About We Were Emergent

An anthology of new writing by writers aged 18-25. (+/- a few years) to be published in 2013.

Find submission guidelines here. Want to help?
Find the editors at Monkfish Jowls and Molars.

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The Salinger Table

We talked recently about an article in the New York Times from January 2010 that covered J.D. Salinger's life in Cornish, N.H., and his relationship with Cornish's other residents.

Kevin:  So what did you think of that article when you read it?

I thought the tipping $2 to the waiters at church dinners was amazing

Anthony:  I think we should go to Cornish--I mean, that was my first thought

Kevin:  Yeah. I would love to.

Anthony:  For like Thanksgiving.

Kevin:  So soon!

Anthony:  Maybe every year.

Kevin:  Haha

Anthony:  Thanksgiving in Cornish

Kevin:  And ask where his house is?

Over and over again

Anthony:  And stay with his widow

Kevin:  She would welcome us

we'd be like, 'we're different'

Anthony:  We're not like the other writers who came here

Kevin:  Not at all. We're really fans

Anthony:  It's hard to find fans like us.

Kevin:  Who own every edition of every book

Anthony:  I dress like Fanny every day. And a lot of my thoughts are similar to Holden's.

A lot.

Kevin:  And I remember from school you would often collapse on backroom couches and whisper to yourself.

Anthony:  When did you first read Salinger?

Kevin:  I read Catcher in high school and liked it, but it also weirded me out a little. Then I didn't read him again until the first year of grad school. I think I was put off by the rep. What about you?

Anthony:  What was the weirdness?

Kevin:  I think being enrolled in a boarding school and reading about boarding school kids was strange, plus a lot of it flew right over my head, and I was what might be generously called a lazy reader.

Anthony:  I read Catcher when I was 17 or 18 but it was anti-climatic. Too built up. I preferred Dickens then to my now, dear Holden.

Oh yeah--so do all the guys in boarding school have crummy fingernails?

Kevin:  No, most get manicures

Anthony:  And do they sort the social order based on luggage?

Kevin:  Haha, more on like, who can steal cable successfully.

Anthony:  Are most Manicheans?

Kevin:  for their dorm room

Anthony:  Manicured Manicheans?

Kevin:  Some

the athletes

Anthony:  Cable sweaters? I'm out of the loop on this cable business.

Did guys ever disappear?

And would you hear about what happened to them?

Kevin:  Yeah, some guys did. They would leave for break and never come back

Or just not be there for class and then it would come out later that something happened with their family or they had a breakdown or whatever

there were definitely breakdowns, that's a real big thing to do in boarding school

Anthony:  Wasn't the first appearance of Holden Caufield in the New Yorker in a story that referred to breakdowns?

Kevin:  Yeah, I can't remember--slight breakdown off 57th street

or slight rebellion?

Anthony:  Is it the separation anxiety or being in an enclosed group of teenage boys?

Oh yeah--slight rebellion. Not a breakdown!

Kevin:  I think that has a lot to do with it. The stress of school plus having to demonstrate manliness, etc. on an everyday basis to prove yourself

Anthony:  I have noticed that you prove yourself a lot.

Especially at checkout lanes

Kevin:  Haha, I do try to show tons of virility

mostly in consumer environments

during transactions

Anthony:  The little speeches that you would give

I remember those

Kevin:  Haha.

Always

Anthony:  "Kevin, you don't have to prove yourself to the Wal-Mart cashier."

But I could see how that would lead a person to find that everything is bullshit

Kevin:  Yeah, I think that environment is tough to thrive within. The only ones who did later turned out to be pretty fucking crazy as in insanely aggressive

Anthony:  It's weird--I was just about to diagnose some of Holden's anxiety as being about the uncertainty of what was happening at home, since his brother had died, and he was in this boarding school far away.

But he doesn't want to go back home--he wants to disappear even more.

Kevin:  There's something to that, even with the stories too--like a need for self-effacement

Anthony:  He wants to wipe himself out to everyone beside himself.

Kevin:  Some of the other characters display that

Anthony:  Seymour?

Kevin:  Yeah.

Anthony:  Literally there.

