We're now accepting book reviews & cultural criticisms.  Some of these texts will be published in the actual SR magazine, while most of them will be posted on the upcoming new Spine Road website.  Submit through our submission manager at spineroad.submishmash.com.

BOOK REVIEWS:  Review books from small presses, and that were published within the last year or 2.  If you're a press, you're welcome to send us copies of your new titles, and we'll find a cast of folks to review.  Contact us at spineroad@gmail.com. 

CULTURAL CRITICISMS: Originally, when I started SR, I wanted a publication that curated explicit conversation about contemporary life in America alongside implicit conversations; and I wanted it to look something like essay'esque texts alongside poetry & fiction.  While putting together the first issue, I was lucky to come across an MIT architectural thesis on the American garage (which I'm personally obsessed with in the first place), which featured visually interesting diagrams & a quasi-cultural study on the significance of the garage to the American fabric.  I contacted the author of the text, architect B. Alex Miller, and asked him if I could re-publish his thesis, to which he thankfully agreed.  I felt this was a good start.

The second issue, unfortunately, failed to attract any such texts.  Despite my call for essays that critique pop-culture, etc., no one submitted anything that jived with the rest of the material. 

This is why I'm pushing, again, for folks to submit discussions about movies, TV sitcoms, consumer products, celebrities, and so on.  You're not above it.  You're a part of it.  So tear it apart like you would a novel.  Create a fake business plan.  Comicstrips are welcome.  Suggested logos & corporate symbols.  Talk about an episode of So You Think You Can Dance that reveals XXXXX.  It's time for a Chuck Klosterman quote:

"It never matters what you like; what matters is why you like it.  Take...Road House [for example].  This is a movie I love.  But I don't love it because it's bad; I love it because it's interesting in a very specific way.  Outside the genre of sci-fi, I can't think of any film less plausible than Road House.  Every element of the story is preposterous: the idea of Swayze being a nationally famous bouncer (with a degree in philosophy), the concept of such a superviolent bar having such an attractive clientele, the likelihood of a tiny Kansas town having such a sophisticated hospital...etc.  Every single scene includes at least one detail that could never happen in real life.  So does that make Road House bad?  No.  It makes Road House perfect.  Because RH exists in a parallel reality that is more fanciful than the Lord of the Rings.  The characters...live within the mythology of rural legend while grappling against exaggerated moral dilemmas and neoclassical archetypes."  -A Decade of Curious People & Dangerous Ideas

So don't feel guilty about anything.  Watch it, read it, and think about it.  And give it to me.  I want anything, everything.  It doesn't have to be excessively long.  It doesn't have to include a bibliography (of course, it's never a bad thing viewing American Idol via Foucault & Lacan).   Just be interesting.  Nothing boring.  Stop being a loser.  Shape up.  Start doing sit-ups in the morning.  Watch your calories.    

SpringGun Press is accepting submissions for their Poetry Chapbook Prize.  Manuscripts must be postmarked by August 16th.  Send between 25 & 40 pages of poetry.  This is the kind of opportunity we want to help you with: by publishing the extended work of poets, we can be your practice-room, your rented office where you work out the kinks.  Send a chunk of your manuscript to Spine Road for publication in our magazine, and get feedback, test its publishability, add weight to the overall text.  We may look for ways for people to comment on parts in the future to give you even more feedback.    

Get out your pencil and lightly write on the palm of your hand the following information so you won't forget:

-Submission deadline for SR3 is July 30th

-Target publish-date for SR3 is August 15th

Tell your friends, your students, your dog.  We will announce this facebook too.  It will be the talk of the town.  The cream of the crop.  and so on.

Me & Serena (Serena & I) are working on the third issue of Spine Road this summer, which will mark a few changes in some things.  Most notably, we're going to start publishing the extended work of only a handful of writers.  This means 3-4 poets will each have up to 15 pages of material to submit, and 2-3 prose writers will have up to 40 pages of material to submit.  Think of us as a dirty, nasty truckstop where you rest your texts on your way to publication.  Or a place to work out some new directions.  Or something.

Also: starting with the third issue, there will no longer be an HTML version of the magazine; only a PDF/ePub version.  We will have an HTML page dedicated to highlighting some of the issue's points-of-interest.

And lastly (for now), I've decided to drop the idea of a writers workshop.  We will be making a big announcement in the fall, however.  So stay tuned. 

