As we are in the process of building our summer print issue I have been reminded of why I fell in love with Eleven Eleven in the first place. I am a fan of all arts whether it be written, painted, photographed and so on. It is always a delight to mix medias in a journal, so I decided to explore other literary journals that offer this as well. Take time and explore these journals that offer a variety of prose, poetry, art and mixed media.

Alicia Franco

International Editor

CALYX 

reDIVIDer

LIMESTONE

PAPER DARTS

STYLUS

H.O.W Journal

Brushfire

gULF COASt

Mosaic Art & Literary Journal

DOSSIER

LABLETTER 

1-      Ballyhoo Stories: Print journal that focuses on the skill and imagination of the writer. Each issue explores a theme which invites the reader on a new adventure every time. I love the freshness of it.

http://www.ballyhoostories.com/

2-      Blackbird: Electronic journal whose that focuses on the style of writing and how it was crafted. I never read anything I disliked on there. All the work is so original so unique in a haunting way.

http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/

3-      Do Not Look At The Sun: Paris-based online and print journal that prefers submissions from new and emerging writers rather than those already established and I respect that and it makes the journal appear in different shapes. It is like theater with a new act and a new story every time.

http://www.donotlookatthesun.com/

4-      Fugue: Print journal that publishes different voices, written in a variety of forms.

http://www.uiweb.uidaho.edu/fugue/index.html

5-      Kestrel: Print journal that is open to all forms of poetry and prose that are thought-provoking, that makes a reunion of thought. They have published work from the U.S., Canada, Ireland, France, Haiti, etc

http://www.fairmontstate.edu/kestrel/

6-      Ninth Letter: Print journal that publish prose and poetry that experiment with form, narrative, and nontraditional subject matter and that is what makes them so unique and as a writer, it helps me walk the line and expand my thoughts.

http://www.ninthletter.com/

7-      Phoebe: Print journal that is known for its pride to support up-and-coming writers, whose style, form, voice, and subject matter demonstrate a vigorous appeal to the senses, intellect, and emotions.

http://www.phoebejournal.com/

8-      Post Road: Print journal with no restrictions as to style or subject matter. It shocks me every time. There is always a piece or two just leave me dumbstruck. They publish work that leave you always on the edge.

http://www.postroadmag.com/

9-      Tarpaulin Sky: Electronic journal that publishes ground-breaking work. I always get inspired when I read the work; I feel the excitement in the writers voices.

http://www.tarpaulinsky.com/

10-    Vallum: contemporary poetry: Print journal that publishes poetry that’s edgy, notorious something that reflects contemporary experience without hiding.

http://www.vallummag.com/

11-   Zero Ducats: Print and online literary journal of poetry and flash fiction comprised entirely of recycled materials and dispersed for free. It is always a lot of fun to read. it makes me smile everytime.

http://www.zeroducats.com/

We are just a few weeks away from launching Issue 14 of our online journal, and with that in mind I think it is essential to look back on former content that has helped shape Eleven Eleven. Revisiting past issues made me feel as If I were on a treasure hunt, uncovering hidden gems in an online cavern. I enjoyed discovering writers I had never heard of in both fiction and poetry. I love all forms of literature, but poetry always wins my heart. I have collected poems from each issue that I feel are transgressive and touch on a subject that we all share in common, our mortality.

In Issue 6 we have Barry Dempster’s poem “Oozing “ that depicts a scene of a loved one sick in bed. Dempster heightens the gruesome aspects of an illness, yet he somehow manages to weave in a dreamy romance to it. His use of language is ethereal, and when read out loud is quite pleasing to the ear. The images are vivid, raw and delightful. My favorite lines that depict this are:

“And now

you’re oozing right before my eyes.

The cat on my lap sweet and fuzzy,

rippling with bacteria

as surely as the damp patches

down my basement walls, the yeasts

in my slippers, the microbes

on my fresh filet of sole.”

