About Fiction International

Editor of Fiction International

Fiction International turns 40! And other upcoming events!

FI40thThe celebration continues in May with a slew of outstanding events. Just to get a taste, here’s what we’ve got planned so far:

May 1st
Fiction International editor Harold Jaffe reading at SDSU’s Love Library

http://library.sdsu.edu/events/harold-jaffe-reading

May 9th
Fiction International presents a multi-media reading by four of San Diego State University’s MFA graduate students: Carla Wilson, Shane Roeschlein, Andy O’Clancy, and Ryan Forsythe.

https://www.facebook.com/events/148138485362803/

May 15th
Our big 40th celebration at The Whistle Stop Bar! Join us in celebrating 40 years of innovative, social-activist writing. Friends and staff of Fiction International will come together to toast the accomplishments of this vanguard journal.

https://www.facebook.com/events/372881449484633/?ref=22

Hope you can make it out to one, if not all, of these exciting events! See you soon.

Fiction International 40th Anniversary Celebration! March 1st at the Museum of the Living Artist

On Friday, March 1, Poetry & Art Series 2013 features Fiction International with writers Harold Jaffe, Katie Farris, and San Diego’s own Jimmy Jazz. These renowned authors will read with select Fiction International assistant editors from SDSU. This arts and culture event takes place in the Museum of the Living Artist, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for treats, refreshments and live music by Nathan Hubbard. Members are free; $5 at the door, or guests may bring wine to share and get in free.

For more information on this event, go to http://www.sandiego-art.org/finished_2columnR_content.php?conID=192

Fiction International is an SDSU-affiliated journal dedicated to progressive political ideals and innovative forms of fiction and nonfiction. Edited by Harold Jaffe, Fiction International turns 40 this year.

Harold Jaffe is the author of 20 books, including 13 fiction (or docufiction) collections, five novels and two volumes of essays. He is a professor of creative writing, English and comparative literature at SDSU. His work has been translated into 15 languages, and has appeared in City Lights Review, Paris Review and Best American Stories to name a few.

Katie Farris is a fiction writer, translator, and professor. Farris has taught at UC Berkeley and Brown University and has served as a Visiting Professor at New England College’s MFA Program. She currently teaches fiction, poetry, and comparative literature at San Diego State University. Her fiction, translations, and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Virginia Quarterly Review, Verse, Indiana Review, Mid-American Review, Green Mountains Review, Washington Square, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Brooklyn Rail and other publications.

Jimmy Jazz has read poetry at a bowling alley in Chicago, a punk squat in Phoenix, a clothing store in Los Angeles, The Fringe Festival in New York, and at myriad universities, theaters, coffee shops, galleries, bars and bookstores. He has written five novels and edited the web mag Pirate Enclave since 1999. Since finding unemployment, he has written an exhaustive 500-page memoir/history called The Book of Books.  He is celebrating the release of two novels – House of the Unwed Mother and The Cadillac Tramps.

Ryan Forsythe is a writer, editor, artist, and dad from Cleveland, now living here in San Diego, though he calls the mythical state of Jefferson home, after running a hostel in Redwood National Park for 4 years with his wife and children. His recent publications include If You Don’t Read This The Terrorists Will Win (Black Scat Books, 2012) and Dick Cheney Saves Paris: a personal and political madcap sci-fi meta- anti- novel (Love Earth, 2011). Ryan will be graduating in May with his MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University.

Dani Heinemeyer is an MFA Fiction student at San Diego State University and a grant writer in Balboa Park. A native of South Dakota, she studied creative writing at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Goldsmiths College in London. She spent the last six years in New York City writing grants and hanging out with dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History, followed by more grant writing and avant-garde performances she didn’t understand at Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Julie Harris is a writer and artist originally from New Mexico. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and a minor in History from New Mexico State University in 2012, graduating with distinction in University Honors. As an undergraduate, she received several English awards, including the Sutherland-McManus Award for prose. She is currently in the Master of Fine Arts program at San Diego State University studying fiction.

