Quarterly Volume IX || Fall 2024
Chers amis de L’Esprit,
Bienvenue à our ninth quarterly, Fall 2024! In this edition, we have journal announcements, calls for submissions, some publication news, and a new book review of Issue Five contributor Lucy Ives’ essay collection An Image of My Name Enters America.
As always we start, in the tradition of Eliot’s Criterion, with A Commentary.
A Commentary
Two years ago, on Armistice Day, after our journal meeting in which Jessica and I came up with the idea to have a brief introduction to our Quarterly issue, I sat down and wrote out A Commentary in an unused classroom at Otis College, in LA, where I was teaching (the same classroom, in fact, where I’d had my first-ever workshop as an MFA student three years earlier.) Now I’m searching for a coherent opening to the ninth, written a few days after our latest live reading in New York and the morning of our Zoom launch of our fifth full issue, later today. Part of the reason this iteration is so near-run is that I am, this semester, finishing the coursework of my PhD, and so am taking my final classes, presumably ever, for credit. I think, then, this is the topic of the latest A Commentary, one coming at a very exciting time for the journal, two years on from the first.
With a few small exceptions, I have been enrolled in school continuously for the last 27 years. I’m not entirely sure what I’ve learned in all that time. (Something about tort law, I remember). In fact, the more courses I’ve taken, the more it seems I’ve read the works of writers, critics, and thinkers who largely eschewed conventional education, either because it was not open to them, or did not fit in the practicalities of their lives, or did not yet exist. Which raises thoughts about the commercialization of high education, especially—a topic very much pertinent to my current degree, a PhD in Creative Writing, a fairly new phenomenon and one that doesn’t really make all that much sense. As do many other grad students, I also teach, freshman comp and undergrad workshop.
These experiences illuminate something obvious about the human capacity for learning, in that it does not have all that much to do with the way our university system is built. But what is the point? I think it’s ultimately a rather simple one: most of the great amalgamation of human wisdom is gotten at (and added to) idiosyncratically, if not outright autodidactically, and so thus the need for vehicles which can vector literature, art, thought, expression, and the like towards other humans is forever great. That this argument is made by every lit journal and small press in existence does not vitiate it; indeed, it perhaps is the argument. That was a rather pleonastic manner of saying that, here at L’Esprit, we’re thrilled to be setting out another collection of invaluable literature, no due date required.
Part of the reason I think all this is on my mind is that Issue Five has an interview with Lucy Ives, one of the the most insightful and risk-adept writers-critics of her generation, whose essay collection An Image of My Name Enters America inhabits this space between the classroom and the world with depth and rigor. A review essay of mine covering the book appears in the Quarterly, as well. Lucy’s work is expansive and rich, spanning fiction, poetry, and criticism, and we’re very happy to have a fantastic conversation with her available to our readers.
We have the wonderful Kat Meads as our Featured Writer for I5, including an interview and a critical-journalistic-creative essay that operates along these same lines. Alongside these dialogues we of course have our usual assortment of excellent fiction and nonfiction, along with critical writing studying the John Fowles-Jacques Lacan connection and the technology of William Gaddis.
Our in-person readings have been on the increase; one in Manhattan this last week, another scheduled for AWP in March (where we’ll also have a table), and more to come. Submissions for our inaugural contest are coming in nicely, and we are excited to see how the shortlist comes together. Several contributors have recently published books, including at least one story collection featuring a L’Esprit story. Congrats to all!
It’s thrilling for us to see our literary community grow, as a project run simply by two people drawn to a certain type of fearless writing. As we near some major announcements in the coming months, we’re immensely encouraged by and appreciative of all the support and interest the journal has gotten over the last couple of years, and the opportunities we have to add our portion to the human store of knowledge.
Consciously,
L’Esprit
D. W. White, 2 November 2024
An Image of My Name Enters America
Editor Dan White reviews Lucy Ives’ new essay collection, An Image of My Name Enters America, for the Fall Quarterly.
Lucy also spoke with L’Esprit about her process, influences, and art in Issue Five: “Contingency and Disobedience“.
L’Esprit Readings
We had our latest live, in-person reading in Manhattan this past week, at the excellent Von Bar. Thanks to all those who came out, and keep an eye out for news on the next one.
We’re excited to say that we’ll have another off-site event at AWP on Saturday, March 29th, at The Last Bookstore in downtown LA. We’ll have more details soon.
Call for Submissions
The 2025 Leopold Bloom Prize for Innovative Narration is open for another month, until Dec. 2. Guest Judged by Michael Nath with a $10 entry and a $500 grand prize. All entries are considered for paid publication.
