Ephemera Newsletter Issue Oct.3

(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)

Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, dokusha! (Japanese for “readers”).

If you haven’t yet, please take this moment to consider becoming a paid subscriber to help us continue to deliver our eclectic content as well as improve & expand!

As a reminder, this week’s letter has a paywall.
As an enticement, remember, yearly subscribers will be able to submit to our Write-In Residency for free 2x per year (Fall & Spring). We’re reading apps this fall to award 2 applicants.

Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo. Xiè xiè.

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“We live in a world of opposites, of extreme evil and violence opposed to goodness and peace. It’s that way here for a reason but we have a hard time grasping what the reason is. In struggling to understand the reason, we learn about balance and there’s a mysterious door right at that balance point. We can go through that door anytime we get it together.”
—David Lynch

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Ephemera

Our weather lilts from early morning chill to a midday too warm for jackets in the sun…something sultry in this fluxion, something creepy, too. Is it us or does this darkening month feel liminal because of the eerie early evening and the warm days, the engulfed tree tips and fire-limned grounds. Perhaps fall, much like spring, calls us to attention because of the dualism present, dying leaves and rich harvests. Perhaps that’s why we create ceremonies and identify with our inner selves outwardly, the confluence of influences, the threshold to light and dark being invigorating and estranging; there’s tension in these transitions in ways the more one-note seasons (summer and winter) don’t produce. We embrace this duality, outwardly and inwardly, and call upon ourselves to consider how our creative practice is affected, how we might utilize these undercurrents in our writing, craft level and theme. We bridge the ideas brought to bear last letter by linking Lynch; David Lynch’s work from painting and film to even music (he’s featured in both or our sections this week, a deserving encore). We drill deeper into psyche per Lynch, and the convergence of the aforementioned forces, maybe rewritten, binary brethren: normalcy and deviance. Per the deviance, a light warning that some of Lynch’s work and videos are NSFW! Safe for perusal are our usual 3s: zines, opportunities, jobs. Too, a book review from the Dublin Review of Books covering a Japanese novel released this summer whose core thematic conceit involves leaves, perception, light, and memory. We off! Sample a bit of the underside and take note of the weird, of the how weirdifying can work in art, and what it exposes in ourselves, how we might aid our darker writing purposes, whether for plot or confession, poetry or prose. We’re multitudinous. Weird, well, and otherwise. Create and write while eyeing culture askance!

Careful…traipsing penumbral boundaries unknowingly can yield surprise cum horror. The dark is scary, but dark to gray, where the ghoul is visible, is scariest…but, boo! That’s the point, isn’t it? In a controlled fashion, step past thresholds imaginary and literal into revelatory realms. Think how adjacent neighborhoods transition sometimes from crime ridden to crime common to calm. Think of the intrepid undercover journalist cracking a story about corruption, the symptoms of which emanate into our lives in difficult to draw together ways; they’ve crossed a threshold in order to expand our understanding of the world. This process, these spaces exist literally and psychologically. Have at ‘em. Even lighter work contains elements of tragedy, of crime, of trauma, of passion gone too far, of the good-intentioned paving a shortcut to bad consequences. Art and expression must encapsulate the fullness of what’s real, what’s in ourselves (hopefully properly dealt with, tho often incompletely so), between each other. Don’t eschew art that draws this out. Don’t ignore what lurks beneath; unearth, shine light! Capture and reform artfully within your characters and lines. It’s our duty—think of method actors—to experience and know of what we speak. Don’t shy, don’t shield yourself; all the same and of equal import, don’t succumb! The weird, guttural, and unspoken has a place in our literature and letters. Tender this tinder prudently, not prudishly. Think & access strange and withal keep your charm.

We’ll charm by your subscription or weird appreciation!

Kansha! (Gratitude)

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~We’re so happy you’re here!~

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Update: The Write-In Residency

We’ve selected one recipient to receive the first of two residency spots! Congrats to Shannan Mann (find her at IG) for wooing us with your writing. We hope Shannan will put the stipend to good use and we look forward to our next round of reading (Nov 1 Deadline).

• Apply directly via Submittable or become a paid yearly subscriber to Ephemera and then apply for free.

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Weekly Artist: David Lynch

David Lynch is a well-known film and television director with an odd, unsettling tone, interested in portraying normalcy, small-town Americana, as involving and dependent on a dark side, melding humor with horror. While largely known for his films and the iconic TV miniseries Twin Peaks, he’s continued to paint, create, and assemble visual art, recently gaining gallery representation.