dotdotdash magazine

We would like to formally apologise to R.D. Wood for misprinting his poem on page 41 of the Gambit issue. Please find the correct poem printed at the bottom of this post. We will also reprint R.D. Wood’s poem in the ninth edition of dotdotdash. We are so sorry for the error, and we hope readers will enjoy the poem below.

Untitled

R.D. Wood

a bag of spuds
tucked under the arm
pit,
the kid wrestles
writhes against the chest
until he’s given a chip
off the old block
quiet now and flying on

Trove is an online publication that launched in 2010, showcasing writing by university students from around Australia. An initiative of UWA PhD student, Rachael Hains-Wesson, and later supported by the UWA Cultural Precinct, Trove is an opportunity for students to gain experience in a writing and editing process modelled on those in the professional creative writing industry at large. Emily Paull caught up with steering committee member, Carol Ryles, to ask her what Trove is all about. [Read more →]

(The following is partly a transcript of what I said at the last issue launch at the Bakery, and partly a call for new volunteers.)

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the Nyungar people, the traditional owners and custodians of this land on which I am living. I would like this not to be a cursory thing. It is super important, I feel, to know the land in which you live, to know its actual history, to have that connection to this place, because where I live, here, this is a beautiful place.

I would also like to acknowledge all of those who made it to the issue 8: Gambit launch last Sunday night, all of you who came to a subscribeathon event, who have bought a magazine issue, who have supported our organisation throughout the years. It was humbling like you wouldn’t believe to receive that support from kind people.

I will be leaving dotdotdash to pursue my PhD studies, and Sunday night was the last event that I will organise, and the upcoming issue 10: Fingerprint will be the last that I work on. I hope to leave dotdotdash in the leadership of people who are more capable than me. [Read more →]

What is Subscribeathon?

The dotdotdash Collective is a volunteer-run, not-for-profit organisation. Our journal, dotdotdash, was established in 2009 with the aim of creating a friendly and engaging space for art and words, with a particular focus on promoting art and literature in Western Australia. Subscribeathon is our effort to increase the readership of our journal and to help finance future issues of dotdotdash. Our Facebook page for Subscribeathon is here.

How can I participate?

If you think the dotdotdash project is worth supporting, please head over to our Subscribe/Purchase page and purchase a subscription, a gift pack or an issue of the magazine. If you make your purchase between 30 November 2011 to 31 December 2011, you are eligible for prizes!

You can also help us by telling your friends and family about dotdotdash. Link them to our website or to our Facebook page. There are also opportunities to win prizes by Tweeting with the hashtag #dddsubscribe.

If you are in Perth, you can also support us by attending one of the eight Subscribeathon events we are hosting from 11 December to 18 December – one event for each issue of the magazine, culminating in the launch of Issue 8: Gambit.

11 December – Day 1: Quicksand
We’ll be celebrating our first issue with a two-part flashmob event. We are going to build Perth’s largest human Pacman in Perth city, followed by an impromptu dance party at a secret location. Details here and here.

12 December – Day 2: Ugly
We’ll put on a free Picture Book show at the Bird. It’ll have comics, drawings, stories, artwork, and animation! Details here.

13 December – Day 3: Home
To celebrate Home we will be gathering together writers of all ages to tell stories of their childhoods and first homes. Details here.

14 December – Day 4: Antimatter
The Antimatter spaceship lifts off! An interactive online event open until the end of December, created in partnership with Danni McGrath. To play, visit this address: http://www.dannimcgrath.com/antimatter/. More details here.

15 December – Day 5: Feast
Come celebrate a huge potluck dinner with us at the North Perth Town Hall! Details here.

16 December – Day 6: Jukebox
WA Poets Inc have collaborated with dotdotdash to give you symbiotic musico-poetry performances at the Fringe Gallery! Details here.

17 December – Day 7: Sacred
dotdotdash presents Items of Personal Significance, a series of revealing presentations at The Blue Room Theatre. Performers will be asked to bring one item that means a lot to them, and to explain the story behind it. Details here.

18 December – Day 8: Gambit
The final day of Subscribeathon, and the launch of our latest issue! Gambit! smRts, Ghost Drums, and 44th Sunset are gonna play! Allan Boyd is gonna MC! Polaroid tag! Literary Games! It’s going to be AMAZING! Buy tickets to our next launch from the Bakery! Event details are available here.

Subscribeathon would not be possible without the sponsorship of

The Department of Culture and the Arts
OOTA Writers
Fremantle Press
UWA Publishing
Twelfth Planet Press
Underground Writers
WA Poets Inc
OnWilliam
Love is my Velocity
SPUNC
WritingWA
FAWWA
KSP Writers’ Centre
The Blue Room Theatre

Cover: Olga Cironis, ‘Framia’ (installation south wall)

When you are grown very old – not just old like a grown-up, but old like the sea – I have arranged for something magical to happen.

— Sarah Stanton, ‘Cheering Up Leon Werth’

I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose, adjust my cap, and make sure the crossbow is loaded.

— Phillip English, ‘16-bit Saviour’

If you decide to scatter your pixels into six beings, turn to page 40. If you decide to clap your hands together till they hum with the impact, turn to page 16.

— ???

You are invited to the Issue 8: Gambit Launch Party! It will take place on Sunday 18 December at 7pm, at The Bakery, 233 James St, Northbridge. Tickets are $13 from The Bakery website, or $15 on the door. The night will feature the superb sounds of 44th Sunset, Ghost Drums, and smRts, as well as DJ Matthew Moore playing all your favourite video game tunes (make requests here at our Facebook event page!). And no launch would be complete without the Perth Zine Collective and their terrific range of zines for you to browse. Discounted copies of dotdotdash, including the new issue, will also be available on the night. We hope to see you there!