One editor means you're a illegitimate & pathetic.  Two editors means you're the real deal.  That is why I'm excited to announce that Serena Chopra is Spine Road's new Asst. Editor.  Fresh off an editorial internship in New York, Serena is back in Denver, working at CU, and helping with SR.  I'm very excited to have such a capable person on board.  Here is her bio:  

Serena Chopra has an MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder. She has recent publications in the Denver Quarterly, Fact-Simile, Pax Americana, and Umbrella Factory. She has worked with The New Press and is a 2010 Kundiman Fellow. She lives, works, writes, dances, and generally arts around in her native land of Denver, Colorado.

Last post about the stupid e-book files.  A reasonably formatted ePUB file is now up on the NUMERO DOS! page (thanks to FeedBooks ePub generator).  So you can point your e-reader web browser to that page, click on that link, and load it to [stanza, kindle, etc.].  It looks best on CALIBRE, so-so on KINDLE, and pretty ugly still on STANZA. 

Also: my first attempt at posting Spine Road up at Amazon was successful: it's available for $1.  However, it looks like crap because it's the old ePub.  So I re-submitted a new item that should be available in a day or so, which contains the new ePub.  Although this wouldn't make any sense to buy since you get it for free on the website, it does give some of the contributors a place on Amazon (it only allowed me to list 10 contributors), AND it allows SR2 to be reviewed on GoodReads.  So review us, discuss us.

So: I axed the ePUB version for now until I can get a better handle on it.  It butchers the formatting of my inDesign layout, and deletes images & author headings.  I'll have to play around with it until I get it right before I load it for mass public consumption (the three of you out there). 

Also: SR II should be available on Amazon in a few days for $0.99 in non-DRM ePUB (optimized by Amazon). 

Also: the PDF I loaded last night was missing the contributor bios, so I reloaded a new version.  Sorry.  In the place of ePub, I'm including a file to download for print.  Enjoy.

Good news: Editor in Chief, Presidente, yours truly, has finally finished layout for the second issue of SPINE ROAD and formatted it for both PDF & ePUB viewing!  PDF, of course, allows you to download the new issue and view & print it at your leisure, it being optimized for your desktop/laptop.  ePUB reformats the text according to mobile screen standards.  This means that if you're on the bus and want to read "that poem" again, you can access the ePUB version of SPINE ROAD and read it on your iPhone, iPad, etc --really, anything with mobile-level screen real estate.  Once I better understand the ePUB, it will also allow it to be sold as an e-book on Amazon and Apple's new iBook store.

Other good news: I should start the search for assistant editors soon.  And SPINE ROAD will not be at AWP, we will not have a booth, and we will not be sponsoring any readings.  Bravo. 

Anyway, happy AWP for anyone reading this.  Which is no one. 

So the time & the hour has finally arrived: the Second Coming is upon us.  And the question we all must ask ourselves is: "Am I ready?"  "Have I done enough in preparation?"  The answer is no, you haven't.  But it's okay.  Because this is only a literary magazine, and not a fundamentalist Christian church.  *phew*  The point is, the second iteration of Spine Road is long overdue: initially I announced on facebook & twitter that it would be available first thing in the morning on Monday, March 15th.  Then I delayed it 1 day.  Then another day.  Then I refused to make a set date.  Then there were revolts, people demanding it.  I even had a brick thrown through my window, a note scribbled in crayon: "I WANT TO READ THE MAGAZINE"  It got a little sketchy, to be honest.  But I persevered.  I worked through my computer problems.  I designed.  I edited.  And though I have several more things to do (for example produce PDF & ePUB versions), the magazine is available to be read & enjoyed online.  I was really blown away at the talent, and how willing the contributors have been to help.  I also want to thank everyone for being patient, waiting an extra week for the site to go live.  I especially would like to give a shout out to SUBMISHMASH, my new submission manager! 

Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys the literature here: there's a wide range of styles & schools represented here.  There were 11 women --a majority-- and 8 men.  Many came from Colorado, while a few were from NYC, LA, Chicago, and other places.  This issue was heavy on the poetry, with 15 writers, and light on the prose: just 4.  Next issue, I hope to balance out the mag with more essays & prose.  The style: I know my mother is going to hate it, as might yours.  But I love it.  It's lo-fi, low-budget.  Which is what I wanted.  I have all the programs & know-how to get fancy schmancy --and I will with future issues-- but not for Spine Road numero DOS! no sir. 

Next time around will improve: I hope to get much more efficient with reading & editing, expand my solicitations & advertising, and I hope to have an assistant editor on board.  I'm also in talks with getting an iPad version out in Apple's bookstore, and I'm learning how to set up an ePUB on Amazon's Kindle platform & Stanza (to make SR accessible on-the-go).  Grants are getting written slowly but surely for community workshops.  Lots to do.  But for now, let's enjoy NUMERO DOS!