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The Accomplices LLC

Civil Coping Mechanisms / Entropy / Writ Large Press

  • About
    • About The Accomplices
    • Who We Are
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    • New/Forthcoming
    • Bestsellers
    • All Titles
  • Resources
    • Teaching Guides
    • Where to Submit (Entropy)
    • Trumpwatch (Entropy)
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    • Current Projects
    • Past Projects
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Daily Archives

December 27, 2016

a shadow map
BooksNews

Contributors for ‘A Shadow Map’

by CCM December 27, 2016
written by CCM

I’m so pleased to announce the contributors of CCM’s anthology, “A Shadow Map.” These essays and poems are not only just compelling, but harrowing stories of sexual assault. None of these pieces were easy to write–and were born out of traumatizing and terrible experiences. I am beyond amazed by the words of these incredible writers and survivors–and am eternally grateful they shared their stories with the CCM community as a way to connect with others–and help show that there is no one kind of survivor, we are all survivors.

-Joanna C. Valente


Hillary Leftwich is a native of Colorado and currently lives in Denver with her son. She is the co-host for At the Inkwell Reading Series in Denver and serves as the associate editor for The Conium Review. Her writing appears in Hobart, Matter Press, NANO Fiction, WhiskeyPaper, dogzplot, Gone Lawn, decomp magazine, Smokelong Quarterly’s “Why Flash Fiction?” series, the Review Review’s “Views on Publishing,” and other journals. She has a chapbook of poems forthcoming from Mutiny Info Press in 2017.

Prerna Bakshi is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of Burnt Rotis, With Love, a debut full-length collection of poetry from Les Éditions du Zaporogue (Denmark), long-listed for the 2015 Erbacce-Press Poetry Award in the UK and cited as one of the ‘9 Poetry Collections That Will Change The Way You See The World’ by Bustle Magazine in the US. Her work has been published widely, most recently in The Ofi Press, Red Wedge Magazine, TRIVIA: Voices of Feminism and Prachya Review: Literature & Art Without Borders. More here: http://prernabakshi.strikingly.com/

Mila Jaroniec is the author of Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover (Split Lip Press, 2016). She is the editor of drDOCTOR and her work has appeared in Playboy, LENNY, Hobart, Joyland, Catapult and Vol. 1 Brooklyn, among others. She lives in Ohio with her partner and son.

lauren samblanet is a poet who is working on her m.f.a. at temple university. she is also a writer for thinking dance. her poems have been published in the vassar review, walkabout and adanna, and a dance-radio collaboration with skye hughes was published on colorado public radio’s website.

Erin Taylor is an American writer. Her writing often deals with her own experiences and trauma. It is usually poetry, with some exceptions. She has a chapbook of poetry OOOO out through Bottlecap Press and she’s the interviews editor over at Maudlin House. She is writing a book on loneliness. Her work can be found at erintaylor.tumblr.com and she tweets at @erinisaway.

Stephen Furlong is a graduate student at Southeast Missouri State University located on the Mississippi river. His abuse, at the hands of an older male cousin, happened five times over a three-year period. His current creative project is a manuscript of poetry following the abuse as lensed by the five stages of grief. In addition to receiving nomination for Best New Poets 2016, his poetry and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in the Chariton Review, Open Minds Quarterly, and Big Muddy, among others.

Lillian Ann Slugocki, founder of BEDLAM, has been nominated twice for the Best of the Web, a Pushcart Prize, and winner of the Gigantic Sequins prize for fiction. She’s been published by Seal Press, Cleis Press, Heinemann Press, Newtown Press, Spuyten Duyvil Press, as well as Bloom/The Millions, Salon, Beatrice, THE FEM Literary Magazine, HerKind/Vida, Deep Water Literary Journal, The Nervous Breakdown, The Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Review, Blue Fifth Review, Non Binary Review, The Manifest-Station, Angels Flight * literary west, Entropy, Volume 1 Brooklyn, Sweatpants and Coffee, and The Daily Beast. She has an MA from NYU in literary theory, and has produced and written for Off-Broadway and National Public Radio. How to Travel With Your Demons, a novella, Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2015, chosen for the Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Book Club. Her other books are The Blue Hours, and The Erotica Project, co-author, Erin Cressida Wilson. Anthologies include Wreckage of Reason 2: Back to the Drawing Board and Dirty Girls.