Everything in this poem becomes alive, but also capable of infecting. Dempster will infect your mind and you will be left begging for more.

For Issue 8 I selected “Dawn” by Tim Seibles. Seibles addresses the fact that we are all going to die, but we don’t know how or when. If someone ponders this constantly than they tend to go a bit mad, poking and prodding at the unknown. There is some defeat that takes places:

“Or the giving up on everything,

the world a banquet of good reasons

for clocking out and chomping the black

sandwich.”

Perhaps Seibles was talking about suicide, taking the matter into our own hands so that we are not plagued by the weights of the world, and control when we will be tossed out of it.

Moving along from the previous poem I feel it is appropriate to follow with Sue Thomas’ “The Suicide’s Daughter” from Issue 10. The poem is brief, but delivers a punch to your heart in very few lines. The simplicity works lovely here, and there is so much that is unsaid you can feel the loneliness that is rippling from the words. I believe Thomas captures this emptiness from the beginning:

“It is almost Easter.

It is morning

and I have midterms I will never take,

papers due that will not be written.”

What comes to follow is horrendous, and crafted beautifully by Thomas. I will leave this for you to discover on your own.

For my final pick I have chosen Julie Bruck’s “Monkey Ranch”. I found this poem to be a bit disturbing, but I loved the story that it was telling due to the fact that it was so honest. The poem talks of a monkey ranch, and the speaker seems to be recalling to a time when they were a child. Bruck clearly paints pictures into my mind as I read:

“Father tired of monkey

farming, took a job in town.

We starved our monkeys.

Day by day, they slowed,

and when I picture them now,

or dream of how it was,

they stagger in the black

and white of old newsreels.”

The poem is certainly about death, but also offers a view into memory. We all construct our memories to tell stories of tragedy, easing the pain by having the control of retelling.

I hope you enjoyed discovering these poems with me, and I encourage you to go on your own hunt through our archives. Happy hunting!

Alicia Franco, Publisher Liaison Issue  14

With the recent rise in reading applications and tablets, many writers have found their voices through the use of electronic publication. The works of these writers take many forms, ranging from blogs to ebooks. The flash fiction genre is a particular form of writing that has seen a surge in popularity in the advent of the emergence of apps and tablets.

Flash fiction, a form that facilitates the creation of short-yet-potent stories, is especially popular with online literary journals. This week, I felt obliged to highlight flash fiction as a category. Below is a list of links leading to sites that publish flash fiction in place of poetry.

Terrel Adams
Marketing Director

For this issue of 195, I will like to give a ‘nudge and a hat off’ to the experimental writing that we have published in our recent issues. Eleven Eleven publishes a variety of pieces that take different approaches to writing. This is one of my favorite aspects of Eleven Eleven–the pleasantly surprising style of each individual piece, and there is no better example of this than pieces that are experimental and playful.

Personally, I like writing that gambles, when it is in your face and unapologetic. I like writing that is funny; prose and poetry that can make you laugh-out-loud on public transportation. This is not to say that funny doesn’t pack an emotional punch, or have depth, but it’s always a thrill when words are playful on the page. I like to watch characters (or narrators) dance with their conflicts in non-traditional forms.

In honor of our issue 13 launch party, I will like to draw your attention to a few of my favorite playful, short pieces from our latest issue. One is Daniel Curzon’s list essays “Pets” and “Parties”. Curzon’s use of irony, double meaning, and slightly dark humor is impeccable. There is a subtle portrayal of desire in the list “Pets.” “Parties” takes a very tongue-in-cheek approach. In both lists, each sentence is every-bit as potent as the next. Sometimes the sentences build off the previous, and other times, it completes a previous statement.

From issue 12, I will like to point out Yvette Johnson’s “How To Win At Breaking Up” and “How To Win At A Party”. Johnson’s exaggerated sentences create a certain kind of surprise that keeps the reader guessing, but laughing. The different scenarios that the narrator gives are just out-there, so far out there (like selling a friend into white slavery); they are innovative and witty.

