You are a writer and you’ve been looking for that special contest that will recognize your talent because although you’re somewhat modest, you’re also quite competitive.

Here it is! Co-sponsored by the good people at Hyphen Magazine and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

Preeta Samarasan won this contest in 2007 and — holy shit! — now has her first novel out, Evening is the Whole Day!

I highly suggest you enter right now.

ENTER THE 2008 HYPHEN MAGAZINE/ASIAN AMERICAN WRITERS’ WORKSHOP SHORT STORY CONTEST!

For more info go to: http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/content/view/93/1/

Hyphen magazine and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop are taking submissions for their 2008 Short Story Competition.
The winner pockets a $1,000 prize and has his or her story published in Hyphen magazine.

The winner of the 2007 Short Story Competition was Preeta Samarasan (for her story “Our House Stands in a City of Flowers”), whose debut novel Evening is the Whole Day will be published by Houghton-Mifflin later this year.

Writers of short fiction are encouraged to enter the 2008 Short Story Competition jointly sponsored by Hyphen and The Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW). The winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize, publication in Hyphen magazine, a one-year subscription to Hyphen and a one-year membership to AAWW. Ten finalists shall also receive a one-year membership to AAWW and a one-year subscription to Hyphen.

The competition is open to all writers of Asian descent living in the United States and Canada. To be eligible, manuscripts must be previously unpublished and in English. No email submissions allowed. Only authors who have not published a book-length prose fiction manuscript are eligible. The competition is limited to short works of fiction, including short stories, novellas and excerpts from novels; the latter must stand alone as a separate work. There is no required theme or page limit.

Submissions must be postmarked by Friday, July 11, 2008 and accompanied by a $10 entry fee per story. Please send four copies of your story using paper clips. Manuscripts will not be returned and will be acknowledged only if a SASE is provided. Include a cover letter with name, address, email, daytime telephone number and a 3-sentence bio. The story title and page number should be clearly labeled on each page of the submission. Your name must not appear anywhere on the manuscript, except on the cover letter. Manuscripts should be typewritten and double-spaced on 8 1/2 X 11 plain white paper. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

Manuscripts may be under consideration elsewhere, but please notify us immediately if your story is accepted for publication. Hyphen retains first publication rights and the right to publish a portion of the story on its website. All rights revert to the author upon publication.

To enter the short story competition, please send submission to:

The Asian American Writers’ Workshop
2008 Short Story Competition
16 West 32nd Street, Suite 10A
New York, NY 10001-3808

Make checks payable to “Asian American Writers’ Workshop.”

Entrants will be notified by or on Monday, Oct. 6, 2008.

Fuck, yes!

If I were returning from the the Land of Dead and Gone Things and I could take one thing back with me to the Realm of the Living, it would be Swervedriver.

Luckily, the band resurrected itself after a decade layoff and played at Manhattan’s Bowery Ballroom Wednesday June 11 and Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg (both sold out) on Thursday June 12. In all honesty, Swervedriver has never really formed a critical mass in terms of fandom, but their fans — dudes now in their 30s — are seriously hardcore. If they had played New York five nights in a row, I’m sure it would have sold out and that I would be one among a thousand who would buy tickets for each night. It’s difficult to describe Swervedriver’s music (they titled an EP “Space Travel Rock n Roll,” and that’s a good filler answer). I would say that the music itself seems so infused with emotion, it hits the listener on a personal, subliminal level. Witness the audience, so lost in their own worlds, standing still, playing air guitar/bass/drums. If someone stepped away to go to the bathroom, he could return to his spot, as no one would advance to take it.

The Bowery Show

The first opening band, Terra Diablo of Scotland, were all right. Nothing really stuck to me and not too many people were there at this point. Extra points for knocking their equipment around at the end of the set!

Dirty on Purpose, the second opener, wasn’t really my kind of music. The drummer took most of the lead vocals and I couldn’t get into his treble-y voice. The guitarist on the left spoke up at one point. “Hey, I just heard somebody yell ‘Swervedriver.’ They’re playing next. There’s a nice bar downstairs if you want to wait for them.” “Be nice!” someone in the audience admonished him. Dirty on Purpose was in a tough spot. I mean, Jesus, I wouldn’t want to be the band opening right before a cult favorite playing a reunion tour.

Give Swervedriver credit for not wasting any time hitting the stage. After a tuning check, (left to right) Steve George, Jez Hindmarsh, Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge came out to the instrumental, untitled track at the end of Ejector Seat Reservation’s last listed track “The Birds.” The band roared out with “Sandblasted” from first album Raise and and then peeled a sharp version of “The Birds.” The last time I had seen this band was Halloween night in 1998 at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, and damned if they weren’t tighter and hungrier now.

The Brooklyn Show

Up first was The Still Out. Not my kind of thing, and there was a strange moment when during an acoustic number, the keyboard player soloed way out of key, drawing concerned looks from his bandmates.

Up next were Longwave, whose members were impossibly skinny. Right before they went on, I heard one of the bouncers grumble, “These guys are so fucking loud.” I knew they had to be good! Longwave were probably the best opening act out of all four and certainly the most appropriate. Just the right balance of dissonance and dreaminess, IMHO.

What else can I say, except they were even better in Brooklyn, played my jams “The Hitcher” and “I Am Superman” (they didn’t the first night), and just killed with “Rave Down” in the encore.

Let’s do some new songs and a new album. Please. I’m begging here.

Damn, did I milk this doorway for photos, or what?

Yo! Three things to announce.

1) “Super Hero Blues,” a short film by the amazing Greg Pak that I did a voice character for, has won a PBS award! It’s airing tomorrow (June 7) on TV or watch it here. Featured: amazingly transcendent actor Brian Nishii.

2) Looking for a writing class this summer in New York City? I highly suggest you enroll with me in what will surely be the class that ends all classes at the Asian American Writers Workshop and sets you on your way to being an independent and confident writer:

Saturdays, June 21-28, July 12 & 26, Aug 2-9, 12 - 2pm (6 sessions)
Summer Fiction Workshop with Ed Lin

It’s easy to bat around issues about character, plot, point of view, description, dialogue, setting, pacing, voice and theme (whew!) in terms of writing. But Ed Lin promises to spend as little time as possible talking about those concepts. The author of Waylaid (Kaya, 2002) and This Is a Bust (Kaya, 2007) supports the idea that writing is akin to playing a musical instrument that no one else has ever seen or heard before and that the authors are generally right, even if they aren’t sure of what they are doing. Lin believes the best thing that can come out of a class is a group of colleagues who can continue reading each others’ work outside the class environment. If you don’t love and respect writing or are focused only on getting published, Lin doesn’t want you in his goddamned class. Ed Lin is the author of the novels Waylaid (Kaya Press, 2002) and This Is a Bust (Kaya, 2007).

@ The Workshop
16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor
(btwn Broadway & 5th Avenue)
Cost is $175/$150 for members

3) Also, I am now set to read in both Minneapolis and Exeter, N.H., in July! I can’t think of two cities closer to each other!

Monday July 14, 2008, 7:00 PM

The Loft Literary Center
Suite 200, Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55415
612-215-2575

Wednesday July 16, 2008, 7:00 PM

Water Street Bookstore
125 Water Street
Exeter, NH 03833
603-778-9731