Sloane Eliot Mariem is a Florida-raised, Brooklyn-based poet exploring trauma, recovery, and the formation of new relationships in the wake of domestic violence. Her work has appeared in Vending Machine Press, Calamity, Electric Cereal, and is forthcoming in The Fem. She has read in NYC as part of the Vapors reading series.

Maggie Queeney reads and writes in Chicago. Her work can be found in Copper Nickel, TYPO, Southern Poetry Review, The Southeast Review, and Conjunctions.

Christopher Morgan is a Lebanese American prose poet who grew up in Detroit, the Bible Belt of Georgia, and the San Francisco Bay Area, where he currently lives and co-manages Nostrovia! Press. The Reviews Coordinator at Alien Mouth, and the author of two chapbooks, “Shadow Songs” (Sad Spell Press 2015) and “Fables with Fangs” (Ghost City Press 2016), he loves hiking in the redwoods, aphorisms, and happy hour margaritas.

Geula Geurts is a Dutch born poet living in Jerusalem. She completed her MFA in Poetry at Bar Ilan University. Her mini-chapbook “Like Any Good Daughter” is forthcoming with Platypus Press. Further work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tinderbox Editions, Rogue Agent, Hermeneutic Chaos, Cactus Heart, Minerva Rising, The Fem and Jellyfish Review. She works as a Foreign Rights Agent at The Deborah Harris Literary Agency.

Sarah Lilius is the author of the chapbooks What Becomes Within (ELJ Editions, 2014) and The Heart Factory (Black Cat Moon Press, 2016). She has a chapbook forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press early next year. Some of her journal publication credits include the Denver Quarterly, Bluestem, Tinderbox, Hermeneutic Chaos, Stirring, Melancholy Hyperbole, Entropy, and Flapperhouse. She lives in Arlington, VA with her husband and two sons. Her website is sarahlilius.com.

Omotara James resides in New York City, where she is an MFA candidate. She is the recipient of Slice magazine’s 2016 Bridging the Gap Award for Emerging Poets, as well as the Nancy P. Schnader Academy of American Poets Award. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Winter Tangerine, Visceral Brooklyn, The Coil, Gnosis, Font, and The Anthology of Young American Poets. She has received scholarships from Cave Canem, the Homeschool and the Garrison Institute. Currently, she is an editor at Visceral Brooklyn and Art of Dharma. You can find out what she’s doing next at https://omotara-james-poet.squarespace.com

Lauren Milici is a Jersey-born, Florida-bred gal who believes the best art is derived from naked honesty. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry at West Virginia University. She posts drafts, sketches, and other trash on her website, laurenemilici.com.

Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her first full-length book, Before Isadore, is forthcoming from Sundress Publications. She serves as the poetry editor for The Boiler Journal. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the following: Salt Hill, Stirring, Versal, The Texas Observer, Devil’s Lake, Four Way Review, among others. Hardwick also has chapbooks out with Thrush Press and Mouthfeel Press.

Stephanie Valente lives in Brooklyn, NY. She has published Hotel Ghost (Bottlecap Press, 2015) and has work included in or forthcoming from Danse Macabre, Nano Fiction, and Black Heart. Sometimes, she feels human. http://stephanievalente.com

Isobel O’Hare is a Pushcart-nominated poet and essayist who has dual Irish and American citizenship. O’Hare is the author of the chapbooks Wild Materials (Zoo Cake Press, 2015) and The Garden Inside Her (Ladybox Books, 2016). She is based in Oakland, California and Taos, New Mexico.

Shevaun Brannigan is a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, as well as The Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House at The University of Maryland. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Best New Poets 2012, Rhino, Redivider, and Crab Orchard Review. She is the first place recipient of the 2015 Jan-ai Scholarship through the Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway, and a 2015 recipient of a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant. Also in 2015, she was shortlisted for the Booth Poetry Prize, was a finalist for the District Lit Poetry Prize, a finalist for The Tishman Review’s Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize, and received an honorable mention in The Feminist Wire’s inaugural poetry prize. Her work can be found at shevaunbrannigan.com.