I am also a fan of Denise Duhamel’s “What To Say When People Ask What The Heck Happened To Your Ex” from issue 12. The reasons the narrator gives for her break-up are absurd, in the most humorous and interesting way possible.

So read, laugh and be surprised.

Samiat Salami,                                                                                                                                                                                                     International Editor

Eleven Eleven prides itself on publishing an eclectic mix of writing. It would only make sense to link to journals that do the same, in one way or another, and since we are currently working on our online winter issue, I thought it’d be a great idea to highlight a list of other online literary journals.

So, check out these online literary journals that are each doing something a bit different.

Autumn Darbrow
Local Editor

Mudlark

In Prose Review

Brevity

Terrain- A Journal of Environments

Word Riot

5 Trope

Identity Theory

Carve Magazine

Mad Hatters Review

Diagram

Equisite Corpse

For this installation of 195, I thought I’d point our readers toward one of my favorite aspects of Eleven Eleven: our inclusion of translated works. Reading literary translation not only enriches us as readers, but as citizens of the world, giving the gift of access to rich cultural and literary histories of people and places that may otherwise be remote to us. How wonderful, for example, to be able to read a testimonio from Latin America and get to hear one person’s experience of something you may have read about in a world history class. How revealing to read about a foreign place from the perspective of someone who feels that places as home.

As an art, translation is especially fascinating. The translator may not be an author, but who can argue that the observation, interpretation, and reinvention that the translator does is not an artist’s work? The translator becomes so intimate with the language of a story or poem, its history and cultural references, that it’s hard for me not to think of a translator as some kind of spirit-artist-guide into another world. Before I get carried away with that, let me set you up with some links to a few of my favorite translations in our past online issues:

In Issue 12, Xi Chuan, himself a translator, has shared with us three poems originally written in Chinese. Chuan’s delicate language and references to place establish the ghostly atmosphere that he punctuates with matter-of-fact sentences that ground the reader in the tension of the poems.

Kristín Eiríksdóttir is an Icelandic writer whose story “Holes in People” we featured in Issue 10. Her narrator recounts the disappearance of her father and the small hopes and horrors they encounter in the years that follow. A truly beautiful and riveting story.

Last, for the moment, I’ll mention Yuka Tsukagoshi, a Japanese poet whose four poems she co-translated for Issue 8. I was especially taken with the sounds in her poem “Silkworm” and the sepulchral images the speaker conjures while recalling a silkworm she once killed.

Hope you enjoy reading these pieces as much as I did!

Natalie Catasús
Art Director

So you ask, “Eleven Eleven is such a fantastic magazine!  Could there possibly be others like you out there?”  For this Koi Pond, I decided to choose print journals that, like us, regularly publish innovative content from both established and emergent writers.  Up and coming poets and writers should consider submitting work to any/all of these journals (after givings us first pick of course), and do so soon!  I mean, who doesn’t want to see their name next to literary badasses like Rosemarie Waldrop, Steve McCaffery, Lisa Robertson, John Yau- the list goes on.  I’d like to see an influx of idea/people networking between Eleven Eleven and these journals.  You can make that happen by contributing to them (and us) yourself.  Let them know we sent you–

Colin Partch
Drama and Reviews Editor

New American Writing

Volt

Denver Quarterly

Puerto del Sol

Death Hums

V+L-A=K

Fence

Epoch

American Letters and Commentary

Colorado Review

Forklift, Ohio

In this edition, I wish to share with you how I experience literature. I don’t just read it; I consume it. Thus, I have prepared a menu for you. Please note that these pieces are best savored slowly. Let the tastes melt into your mind.

Today’s flight of 195 features four varietals of fiction, with distinct cultural undertones.

