Welcome to Twenty-Four Hours, issue seven. This roughly falls at

the ten-year anniversary mark for this thing. Unreal. Aside from my

marriage, I’ve never been able to sustain anything for ten years. Al-

though, I almost spent ten years in college… But that’s another story.

I have to say, when I started this thing, I didn’t think it would go the

direction it did. That is, get so serious. It happens to the best of us.

Now is the part where I say something literary and corny like: This

publication is essential to the vitality of American letters… or, this

publication is consistently harrowing and hilarious… and that it con-

tains interviews with some of our finest writers. All of that is true, of

course, but I would rather say it like this: Dig in, folks. We got some good stuff in here.

Mangia!- Josh Medsker

“Literature” Annie laGanga Boice-Terrel Allen “Reviews” Zinesters Guide to NYC “Culture” Last Meals Project “Zines (etc)” Shannon Wheeler Aaron Cometbus “How To” 5 tips on Writing Powerful Short Mem-oir joshmedsker(at)gmail(dot)com Twentyfhourszine(dot)blogspot(dot)com thanks to no one (but leigh)

Annie LaGanga

Annie and I have known each other for many years. We met at a

writing workshop,

run by our friend

Amanda Ward, in

Austin--and then

with some other

writer friends,

started up our own

workshop/writing

group. I was always

so jealous of her

"blood and guts"

style, you know,

laying everything

out on the table with no excuses.

We lost touch for a while, then I found out she published a mem-

oir in prose-poems--Stoners and Self-Appointed Saints (Red Hen

Press)--and was having a book signing in Manhattan. I met An-

nie and her partner Bill Cotter (an awesome author in his own

right), and later, did this interview with her. Her writing has al-

ways inspired me to be more probing and brutally honest in my

own work. She's not only my friend, she's a hero. Thanks Annie.

Interview by Josh Medsker

Hey Annie! How did you come up with the idea of prose po-

ems for Stoners?

I've had a terrible time over the years figuring

out what exactly to call my writing, or at least

the kind of writing that is in Stoners. I think it's

prose poetry, I don't know if it is. Some of the

pieces are for real poems and some are more like

short short stories, narrative nonfiction, and

some are monologues and some are I don't know

what. In the end, we decided to call the book a

memoir in part to get better sales and in part, I

think, because we didn't know how to classify it.

At one point my editor, Kate Gale, said to me,

"This is not poetry."

Tell me about the process of starting Stoners.

Did the finished product end up the way you

originally envisioned it?

I wrote a few of the pieces in Stoners almost ten years ago and then I had all this writing lying

around my house driving me crazy because I didn't know what to do with it. I also got into this

weird little writing ritual where I would set the egg timer for fifteen minutes and do a collage

and then set it for fifteen minutes again and just sit and look at the collage and then set it for

fifteen and write with my right hand and then set it for another fifteen and write with my left

hand. Very OCD and weird, I know, but while I was doing it, I generated a lot of stuff I liked. A

lot of that writing went into Stoners. Around the same time that I was doing the fifteen minute

thing, I was trying to do stand up comedy and hating it and feeling awful and my fifteen minute

writing was not generating night club jokes, it was generating darkly funny but mainly sad stuff

about my life, so I felt horrible about everything. I hired a career coach lady, Ann Daly, and

started working with her in hopes that she would help me figure out what the fuck I should do

with my life since making collages and writing about death was not helping me create a suc-

cessful career as a comedian. We worked together for about a year and a half and at one point

near my birthday in October, I was having this crisis because I was doing lots of other things

besides writing and it finally dawned on me that if I wasn't working on a writing project of

some kind, I was totally wasting my life, shirking my responsibility to myself. I told Ann this

and she said, "Well what do you want to do?" and I said, "Write a book," and she said, "Okay.

When will it be finished?" I said, "The end of the year." She said, "Great. December 31st, I

want to see this book." Thank god Ann terrified me and I knew I had to come up with some-

thing or she'd kill me. I think I ended up making a collage of a book --- I took all the stuff I had

and shaped it into something sort of cohesive, a story of myself and the people I've known.

