Makeout in 2010

By this point it should come as no surprise that we're holding off on Issue Four of Makeout Creek until the first part of next year. "No surprise" because if we were going to publish it this year it'd be out already, yeah? And it's not. No, it's not.

A lot of thought went into this decision. Here was our primary motivation: we took so much time designing Makeout Creek 3 that the issue missed its original print date and didn't come out until June 2009, i.e. halfway through the year. It was clear we'd really have to scramble to put together another issue in 2009, as the process usually takes several months. We decided, ultimately, that it wasn't worth it to risk compromising the quality of the thing. Not worth it to us, the ones shelling out the dough to have these puppies printed, and not worth it to you, the ones putting down your cash to have a look inside.

What does this delay mean for upcoming Makeout Creeks? Not much. We'll resume twice-a-year publication with the 2010 issues, and of course we're moving ever closer to the debut of the Makeout Creek Books line with R. Nicholas Kuszyk's Jammer Slammer, to be released in 2010.

In the meantime, consider the above a sneak preview of Makeout Creek 4, which will feature cover art by Oura Sananikone. This is not the cover -- we just want to give you a peek at one of Oura's killer designs! The official cover image will debut HERE on the blog in January, with Makeout Creek 4 itself following in late February/early March. Check back in with us, why don't ya?

Happy New Year, everybody!

XO,
MC

Titus, Poteat, Svalina: Go!!!

So right now it's just turned Friday and you're probably all, "Whoo-hoo it's Fuh-ryyyyy-day, beeeotch!" And with good reason. But, listen, we all know the truth. This euphoria fades. In three short days you're going to be all, "Sheeeeeeeeeeeit. It's Monday." Makeout Creek is here to propose a remedy. On Monday, November 23, poets Allison Titus, Joshua Poteat and Mathias Svalina will be celebrating the releases of their newest books with a reading party at the Visual Arts Center in Richmond, VA. If you've ever read the masthead on Makeout Creek (hell, if you've ever read this blog), then you know that Allison and Joshua are editors at our little publication. They're also amazing writers and we couldn't be prouder of 'em. Also: we have it on good authority that this Mathias is one hell of a poet. Plus the dang thing's co-sponsored by our friends at Chop Suey Books. So come on out, everybody! Afterwards, maybe we'll even hit $2 draughts at Ipanema?

Titus's Ship Now Available to Order

Makeout Creek editor Allison Titus's new book of poetry, Sum of Every Lost Ship, is now available for pre-order from Amazon.com. It's being published by Cleveland State University, where Allison was a finalist in the 2008 CSU Poetry Center Contest. Go ahead and order one, why don't you? We're biased, sure, but trust us: this is one good book. You'll be doing yourself a solid.

Check Turley's Hook (While the DJ Revolves It)

Ben Turley is a good friend of ours here at Makeout Creek, and until recently he worked as a butcher at Marlow & Daughters in Brooklyn, New York. It was there that he laid the charm on Martha Stewart and friend:



And the funny thing is, before that clip even aired, Ben flew the coop from the Marlow Girls. He's currenty starting his own store with butcher Tom Mylan and partner Brent Young. It's called the Meat Hook, and -- New Yorkers! -- it opens this week as part of the Brooklyn Kitchen Labs. Check out their blog for more information. There's also a brief New York Times piece here.

Congratulations, Ben! We're proud of ya! As Martha says, "So lucky to have a real butcher taking care of this beautiful meat!"

The Walls of Academia Are Surely Shuddering

Ho-lee cow. Amazing news! Thanks to the kind efforts of Archival Assistant Gay Acompañado, the first three issues of Makeout Creek have been added to the Special Collections and Archives of the James Branch Cabell Library at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA.

What does this mean? Simple: if you've contributed work to Makeout Creek numbers 1-3, then that work of yours is archived and shall be preserved in published form at the Cabell Library. Forever. Or until society collapses, whichever comes first. It's the kind of honor not often bestowed on a young magazine, and it pretty much blows our minds. Rest assured that, now that we're hooked up, we'll certainly attempt to force future issues of this thing into their hands.

Say, want to know more about the Richmond author for whom the library is named? He was a pretty racy fellow. Special Collections and Archives has an extensive overview of his career here.