L’Esprit is also reading for Issue Six, due out in mid-April. Free submissions to I6 are open through tomorrow!
As always we’re especially interested in getting more critical work (be it book reviews, literary criticism, autotheory, or craft essays), and writing in translation.
See our Submission Guidelines for more details on all of the above.
Creative Writing Quartets
Issue Two contributor Rachel Rodman is running an experiment called “Creative Writing Quartets” and looking for more volunteers. In a Quartet, four writers work in parallel, building on one another’s work over the course of 3 “movements.”
Zoom “performances” last approximately 1.5 hours; anything written in the course of a Quartet remains the intellectual property of the writer.
If interested, contact Rachel at rcrodman@gmail.com.
Publication Announcements
L’Esprit is once again happy to share a few recent publication announcements and other news from past contributors!
A few contributors have new books:
An Image of My Name Enters America by Lucy Ives, published by Graywolf Press
Mutants and Hybrids: A Collection of Experimental Fiction by Rachel Rodman, published by Underland Press (including Strip Poker, which appeared inL’Esprit I2)
The Devil’s Library by Joachim Glage, published by JackLeg Press
In Their Ruin by Joyce Goldenstern, published by Black Heron Press
And many pieces in great lit mags:
- “Black Beauty” by Mandira Pattnaik in The Cincinnati Review miCRo
- “Have a Nice Day” by Paul Perilli (recent winner of the Adelaide Literary Magazine short fiction contest, forthcoming)
- House Arrest: Poems of Hasan Alizadeh, translated by Kayvan Tahmasebian and Rebecca Ruth Gould (Todmorden, UK: Arc Publications, 2022) was shortlisted for Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation (2024).
- “Insomnia,” by Mohammad Mokhtari, translated by Kayvan Tahmasebian and Rebecca Ruth Gould, Poet Lore 117. 3/4: 40-41.
- “Endeavor” by Paul Perilli in Straylight Literary Magazine (forthcoming)
- Two Poems: “Kip’s Diner” and “Apertures,” by Richard Risemberg, in Modern Literature
- “Everyone” and “Warnings” by Rachel Rodman in The Kafka Protocol & The Burden of Compliance
- “The Battle Verses of Prufrock J. Alfred” by Rachel Rodman in Strange Horizons
- “Tidal Waters” (book review) by Diane Josefowicz in Rain Taxi
- “18 Fatherless Clowns” by Olivia Sawatzki in erato literary magazine
- “The Owl” by Joachim Glage in LitMag
Félicitations à tous!
Issue Four at Le Magasin
A reminder that we now offer print and digital editions of all full issues alongside our current online versions. Find everything on the dedicated section of the website, Le Magasin.
Issue Four is now available in print and digital editions!
All previous issues are also available in all three formats; Issue Five will be out in the next week or so.
Thanks to everyone for your support of fearless writing!
Best of the Net Nominations
We’re pleased to announce our 2024 Nominees!
Fiction:
Passion and Propriety, Katie Goto-Švic
Not a Tragedy, Just a Life, Kat Meads
Nonfiction:
The Reader, Linette Marie Allen
Tongue-Twisted, Beatriz Seelaender
Submittable
L’Esprit is on Submittable!
Find us here.
California; Or: The End of the World
The Lives and Language of Lucy Ives
D. W. White
Review Essay
To begin, a caveat.
This is not really a review of Lucy Ives’ new book. Or, if it was, it was so only in thought, and never in fact. Which, as we shall see, leaves a bit of a gap. Because if this were a review of Lucy Ives’ new book, An Image of My Name Enters America, out this month from Graywolf Press, we would have all manner of bloody business to attend. Enumerations of arguments. Weighing of good and bad. Discussions of “plots.” A coherent thesis. But none of that is interesting, and, more to the point, none of that would begin to approach the beating, shrieking heart of Ives’ essay collection, five autotheoretical perorations that sail tightly along the original coastline of the French essayer and only occasionally stop for provisions. That is to say, the pieces that constitute this book do not face outward but in; they are a gesture and not a package, a survived experience and not a reading of the minutes; they are to a conventional collection of feel-good soft-shell introspection what living in Death Valley is to walking across a freshly mowed lawn to grab the Sunday paper. That is to say, this book cannot be reviewed, only relived. That is to say, read it.
Au Revoir
We hope you’ve enjoyed our Fall Quarterly; do keep in touch as we release Issue Five and look ahead to exciting new developments!
Thank you for your support of fearless writing, and à la prochaine.
Consciously,
L’Esprit
L'Esprit Literary Review 