Join the editors and staff of Fourteen Hills this Wednesday, May 15th at the Verdi Club for the literary event of the season: the release party for issue 19.2. Doors open at 7pm.

Get a little culture with your cocktails as past Fourteen Hills contributors Dan Langton (5.1), Dana Teen Lomax (6.1) Ron Nyren (8.2), Zara Raab (16.2), and Elizabeth Treadwell (4.1) read alongside issue 19.2 contributors Lisa Cattrone and Hobie Anthony. Musical interludes will be performed by Michael Mullen and his musical project, Pocket Shelley. And please believe, the raffle prizes will be a'flowing. We look forward to seeing you there!

Who: Fourteen Hills Staff and you!
What: 19.2 Release Party

When: 7pm
Where: Verdi Club, located at 2424 Mariposa Street, San Francisco, CA 94110.

Written by Fourteen Hills staff writer, Tyler Edell

The Fourteen Hills release party is right around the corner, and we have some amazing readers lined up for the event. On Wednesday, May 15th at 7:00pm at the Verdi Club (2424 Mariposa St., San Francisco), writers we’ve published from past issues and the forthcoming issue 19.2 will read from their work. This event is going to be a beautiful, sit-down affair with complimentary food and exquisite atmosphere. You’ll want to arrive early to grab the best seats, enjoy the live music of Pocket Shelley, and buy tickets for our amazing raffle prizes. But if the least you do is come for our incredible readers, that’s fine by us. Without further delay, let us introduce the readers for the Fourteen Hills 19.2 release party.

Ron Nyren’s (Fourteen Hills 8.2) fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, The Missouri Review, The North American Review, Glimmer Train Stories, Mississippi Review, and elsewhere. He has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and is a former Stegner Fellow. With Sarah Stone, he co-authored Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers. He currently works as a freelance writer and teaches for Stanford Continuing Studies.

Elizabeth Treadwell (4.1 and 11.2) earned her MFA from San Francisco State University in 1997. Her first book, a novel titled Eleanor Ramsey: the Queen of Cups, was published as the Michael Rubin Chapbook Award winner that year. Her thesis, Populace (prose poems), was published by Avec in 1999. Her 8th book, a poetry collection titled Virginia or the mud-flap girl, appeared from Dusie last year. She has taken an active role as an editor, publisher, and curator, including 7 years as director of Small Press Traffic. She lives in Oakland, where she was born.

Dana Teen Lomax (6.1) is the author of Disclosure (Black Radish Books), Ubu Edition #43 (UbuWeb), Rx (Dusie), Curren¢y (Palm Press), Room (a+bend), and co-editor of Letters to Poets (Saturnalia Books). Her work has appeared in Jacket, Poets & Writers, The Bay Poetics Anthology and Against Expression. She served as the Director of Small Press Traffic and is proud to be the editor of Kindergarde: Avant-garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children. She teaches writing at San Francisco State University and Marin Juvenile Hall.

Daniel J. Langton (5.1), author of Querencia, University of Missouri Press (Devins Award), 1975; The Inheritance, a play produced by the Julian Theatre, 1980; The Hogarth-Selkirk Letters, 1985; Life Forms, Cheltenham Press, 1995; Greatest Hits, 2000, The Sonnets, 2005, During Our Walks, 2012. Poems in Threepenny Review, Atlantic Monthly, Paris Review, The Nation, The American Scholar, The Iowa Review, and other magazines and journals. Winner of the Devins Award for Poetry, the Hart Crane Award, the London Prize, the Browning Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Award and the Roberts Prize.

Zara Raab’s (16.2) books are Swimming the Eel (2011) and The Book of Gretel (2010). Rumpelstiltskin, or What’s in a Name, a finalist for the Dana Award, will be published later this year, along with Fracas & Asylum. She is a contributing editor of Poetry Flash and Redwood Coast Review.

We are also excited to introduce two readers from the forthcoming issue 19.2:

Hobie Anthony: Hobie Anthony was raised on the red clay of Georgia, cut his teeth on the hard streets of Chicago, and now roots into the volcanic soil of Portland, Oregon. He can be found or is forthcoming in such journals as Fourteen Hills, Fiction Southeast, The Rumpus, [PANK], Wigleaf, Housefire, Crate, Ampersand, Birkensnake, Word Riot, Connotation Press, and many more. He earned an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. He writes experimental novels.

