Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Packingtown Review: Official Call for Submissions

Dear Writers and Scholars:

The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) journal Packingtown Review invites submissions for its inaugural print issue to be released in November 2008. We welcome submissions of scholarly articles, poetry, prose, drama, and literary translation, as well as genre-bending pieces. We also publish reviews, interviews, and cultural commentary dealing with literature, performance, art, music, pop culture, etc. Submissions guidelines are available at http://www.packingtownreview.com/submit.

We are open to all approaches to writing, from the highly experimental to the traditional, by both emerging and established international and U.S. authors. With our inclusive editorial policy, we aim to not only reach a broad audience, but also provide an ever-evolving environment where exceptional texts of all kinds will challenge and bolster one another. Packingtown Review is edited by literature and creative writing Ph.D. candidates at UIC. It will be issued biannually.

If you are interested in collaborating with us now or at a later date, please bookmark packingtownreview.com. We will be rigorously updating our online content.

Snezana Zabic, editor-in-chief
Tasha Fouts, editor-in-chief

Packingtown Review
English Department
UH 2027 MC 162
University of Illinois at Chicago
601 S Morgan
Chicago, IL 60607
editors@packingtownreview.com

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Stuff Bob Rock (Nick) and I Say...

...while playing online Scrabble.

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Nick: imagine if they played board games in all those Bond movies instead of poker....

me: what would happen?

Nick: Bond-- Looks like you've landed on my bordwalk after I just put hotels on it. Maxamillion Largo-- Damn you Bond! I should have never let you be the banker!

* * *
me: the current shape on the board looks like a swastika melting. we're defeating the nazis as we're playing.

* * *
me: i just tried the word “moxine”. they say: invalid. i say: it's a buzz word i just coined.

Nick: so it acknowledges that it’s a real word but won't accept it.
I demand to speak to the manager!

* * *
Nick: they are talking about the fad paul started. paul McCartney put some song out and in it he nods and now everyone is nodding.

me: so now every time i nod, it's cause i'm copying sir paul?

Nick: see! see what a douche bag he is! trying to coin nodding!

me: fantastic. it's cause bob (dylan) has already claimed the 60s, so what's left for sir paul?

Nick: and so BOB (rock) will claim this decade or possibly a large chunk of the next with the last three years of this one

me: i'll claim foot-tapping. cause shakira snatched the hip-shaking.

* * *
me: ugly betty--not good at all. moralistic.

Nick: ugly betty?? I like spinach.

me: i figured, salma produced it, she produced frida, maybe it's good. did dumping edward and marrying an old dude mess up her standards?

Nick: I like it in soups and salads and inside of food. he’s actually only 4 years her senior.

me: oh.

Nick: didn't realize I like spinach so much. sometimes I shut my eyes and wish it was in more food.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Publish

I am now editing a journal. So far we have a website, but it will be a print journal come November 2008: Packingtown Review.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Went to Suzanne Vega's Show Yesterday

Twenty or more years ago, I felt that a twelve-year-old girl could choose only one of the two biggest female pop stars of that moment to look up to: either Madonna or Suzanne Vega. In my mind, one canceled the other out. I wonder what kind of a 33-year-old I would have become had I chosen Madonna at that particular junction. I'm sure I would have been fine, but I probably wouldn't have become exactly as I am now, and I like what I'm like.