Amy Jo Trier-Walker lives and works on a tree and herb farm in Indiana and is the author of two chapbooks: Trembling Ourselves into Trees (Horse Less Press, 2015) and One Winter Night in the Pines (The Dandelion Review, 2016).  She is the winner of the 2016 Permafrost New Alchemy Contest, and her work can be found in New American Writing, Caliban online, Salt Hill, Tupelo Quarterly, and inter|rupture, among others.

Marty Cain is a poet and video artist. His first book is a long poem called Kids of the Black Hole (Trembling Pillow Press, 2017). His work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Fence, Jacket2, Tarpaulin Sky, Action Yes, Gigantic Sequins, and other journals. He received an MFA from the University of Mississippi, and presently, is pursuing a PhD in English Literature at Cornell University. Currently, he lives in Ithaca, New York with his partner, the poet Kina Viola; together, they run Garden-Door Press.

Jennifer Maritza McCauley is a writer, teacher and Ph.D. candidate in creative writing at the University of Missouri. She is also an editorial assistant at The Missouri Review, a reviews editor at Fjords Review and an associate editor of Origins Literary Journal. Her most recent work appears or is forthcoming in editions of The Los Angeles Review, Jabberwock Review, LunaLuna, Split this Rock’s “Poem of the Week,” Puerto del Sol, The Feminist Wire and New Delta Review, among other outlets.

Alaina Leary is a Bostonian publishing professional. She serves as a social media assistant for the nonprofit We Need Diverse Books. Her work has been published in Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Marie Claire, Bustle, Bust, Everyday Feminism, The Establishment, and more. When she’s not reading, you can usually find her spending time with her two cats or covering everything in glitter.

Alexis Groulx’s work has been previously published, or is forthcoming in Blue Lyra Review, Bridge Eight, Gravel, Off the Coast,Sun & Sandstone,The Missing Slate and others.

Patty Paine is the author of Grief & Other Animals (Accents Publishing) The Sounding Machine (Accents Publishing), Feral (Imaginary Friend Press), and co-editor of Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Arabian Gulf Poetry (Ithaca Press) and The Donkey Lady and Other Tales from the Arabian Gulf (Berkshire). Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Blackbird, Gulf Stream, The Journal, The South Dakota Review, and other publications. She is the founding editor of Diode Poetry Journal, and Diode Editions, and is Director of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar.

Abigail Welhouse is the author of Bad Baby (dancing girl press), Too Many Humans of New York(Bottlecap Press), and Memento Mori (a poem/comic collaboration with Evan Johnston). Her writing has been published in The Toast, The Billfold, Ghost Ocean Magazine, the Heavy Feather Review, and elsewhere. Subscribe to her Secret Poems at tinyletter.com/welhouse.

Stephanie Berger is the founder and CEO of The Poetry Society of New York, a 501(c)3 dedicated to promoting poetry within our culture. She is the creator and Madame of The Poetry Brothel, co-founder and director of The New York City Poetry Festival, and co-creator of The Typewriter Project. Her poetry has appeared in Fence, The Volta, Hyperallergic, Prelude, Bat City Review, and H_NGM_N, among other publications. She published a chapbook of poems, In The Madame’s Hat Box (Dancing Girl Press, 2011) and is the co-author/translator of The Grey Bird (Coconut Books, 2014). She received her MFA in Poetry from The New School and has taught in the English department at Pace University.

jacklyn janeksela is a wolf and a raven, a cluster of stars, &  a direct descent of the divine feminine.  jacklyn janeksela can be found @ Thought Catalog, Luna Magazine, Talking Book, Three Point Press, DumDum Magazine, Visceral Brooklyn, Anti-Heroin Chic, Public Pool, Reality Hands, Mannequin Haus, Velvet-Tail, Requited Journal, The Feminist Wire, Word For/Word, Literary Orphans, Lavender Review, & Pank.  she is in a post-punk band called the velblouds. her baby @ femalefilet.  more art @ artmugre & a clip.  her first book, fitting a witch//hexing the stitch, will be born in 2017 (The Operating System).  she is an energy.  find her @ hermetic hare for herbal astrological readings. 

Christine Stoddard is a Salvadoran-Scottish-American writer and artist who lives in Brooklyn. Her writings have appeared in Marie Claire, The Feminist Wire, Bustle, Teen Vogue, The Huffington Post, Ravishly, So to Speak, Jimson Weed, and beyond. In 2014, Folio Magazine named her one of the top 20 media visionaries in their 20s for founding Quail Bell Magazine. Christine is the author of Hispanic & Latino Heritage in Virginia (The History Press, 2016) and Ova (Dancing Girl Press, 2017.)

