Tag: Magazine

Writing Process

Author Interview at Theme of Absence

Posted on by Desmond White

Theme of Absence runs an author interview series alongside its original fiction called, well, Theme of Absence Author Interviews. These dialogues employ the same questions every week, allowing readers to scan questions and spend more time on author replies. If you want a mixture of pragmatic and wild writing advice, I recommend a chai tea with a pinch of milk (I guess I’m not sure how milk works?), a comfy chair or lap, and one hour spent (c’mon, don’t be cheap) in the magazine’s archive (located here).

Oh, and don’t forget to read my interview for “The Spheres.”

Life, Scifi, Writing (Published)

Published — “Spheres”

Posted on by Desmond White

Theme of Absence just published my comedic take on extraterrestrial nihilism (the story’s called “Spheres“). The digital magazine is devoted to speculative flash fiction, and primarily posts original fiction on Fridays. These pieces are accompanied by a Q&A with the author, which I think is a really smart move on the editor’s part because then readers can come for writing and/or writing advice. And if that’s not enough for the literary enthusiast, the editor and owner of Theme of Absence also runs Write Good Books, a blog dedicated to producing useful writing resources and articles.

Life, Satire, Writing (Published)

Published — “An Obituary for the Coolest Christian”

Posted on by Desmond White

The Higgs Weldon was a humor site run by Los Angeles stand-ups Robbin Higgins and Paige Weldon and others (sorry to cut you short, others) that did everything from comedic credits to caption contests. The folks over there published my satirical panegyric, “An Obituary for the Coolest Christian,” teasing Christian youth culture (sans the tight pants, iphones, and XS plaid shirts—that’s Christian youth Starbucks culture). Sadly, the site is now defunct, so I post the piece below.

He was the coolest Christian at St. Rutabah Baptist Academy High School: he said phrases like holy bullwhiz or that’s the goshdarn truth (promoting a more conservative, Bible-approved profanity, because you never know if there’s an angel listening), emphasized the screw in Screwtape, cultivated a beard on his neck, brought a bully to Church and then beat him in the parking lot, tore a page out of the Qur’an and ate it, wore a cross on a chain even in the shower. He was Varsity football chaplain.

By six, he’d broken someone’s nose with the Summa Theologica. By twelve, he’d indexed all the Christian symbolism in Lord of the Rings. By middle school, he disagreed fundamentally with C.S. Lewis.

He was the coolest one. He read books like The Consolation of Philosophy and Paradise Lost and claimed Milton was of the Devil’s Party. It was rumored that he kept cigarettes in his fanny pack, that his flip flops weren’t dress code, that he was stoned on Jesus but Buddha gave him a bad trip, that he’d been married at 16 and divorced that summer, only to remarry her and have five kids, that he had a tattoo of Jesus in Ray-Bans, and owned an American Flag made of mixed fibers.

Faster now. He could burp the Lord’s Prayer, kissed a teacher while she was sleeping, tasted his Dad’s ginger beer, snuck into a faculty meeting and wasn’t discovered for the full two hours, could make a paper airplane out of anything, anything, spent a summer in a monastery, hooked up with a nun’s pillow, carved his initials in sixteen pews, refused to learn the order of the months, didn’t believe volcanoes existed, tripped Buddhists on the way to the prayer room, told his Japanese pen pal that tsunamis were divine farts, ate a Jehovah Witness, could justify the War in Iraq, recited the Fox’s Book of Martyrs with a 78% margin of error, drew mustaches in his textbook even when those images didn’t include people, and finally died doing what he loved—running remote-controlled drones into small dogs (the heart attack was incidental).

Fantasy, Life, Writing (Published)

Published — “Dredge”

Posted on by Desmond White

Whatever Our Souls published my short story “Dredge” in their June 2017 issue (see its Amazon page if you’re interested in buying the issue—paperback is $7.99). My short story introduces Dredge, a plant zombie and necromancer who just wants to be left to his bog garden and tea. Eventually I’d like to pit this character against paladins, but for now a petty hero will suffice.

