Black Clock 10 Darkening The Horizon
Born in the despair of the Great Depression, flourishing in the first radioactive blush of the nuclear age, Noir really is more a sensibility than a style, and the tenth issue of Black Clock operates on the premise that Twenty-First Century Noir is a mutated thing that still bears kinship with the original. Robert Polito finds early signs of noir all the way back in Eighteenth Century America in “It Would Be a Queer World If,” and Dana Spiotta takes a look at one of the classic Fifties film noirs in “First is First, Second is Nobody.” In Diana Wagman’s “The Five Elements of Noir,” some noir archetypes find the movie they’re in has taken them over. The genre gets decidedly weird with Michael Ventura’s cross-dressing private-eye in “One Marilyn Too Many,” and becomes altogether supernatural in stories by Denise Hamilton and Francesca Lia Block. And amid work by major contemporary authors Scott Bradfield, Brian Evenson, Geoff Nicholson and others, Black Clock 10 also identifies 70 essential noir movies, novels, comics, poems, paintings, performances and pieces of music.
Now among the nation’s foremost literary magazines, Black Clock has showcased award-winning writing by established and emerging authors, with pieces anthologized in best-of-the-year collections and two excerpted novels going on to win National Book Awards.
Black Clock is published semi-annually by the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) MFA Writing Program.
Keywords:
Black Clock 10 | Brian Evenson | CalArts | Dana Spiotta | Denise Hamilton | Diana Wagman | Francesca Lia Block | Geoff Nicholson | MFA Writing Program | Michael Ventura | Noir | Robert Polito | Scott Bradfield
Black Clock 7 Sizzles
The seventh issue of Black Clock is the most provocative issue of the journal yet. It features twenty-five stories, one essay and four poems about sex and the erotic by such writers as Samuel R. Delany, Janet Fitch, Aimee Bender, Lynne Tillman, Geoff Nicholson, Francesca Lia Block, Rachel Resnick, Brian Evenson, Lisa Teasley, Seth Greenland, Tara Ison, John Haskell and others. This current issue will begin heating up newsstands and bookstores in late June.
Published by the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in association with the MFA Writing Program, Black Clock features work by prominent national writers, talented regional authors and the very best emerging writers.
Black Clock 7 includes Yxta Maya Murray’s “Girl Called Casanova”, in which the world’s greatest lover takes female form and sets out to seduce Angelina Jolie; Wanda Coleman’s “Howlin’ With the Woofdog”, about a tryst between a well-known radio DJ and a reluctant virgin; Joy Nicholson’s “Manson Girl”, a tale at once sweet, funny and chilling about the sexual dynamics of a murderous cult; and Tom Carson’s “My Mother, Marie Christ, (b. Hope Springs, TN, 1951 d. Memphis, July 4, 1985)”, about a boy named Jesus growing up in Reagan’s America who has a thing for his Mom.
Novelist, critic and CalArts MFA Writing Program faculty member Steve Erickson is the Editor of Black Clock. Dwayne Moser, adjunct faculty and CalArts MFA Writing Program coordinator, and Bruce Bauman, also an adjunct member of the Writing Program faculty, serve as Senior Editors. Gail Swanlund, Graphic Design faculty at CalArts, is the magazine’s art director.
Keywords:
Aimee Bender | Black Clock 7 | Brian Evenson | Bruce Bauman | Dwayne Moser | Francesca Lia Block | Gail Swanlund | Geoff Nicholson | Janet Fitch | John Haskell | Joy Nicholson | Lisa Teasley | Lynne Tillman | Rachel Resnick | Samuel R. Delany | Seth Greenland | Steve Erickson | Tara Ison | Tom Carson | Wanda Coleman | Yxta Maya Murray
Black Clock Benefit At REDCAT
Black Clock Benefit @ Redcat
Thursday, February 15 2007, 7:30 PM
Please join us on the evening of 2.15.07 at REDCAT (631 West Second Street Los Angeles 90012) in celebrating Black Clock, the Los Angeles-based literary magazine. Tickets are issued on a sliding scale: $5, $25, or more if you’re feeling generous.
Appearing at REDCAT will be:
- AIMEE BENDER, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, An Invisible Sign Of My Own and Willful Creatures
- FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK, author of Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books
- BEN EHRENREICH, author of The Suitors
- YXTA MAYA MURRAY, author of The Conquest, The Queen Jade and the forthcoming The King’s Gold
- SUSAN STRAIGHT, author of A Million Nightingales, Highwire Moon and I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen And Licked Out All the Pots
- LISA TEASLEY, author of Heat Signature, Dive and Glow In The Dark
- DAVID L. ULIN, author of The Myth of Solid Ground and editor of The Los Angeles Times Book Review
and
- STEVE ERICKSON, editor of Black Clock and author of Our Ecstatic Days and the forthcoming Zeroville, in conversation with MICHAEL SILVERBLATT, host of KCRW’s “Bookworm.”
This event is co-hosted by the CalArts MFA Writing Program and the School of Critical Studies. For ticket information please call REDCAT at (213) 237-2800 or visit www.redcat.org.
Keywords:
Aimee Bender | Ben Ehrenreich | Benefit | David L. Ulin | Francesca Lia Block | Lisa Teasley | Michael Silverblatt | Reading | REDCAT | Steve Erickson | Susan Straight | Yxta Maya Murray
Black Clock 5 Launch At Skylight Books
Black Clock 5 Launch @ Skylight Books
Thursday, June 22 2006, 7:30 P.M.
Black Clock celebrates its 5th issue with readings from the following BC5 contributors:
- FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK is the author of 15 books including Weetzie Bat, Goat Girls, and Beautiful Boys.
- SUSAN STRAIGHT is the author of six books including Highwire Moon, finalist for the National Book Award in 2001, and the new A Million Nightingales.
- LISA TEASLEY’s second novel, Heat Signature, will be published by Bloomsbury this summer, along with paperbacks of her first, Dive, and the collection Glow In The Dark, which won the Gold Pen and Pacificus Literary Foundation awards.
- ALAN RIFKIN has written for The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Premiere, Details and The L.A. Weekly. His first book, Signal Hill, was a finalist for the 2004 Southern California Booksellers Award in fiction, and he was also a finalist for the 2003 PEN Award in journalism.
- YXTA MAYA MURRAY is a professor at Loyola Law School and the author of Locas, What It Takes To Get To Vegas, The Conquest, The Queen Jade, and the forthcoming The King’s Gold.
Skylight Books = 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027, (323) 660-1175
Keywords:
Alan Rifkin | Black Clock 5 | Francesca Lia Block | Lisa Teasley | Reading | Skylight Books | Susan Straight | Yxta Maya Murray