Makeout at Zine Fest RVA

Again, one of those things we should have told you before it happened. (What, we've probably done that ten times now?) In any case: your scatterbrained friend Makeout Creek spent yesterday livin' it up and making friends at the 2009 Richmond Zine Fest. Above, the proof: our table covered in glorious shining issues of Makeout Creek. Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by to take a look, and especially to those folks who picked up copies—our supply was nearly depleted by the time we rolled out of there!

Below, our friend Oura and family at his table, plus Zine Fest organizer/angel Liz Canfield. When not making some fantastic something every day, Mr. Oura assures us he's hard at work on the cover for Makeout Creek 4. Then (hold onto your hats!) find Eric Miller at his table hawkin' Mark of the Damned, which, if you haven't seen it... oh, man, y'all. You better just check it out.

LaForge's Voices Now Available

Our congratulations to Makeout Creek contributor Jane Rosenberg LaForge, whose chapbook After Voices has just been published by Burning River Press! Jane's poem "Allenwood" appeared in Makeout Creek #2 and can now be found in After Voices, which is available for purchase or download here.

Poteat's Machine: Now "On Sale"

Makeout Creek editor Joshua Poteat's second book of poetry won't officially be released until Nov. 1st. That's the official word. The good news is you can go ahead and consider it on sale, as it's available for purchase right now through the University of Georgia Press and ol' Amazon.

So get out your shekels, y'all, and get ready for Illustrating the Machine That Makes the World: From J. G. Heck's 1851 Pictorial Archive of Nature and Science. Some early praise for the book:

"I find Joshua Poteat's poetry as moving as any being written today. His first collection, Ornithologies, was wise and piercing and beautiful, and Illustrating the Machine That Makes the World is every bit its equal. From the illustrations and inquiries of the book's opening pages, haunted by change and loss and the mysterious enterprises of every living creature, to the playful vanishing act of its final section, Poteat pays heed to literature's oldest and greatest calling: to tell the truth about things."

—Kevin Brockmeier, author of The View from the Seventh Layer

"Joshua Poteat’s new collection is a brilliant, unsettling, unclassifiable, and consummately strange sequence. Poteat possesses something of Joseph Cornell’s zeal to reconfigure but enshrine the ephemeral, and to make from the odd detritus of the past works that are at once exhilarating and elegiac. When we open Poteat’s Cabinet of Wonders, we encounter the work of a true original."

—David Wojahn, author of Interrogation Palace

Congratulations, JP! Now get back to work.

McLennan In New York

Makeout Creek no. 3 cover artist Ryan McLennan has a solo show called The Strain of Inheritance opening at the Joshua Liner Gallery this Saturday, October 17. The show will remain up through November 14, 2009 and features all new works. There'll be an opening shindig from 6-9 pm on the 17th. Have you seen his stuff? It's great! New Yorkers, get over there!

Poteat & Ventura Take Best In Show

Or took Best in Show, that is, at InLight Richmond, for the installation For Gabriel. Congratulations, good fellows! Pictures follow.









(Photos by Heidi Hess, Eric Saylor, Tim Brown)

Poteat Lights Up History

Makeout Creek editor Joshua Poteat will be participating in tomorrow (i.e., Friday) night's InLight Richmond, which will feature installations of light-based artwork throughout downtown Richmond, VA. Joshua's storefront piece with designer Roberto Ventura will be located at 521 E Grace St, one block up from the new Carpenter Center/CenterStage, and is designed to honor Gabriel Prosser, the leader of one of the United States' few large-scale slave revolts whose unmarked grave today sits beneath a VCU parking lot. If you've glanced at our blog before, you might know that Joshua is quite handy at crafting light boxes, so it'll be exciting to see him translate his work to this larger scale. Richmonders, come out if you can!

Above: a detail from Poteat and Ventura's larger work, entitled "For Gabriel." Richmond's Style Weekly has posted nice little article on the event here.

Getting Internetier

Makeout Creek just got a Facebook page (meant to replace the previously established Facebook "group," which we're doing for some reason we've already forgotten), so now you can go on there and become a fan of our magazine and receive updates that way. We're keeping this here blog, of course, but this is a nice way to give quick updates to you Facebook users without resorting to Twitter, which, if you don't know it, is uncool. (But seriously. We'll never be on Twitter.)

What Elk Do

As illustrated on the cover of Makeout Creek 3. Although ours has an extra skull on its head.