Was it difficult to write about your life in such a visceral and direct way? You talk about

some intense stuff. (You can get into it as little or much as you want)

For awhile it was difficult to even think about some of the stuff in my book. It hurt for a long

time and I think that's why I wasn't able to write about it until a couple of years ago, until I was

in my late thirties and had had a lot of therapy and recovery. But also I have to say that I lied

about my life for a long time and so to be able to just say what it was like, to be direct, specific

and truthful felt good, felt like a relief.

And what made you choose mem-

oir? Did you experiment with

other styles before deciding on

memoir?

Like I said before, memoir was just

what we decided to call this thing,

this collection of my weird work.

I've always written about myself,

my life. I've kept a diary forever but

I've tried to write all kinds of stuff.

I wrote a pretty bad murder mystery

last summer.

How did you get hooked up with

Red Hen Press?

Red Hen Press was started in Northridge, CA around fifteen years ago and my best friend at the

time worked as a cashier at a big grocery store in Northridge where Kate Gale did her shopping.

Kate told my friend that she was starting a publishing company and my friend said, "My best

friend is a great writer!" and Kate gave my friend her address and told her to have me send

something. I did. I sent the piece Tandoori Chicken and Kate put it in an anthology called, Blue

Cathedral. I think it was in 1998. Kate and Mark E. Cull were very nice to me and I always

knew that if I ever finished anything that they would look at it. When I finished Stoners manu-

script on December 31 so my coach wouldn't kill me, I immediately sent Kate an email with a

sample piece and she wrote back right away and told me to send the manuscript to her house.

Two weeks later she sent me an email that said, "I love this little book." I know I was extremely

lucky.

Not lucky, extremely talented. :) What’s next for you on the writing front?

So weird! I'm going back to working on stand up comedy! Thanks so much for asking!

www.annielaganga.com

Zinester’s Guide to NYC—by Ayun Halliday (Microcosm

Books)

Ayun Halliday (East Village Inky) put together this alternative travel guide,

for locals and non-locals. Ayun and other NYC-area zinesters, like Margo

Dabaie (The Hookah Girl), Andria Alefhi (We’ll Never Have Paris), and Josh

Saitz (Negative Capability) weigh in on their favorite things from their favor-

ite neighborhoods—cheesecake in Astoria, fries in Manhattan, cheap photo-

copies in Bklyn… essentially whatever sights, sounds, foods, dives might be

interesting or helpful for zinesters, hipsters, hip kids, and older hip un-kids. Microcosm also put

out a zinester’s guide to Portland, which I’m told is pretty awesome. There are drawings in the

book too, and so many little tidbits, you might miss some unless you read closely. (jm)

Boice-Terrel Allen is a singer/songwriter and author, origi-

nally from Pittsburgh. He has lived here in New York City for

a few years now, and I had the pleasure of working with and

befriending him at Barnes and Noble. His songs are tuneful

and literary alt-pop (go figure!) and his stories are filled with

poetic description and slow-building characterization. Watch

this one.

Interview by Josh Medsker

When did you begin your writing career? And what is Rat-

tlecat? I've seen that on your record, and on your

books. What has been the book people have been the most

responsive to?

My first book, The Daughters of a Mother, was released in

2000, but I’d been writing many years before then. As a child,

I wrote poetry or usually more often I would make up new lyrics to my favorite songs. So I sup-

pose it was a foregone conclusion I would make my own music. But one of my favorite artists

to invent lyrics for was Duran Duran. Their lyrics made absolutely no sense and my own words

were equally absurd—but I was a child and Simon LeBon wasn’t, so that’s my defense.

Officially, my writing career started with an unpublished novel that was a fictionalized account

of my late grandmother’s life in North Carolina and her eventual move to Pittsburgh-my home-

town. Although my heart was in the right place-it was meant as a tribute-the actual writing was

clichéd and hackneyed. Like so many writers on their road to a first book, I’d read endless,

pointless how-to books parceling out gems like there should be plenty of white space on a page

because readers like dialogue. And I actually believed this shit!

