Midwestern Gothic, a new literary journal, debuts this week as a quarterly collection of writing. I have a story published in it called "On Being the Daughter of a Man in Prison," in which David Bowie, Detroit, and The Death of a Salesman all make cameos. I would love to hear your feedback.
A bit more on the launch of this literary project: Midwestern Gothic is published out of Ann Arbor as both a print journal and downloadable e-book. It is committed to writing that is "about or inspired by the Midwest, by writers who live or have lived here. Midwestern Gothic aims to collect the very best in Midwestern fiction writing in a way that has never been done before, cataloging the oeuvre of an often-overlooked region of the United States ripe with its own mythologies and tall tales."
Now, this is actually uncanny: just a couple of months ago, before I'd heard of the fledgling journal, I wrote an article for The Daily Beast about literature that's emerged from the Midwest. Specifically, I wrote in introduction to a list of great fiction to come from the region:
There are Southern Gothic tales, Westerns, New York stories, and plenty of novels about Boston, California, and even Washington, D.C. But what of the fiction native to the center of America? Alas, even passionate readers might draw a blank about literature that’s emerged from this overlooked, but nonetheless mythic, landscape.
So, hell, I'm excited to follow (and subscribe to!) Midwestern Gothic and see what it makes of this place and its art. Also, check out the ongoing online photo galleries that the journal is curating. Among the photogrpahers who have contributed to it are poet )and recent Isak interviewee) Justin Hamm, and compadre Christina Drane.
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