Thanks, Ryan!

Back in New York City!

And at a wonderful bookstore! Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn has Issue Three of Makeout Creek in stock. A couple of MC editors lived in the neighborhood for a good period of time and are seriously in love with this place, so it's a real honor to have our magazine there. If you are ever in the area, or, you know, anywhere in NYC where you can hop on a train, please support this wonderful resource for literature, art and design books, journals, and the unclassifiable.

Our thanks to the kind people at Spoonbill & Sugartown, and to MC contributor R. Nicholas Kuszyk, whose book Jammer Slammer is forthcoming from Makeout Creek. Stay tuned.

Makeout Under Glass

Hi, there. Throughout the month of August Makeout Creek was in an exhibit called [WORK] at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, VA. It might've behooved us to alert you to this fact before the exhibit, which has now run its course. But here's the thing: there's only one of us MC editors who maintains this blog and he (or she??? -- no, it's a he) is a freakin' space cadet. In other words, we forgot. Despite the fact we were very, very excited to be included in the exhibit. So hopefully these grainy photos will suffice, if any of you want to see the evidence. Thanks again to the kind folks at the Visual Arts Center (where -- Richmonders, don't forget -- all three issues of Makeout Creek are on sale) for their generous invitation to participate in the showcase!

It Is True That We Like Her, Too

We're very happy to report that the intelligent, perceptive, and surely handsome and good folks over at the Apostrophe Cast blog have posted an interview with Makeout Creek editor Allison Titus, who, when she's not wasting her time with this MC thing, is one hell of a poet and writer. And who looks really cool all the time, especially when standing next to mysterious blue squares, as is obvious from the photo above. Click here to read Allison's take on home remedies and Iceland and -- even better -- to listen to audio of her work!

Makeout Creek Gets Some Style

It's August, and hardly anyone is paying attention to Makeout Creek, including its editors (hell, one of 'em even moved to Doha, for crying out loud) -- and yet the nice people at Richmond's alternate paper Style Weekly picked this moment to do a very flattering article about our little publication. Thank you to author Valley Haggard for her kind appraisal of the MC. Click here to read the article online, and also to see Andrew smiling dumbly whislt displaying "the hearty red cheeks of a snow-country child" (i.e., something we read once on a package of Japanese candy).

A Little Press for the MC

Last week, during our exile, Richmond, VA's Brick Weekly published a short piece on the creation and continued existence of Makeout Creek. They don't seem to be updating their website, so hopefully the grainy iPhone picture above will give you a sense of things? In any case, thank you to Brick and to author Jon Sealy for the nice article -- and especially for validating our favorite turn of phrase (we use it as the title for our website) by printing it in really, really big letters!

Makeout Creek Expands Into Buffalo, Portland

Hi, folks. Thanks to the tireless efforts of MC contributors Pir Rothenberg (Issue Three's "Things In Boxes") and William Foster (Issue One's "Reconstituted Bees" & "Sea Cave Tragedy"), Makeout Creek can now be found in Buffalo, NY and Portland, OR!

We's expanding buy four -- count 'em, four -- stores!

BUFFALO, NY

Rust Belt Books
202 Allen St.
716/885-9535

Second Reader Book Shop
1419 Hertel Ave
716/862-0001

Talking Leaves... Books
3158 Main St
716/837-8554

PORTLAND, OR

Reading Frenzy
921 SW Oak St
503/274-1449

Thanks very much to these excellent stores and especially to Will and Pir for doing the legwork! For a complete list of stores selling Makeout Creek, look to your right on this here blog page, or visit our storefront.

Makeout Creek is about to end its exile in Maine, and will get to work ASAP on finding New York City stores to replace the one we lost. Check back here for more details...

Love,
Makeout Creek

Dear New Yorkers

We seem to have lost our retail location in your fair state. We sure aren't happy about it. But have no fear: we were already at work on new locations in New York City and Buffalo. We'll keep you updated as these get settled.

In the meantime, if you're in New York and you've got an itch to buy an issue of Makeout Creek, please make sure to visit our website.

Yrs Sincerely,
MC

Here She Comes

Back from the printer. Now on sale online. Newish website for new issue. Currently being sent to our retail locations -- should be there within a few days. You want Makeout Creek 3? You got it!!!

(Contributors! Your copies are also on their way to you. Arrival is imminent.)