Nicole McCarthy is an experimental writer/artist in the MFA program at the University of Washington Bothell. She is also the managing editor of The James Franco Review. Her work has appeared in Punctuate Magazine, The Fem, Ghost Proposal, FLAPPERHOUSE, Crab Fat Magazine, PUBLIC POOL,Tinderbox Poetry, and others. She is working on her first full-length hybrid collection.

Lynn Melnick is the author of Landscape with Sex and Violence (forthcoming, 2017) and If I Should Say I Have Hope (2012), both with YesYes Books, and the co-editor of Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poets for the Next Generation (Viking, 2015). She serves on the Executive Board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.

Ashley Miranda is a latinx poet from Chicago. Her work has been previously featured in The Denver Quarterly, White Stag, pioneertown, and HOUND lit. She tweets impulse poetry and other ramblings @dustwhispers.

Leza Cantoral is editor of CLASH Media Books and Luna Luna Magazine Print Projects. She is the author of  ‘Cartoons in the Suicide Forest’ published by Bizarro Pulp Press. She lives in New Hampshire with the love of her life and their two cats.

Corinne Manning manages the distinction between desire and longing by wearing wigs while chopping wood on a farm in the PNW.  While currently at work on a novel about a queer family in post-Columbine America, Corinne has a collection, WE HAD NO RULES, flirting with presses; stories from which have appeared in Story Quarterly, Calyx, Vol 1 Brooklyn, Moss, and The Bellingham Review. “Primary Sources” originally appeared in Arts & Letters and is the first piece of writing that freed and transformed Corinne in its production.  Once Upon A Time, Corinne founded a journal called The James Franco Review, dedicated to the visibility of underrepresented artists through reimagining the publishing process.

CAConrad’s childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. The author of 9 books of poetry and essays, the latest is titled While Standing In Line For Death and is forthcoming from Wave Books (September 2017). He is a Pew Fellow and has also received fellowships from Lannan Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Headlands Center for the Arts, Banff, RADAR, Flying Ojbect and Ucross. For his books, essays, and details on the documentary The Book of Conrad (Delinquent Films 2016), please visit CAConrad.blogspot.com

Danielle Perry graduated with a degree in English Lit and Religious Studies from Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. She now lives in Portland, OR, but will never lose her East Coast charm. She spends probably too much time on Twitter (@jekyllian). Her work has been published in The Toast, FLAPPERHOUSE, and Potluck Magazine, among others. Her chapbook Phases (2015) was published by Sad Spell Press.

Annie Virginia teaches English to high schoolers. She earned her degree in poetry and street vigilantism at Sarah Lawrence College. She worries people by fighting in public with men who need to be fought. Her work was nominated for a Pushcart prize by Broad! magazine and can be found in The Literary Bohemian, Arsenic Lobster, The Legendary, and “The Queer South” by Sibling Rivalry Press.

Claudia Cortese is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her first book, WASP QUEEN (Black Lawrence Press, 2016), explores the privilege and pathology, trauma and brattiness of suburban girlhood. Her work has appeared in Blackbird, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast Online, and The Offing, among others. The daughter of Neapolitan immigrants, Cortese grew up in Ohio and lives in New Jersey. She also lives at claudia-cortese.com

Kelley O’Brien is a disabled lesbian currently studying social work. She enjoys working in her garden and making jewelry, and hopes to make a little difference in the world.

Jessica Lynn Suchon is a poet, essayist, and women’s rights advocate. She is currently an MFA candidate at Southern Illinois University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Radar Poetry, decomP, and Rust + Moth, among others. In 2016, she was named an Emerging Writer Fellow by Aspen Words, a partner of the Aspen Institute. She currently lives and writes in Carbondale, Illinois with her boyfriend Josh Myers and their dog Gracie.

HANNAH KUCHARZAK is a poet and visual artist from Chicago. Her poems have been previously published in TYPO, Vagabond City, Requited, Pleiades, Pinwheel, Ghost Proposal, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Award and the Luminarts Award for Creative Writing.