Lisa Cattrone received her BA in philosophy and MFA in poetry from Saint Mary’s College of California. She has work most recently in Volt, Gulf Coast, The Claudius App, The Denver Quarterly, West Wind Review and Scythe and forthcoming in Interim and EOAGH. Her manuscript Becky and the Leviathans was recently selected as a finalist for Kelsey Street Press’ Firsts First Book Contest, and her chapbook Mutations for Jenny is forthcoming this year from Horse Less Press.

So mark your calendars if you haven’t already, or just ink it right onto your skin like I do, and we’ll see you at the Verdi Club (2424 Mariposa Street, SF) at 7:00pm on May 15th. RSVP on Facebook.

Fourteen Hills is thrilled to have San Francisco-based musician and composer, Michael Mullen, join us for our 19.2 release party Wednesday, May 15 at 7 p.m. at the Verdi Club (2424 Mariposa Street, San Francisco).

Michael Mullen is the primary songwriter for the musical project, Pocket Shelley. He is also the co-writer with novelist and past Fourteen Hills contributor, Adam Klein, for the band The Size Queens.  

With The Size Queens he wrote the music for "Consumption Work: Tammy, Cybertariat, at the Aral Sea," a 50-minute film by Chuck Mobley premiered in November 2013 by The Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Review (Johns Hopkins University).

Music and video by The Size Queens have also been featured in the literary journal Ninth Letter and at Electric Literature.

Mullen and Klein were commissioned by the University of Chicago and Princeton University to write music for Our Literal Speed, an art criticism conference held in Kahrsruhe, Germany (2008), Chicago (2009), New York (2011) and Princeton (2012). The video for one of the songs they wrote, "Reading Rosalind Kraus," was written about in Art Forum's Best of 2009 issue.

The Size Queens have also collaborated with Laura Albert and Guillermo Gomez-Pena., and have been the subject of essays by Mary Gaitskill and Rick Moody.

Michael has performed at The Rumpus, LitQuake, Hook Line and Sinker and other local events . Plans for 2013 include a show with John Murry at the Great American Music Hall in May, a new Size Queens record, and the release of the second Pocket Shelley album, "Glockenspiel / Ukulele."

Don’t miss this chance to enjoy Pocket Shelley up close and personal as we celebrate the release of Fourteen Hills 19.2 at the Verdi Club on May 15 at 7 p.m.
 

If you haven’t heard by now, the release party for the new Fourteen Hills 19.2 is happening at the Verdi Club (2424 Mariposa Street, San Francisco) on May 15th at 7:00pm. That means it’s time to pull the covers off the exciting and unique raffle prizes the Fourteen Hills staff have been passionately amassing over the course of the month. There is something for everyone on your list, plus some chocolate and a massage for yourself. Go ahead, treat yourself, and at only $2 a ticket or three for $5, you can afford to buy plenty. You can also get a free raffle ticket by purchasing a copy of the brand new Fourteen Hills 19.2, as if you needed any more incentive. But in case that’s not enough, you should know that every dollar you spend goes directly back to Fourteen Hills. It doesn’t get any better than that. Without further delay, let us entice you with some of our treats:

- Handcrafted Books by Susan Calvillo

- Threesome Golf Package at Richmond Country Club

- Chocolate Gift Box from Dandelion Chocolate, including several 70% dark chocolate bars and chocolate-dipped treats from the likes of Feve and Kika’s Treats

- Homer Simpson Big Fat Party Animal Package, complete with four gloriously hideous Hawaiian shirts, a box of donuts, six pack of beer, and two Duff Beer can cozies

- Two Miniature Golf Season Passes to Subpar Miniature Golf in Alameda

- The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by Anne Rice, courtesy of Good Vibrations

- Coupon for two dozen home-delivered cookies from Hey, Cookie!