Thanks, everybody, for your support of Makeout Creek.

Love,
The Editors

P.S. Q: What should you do if you find Makeout Creek 3 in your house?



A: Destroy it. Crush it. Crush every single copy, if possible.

Late Bloomer

Hot damnit. Makeout Creek Three is at the printer's. Finally. Honestly and truly. We'll sure as hell tell you when it's done.

In the meantime, here are jpegs of the TOC, featuring art by R. Nicholas Kuszyk; page 2, with art by Rob Lee and a poem by Brian Henry; and the rear cover, with photos from George Allen.





In addition to the above, Issue Three features a cover by Ryan McLennan (see the top of this post) and new work from M. C. Boyes, Jeff Lodge, Liz Mandrell, Michael Mehen, Mike Powell, Pir Rothenberg and many others! Just check that TOC!

Trust us, we'll keep you updated.

So, hey, now might also be a good time to mention that, in addition to our third issue, Makeout Creek will be bringing you two extra special treats later this summer:

1. Jammer Slammer, a "short graphic socio-spiritual text" from the aforementioned R. Nicholas Kuszyk, which will be the debut volume in our new line of Makeout Creek Books.

2. The premiere of our first online feature, for now tentatively titled (with a title that says it all): "Muki Veseljak Sasses the Balkans -- and Dissolves! A Weekly Travelogue on Diverse Topics Concerning a Single Place."

So keep your eyes peeled. Now that we're done with the magazine-making, there will be a lot more time to pester with you with blog entries about every little thing that happens to the MC.

Makeout 3 Arrives in May!

So we know that the website has read "April 2009" for months now, and until yesterday the Facebook group wasn't much different. But here's the situation: at close to the last minute, we received some very excellent submissions from some writers that we really love, and we've decided to incorporate their work into our third issue. Doing so has extended production by a few weeks; as a result, expect Makeout Creek Issue 3 to drop in EARLY-TO-MID MAY 2009.

We will certainly keep you informed as to a specific date.

In the meantime, click the photo above for a closer look at our NEW ISSUE THREE COVER, by Richmond, VA artist (and all-around good guy) Ryan McClennan. And: his website is here.

Make Book Face Out

Makeout Creek is now a Facebook group.

Check it. Join it. Tell your friends.

XO,
MC

Peep That Bellwether!

Remember how we didn't have pictures of Bellwether Boutique?

Now we do!



Thanks, Jessica!

Everyone else: get to Omaha already! Buy some nice clothes!



And while you're at it! (Nudge, wink, sigh, etc.)

Yrs sincerely,
Makeout Creek

Chop Suey Blogs: No MSG!

It's no secret that the braintrust behind Makeout Creek lives in Richmond, VA (or, most of it does, anyway) and that we are rather fond of the city's Chop Suey Books. Also: very fond of the fact that Chop Suey Books sells Makeout Creek. Well, it turns out that the good folks at Suey have, in addition to their usual website, finally gotten around to promoting the store and its various activities and outreach programs through one of these blog things. Why don't you check it out? Recent posts involve Nathan the Intern's harrowing account of his visit to Coppola's Deli. (Try the Cheese Columbo!)

Jammer Slammer: The Evalation

New Yorkers! Our good friend R. Nicholas Kuszyk has a show premiering this Saturday, March 7, at McCaig Welles Gallery in Williamsburg!

As you might recall, Nick illustrated the title page of the very first issue of Makeout Creek with one of his signature robots. He is currently at work on Jammer Slammer, an illustrated novel that we'll be premiering in late spring as the FIRST TITLE in Makeout Creek's NEW SEMIANNUAL MONOGRAPH LINE. (No kidding! More news to come!)

Check back here very soon for more about the book; in the meantime, visit Jammer Slammer: The Evalation at McCaig Welles, 129 Roebling Street, Brooklyn, NYC. Again, the opening occurs this Saturday, March 7, from 7pm to late.



Also! August 2009 will see the release of Nick's first kids' book, R Robot Saves Lunch, which is available for pre-order from Amazon!

MC Takes the Lone Star State

Hot damn! Makeout Creek can now be found at the Marfa Book Company in Marfa, Texas.

And so our evil sphere of influence continues to extend store by awesome store...

Also! We're hoping we can have a presence at the MBCo's small press show in summer 2009. We'll do what we can; you all check back here for updates.