Kevin:  There's a heavy world-weariness to the Glass kids

Seymour actually followed through

Anthony:  Who would be most likely to follow him that way?

Franny?

She seems most intense.

Kevin:  That was my first thought

She would be it, though I guess it's tough to tell what happens to her after the events in Zooey

Maybe she recovers and gets married

Anthony:  We could ask around at Thanksgiving in Cornish.

Do you think there are a lot of people dropping by?

Kevin:  "Do you think Franny would kill herself?" Said to the policeman who pulls us over.

Anthony:  Or is it too unsexy? Like VFW halls, etcetera.

Kevin:  I think there are probably still people who go there

Anthony:  Not like Jim Morrison's grave

Kevin:  I would if I lived closer

Anthony:  and Rimbaud's hair clippings.

Kevin:  No, but it would be cool to see the town where he spent most of his life

The people seemed pretty great from that article

Anthony:  Because of the intensity of his characters?

Kevin:  I don't know. Did he write any of the stories in Cornish?

Anthony:  Oh--I don't know when he moved there.

Kevin:  The Glass stories, or were they all from before

If more stuff comes out, from the purported archive, do you think people will flock there again

?

Anthony:  I'm surprised there's no bootlegs.

Or even fakes.

Kevin:  Yeah, where are the dittos

Anthony:  There's fake Beatles songs.

Kevin:  Didn't that one guy try to do a Catcher sequel?

Or he did?

I can't remember if that got blocked

Anthony:  Yeah--and an Iowa grad just wrote something else with Holden in it.

Kevin:  Oh god

Anthony:  I know. I'm not sure the point except publicity.

Kevin:  That's what I was thinking...

Anthony:  I wouldn't mind a go-kart game with the Salinger characters though.

Maybe for the Nintendo 3DS

Kevin:  Oooh, good pitch

Who would be the fastest

Have to figure Holden's pretty thin/wiry

But maybe loose with the wheel?

Anthony:  Seymour has the secret military training.

Was Seymour the Salinger stand-in?

Was his suicide the way Salinger brought about death to his ego so that he could get out of the way?

Oh shit--my coffee break is over.

Kevin:  That's a god thought. I always figured it was Seymour and Buddy as the stand-ins, like different parts of him

Okay, so we can wrap it up

Kevin:  Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you real quick--do you think the 'built-up-ness' of Catcher ruins it for some people, like they go into it expecting too much. I think that happened to me too...

I'd heard about it for so long, even when I was 16

Anthony:  oh yeah

you should read it again!

Kevin:  I know, I've forgotten so much of what happens.

Anthony:  I'm surprised you haven't.

Kevin:  Only superficial things stuck with me

Anthony:  I read it three times for work in Singapore

since I taught it over and over again there

Kevin:  Did it read better those times around?

As opposed to when you were in high school?

Anthony:  It's really good.

Yeah--I had a religion teacher in college who made us read it

and that was my second time. I've loved it since then

Kevin:  Hmm. Maybe I should've re-read it in college, I feel like it would've made more sense to me then, or I would've understood some of the emotions more.

It's weird b/c it's a canonical high school book, but it's not really for high schoolers, is it?

Anthony:  It can be.

Kevin:  or maybe not for high schoolers now?

Anthony:  woody allen called it one of his favorite books

and has a good write up

hold on

Kevin:  oh whoa

Anthony:  "The Catcher in the Rye has always had special meaning for me because I read it when I was young – 18 or so. It resonated with my fantasies about Manhattan, the Upper East Side, and New York City in general. It was such a relief from all the other books I was reading at the time, which all had a quality of homework about them. For me, reading Middlemarch or Sentimental Education is work, whereas The Catcher in the Rye is pure pleasure. The burden of entertainment was on the author. Salinger fulfilled that obligation from the first sentence on. When I was younger reading was something you did for school, something you did for obligation, something you did if you wanted to take out a certain kind of woman. It wasn't something I did for fun. But Catcher in the Rye was different. It was amusing, it was in my vernacular, and the atmosphere held great emotional resonance for me. I reread it on a few occasions and I always get a kick out of it."