- Rumpus Gift Basket, including a poster, “Write Like a Mother Fucker” coffee mug, and Stephen Elliott’s The Adderall Diaries

- $50 gift card to Trader Joe’s

- 2 tickets to SF MOMA

- Gift basket of eco-friendly travel gear from Humangear, including GoToob, GoCup, and capCAP

- One month of unlimited yoga at Funkydoor Yoga

- One massage from a professional, accredited massage therapist with over seven years of experience

- A free hairstyle and makeup job by Kelli Eng, stylist for the Warrior Girls and Lucero Salon in Oakland. A $125 value! Great for getting fancy for a special event.

Join all of us from Fourteen Hills for a rollicking good party as we celebrate the release of Fourteen Hills 19.2 at the Verdi Club on May 15th at 7:00 p.m. As always, the event is absolutely free, but come prepared with cash and checks to buy raffle tickets and your own slick copy of 19.2. Our parties always fill up, so come early to get a seat, grab some complementary food, and buy a drink. We can’t wait to see you!
 

Fourteen Hills chats with former San Francisco State University MFA student, Alisa Golden, about starting literary journal Star 82

Fourteen Hills: Tell us about your inspiration to start a literary journal. 

Alisa Golden: Once I graduated [from San Francisco State University’s MFA program], I began seriously researching and reading other magazines hoping to find a home for my stories. But I wasn't finding much of anything that was similar to what I was writing. This was perplexing. I found quite a bit of realism, quite a bit of what I thought was overly dramatic work. Where was the humor? Where was the work I wanted to read? So that was one impetus to start my own magazine. 

A second reason had to do with my lifelong feeling of being divided. I've always written and always made art, constantly shifting between the two worlds. I know there are other magazines that feature writing and art but for Star 82 I decided that I'd like to encourage more works that combine writing and art. There seem to be plenty of artists who are writers and writers who are artists, but we don't always get to see them in both contexts simultaneously. And my hope is that the writers will see and appreciate what the artists are doing and vice versa.

FH: You are a writer of short fiction, so how is being an editor different or the same as being a writer?

Golden: The editorial process is an extension of the writing process. As an editor I've got the distance I need to look at a work critically; I'm seeing the work for the first time and have to respond to what is in front of me. I can see fairly quickly where I'm tripped up, where the language is bumpy. As a writer I think it is hard to get that distance; it is hard to know what is conveyed on the page and what remains in my head. After reading so many pieces by other people, my work is becoming both more distant and more clear to me. I'm starting to see why certain pieces haven't gotten accepted and I'm beginning to understand how to make them better. Weirdly, this isn't something I was able to learn in workshops. I'm guessing that being on staff at Fourteen Hills would have been helpful. When you read a huge number of stories you start recognizing your own mistakes in them…

FH: Fourteen Hills is also a small press. What has it been like venturing into the world of the small press?

Golden: I've been in the small press world since I began making letterpress printed books in 1983, so it is not really new to me. What is different, however, are all the ways we can publish, and I'm exploring publishing online and through print-on-demand. My venturing has been in learning html and InDesign, since conceiving, designing, and making it happen are all things I've done under the imprint, never mind the press, for thirty years. Print-on-demand works for me: I upload a file and it is instantly available to the reader. No more boxes of books to store and sell and ship! I've found newpages.com on which to advertise (we just got a nice review: http://newpages.com/literary-magazine-reviews/online/2013-04/#Star-82-Review-V1-N1-March-2013 ) and Duotrope [on-line listing of most literary journals] found me. The small press is now part of a very large world.

FH: How did going through the MFA program at San Francisco State University inspire or prepare you for this?

Golden: After I graduated I really missed the people, the teachers, and the discussions at SFSU. I wanted to stay connected to the writing community, to have a reason to stay involved, to keep reading new work weekly. From Peter Orner's classes I learned how to love reading again, and how to read better—excellent training for an editor! Bob Glück taught me to see on the micro level and make sure each word is the right word for the job. From Alice LaPlante I learned to ask, "What does this writing DO?" In Michelle Carter's classes I learned how to critique. It is important to know that you can really appreciate a piece and see the good writing but that you may not LIKE the work. The MFA program brings up many good questions that I continue to think about including the most obvious: what makes a good subject and what makes good writing?

FH: What is the meaning behind the title, Star 82?

Golden: Star 82 is the code you press to unblock your phone number (if you have it blocked in the first place) so the recipient can see who you are. I like that a writer's voice is revealed in a written piece.