We begin with “The Lyrica Cantos IV-VII” by Michael Filas — a smoky selection from our most recent on-line Issue: 12. Crushed under a consumer mentality that seeps even into the pharmaceutical realm, we find a soul clinging to others’ pain just to feel. A peculiar quirk of modern culture bubbles to the surface. Even healthy bodies appear defective when paired against the constant stream of the ill and cured.

Next, from Issue 10, we feature “On Awe” by Alexander Long. Full of the character grown in the alkaline air of the Hudson, this flash of flavor captures a pointed sensation that does not seek to over-analyze. It merely needs to be experienced for what it is. And it is good.

Moving along, Issue 8 gives offers the full bodied selection “Rat Stories” by Jamey Genna. On the most basic level, it tackles a pest problem in a suburban home. Yet, with each freshly squeezed rat killed on it’s from escape urban sprawl, a haunting narrative forms around the imprint that generations leave on the spaces they used to inhabit. The dark humor rounds out this story with a clean finish.

To cleanse the palate, we leave you with the work of Alain de Botton entitled “The Discreet Charm of the Zürich Bourgeoisie,” originally published in Issue 6. Botton writes, “as mother tends to tell you near the end of the school holidays, it’s mostly boring people who get bored.” This note is flavored with a subtle crispness that characterizes the content of the entire piece. Like the warm sensation after a clean glass of white wine, this work will leave you with an appreciation for the reserved and humble.

Scroll down to here for the juicy bits!  Really though, try some.  I think you’ll like it.

“The Lyrica Cantos IV-VII” by Michael Filas

“On Awe” by Alexander Long

“Rat Stories” by Jamey Genna

“The Discreet Charm of the Zürich Bourgeoisie” by”Alain de Botton

Candace Elise Hoes, Managing Editor Issue14

When I first began putting together my issue of 195, I wasn’t sure where to start. Should I already have a theme in mind before I begin reading? Should I start with the art and work my way into the literary after finding a visual launch pad to guide me? In the end, I took a very systematic approach: clicking through each link in the 10th issue, one by one in the order they appeared on the webpage, then working backwards through the issues from there. As I read, I made note of pieces that really resonated with me in particular. Before long, certain patterns in my selections became obvious.

For one thing, all of the pieces I ultimately chose are heavy with water imagery: a series of island paintings, a photograph of found plastic cheese spreaders washed ashore Kehoe Beach, a woman who wakes to the sounds of the ocean, a tire boat, a dream boat. The writers and artists both construct the body of their work in a quiet, understated manner. In all of these pieces, the mundane is rendered beautiful: through a deft use of language, a novel way of viewing the world, or disparate elements merging in surprising form.

A more subtle thread that weaves many of the works together, however, is their juxtaposition of what we perceive as real with what we perceive as fake. Ryan Grossman paints images of rain clouds and the ocean—water in various guises—but he does it using oils. Meanwhile, Alison Doernberg’s “How I Forget the Shape of Your Mouth When You Are Deep in Thought” begins with evocative descriptions of tangible, everyday objects, and yet the sound of the ocean from the narrator’s alarm clock in the last vignette essentially amounts to bottled nature, an inauthentic substitute for the real thing. Similarly, MRB Chelko starts his poem “Memoir” with vivid descriptions of biting into a juicy pear, eventually closing the piece with an image of plastic fruit at the supermarket. That’s when it all comes full circle.

Check out these old pieces in a new configuration by clicking the links below. I hope you enjoy reading the second issue of 195 as much as I enjoyed selecting the pieces for it!

Susan Lin, Art Director Issue 13

From Issue 10: MRB Chelko’s “Memoir” (poetry)
From Issue 8: Judith Selby Lang and Richard Lang’s “Cheese Spreaders” (art)
From Issue 6: Alison Doernberg’s “How I Forget the Shape of Your Mouth When You Are Deep in Thought” (fiction)
From Issue 10: Ryan Grossman’s “Island No. 3” (art)
From Issue 8: Mike Young’s “The Age of the Tire Boat” (fiction)