Sarah Madges is a Brooklyn-based writer with an MFA from The New School Creative Writing Program. She co-curates Handwritten, an online project dedicated to the art and act of handwriting, and runs the monthly poetry reading series, Mental Marginalia. Her writing has appeared in The Village Voice, Killing the Angel, SCOUT: Poetry in Review, and elsewhere.

Staci R. Schoenfeld is a recipient of a 2015 NEA Fellowship for Poetry. She’s a PhD student at University of South Dakota and assistant editor for poetry at South Dakota Review. Recent poems appear in Mid-American Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Thrush Poetry Journal. Her chapbook, The Patient Admits, is forthcoming from dancing girl press in summer 2017.

Alexis Smithers is a queer black writer on the East Coast. Their work can be found in wusgood.black, Glass: Poetry, and Up the Staircase Quarterly and forthcoming in &thriving among others. They work for Monstering Mag, Winter Tangerine Review, Words Dance, and Voicemail Poems. They are a 2015 Pink Door Fellow and 2016 LAMBDA Literary Emerging Writers Fellow. A full list of their work can be found at lexleecom.wordpress.com.
Agnes Vittstrand is a nom de guerre, a feminist activist and author of “Allt som tar plats” (FRF, 2014) a collection of poems on strategies built after having her childhood broken by pedophiles. She has published articles in numerous Swedish feminist magazines and is also a painter of some astute. Her next book is in line for publishing by anarchist press Freke Räihä Förlag.

Freke Räihä is an elderly queer poet, translator and literary curator with more issues than vowels.

Jason Phoebe Rusch is a queer, non-binary writer from the Chicago suburbs. They have a BA in history from Princeton University and an MFA in fiction from University of Michigan, where they were a Zell Fellow and received several Hopwood awards. Their poetry has appeared in Luna Luna, their essays in Bust magazine, World Policy Journal online and The Mighty and their screenplay Banana Rat was a finalist in the 2010 Zoetrope contest.

Leah Mueller is an independent writer from Tacoma, Washington. She is the author of one chapbook, “Queen of Dorksville”, and two full-length books, “Allergic to Everything” and “The Underside of the Snake.” Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Blunderbuss, Memoryhouse, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Sadie Girl Press, Origins Journal, Silver Birch Press, Cultured Vultures, Quail Bell, and many others. She was a featured poet at the 2015 New York Poetry Festival, and a runner-up in the 2012 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry contest.

MW Murphy is a poet and novelist. She is the author of the novel Second Daughter, which was endorsed with cover blurbs by best-selling author Wally Lamb as well as cult author and Yale professor John Crowley. Second Daughter was subsequently picked by NPR’s Faith Middleton as a “shelf-tracker” book of the month, and was also a featured book at R J Julia Booksellers. MW was selected for publication several times in the “Open Weave” poetry anthology published by Curbstone Press / Northwestern University, which also awarded her first place in its Poet Laureate Division. She has a short piece of fiction in the anthology Gathered Light which was published by Three O’ Clock Press in May 2013. MW also has recent poems in the international poetry anthology series “The Art of Being Human – Volume 13, Volume 14, and Volume 15”, all of which were published in 2015. She is currently nearing completion of an urban sci/fi fantasy novel which takes place mostly in Manhattan’s East Village.

Katie Clark is a queer poet & a sophomore at Mount Holyoke. Katie’s poems have been in several kind publications including Nostrovia! and Voicemail Poems. Tweets @octupiwallst

Christoph Paul is an award-winning humor author. He writes non-fiction, YA, Bizarro, horror, and poetry including: The Passion of the Christoph, Great White House Volume 1 and Volume 2, Slasher Camp for Nerd Dorks, and Horror Film Poems. He is an editor for CLASH Media and CLASH Books and edited the anthologies Walk Hand in Hand Into Extinction: Stories Inspired by True Detective and This Book Ain’t Nuttin to Fuck With: A Wu-Tang Tribute Anthology. Under the pen name Mandy De Sandra, he writes Bizarro Erotica that has been covered in VICE, Huffington Post, Jezebel, and AV Club. He is represented by Veronica Park at Corvisiero Literary Agency.