FH: Are you currently accepting submissions? What kind of work are you looking for? 

Golden: Yes, send! Submissions are rolling, with issues planned seasonally. The inaugural issue was launched in March, and I'd like it to continue as a quarterly. Check out the website and submission guidelines at: http://star82review.com/submissions.html.

Star 82 has a few categories that I hope will spark interest. With "Postcard Lit" I am interested in stories with photos: either photographers who write or writers who take pictures. "Art Post" was initially created because I love art on postage stamps and would like to see artist stamps, but have now expanded it to include any art. "Erasure Text" is a visual representation of writing, more like editing or discovering text within text; I'd like to see artistic ways of blocking out the unwanted words like Tom Phillips has been doing in A Humument. Then we have the "Shorts" category, flash under 1000 words, and "Hidden Gems" which has become the catch-all for poetry.

FH: Where can people buy a copy of Star 82?

Golden: The online version is always free and will remain on the Home page as long as there is a web. The print edition may be purchased for $9.95 from CreateSpace or you can search for it and buy it from Amazon. 

For news and updates, check out the Star 82 Facebook page.

Alisa Golden writes, makes art, and teaches bookmaking in the Printmaking Program at California College of the Arts. She is also a letterpress printer and has been working under the imprint, never mind the press, since 1983. Her book art may be found in the Special Collections departments of libraries nationwide, and she is the author of five instructional books including, Making Handmade Books (Lark Crafts, 2011). Her work has been published in many literary magazines, including, 100 Word Story, NANO Fiction, Generations, Transfer, The Monthly, and Flash (UK) and is upcoming in Safety Pin Review, among others. She lives in the one-square-mile city of Albany, California.

The Fourteen Hills editorial staff is excited to announce the release of Issue 19.2! Many months of reading, editing, and deliberating have produced yet another issue of beautiful and challenging art, prose, and poetry, which is why Fourteen Hills continues to remain one of the nation’s most innovative literary journals.

We can’t have a release without one of our characteristically swinging parties, of course, which will be in the heart of the Mission District at the Verdi Club (2424 Mariposa Street, San Francisco) on May 15 at 7 pm. Fourteen Hills release parties are always bursting with people, music, drinks, exceptional literary camaraderie, and usually a surprise or two. And they are always FREE. Please arrive early for the best seats and choicest drinks and food.

The Verdi Club was established in 1916 as a private Italian American club but is now available to the public for special events such as weddings and conferences and well, literary-inspired shenanigans. It is a classic and historic venue known for its decision-inhibiting cocktail lounge and fancy footloose ballroom (complete with a disco ball that is said to exude light and magic of all sorts). With an environment that boasts the old-school San Francisco feelings of charm and character, we are eager to bust out our finest threads, listen to select Issue 19.2 contributors read from their work (details to come), and afterwards hit the dance floor, cocktails in hand.

Come celebrate with us the release of Fourteen Hills 19.2 on May 15, 7 pm at the Verdi Club (2424 Mariposa Street, San Francisco). Slick, hot-off-the-press copies of Issue 19.2 will be available for purchase, as well as raffle tickets for our dozens of fabulous and unique prizes. As always, everything you spend goes directly into the production of Fourteen Hills, and, as a result, impacts the literary and artistic community at large. It’s going to be another unforgettable night with Fourteen Hills. RSVP on Facebook right here.

by Riley Rant, Fourteen Hills staff writer

First of all, get your artistic diva out of the way, because no one at Fourteen Hills has time for that. Secondly, buckle down sweetheart—we’ve got a lot of work to do.
 
It starts with a little something we like to call “The Slush Pile.” Every semester, the editors and team behind Fourteen Hills wade through more than 6,000 pages of prose and poetry that writers have posted on submittable.com with the hopes of getting something published somewhere. It’s our job to find the right content quickly (read: before other journals snatch it up), which is why in a matter of 14 days, these 6,000 pages are distilled down to 600 of our favorites.
 
The outstanding poems are given to our dedicated poetry team, and top fiction is handed to the fiction writers. Over the next month, both groups read through their thick packets, meeting once a week to discuss the ambitions and intentions of each poem or story, as well as their strengths and weaknesses. When we’re not intellectualizing the role of dialogue or setting, pacing, concepts or themes, we’re talking about our gut reactions. Simply stated, we’re talking about what sticks. After we’ve gone through all the work, each group holds one final meeting to fight for the pieces we love, well aware they may not make the cut, but taking the opportunity for one last call to arms.
 