The origin of Rattlecat? It came from a story idea that was never used. A young boy created an

imaginary creature, part snake/part cat that would protect him. I didn’t write the story, this was

some time in ’98 I believe, but I liked the name. I liked it so much I decided to use it as the

name of my publishing—and now music—imprint, plus I thought it made for a cool logo.

I would say my second book, Janet Hurst, has received the most

response, it’s also my favorite. It’s about a middle-aged woman

who never followed her dream to writing a novel. I viewed it as

a cautionary tale. I think people connected to the story because

they could insert themselves into the character because many

people don’t act on their goals, passions, etc. for multiple rea-

sons.

It’s still my favorite book because it was when I found my voice

as a writer. I also felt I achieved a certain mood of melancholy

without sentimentality but with an undercurrent of humor.

Your newest book (half of it) is called "Stories Going

Steady"--a Buzzcocks reference, yes? And you have a split

focus on music. Does it distract you? I have my own per-

sonal theories about that. I think it's benficial. You?

Despite writing books for ten years, my true passion is music.

So for me, combining the two felt quite natural. It’s funny

though because people who knew me before I started making

music would ask me if I’d stopped writing books, which seems

ridiculous to me to be limited to one medium. For classifica-

tion, I suppose you can say I’m an author and musician, but I

prefer artist because it holds more room to grow.

You have mentioned Elvis Costello as an inspiration to

your music—what did you say? "Elvis Costello puts Mor-

rissey in a headlock". Is that right? What about for your

books?

Actually the phrase is, sounds like Elvis Costello serenading Paul McCartney on a blind date set

up by Morrissey, so the love could be spread to all. It’s about strong melodies for me. As a mu-

sic listener, I’ve always been drawn songs that have strong hooks and stick in your ear after the

first listen. And if you’ve got great lyrics, too, well, you can’t beat my influences.

I’ve been working on the album [How to be an Adult] for three years and haven’t written any

new fiction during that time, so maybe I was distracted. But only partially because I couldn’t

help but bring everything I learned in writing books to my lyrics. There are story songs, songs

with characterization, that type of thing. Which is one of the reasons why I admire someone like

Elvis Costello who grafts witty, smart words to catchy pop music. That you don’t have to dumb

down or pander in what you say because a song is catchy or you have to rhyme.

As for books, I tend to favor writers who are more concerned with language and character as

opposed to heavy plotting. This would include Gayl Jones, Alice Munro and to a lesser extent

Jamaica Kincaid.

After the unpublished novel, it was Jones and Kincaid who taught me that you didn’t need

white space on a page-in fact so much of their writing was interior monologues. So for The

Daughters of a Mother and Janet Hurst, I was interested in occupying a character’s head

through first person-for the entire book, in a style that was as if they were sitting across a table

from you and sharing their lives, their deepest thoughts and musings. This was more or less

how I continued for the Screwball Comedy half of Screwball Comedy/Stories Going Steady.

For Stories Going Steady, Munro was a strong influence for many of the short stories. I learned

from her that a short story didn’t have to be about one particular moment or event with an ironic

twist at the end or some epiphany, instead she showed me a short story could contain all the

depth of a novel. That it could do everything a novel does. The lesson for me from Munro was

to primarily take my time, that there was no need to rush to a point.

Going further with the Elvis Costello... I recently read on the

Associated Press wire (May 2010), that he cancelled his tour

dates in Israel in protest of the Israelis' treatment of the Pales-

tinians. And he was reamed out by their government, and some

of his fans. One of his fans said something to the effect of "he

shouldn't be sticking his nose in here, he doesn't know what

he's talking about. He should stick to what he knows, which is

music." What do you think about that statement? That we

should let the politicians make the political statements and

leave the art to the artists?

