Catching Up with All the JDPeoples

Last month while I was walking through the metroplex on my way to see Cabin in the Woods, I passed a poster for American Reunion. I stopped, smiled wanly, and said to myself, “Damn, has it really been thirteen years since Jason Biggs fucked that pie?”

It got me thinking about all the people who had passed through JDP’s own hallowed halls over the past thirty issues. “Where, oh, where are they now?” I wondered to myself. And then I said, “Wait, I bet this would make a great mid-month filler post in-between issues.”

Through the miracle of that DARPA-spawned entity known as the Internet, we did a little searching and found what some of our favorite contributors have been up to. So grab your yearbook, try to forget about that ill-advised hookup at the prom after-party, and settle in for some reminiscing.

First up is Craig Wallwork, who first appeared in Issue Seven with “Sigourney Weaver Stole My Shadow” and followed that up with with “Morning Birdsong and the Hell Demons” in our First All-Star Issue. More recently, Craig’s had his first short story collection, Quintessence of Dust, published and his first novel, To Die Upon A Kiss, is forthcoming from Snubnose Press this summer. Cheers, Craig.

Craig’s far from alone on the book front. Graham Tugwell, who we told you all about on St. Patrick’s Day, also has his first collection, All Gone to Body Wrong, due out from Anobium later this summer. And, you might have also heard one or two people on the indie lit scene talking about Chloe Caldwell’s Legs Get Led Astray. It came out in April, is fourteen flavors of good, and if you buy it from her website, she’ll send you a personal essay. Really. The book includes “That Was Called Love,” one of the favorite things we’ve ever published on JDP. Seriously, why haven’t you bought two copies already?

Rolling along, Carol Deminski, who graced our pages with “The Fortune Teller” back in Issue Seventeen, has had a bunch of flash published recently, including a dark piece, “The Price of Luxury,” in PANK and an excellent short, “The Paperboy,” in the new issue of Bartleby Snopes. She also runs a great blog.

Elif Alp made her JDP debut in February, with a lovely little thing called “Red and Blue Makes Purple.” She had another lovely thing, “Cereal and Cigarettes” in the February Issue of Curbside Splendor. You should read it, like now.

But what about those whacky JDP staff members? Sam Snoek-Brown, who makes each issue look oh-so-pretty as Production Editor, pretty much powned Issue Four of Unshod Quills with a series of five fantastic pieces. (Warning: contains coffee and David Lynch.)

Meanwhile, our founder and publisher, Eirik Gumeny, published a free e-novelette called “The Devil Went Down to Jersey” and, hey, let’s talk about that one for a second.

Did you enjoy Kevin Smith’s Dogma or were you one of the people who protested outside the multiplexes where it was playing? If you were the latter, you might want to skip it, but if you don’t mind a double-helping of silliness with your quasi-blasphemous prose, then you’ll probably enjoy it. I can tell you, though, having read both the reviews and the novelette, there is absolutely nothing in Eirik’s story that should make you want to shove sand paper up anyone’s ass. (And if they ever publish a hard copy of the book, I hope that last sentence makes the back cover.)

And that’s it. We’re probably missing tons of stuff and people with this post, so drop us a line if you’ve got something brewin’ you want us to try to mention the next time we’re feeling nostalgic. Oh, and follow us on Twitter. Seriously, we get way too excited when we gain another follower.

ASSEMBLE!


There was an idea to bring together a group of remarkable people, so when we needed them, they could fight the battles that we never could. – Nick Fury

There was another idea, to put together a special issue of some of our favorite writers to give you something to read while waiting in line for
The Avengers. – Jersey Devil Press

Welcome to our Second All-Star Issue, with fiction by Kimberly Lojewski, Ryan Werner, yt sumner, and Hilary Gan.

Read it online here. Read it as a PDF here.

Spotlight on The New Avengers

They're why it's called Marvel Avengers Assemble in the UK.

No, not the 1976 update of the classic BBC spy series (the one that caused all the confusion in the UK over what to name Marvel’s new movie), but rather Hilary Gan and Kimberly Lojewski, who aren’t actually superheroes or spies (that we know of), but are two excellent young writers who have previously graced the pages of JDP and will be appearing in the upcoming Second All-Star Issue (due out this Wednesday).

(Also, I promise not to use paretheticals for the rest of the year after this post.)

For the May issue, we wanted to do something special in anticipation of the geek-gasmic joining of the Whedonverse and Marveldom in a little art house picture known as The Avengers, which opens next Friday.

(Unless, of course, you live in Australia where The Avengers opened like two weeks ago. Or the UK, where it opened Wednesday. Or India where you could see it today. Seriously, what the hell? When future historians discuss American decline, the fact that we got The Avengers half a month after the rest of the world is going to be the moment they point to as when things started to really get bad.)

Anyway…Our idea was to super-friend together a few of our favorite writers in an invitation-only issue to give you some extra-yummy prose to read while standing in line for the most anticipated film of the summer that doesn’t involve Anne Hathaway wearing cat ears.

You already know the other two all-stars, yt sumner and Ryan Werner. Heck, we gave them their own posts on here back in January and February, respectively. But we just wanted to take a quick moment to say a few words about Hilary and Kimberly.

Hilary made her debut in the pages of JDP a couple years ago with a story that would become a JDP classic. “The Pragmatist” appeared in the November 2010 Issue and was subsequently named a Million Writers Notable Story, as well as being nominated for a Pushcart. Since then, her non-fiction essay, “Gymnopédie Paris,” has appeared in The Fiddleback and she’s gone on to pursue her MFA in Fiction at the University of Arizona. Hilary has a stubborn insistence that all biographical statements about her must include her love of fluffy kittens. Finally, she has a story upcoming in the inaugural issue of Belletrist Coterie, also due out in May.

And in one of those cosmic coincidences that we adore, Belletrist Coterie was founded by and is edited by whom? That’s right, Kimberly Lojewski. Not having read Belletrist Coterie, we can’t quite vouch for it yet, but a) with Kimberly at the helm and b) it’s upfront emphasis on storytelling, we’re pretty psyched for the first issue.

When she’s not being inherently cool (like all editors), Kimberly writes like an amazing SOB and pursues her MFA in Fiction at UMass Amherst. Her story, “On the Hiding of Buried Treasure,” is one of my favorites from my short run as online editor of JDP. Previously, her work appeared in places like Aesthetica Creative Works Annual, Gargoyle, The Drunken Boat, and Danse Macabre. Her short story, “The Mouth as the Source and the Center,” in BloodLotus #22 was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, while “An Arctic Mirage Sounds A Lot Like Rusty Crickets” appeared in PANK, is about Muktuk princesses, and is eight kinds of awesome. You should go read it now.

In her spare time, Kimberly is pursuing both her ship captain’s license and her hot air balloon pilot’s license. (Seriously.) All of which makes us reconsider that statement about her not being a spy.

We can’t wait for you to read all the lovely words Kimberly and Hilary and Ryan and y.t. have in store for you. (And while you’re waiting for the new issue, feel free to check out the first All-Star Invitational Issue, which also turned out pretty nifty.)

That’s all for me (and my damn paratheticals.) Have a great weekend and here’s hoping The Raven is better than I’ve heard.