Kevin:  Whew

Anthony:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/06/woody-allen-top-five-books

Kevin:  So cool

Anthony:  I just re-read that list because I found a reference to this Brasilian writer de Assis in an Elizabeth Bishop essay

and my brain was telling me that Woody Allen name dropped him

Kevin:  haha, that's incredible that you remembered the reference

Anthony:  I put it on my amazon wishlist!

so it stuck around a little bit

Kevin:  Someone will send it to you anonymously like what happened with Woody Allen

I'd like to get anonymous books in the mail, with charming notes

You'll like this!

Anthony:  that would be awesome

Posted on Tuesday, November 13th 2012

Tags J.D. Salinger Cornish Lit Fiction chatting

The Anthology: What We’re Doing

We Were Emergent is putting together an anthology of new writing by writers from 18-25 years old. All publishing methods for the book are being considered: Print, ebook, web page, pdf, skywriting, laundry list, food truck menu, etcetera. 

We believe in: 

—Strong editorial guidance. To find ways to fix pieces that have potential or a strong voice, but have other problems, instead of just rejecting them. 

—Paying writers. Maybe it will be $10. Maybe it will be $100. Maybe we’ll all be millionaires. We will probably kickstarter this project, and if successful we’ll probably go to print and also send out payments to our contributors. 

—Literature. There’s more to life than making a buck, being a doctor, or working for an elite financial institution. There’s concerns of the soul. The fostering of empathy. There’s simple escapism. Enjoyment. We want people to read and we want people to write we know how it’s enriched our own lives. 

—Introverts. Extroverts. The Digital Natives. The public schooled. The private schooled. The home schooled. The non-schooled. “Square pegs.” “Crazy ones.” Parrots. Please, if you’re a writing parrot in your early 20s, drop us a submission. 

Read about How to Submit. Also: Things you can help us with. The editors’ bios. Some Reasons we’re doing this. 

Posted on Thursday, August 30th 2012

The Call: Send Us Your Stories

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to release an anthology of writing, many decisions must be made. What form will the anthology take? Modern publishing offers options to the inexperienced anthologist, and so we must choose: print-on-demand, e-book, enhanced e-book, twittered book, handwritten + scanned book, a book released as edible foam, or as stained glass window, a skywritten book, a scratch-and-sniff book, or a book that grows legs and walks away.

More importantly, what to put in it? While it’s fun to say, “We want what is new,” or “We want what is exciting,” neither of those declarations are helpful to the submitter. Where does that leave the old and boring? The unclassifiable? The mouldering? We want what you have, whatever that might be. Send us your ragged, your unparagraphed, your experimental. Send us your instruction manuals. Send us your romances. Send us your travelogues. Send us your conversations. Send us your saddest texts. Send us your fake resumes. Send us your recipes. Send us your love letters, your complaints, and your songs of indifference. Send us your lunch poems.  

Upload your submissions via our submissions portal or email them to wewereemergent@gmail.com.

Posted on Thursday, August 30th 2012

Who We Are

Kevin Hyde has operated the music blog Molars intermittently (and in different forms) since 2004. He received his MFA from the University of Florida. His work has been in Big Fiction, Parcel, Burnt Bridge, on the McSweeney’s website, etc. He recently drove cross-country to California and, against his better judgment, eventually returned to Pennsylvania, where he lives. 

Anthony Luebbert has published Monkfish Jowls, a tumblr of lit and memoir, since 2009. He has an MFA from the University of Florida, where he worked on the literary journal Subtropics. Since 2010 he’s been on staff of Asymptote, an international literary journal. His stories have been in Asymptote, New York Tyrant, Parcel and others. He owns a ball python, likes cabbage, streams all his music, needs a “real job”, likes you, lived in Singapore, is beardless, not balding, heartbroken, housebroken, not on a boat, but would like very much to be on a boat. 

Tony & Kevin at Padgett Powell’s house in Florida. (Photo by Claire Barwise.)

Posted on Thursday, August 30th 2012

Help Us! Intern! Etcetera!

In addition to short story submissions, we’re looking for people who can help with:

—Graphics

—Publicity

—Web Design

—Submission Reading

—Other things I can’t think of at the moment

Are you in a creative writing course? Pass word along! Are you teaching one? Encourage your students to submit. 