I never understood the argument that somehow a musician, actor,

whatever is not supposed to have a political opinion outside of their

medium or that the opinion is suspect. I was under the impression

that an opinion is simply someone's personal view. That neither

makes it wrong nor right.

facebook.com/boiceonline

myspace.com/boicerocks

JONATHON KAMBOURIS’s

LAST MEALS PROJECT

Jonathon Kambouris is a Brooklyn-based photographer.

His Last Meals Project documents the final meals of

prisoners on Death Row.

Interview by Josh Medsker

24hrs: What was the impetus for this project?

Jonathon Kambouris: On the morning of June 12th,

2001, I read an article in the local paper about the execu-

tion of Timothy McVeigh. I had just finished my first

year of college and was at home in Michigan for the

summer. The story spoke of the build up to the execu-

tion and described his final moments and last meal.

When I read that Timothy McVeigh chose two pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream as his last

meal, it immediately sent a shiver down my spine and left a lasting effect on me. This man mas-

terminded such an awful, devastating and completely unspeakable act, but after reading what

his last meal was, I wanted to know more. There is a very deep fascination with the mind of a

killer. It’s like looking at a car accident, we don’t want to look but we always do. Our eyes ex-

amine and take in as much information as we can when we drive past. Many people share this

same desire to learn more about a killer, through books, articles,

tv shows and movies. I did not start shooting this project until

2006, but that day in June 2001 was really when the project

started for me. The last meal is the last choice one can make be-

fore being put to death. Because of the extreme importance of

this ritual, this choice of a last meal is unarguably honest and

true. This is the inspiration behind the Last Meals Project.

24hrs: Do you watch a lot of cop shows and forensic shows? my

wife and I talk about this all the time, about how it’s deeply satis-

fying that the perp gets caught at the end of every episode, no

matter how fucked up the situation is. Although, there are those

few choice episodes where he/she gets away. More like real life, I

guess...

JK: I really enjoy watching Unsolved Mysterious/48 Hours. On two occasions (recently), I was

watching and the episodes happened to be about convicted killers who I included in my project.

It was quite strange because I became so familiar with their mugshot and their face after the

many years creating this body of work that they became close to me. I got to know them in a

weird sort of a way. It was like seeing an old friend on tv and you are like oh my god that is so

and so. Not that I consider these convicted killers friends by any means, but by being so im-

mersed in this project, it is crazy to see the same faces on some random tv program. I quickly

became aware and realized that this is real; this is an actual person who was convicted of a hor-

rific crime and is now dead. This is what makes the project so intriguing, this is an ongoing rit-

ual and as long as the death penalty exists, I will be interested in continuing this project.

24hrs: Do you have a background in criminal justice?

JK: I do not have a background in criminal justice, although, I

am very interested and fascinated with forensics. I think it is

such an extraordinary field and aspects of it must be so intense.

24hrs: Don’t know if I am reading too much into the project,

but when I saw the pictures of the food, I don't know why, but it

seemed to give back a little humanity to these people. Was that

your intent?

JK: People often say that or ask that. I understand why but that

wasn’t necessarily my intention. I mean it is hard not to human-

ize these convicted killers. You see what they chose and then you realize yes, they were con-

victed of murder but yet they had jolly ranchers or a cup of coffee or a cheeseburger for their

last meal and you realize that they are human and there is an initial reaction to feel some sort of

sympathy or empathy. All of a sudden someone who was once considered to be a monster at

one point in their life, is now in their final moments eating their final meal and they are quite

vulnerable. I think the viewer needs to look past that though. The series is photographed in

much the same way a correctional facility operates; documentation, order, very sterile. It is ex-

tremely fascinating to see their choice and by documenting that I am creating a body of work

that participates in this process but in a visual way rather than through paper work. I think the

real sticking point with this series is that because the ritual of a last meal, this is the ultimate last

choice one is making in their life before their execution. That being said the focus of the project

was more about the facts.

