~
Mnemosyne, spare me;
spare me your hushed admonitions in my mind’s ear;
spare me your exhortations, your proddings and pokings;
you are air to me; invisibly cool on my tongue;
forever present; you envelop me;
I would I could escape you;
but you surround me, like a cage fashioned
of air and spirit and mystery.
Abandon your cruelties; return to me with your goldwoven tales.
— Finn Gardiner, artist, writer, science lover, scholar and human rights activist in San Francisco, California. He may be reached at sodalitas.paludis@googlemail.com