Do you have photos that you took that you’d like us to feature? Send them along! Drawings? Electronic art? 

Do you know how to do other things (that I can’t think of at the moment)? Call me.  319.481.8669. 

In exchange we will pay you/gift you, if/when we have money. We will write you letters of recommendation. We will email you asking if you have seen our lost pet pythons around or if you have seen any ugly baby owls lately. I keep looking at ugly little birds, hoping they are ugly baby owls, but they never are. 

Posted on Monday, August 27th 2012

Why?

It started when we were teaching fiction writing while we were MFA students at the University of Florida and found ourselves constantly surprised by what our students would bring in to workshop. Most of the students wouldn’t go on to have writing careers, or even continue writing after college, but for that one semester, they were writers, and they sent their stories off like bottle rockets. A quick burst, and then—

The world is full of discouragement for young writers. And even when an institution opts to celebrate them, the word young is stretched to its limits. When The New Yorker celebrates young writers it’s in their list of twenty writers under forty. We’re guessing most are pushing 40. Where’s the 20 under 30? The 20 under 20? Is there really nothing praiseworthy being written by people before they hit the age of 30? 

Let’s not let lit be only the realm of the old or the rich. Let’s not heed society who says there’s no money in writing. There isn’t—but so what. Has anyone seen what money’s done to us? How the water is rising and the banks are crashing?

Let’s instead make a playlist of new writing by new writers and release it to the world. It’s true, of course, that young people have always made hit singles. We believe they can make stories too. And maybe we’ll press a couple to vinyl—A&B sides on a 45. 

Posted on Monday, August 27th 2012

From the New Yorker. “When Camp Dunlap, a World War II Marine training facility near Niland, California, was closed in 1946, all of the buildings were completely dismantled, leaving numerous cement foundation slabs in the desert.Almost as soon as the government abandoned the site, “snowbirds” (campers from northern states in recreational vehicles) began to winter on the slabs, even though no running water, electricity or sewage facilities were available. Today at least five thousand snowbirds arrive each winter, and a few have become permanent year-round residents, despite summer temperatures that can reach 120 degrees. The snowbirds come with motor homes costing half a million dollars and they come with tents.Over the years, a true self-governing community has arisen, including a mayor, the Slab City Christian Church (in a trailer), the Lizard Tree Library (used paperbacks on an honor system), the Gopher Flats Country Club (gravel greens), the Oasis Social Club (combination meeting space/junkyard), a CB radio station (one half hour of purely local news, nightly at six p.m.) and the Range, an outdoor nightclub built by “Builder Bill,” complete with stage, lighting, bar, communal outhouse and several rows of salvaged airliner seats. The Range takes its name from an active bombing range located a few miles away, which makes the sight and sound of F-16 sorties a part of life at the Slabs.Moira, the Queen of the 2005 Prom at the Range, never got to go to her high school prom.”

From the New Yorker.

“When Camp Dunlap, a World War II Marine training facility near Niland, California, was closed in 1946, all of the buildings were completely dismantled, leaving numerous cement foundation slabs in the desert.

Almost as soon as the government abandoned the site, “snowbirds” (campers from northern states in recreational vehicles) began to winter on the slabs, even though no running water, electricity or sewage facilities were available. Today at least five thousand snowbirds arrive each winter, and a few have become permanent year-round residents, despite summer temperatures that can reach 120 degrees. The snowbirds come with motor homes costing half a million dollars and they come with tents.

Over the years, a true self-governing community has arisen, including a mayor, the Slab City Christian Church (in a trailer), the Lizard Tree Library (used paperbacks on an honor system), the Gopher Flats Country Club (gravel greens), the Oasis Social Club (combination meeting space/junkyard), a CB radio station (one half hour of purely local news, nightly at six p.m.) and the Range, an outdoor nightclub built by “Builder Bill,” complete with stage, lighting, bar, communal outhouse and several rows of salvaged airliner seats. The Range takes its name from an active bombing range located a few miles away, which makes the sight and sound of F-16 sorties a part of life at the Slabs.

Moira, the Queen of the 2005 Prom at the Range, never got to go to her high school prom.”

Posted on Monday, August 27th 2012

Source newyorker.com