Lora Nouk is a New York-based artist and poet. She works across various mediums including net art, performance, BJD and text. She has presented work at Picture Room, New York; Kodomo/Manila Institute, Brooklyn; Mellow Pages, Brooklyn; MoMA PS1, New York; and David Lewis Gallery, New York, among others. She is the author of Snow Poems (Codette, 2015). She tweets @shad0w_paws

Diane Payne’s most recent publications include: Map Literary Review, Watershed Review, Tishman Review, Whiskey Island, Kudzu House Quarterly, Superstition Review, Burrow Press,Dime Show Review, Lime Hawk, and Cheat River Review.  She has work forthcoming in The Offing, Elke: A little Journal, Souvenir Literary Journal,  Outpost 19.  Diane is the author of Burning Tulips (Red Hen Press) and is the MFA Director at University of Arkansas at Monticello.

EDITOR

Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. They are the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (2016, ELJ Publications) & Xenos (2016, Agape Editions). They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the managing editor for Civil Coping Mechanisms and Luna Luna Magazine. Some of their writing has appeared in Prelude, BUST, The Atlas Review, The Feminist Wire, The Huffington Post, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere. Joanna also leads workshops at Brooklyn Poets.

December 27, 2016
Coping with Michael J Seidlinger, CCM Publisher & Author of ‘Falter Kingdom’
BooksNews

Coping with Michael J Seidlinger, CCM Publisher & Author of ‘Falter Kingdom’

by CCM December 27, 2016
written by CCM

#CopingWith is CCM’s interview series run by managing editor Joanna C. Valente


Michael J Seidlinger is CCM’s publisher & editor-in-chief. As many people know, Michael is tirelessly always working, always available, and sincerely dedicated to publishing. Because of his public persona, it is easy to think you know Michael without really knowing him–this is both intrinsic to how social media works, but also ironic in the publishing world that is often built on the publishing of harrowing and compelling narratives.

His latest novel, “Falter Kingdom,” came out this fall from Unnamed Press. Of his book, Garrard Conley has said, “Seidlinger’s riveting book has ‘unpacked’ the classic Holden Caulfield character we know and love and given us a newly complicated misfit to root for. Here we see the boundaries of good and evil, love and hatred, self and other dissipate as the increasingly lovable demon takes possession of us.”

Because of all this, I interviewed him as a way for the CCM community to get to know him a little more. Here’s what he had to say:

What is one piece of advice to writers when dealing with their editors and publishers?

Be honest and up front about your concerns and your curiosities. I’ve seen it all too many times where miscommunication breeds a level of disdain between both author and editor. You have to figure that working with an editor, especially in the indie space, it may very well be just the both of you. Such close proximity could be amazing for collaboration, but only if both parties are on the same page. Editors/publishers are people too—you don’t ever want to elevate or activate a level of demand from them that exceeds what both signed up for. It’s how a publishing dream becomes a nightmare. Trust me, be honest right from the beginning—with both yourself and to your editor; doing so will help later when emotions run high (and they almost always do, be it out of excitement or worry) and you are about to send a five-paragraph email or text message to your editor at 3AM. You really have to treat the publishing relationship as its own sort of relationship, complete with its own boundaries.

What was your first publication?

This could very well be the most frightening question I’ve ever been asked. I just spent like 30 minutes Googling myself trying to find the oldest thing published and I’m coming up empty. I know one of my first was with a Canadian indie press called Crossing Chaos/Enigmatic Ink, where I published an excerpt/fragment from a now-dead novel of mine on their blog, and later published a couple books through the press. I also had stuff published at sites like Metazen (RIP) again coming up empty. The internet is truly ephemeral, your work so quickly lost if you don’t save it elsewhere, so here’s a picture of me looking sad:

PS – Starting to think I always look sad in pictures. Or tired. Or both.

What’s the worst rejection letter you’ve ever gotten? (You don’t have to name names, though.)

Worst one’s got to be from an agent that quite literally emailed back with a single letter, “P.” It was abrupt enough that it took me a couple minutes to figure out what that had meant. Guess the agent didn’t have enough time to write out the word, “pass.” There were no other details given and I never received another response, even after emailing for clarification. Agent’s a hot shot, by the way. One of those big names that foster truly lucrative literary deals. I’m not about money but I like money like anyone else. Well, scratch that—I like the prospect of not having to constantly worry about money. Oh god, tax season is fast approaching. Doing taxes sucks so fucking hard. I don’t know where I’m going with this.

When you get discouraged, what helps you rally through?