Okay Okay Okay

You might remember that the good folks here at Makeout Creek promised (in a post since deleted -- how's that for covering our tracks?) to update y'all about the generally depressing shenanigans at AWP Chicago. Here's why we didn't: because, despite the fact that we paid the inordinately expensive fee for wireless internet at the Hilton Chicago, we were unable to access the internet on the bookfair floor. At any time. Even though said bookfair was in a convention hall that was part of the hotel where we were paying for wireless internet. As in, a contiguous portion of the same building. But no internet. Thanks, Hilton Chicago! Thanks, Freeman Exhibits! We blame you both!

Now that that's out of the way: Thanks (and in this case we mean honest, sincere thanks) to all of you who came by the table to visit us. Some of you have contacted us in the days since to inquire about the buttons we handed out, the ones that say LET'S MAKE OUT. Here is the sad news: they are all gone. The makeout-hungry attendees of AWP Chicago depleted most of our supply in the first day. And then killed it the second. We're sorry, we're sorry, we're very sorry. We can only promise to come prepared with more buttons next year.

Anyway, it was nice to see you. And we made some friends! Please visit Tacos Avant Garde.

Other highlights:

1. The woman who said, "Is that a real creek? That's not a real creek!" She was like the first person to the table on Thursday morning and never stopped talking on her cell phone while also talking to us and we're pretty sure she was wearing a gauntlet. Anyway, there was something charming about the whole thing.

2. The woman who, when told we were hungry for new writers, promised to be our food.

3. The woman who informed us that Makeout Creek is in fact a real creek, and that it runs alongside a meth lab somewhere in Missouri. A message to this woman, if you're somehow reading: We're serious! Submit your work! You will be published on awesome points alone!

3b. How to identify yourself and get published on awesome points alone: tell us where in Missouri -- or, specifically, outside where -- this meth lab/creek combination is located.

4. That guy who tried to pronounce "Makeout" as if it were an old Native American term.

5. Boxed wine breaks with the cool kids at the Bat City Review table.

6. The two fellows who got so very excited when they spotted Allison Titus's name in Makeout Creek. (Which, in turn, prompted Allison to observe, "AWP is going nuts?! Nice nuts, though!")

7. Finally being able to visit Quimby's Bookstore, which was very thrilling for us, even though they informed us that they've not sold a single copy of Issue Two. (Chicago! Help us out here!) In any case: what a selection of Philip K. Dick they have! That, and just about everything else!

8. All the kind people who took the time to come up to our table and compliment the magazine on its logo, content, contributors, aesthetic sense, size, outlook, whatever. Seriously. We don't get to hear stuff like that very often, so it's nice and it's surprising, and it's also kind of embarrassing, which is probably why Andrew was so bad at receiving these compliments from you.

9. Our beautiful little table. "It's like a cross between Vegas, a Little Miss USA pageant, and 1991 over there. In other words: cute!" -- award-winning poet Joshua Poteat

Makeout in Omaha!

(These headlines just write themselves.)

More good news: Makeout Creek can be found at Bellwether Boutique in Omaha, NE, a lovely store run by the lovely Jessica Latham. They have a very nice website, much nicer than the picture above, which, frankly, I just ripped off from Google Maps. In fact, I'm not sure what I'm looking at in this picture, as I've never been to Omaha, NE, but Google Maps assures me this is South 12th Street and generally in the right area for Bellwether. Whose address, b-t-dubs, is 430 S 12th in the "old market, lower level." So! Nebraskans! Go there, look at some art, buy some kick-ass clothing type things, and flip through Makeout Creek while you're at it. Thanks, Nebraskans! You're the best!

Makeout Goes Fast!

We also get around.

In any case, we're very happy to announce a new home at Velocity Comics at 904 W Broad St in Richmond, VA. GO THERE IT'S A COOL PLACE I KINDA CAN'T BELIEVE THEY LET US IN.

Also: it's the number one place in Richmond to buy Mark of the Damned, which you probably want to do at some point. (Like, take a peek at the still above!)

It's Finally Happened

Makeout Creek and Saffron Burrows, together at last.

Remember that scene in Deep Blue Sea where the only way Saffron Burrows can defeat the genetically-enhanced supershark is by taking off her clothes? Now that's filmmaking!