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Black Clock 11 Makes Mysterious Connections

October 20th, 2009 | News

Forsaken cities and blasted landscapes, characters in exile from their own times, mysterious connections in the air just beyond the grasp of those who barely understand them: Black Clock 11, California Institute of the Arts’ (CalArts) acclaimed literary journal, is slated to arrive on the stands mid-November. This issue features work by such prominent authors as Joanna Scott, Chris Abani and Susan Straight, and introduces the usual selection of dazzling new voices.

In Richard Powers’ “Over the Limit,” freely adapted from his just published novel, a young African woman genetically predisposed to happiness stands at the nexus of a brilliant, narcissistic scientist and the discontented moderator of a TV news magazine.  In Rob Roberge’s “Stooge” and Lou Mathews’ “Hollywoodski,” Vegas drug deals go bad and drunken Tinseltown conversations run wild, and in Antonia Crane’s “Rosebud,” a self-designated “sexual outlaw” and stripper looking to retire gets caught up in the intrigues of an aging decadent Hollywood couple.  In “This Is How the Past Turns Up”, Greil Marcus charts one of his patently revelatory longitudes between Barack Obama’s election-night victory speech, the fiction of Philip Roth, and Sam Cooke’s perennial contender for the greatest record of all time, “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

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BC V X

February 09th, 2009 | News

With both the occasion of our fifth anniversary and the publication of our tenth issue imminent, Black Clock has asked some of its most frequent (and prominent) contributors to describe their experience as readers of the magazine.  The responses we collected are as singular, idiosyncratic and even a little mysterious as the contents of any given issue.

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Black Clock 8 Embarks On Outer And Inner Journeys

January 04th, 2008 | News

The eighth issue of Black Clock arrives on newsstands and in bookstores in early January 2008. The stories and poetry in the newest issue of California Institute of the Arts’ (CalArts) literary journal are “loosely linked by the idea of physical and emotional nomadism,” said editor Steve Erickson. “These are travels and sojourns of the outward and inward sort, guided by such writers as Geoffrey O’Brien, Susan Straight, Tom Carson, Lisa Teasley, Yxta Maya Murray, Chris Kraus, Michael Ventura and others.”

From the cover image of a tunnel leading deep into the magazine’s pages, Black Clock 8 speaks to our wanderlust even if, as in the case of Geoff Nicholson’s “A Walk Around the World,” the central character decides to walk a distance circling the globe all within his own backyard. In “The Sting of Irrelevancy” author Joanna Scott is stranded in Rome and finds herself contemplating Jorge Luis Borges’ wandering dreamers, while in Lewis Shiner’s “Wonderland” the protagonist’s journey takes him only a few blocks from where he lives and works into 1960’s Harlem–which might as well be another planet.

Published by 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’s staff includes Erikson, a novelist, critic and CalArts MFA Writing Program faculty member in addition to being the magazine’s Editor, Senior Editor and adjunct member of CalArts Writing Program faculty Bruce Bauman, Editor-at-Large Dwayne Moser, Managing Editor Michaele Simmering and Art Director Ophelia Chong.

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Black Clock Benefit At REDCAT

January 11th, 2007 | Events

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.

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Black Clock 5 Launch At Skylight Books

May 16th, 2006 | Events

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

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