Whatever Our Souls is a digital/physical print publication devoted to pushing the peculiar, especially stories that would usually “struggle to find acceptance in traditional literary magazines.” This means everything from “space wolves” to “mutant rabbits.” One unique feature of the magazine is its internal competition between its two editors (Team Pollux and Team Castor). Each editor posts their MVP (“Most Valuable Prose”) to the website,and readers have the opportunity to vote for a “reigning champion”*

*Quotes from the site’s homepage.

Life
Posted on by Desmond White

 

HBU’s premiere student literary journal is going to drop May 8th, 2017, and I’ll be posting it here after it’s available. As editor-in-chief, I didn’t think it proper to publish my own work in the journal, but I will admit to a little nepotism; my brother’s short story somehow made it in, although that’s more because it has actual merit as an absurdist dark comedy and less because he happens to be related to the guy in charge.

Writing Process

CONTENT

Posted on by Desmond White

My Table of Contents mock-up for Writ in Water with fictional authors and titles. I’m excited to report my Editorial Board has reached the point where I can fill these slots with actual submissions, but I’m sad I have to lose these placeholders.

Life, Satire, Writing (Published)

Published — “Flexible Groups”

Posted on by Desmond White


Defenestration published my short story “Flexible Groups” in its December 2016 issue (for context, they release an issue every April, August, and December). I was influenced by Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” and my experiences in professional education. One of the members of my writer’s critique called this style “snarky with a soul.” I’m keeping that.

 Defenestration is an online publication devoted to humor in all its varieties, and its About page boasts such accomplishments as selling its life story to Christopher Nolan (you might have heard of a little something called The Dark Knight) and successfully defending the Earth from Martians.

Life, Writing Process

First post about Writ in Water

Posted on by Desmond White

This past week I opened the submission period for Houston Baptist University’s debut literary journal Writ in Water. The submission period started on the 8th of November (i.e. on the same day as the US Presidential Election), will conclude on the 8th of February, 2017, and the journal will be published digitally on May 1st. Writ will be accepting short stories and poetry, and although the publication is affiliated with a Christian college, the submissions will not have to be religious in nature. Instead, Writ’s editorial board is seeking literature that combines good writing and the human experience.

Writ is the result of months of deliberate planning and meetings, but I have wanted to start a literary journal for a long time – since childhood, in fact, when I first read an issue of The New Yorker and wondered about the lives of editors-in-chief. When I began working as the Writing Coordinator of HBU’s Academic Success Center, I realized that my life goal could also benefit the college community, especially its emerging writers and artists. The Success Center, after all, doesn’t only serve struggling students with their grades – success comes in a variety of forms, including publication.

The Academic Success Center and HBU Administration were very supportive of the journal. My conflict was naming the thing. Trouvaille, which is French for a lucky find or discovery by chance, was considered, along with Numinous, a word that means a strong spiritual moment or the presence of divinity. But Writ in Water had three aspects which won out in the end:

Aspect One) On Mount Sinai, as recounted in the book of Exodus, Moses received two tablets of covenant law. These Laws were God-writ and therefore eternal. From this we have derived the idiom “nothing is written in stone” to signify that nothing else is permanent, perpetual, or predictable.

Aspect Two) The phrase “writ in water” comes from John Keats’ deathbed request to not include his name on his gravestone. Instead, the young feverish poet who “foresaw his death with brutal clarity” wanted only the mysterious line: “Here lies One Whose Name was Writ in Water.”

Aspect Three) The Bible, too, has a context for water, as God’s Word, as God’s Intervention, as the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 44:3 says that God will “pour out water on the thirsty lands and streams;” Corinthians 12:13 that “we were all baptized into one body… we were all made to drink of one Spirit;” and Jesus says in John 3:5 that “no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.” Appropriate metaphors for a Baptist institution.

From these wells I draw my inspiration.

Reference

Stacey, Michelle. “Writ in Water: The enduring mystery of Keats’s last words.” The Paris Review, 23 February 2016.