Ephemera Newsletter Iss. June.2
(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)
June 9,
Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, ñoangirũ! (Guarani for “friends”)
Plans are activated. We’re writing daily, whether that means editing, reading actively, putting words to page, lines to poem, or spending focused time considering our work. Mornings are at present lengthy and luxuriant, but we also approve of mid day mindfulness moments, exclusive evening-time endowments for essaying our recent entries. Our letter, as well, serves the purpose of focused thought; we’re considering craft and technique as well as inspiration; new-thinking on old things, introductions to new items of intrigue. And so we bring you a musician and an artist who epitomize balance in their creative work, duality, complexity, and depth of consideration—that is, Andrew Abbott painter, and Will Johnson (Wills) musician. Our staple of 3s: select zines, job ops, awards, and this week some fetching reads. The first round of our sponsored residency extends one more week, we deign to inform you. We appreciate your feedback and presence!
Complexity deployed precisely can build a mind-space for readers that’s highly particular, can imbue our work with recognizable style, though we risk being convoluted. Done well, we can hone in on hard to reach emotional or philosophical space. High risk intricate reward! Still, complexity in focused dashes, in the right moment, in patterns, recognizably stable, can also delight (think waves) (think crescendo and decrescendo). Borrowing model forms helps with this push and pull, neatens the break line, is a succor to a fractal undertow (ode to metaphoric floaties for our readers!). Ode to you as well, for surfing our letter; we hope you’ll alight on one or two helpful bits, find a current of inspiration. Please share your meditations and chances with us, with friends and colleagues. Our newsletter, too, s'il vous plaît. Ode to rises and falls, crests and swells, and the sandy grist of summer creation.
We’re swell on your support: Tea or Books!
Aguyjereko (Gratitude!)
~We’re so happy you’re here!~
Featured Music: WILLS
Bronx native and Harlem Boys Choir veteran, Will Johnson, ads an eclectic vocal patina over a mash up of genres drawing significantly from an early schooling in soul, gospel, r&b, rap, jazz, and rock. Being of the now, he layers in electro-pop sounds with a nod to Prince, with a nod to his earlier musical identity Gordon Voidwell (worth a listen). Listening to Wills in interviews, you get a sense that while he works within genre, he’s working to expand and even explode familiar notions. His thoughts are of someone who’s spent a lot of time thinking—they’re well formulated, informed, academic and felt simultaneously; as readers know, we <3 complexity. Wills delivers intricacy in his track “Chariot.” It sounds wonderful, but it’s also not exactly what it seems, the vocals, the lyrics, the instrumentation. It’s always more, always a little edgy, a little different, delivering what we want and also what we didn’t know we could have. Working within classics, nodding to gospel, bringing gospel into the now, reforming what we know of the now…these are all techniques we can marvel at, we can study to bring to bear in our writing. Keep the writing known and unknown but intriguing, tasting familiar and delivering an expected dopamine punch from unexpected angles. Listen to Wills; feel reinvigorated to be an artist.
Writers Submit: Three Magazines
Arlington Literary Journal, also known as ArLiJo is an online magazine from book publisher Gival Press. Looking for F/NF/P. Free to submit. Hosts a Short Story Prize for $1k. Deadline for the magazine is July 31st, or the first 200 submissions.
Focuses on conservation and sustainability. The latest call is Women Witnessing, “response[s] to an age of massive species loss and ecological collapse. [from] women and nonbinary writers and artists.” They are looking for work in all genres.
Accepts previously published or unpublished CNF, flash, and poetry. Work selected will appear on the site and later in anthology form. Looking for work about “...faith and social issues, including sanitation and hygiene, sexual violence, poverty, criminal justice, human trafficking, mental health, unknown inventors, people of color, climate change…”
Interlude: #Friend of Ephemera
Stay Curious: Recent Reads (Articles/Posts/Videos)
mysticalsilicon.substack . com · Subject: Productivity
On morning routines, habit cues & remembering
5 min read · “Lose an hour in the morning chase it all day.” - Yiddish saying
bigthink . com · Subject: Space & Astrophysics
17 pictures that show how mind-bogglingly large the universe is
5 min read · “…stellar systems, star clusters, galaxies, clusters of galaxies…show us how insignificant human, and even planetary, scales truly are.”
longreads . com · Subject: Culture & Literature
‘We Are Everywhere’: A Reading List for the Queer South
10 min read · It is time now to listen. We are not going anywhere.
Weekly Artist: Andrew Abbott
Andrew Abbott is a subscriber to the Ephemera newsletter (ty!), and an accomplished painter with a steady history of his artwork being featured on book and magazine covers. His work fronts covers from Nomadic Press, Palooka, The Cafe Review, and many others. Abbott’s paintings utilize (primarily) acrylic color on various surfaces to weave intricacy into larger subjects that include natural and manufactured worlds. The highly stylized work is part figurative, part folk, stares into beauty and horror through the lens of complexity (details and layering in a nod to fractals), employs high-key lighting and shadow, and is always intrigued by life. There’s a level of obsession in the texture of many of his pieces, which, while tiny, add to the feeling that something more is happening—yes complexity, but in a particular way…perhaps a duality of anxiety and joy. We were super intrigued when he sent us his work and believe there to be several lessons in creativity transferable to writing present upon quick and close inspection. Those intricate layers…we can fill a book, a poem, with details that are aesthetically pleasing unto themselves and yet scale beyond their individual import, creating and conveying thematic mood, something deeper, appreciation and angst, something felt at our core.
Prizes/Awards/Stipends Summer ‘22
(Chap and Full Length Publication+Prize, Poetry Pub Award, & Sponsored Residency)
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