This changes a lot. If you know me at all, you know I usually don’t turn away, especially if I’m discouraged. I dive right into the discouragement, the feelings and thoughts brimming with negativity, and I attempt to find some sort of solution. It’s not always the healthiest of reactions and I have been trying to get better at it. Simple things like sipping coffee, closing your eyes, and meditating to ambient music; blasting metal and screaming along to it pretending that I’m still part of a band and am on tour and not drowning in work/deadlines; smoking a cigar while purposefully leaving the phone in another room; rewatching films I’ve seen countless times (like Jiro: Dreams of Sushi); even going back to something I wrote that somehow didn’t suck, flipping through a few pages, trying to get myself to level out and lessen the negative analytical spin. It’s so damn easy to fall into one of those funks, especially when the writing isn’t going well (seemingly every other writing session; depending on the project, it can be every single one). I rally through because there really is no choice not to, and whatever I can do to calm down, it has much to do with letting the mind fess up to those feelings, letting it all sink in and determine precisely the reason for discouragement. Oh and it also helps to talk to someone I’m close to, someone that can figure out by the fourth word what’s bothering me.

What do you love about the lit community?

Best part is the people. Always has been. The community has grown/changed so much with the times but there are people that have always been around, and more importantly been there, for each other over the years, there’s just so much to love about how something skewed to social media/online daily engagement can foster strong friendships and literary collaborations among its masses. CCM/Entropy wouldn’t exist without the community. I wouldn’t be who I am now, wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing, if it weren’t for the community. Don’t let the drama and the social media born depression get to you. There are people here. People that care.

How do you want to change the lit community? What’s your least favorite part of it?

I wish we’d be more considerate of each other’s feelings. Yeah, I know I said above how everyone is so supportive and caring but for all of the good, there is this underlying current that seriously bums people out. I hear from so many writers, so many friends, so many editors, about this general sense of malaise coming from the frustrations of toxic social circles. People gossip and so forth and what should be a safe space becomes something distrustful and downright unsettling. If you ever wonder why the lit community goes through a lot of rise-and-fall eras of activity and then sudden drops in silence, it’s as much to do with the seasons/prevailing cultural influence as it is the people within the community spinning drama.

People need to stop looking at each other as opportunities. People need to check themselves and their reasons for being a part of this.

Favorite item of clothing you own.

A Navy flight/bomber jacket my dad got during his time in the military. He gave to me about five or six years ago and it’s always fit so snugly it almost assuredly gave me a confidence boost whenever I’d wear it. I also like how it has a “Seidlinger” insignia sown right into the fabric. Wish I could wear it in NYC winter but it’s just too damn cold for the jacket.

Just realized I titled this interview “CopingwithSeidlinger” and thought of some old family sitcom like the Brady Bunch or some shit and really a show called Coping with Seidlinger would be pretty much the most horrible thing ever (for the 1-3 viewers and especially for me) because it would be almost 100% me sitting in front of a computer shouting obscenities while intermittently falling asleep, smoking a cigar, drinking a lot of coffee, and forgetting to eat meals.


Michael J. Seidlinger is an Asian American author of a number of novels including The Fun We’ve Had and The Strangest. He serves as director of publicity at Dzanc Books, book reviews editor at Electric Literature, and publisher in chief of Civil Coping Mechanisms, an indie press specializing in innovative fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he never sleeps and is forever searching for the next best cup of coffee. You can find him online at michaeljseidlinger.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter (@mjseidlinger).

joanna valenteJoanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (ELJ Publications, 2016), & Xenos (2016, Agape Editions). She received her MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM. Some of her writing has appeared in Prelude, The Atlas Review, The Feminist Wire, BUST, Pouch, and elsewhere. She also teaches workshops at Brooklyn Poets.

December 27, 2016
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The Accomplices LLC is a literary arts partnership and media company dedicated to amplifying marginalized voices and identities, particularly writers of color, through traditional and new media publishing, public engagement, and community building.


CCM + ENTROPY + WLP = THE ACCOMPLICES


The Accomplices is made up of the entities Civil Coping Mechanisms: publisher & promoter of kick-ass independent literature, Entropy: a magazine and community of contributors that publishes diverse literary and non-literary content, and Writ Large Press: an indie press that uses literary arts and events to resist, disrupt, and transgress.

We’re coping. No, we're thriving.

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