Thank you to all the authors and artists who submitted to our ninth issue. It was a joy to receive so many submissions week after week, and we couldn’t have asked for a better response. Over the past fortnight, we have contacted all submitters to Issue 9: Recursive. Except for postal submissions that included a self-addressed, stamped envelope (which were sent off yesterday), all contact was carried out via email. If you have not heard from us, please do send us a query after checking the following:

• That our message didn’t go to junk mail (the majority of emails were sent from editor [at] dotdotdash.org)
• That your email address was printed correctly on your submission form
• That your submission followed our guidelines and was eligible for consideration

The dotdotdash Recursive Poetry Competition

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the Recursive Poetry Competition is Kevin Gillam (WA), with his villanelle, ‘a crooked eye’. The competition judges, Pat Johnson and Sj Finch, also selected five highly commended entries:

Erin Pearce (WA) – ‘Turning’
Jo Mills (WA) – ‘wind whites the house’
Judith Terzi (USA) – ‘At the Mustard Seed Cafe’
Kevin Gillam (WA) – ‘still as moss’
Maude Larke (FRANCE) – ‘The Mead’

Congratulations to Kevin, Erin, Jo, Judith and Maude, and thank you once again to everyone who made this competition possible. All of the winning poems will be published in dotdotdash Issue 9: Recursive, scheduled for release in April 2012.

For our tenth issue and to celebrate the upcoming third anniversary of the beginnings of dotdotdash, we present to you an opportunity to be involved in a one-off zine project titled Fingerprint. We’re super thrilled about this project! We’ve been planning this for quite some time. Zines, those idiosyncratic ubersmall-print publications that are sometimes conceived, written, bound and crafted by a single person, are incredible. There are few creative writing ventures that are so magnificently tactile, so clearly made with heart, so erratically specific.

We’re asking for people to make a zine and submit it to us. Fingerprint will be an opportunity to see the thoughts of a thousand zinesters. Each issue of the magazine, rather than a perfect-bound magazine, will be a paper bag filled with a combination of zines submitted to us. If you’re interested, please look at the project page.

Submissions to the project will close 7 May 2012.

Re: Recursive

Thank you to everybody who submitted to our ninth issue! Recursive is scheduled for release in Autumn 2012. We will endeavour to contact all submitters in early December 2011 when the editors have made their decisions.

A mysterious development

Our tenth issue of dotdotdash will be something special. As it will take a different form to previous issues of dotdotdash, we’ll be departing from our usual submission guidelines. Please check back here for more details!

What happened to Gambit?

Issue 8: Gambit is scheduled for release in December 2011. It contains fresh and delightful work from Cherish Marrington, Olga Cironis, Steph Moriarty, Erin Pearce, Shey Marque, Mark O’Flynn, Ross Jackson, Sarah Stanton, Phillip English, Flora Smith, Laurie Steed, and many more writers and artists from Perth and beyond.

R is for Recursive. Kermit knows.
(source)

Submissions to Issue 9: Recursive will close on Monday 24 October 2011 at 5pm, Western Australian Standard Time. Late submissions will not be considered.

Thank you to everyone who has submitted so far – there has been a great response to our call for submissions and competition entries. Just a friendly reminder to keep the following points in mind:

1. dotdotdash does not accept simultaneous submissions. (Our confirmation of receipt emails automatically contain a reminder about this.)
2. For authors submitting by email: please include your work as a separate DOC attachment rather than copying and pasting your text into the email body. This is because: (i) the editors will consider each work anonymously, and (ii) formatting errors often occur when copying/ pasting text from Word to an email, or from an email into Word. It is your responsibility to ensure that your submission is correct. We make a reasonable attempt to contact submitters whose work cannot be considered because they have not followed a particular guideline; regrettably, if we do not receive a response, we cannot process the submitter’s work.

Ready to submit?

• Regular submissions (short fiction, creative non-fiction, visual art, poetry): click here for guidelines.
• The dotdotdash Recursive Poetry Competition (villanelles, sestinas and pantoums): click here for guidelines.

Historically Draw Rites was a dotdotdash workshop that Sam Santoro and Sj Finch came up with in 2009 because we wanted to have a personable process for submissions. It quickly developed into a submissions genre that united creative writing and visual art collaborations.

We are proud to announce that we are re-launching drawrites! The new drawrites project will still be a series of collaborations between writers and artists linked to dotdotdash issue themes. However, we will now be curating artists and writers separate from the regular dotdotdash submissions process. Individual writers and artists will be selected for the project, and paired up by the drawrites project coordinators to collaborate on art pieces. These can be in any medium, and experimental form is encouraged, with the goal being to present all the projects at a WA art gallery mid-year. There will be one drawrites project per year. The initial project will tie in with our ninth issue ‘Recursive’.

If you’d like to be considered for drawrites, please send in (1) a one page CV, (2) at least three examples of your work (the more the better), and (3) a one paragraph proposal of your ideal drawrites project to editor(at)dotdotdash.org. We will then send you more details, and partner you with a writer or artist. Although we are always open to proposals, please note that there will be limited floor space for the exhibition. If you’d like to be considered for the ‘Recursive’ exhibition, please send in your proposals before October 10. After this date we will announce details of the next exhibition.

Yes yes yes,
Sj Finch and Kiki Hunwick
drawrites Project Coordinators