Charlie Griggs is a San Diego State University MFA Fiction student. He is originally from Maryland and earned his Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing from Florida State University. His writings remain largely unpublished, but with a novel in the works as well as an ever-growing surplus of short stories, he intends to change that posthaste.

For more information on this even, go to http://www.sandiego-art.org/finished_2columnR_content.php?conID=192

SDSU News Center on Harold Jaffe’s Revolutionary Brain: “Media and the Modern Brain”

Editor-in-Chief Harold Jaffe’s newest book, Revolutionary Brain, was profiled by the SDSU News Center. Below is a brief excerpt from the article:

“Jaffe said this book is particularly important because it addresses the idea that modern society has allowed itself to become so focused on retold truths, that reality is getting further away from being in ‘real time.’

He hopes that readers can learn to question information exchange and revive the spirit of compassion.”

Read the full article here. Revolutionary Brain can be ordered from Amazon here.

FI #45 is here

Issue 45 Ways of Seeing coverJust yesterday, a crack team of Fiction International staffers packaged up copies of issue #45 and sent them on their way. So all of our subscribers and contributors, note well: The book is in the mail!

The front cover owl is courtesy of the fine photography of Ryan Seslow and the back cover features a mandala based on his image. If you’d like to peruse the full line-up of texts and art, visit our page here: Fiction International #45: About Seeing.

If you click the link, you can find the full text of several of the works. & if you haven’t gotten your copy, it’s not too late. In fact, if you order from Amazon here, you can even have one in 48 hours (if you order 1-day or 2-day shipping).

By the way, if you keep reading down the page, please ignore the note in the next post about your last chance. Submissions have closed for Fiction International #46: Real Time/Virtual. We’ll be making decisions soon, so sit tight, true believers….

Harold Jaffe’s Revolutionary Brain

Revolutionary Brain, the newest book by Fiction International Editor-in-Chief Harold Jaffe will be released December 6th, 2012, from Guide Dog Books.

Revolutionary Brain by Harold JaffeIn this timely collection of essays and “quasi-essays,” acclaimed novelist and critic Harold Jaffe explores the maddening chord changes of millennial culture. Gesturing, in a philosophical shorthand, toward a kind of pop Armageddon, Revolutionary Brain is at once thesis, allegory, and surreal comedy, demonstrating just how far we, and the natural world we have debauched, have fallen. Obsessed with technology, we are incapable of reconstructing ourselves. By way of Jaffe’s elegant prose and perfect pitch, our collective disability is laid bare at the 11th hour. Revolutionary Brain is a powerful cry for a brave new aesthetics that turns towards, not away, from our tormented globe.

According to Jonathan Baumbach, author of You: Or the Invention of Memory, “This witty and explosive book is an indictment of injustice and spurious morality and a call to art and enlightened activism as healing alternatives.”

Order from Raw Dog Screaming Press or view the full press release.

Call for submissions to Fiction International’s Real Time/Virtual issue

“Virtual” is not just interfacing with “real” time  but devouring it–at least in “developed” nations. Half the world, including much of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the elderly everywhere still inhabit real time, but these millions scarcely count. The electronic revolution/devolution seems unstoppable. Who is really profiting from it?

Fiction, non-fiction, indeterminate prose, and visuals which address “Real Time/Virtual” are welcome. Please submit hard copy from 9/1 to 12/15 2012 to:

Harold Jaffe, Editor
Fiction International
Dept of English
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA USA 92182-6020
Query: <hjaffe@mail.sdsu.edu>

New Submission Theme

Our theme for the Fall 2012 reading period will be “Real Time/Virtual.” This submission period will begin September 1, 2012 and conclude December 15, 2012.

Virtual” is not just interfacing with “real” time but devouring it — at least in so-called developed nations. Probably half the world, including much of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the elderly everywhere still inhabit real time, but these millions scarcely count. The electronic revolution (devolution) is a juggernaut. Who is really profiting from it?

Please see our guidelines at “submit” for submission details and addresses.

#43: Walls

Issue #43: Walls contains fiction and art centered around the theme of WALLS.