The entire class comes together to discuss the experimental work and creative non-fiction, while our art guru stalks the Bay Area for different pieces that may be perfect for the cover or featured within the journal. From there, Fourteen Hills is in the hands of the editors.
 
[I am not an editor, but I imagine shaky, neurotic writers, screaming at one another and snapping the pens they keep behind their ears to make their points. “But it’s EMPTY!” one editor throws up his arms in frustration. “Its emptiness is its intent,” another coolly smokes her electronic cigarette.]
 
Breaths are held. Final selections are made. The editors reach out to the writers and artists to give them good news. “You’re in,” they say. They hang up the phone with no time to waste.
 
It’s time for production, when the form really takes shape.
 
Graphic designers lay out each page. Eagle-eyed copy editors wait in the wings for their cue. After two weeks of focused frenzy, late nights and blurry vision, we assign it an ISBN and poof! Our journal is off to McNaughton & Gunn, a phenomenal printer out of Michigan.
 
One month later we’ve got  more than 120 pages of poetry, short stories, creative non-fiction and art tucked neatly inside two slick cover pages and a spine.
 
You wouldn’t think it would take so many hands to create something you can hold in just two. But behind that pretty product is a process. A process of writers and readers and discussions and defensiveness and earnest work and embarrassing passion and people that care. A process of 100 arduous days, at the end of which, we’re all really quite proud. 

Each year, Fourteen Hills has the privilege of honoring one fiction writer whose work embodies the qualities of the late Gina Berriault’s novels and stories, whose every story showcases what the novelist Robert Stone describes as “a world, beautifully illuminated by the life within it […] emotionally precise,” wise and heartbreaking. In other words, the writers who have won the Gina Berriault Award balance art and emotion, and most of all their writing reaches the very center of what it is to be a human being. And Michael Alenyikov, the winner of the 2013 Gina Berriault Award, and his stories are no exception.

With stories that unravel and unfold the idea of family, that highlight the complex nature of love, and that investigate the degree to which the past effects our present and determines our future, Michael Alenyikov has established himself as a writer with unquestionable talent and insight into the human condition. His debut collection of short stories or “novel-in-stories,” Ivan and Misha (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern, 2010), earned the Northern California Book Award for Fiction and was nominated for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. It has been described as “a haunting collection of love and duty,” “full of warmth, psychological insight, and winning originality.”

While Alenyikov is perhaps best known for Ivan and Misha, he has been pursuing a career in fiction writing since 1994.His short stories have appeared in Canada’s Descant (nominated for a 2007 Pushcart); The Georgia Review; New York Stories; Modern Words; and The James White Review, and have been anthologized in Best Gay Stories, 2008; Best Gay Stories, 2011; and Tartts Four: Incisive Fiction From Emerging Writers. His essays have appeared in the Journal of Homosexuality and The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, and he has participated in such writers’ conferences as the Squaw Valley Writers’ Conference and the Napa Valley Summer Writers’ Conference. He is a former MacDowell Colony Fellow.

A long-time resident of San Francisco, Alenyikov was raised in New York City (the setting of his Ivan and Misha) and studied at Queens College and Syracuse University, earning a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Besides devoting his time to writing, he has worked as a bookstore clerk, cab driver, clinical psychologist, and interactive media writer and producer.

Come share in the celebration and listen to Alenyikov read a selection of his multi-faceted and moving work at the Gina Berriault Award Ceremony. The ceremony will be held at San Francisco State University’s Poetry Center (1600 Holloway Avenue, Humanities Building, Room 502) (link below) on Wednesday, April 17, at 7pm.

Please feel free to RSVP and check out further details on our Fourteen Hills Facebook event page. (link below) We look forward to seeing you.

Sarah Broderick ~ Fiction Staff

http://www.sfsu.edu/~poetry/
http://www.facebook.com/events/578338765511466/

Fourteen Hills is pleased to honor Michael Alenyikov, author of the acclaimed Ivan and Misha, with the 2013 Gina Berriault Award. On Wednesday, April 17, at 7pm, Alenyikov will read selections of his work as part of the Gina Berriault Award Ceremony celebration. The event will take place in San Francisco State University’s Poetry Center located at 1600 Holloway Avenue.

Michael Alenyikov is best known for his debut collection of short stories, Ivan and Misha. Ivan and Misha won the Northern California Book Award for Fiction and was nominated for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. On the collection and its author, George Seaton at Out in Print states, “Alenyikov weaves literary prose to poetry as if such a thing were easy to do. He exposes his characters — their quirks, their longings, their cares, their loves, their angst — with a lilt of pen rarely equaled.” His short stories have appeared in Canada’s Descant (nominated for a 2007 Pushcart); The Georgia Review; New York Stories; Modern Words; The James White Review, and have been anthologized in Best Gay Stories, 2008 and Tartts Four: Incisive Fiction From Emerging Writers.

Read what Alenyikov thinks of his “novel-in-stories” form and an excerpt of his beautifully moving collection in the March 2011 issue of “The Noe Valley Voice.”

The Gina Berriault Award honors one fiction writer annually whose work exemplifies the qualities of the late great fiction writer and San Francisco State Creative Writing department faculty member, Gina Berriault, and whom we believe will continue to stay committed to the art of storytelling as well as the education and assistance of young writers. In 2009, Peter Orner, in conjunction with Fourteen Hills, inaugurated the award. Find out more about Gina Berriault here.

Past winners have included: Yiyun Li (2009), Adam Johnson (2010), Susan Straight (2011) and Melanie Rae Thon (2012).

The award event is free, but please feel free to RSVP on our Fourteen Hills Facebook event page.

Written by Sarah Broderick, Fourteen Hills staff writer

Written by Pat Johnson, Fourteen Hills Staff Writer

Celtic Coffee is not a small café, but last Saturday, March 2, Fourteen Hills still managed to pack the house for Gird Your ‘Loin, a celebratory reading featuring readers from the creative writing MFA/MA programs of the University of San Francisco, Mills College, California College of the Arts, and ours truly, San Francisco State University. The fabulous Celtic Coffee baristas quickly served steaming cups of coffee and tea, paninis, and crisped bacon, while folks chatted and mingled before the show. If you’re a writer, this was the perfect place to network with fellow writers from some of the Bay Areas top MFA programs.

As Jason Schenheit, Fourteen Hills events coordinator, took the stage, people shuffled into chairs, couches, and anything flat enough to serve as a seat. Now this might seem like a minor aspect of the show, but if there’s one thing café readings are notorious for, it’s poor sound: squealing feedback, hissing speakers, or no microphone at all. This was not the case for Gird You ‘Loin. The readers’ voices sounded loud and crisp through the Fourteen Hills’ sound system, which allowed the audience to focus on the show rather than attempt to read the performers’ lips.

Gird Your ‘Loin showcased an exciting variety of prose and poetry. Some readers had the audience bursting with laughter; other readers’ work was quieter and more solemn. On the humor side, Nate Waggoner had the crowd cracking up with his fanfiction quips; Douglas Henderson left us in stomach-hugging anguish by his story involving mountainous penises and a dancing goat guy at a heavy metal show; and who could forget Marcus Lund, who told us the tale of the world’s most spoiled man.

But the Gird Your ‘Loin lineup was also more than laughs. Vernon Keeve III moved us with his singing and lyrical poetry; Jennifer Franklin with her stunning piece on being a mother; Mariama Lockington with her beautiful, spare poetry on the act of performance itself; and Chloe Veylit and Stephen Novotny with their mind-bending, vivid images and startling word usage.

Undoubtedly, Gird Your ‘Loin was a Fourteen Hills event to remember—and while the pub crawl afterwards was just as remarkable, if you approached it as a sprint rather than a marathon, you may now have trouble recalling what followed the third or fourth bar.

Fourteen Hills heartily thanks our colleagues from the University of San Francisco, Mills College, California College of the Arts, and, of course, our very own San Francisco State University. Stay up-to-date on Fourteen Hills’ events, author interviews, explorations in the craft of writing, and other shenanigans, at www.14hills.net, on Facebook, and Twitter.