In the justice system and especially in death row cases, the process can be very skewed. Don’t

get me wrong, many convicted killers were guilty without a doubt and arguably got what they

deserved. But, think about the innocence project. DNA evidence released countless convicted

“killers”, many who were on death row. Think about all of those people who were executed be-

fore the innocence project started. That’s not justice. Also, many of people on death row are

uneducated and/or poor. There are plenty of other people who are more educated and have more

access to better representation, who have committed comparable crimes or even worse crimes,

but are not on death row. Also, from studies I have read, death penalty convictions are much

greater in cases when a VICTIM is Caucasian. This means if a white person was murdered the

percentage of those cases resulting in the death penalty for the perpetrator is more likely than if

it was a black/minority person who was murdered.

So how do we value a life? Does a poor, uneducated life have less value? Is a black life less im-

portant than a white life? Is any life more or less important than one another? This is a very

complex issue, so I want to be clear; I by no means condone any sort of killing or believe some-

one who has committed an awful act like this should not be punished greatly. I am opening the

door to question how the death penalty really serves society. The Last Meals Project is not for

or against the death penalty. It is a project that uses the

medium of photography to raise questions about the death

penalty and gets the viewer to think about it. Because of

all of these inconsistencies and various facts, the main fo-

cus that I found most interesting and wanted to zone in on

is that the last meal is something that cannot be argued,

cannot be distorted or skewed. The last meal is unarguably

honest and true.

24hrs: Going along with the questions before, I see that

you are a photographer, primarily. Do you think that letting us see pictures of the prisoners, and

their meals, helps you to achieve your goal? Why not a cookbook, let's say? Thoughts?

JK: I do think I achieved my goal. I don’t feel the series would have the same impact present-

ing the meal with out the face. The two work together to create a thought-provoking body of

work that sparks interest and asks a lot of questions. A cookbook could be interesting but would

be a different sort of project. I think there was some sort of cooking show that asked what the

last meal of different chefs would be. I just wonder and maybe argue, is it that interesting to say

what your last meal would/could be? Or is it more interesting to say that this is the last meal

this person chose before they were executed. The person is dead now and this is what he/she

ate. I think there is much more impact in that. I mean I used to hate mushrooms 10 years ago

but now maybe that would be on my list for a last meal. When someone is executed and his/her

last meal is selected that choice will be forever the most important meal for that individual for

eternity. That’s quite powerful.

24hrs: What do you think each man or woman’s food choice says about them? Have you ever

gotten the chance to meet death row inmates and discuss this with them?

JK: I think there is something very unique that food says about a person. Whether it is as typi-

cal as a steak or a burger or as strange as dill pickles or an un-pitted olive, each choice is com-

pletely unique to the individual that chose it. The viewer is presented with authentic insight into

the personal life of this convicted killer. I have never met with a death row inmate but I have

read many books about this, mostly written by death row lawyers. Almost all of them say that

the inmates are not what most expect from someone convicted of murder. I have a deep interest

in death row and it would be amazing to have access inside a facility and spend let’s say a year

on the inside and document what goes on. From the boring mundane day-to-day stuff all the

way up to the last meal and execution, I feel all of it would all be equally remarkable.

24hrs: How will your book be different from the website?

JK: I plan on continuing and expanding on this project. I find it very interesting though, I have

had a lot of interest for this project abroad; Singapore, Far East, Europe, Amnesty International

UK and publishing companies in Germany. Yet here in the USA, not so much. I wonder what

that means…..interesting to say the least.

www.lastmealsproject.com

Shannon Wheeler playfully subverted the superhero

genre when he started Too Much Coffee Man in the early

90s. Since then TMCM has been a comic strip, a maga-

zine, and an opera (!). He recently put outGod Is Disap-

pointed in You, his version of the Bible, and has just won

the Eisner Award for Best Humor Publication, for a col-

lection of his rejected New Yorker cartoons- I Thought

You Would Be Funnier.

Interview by Josh Medsker

First of all, congratulations on winning the Eisner

Award! What did you do after you found out?

Stunned. It sounds crappy but I was more relieved that I

didn’t lose than I was happy that I won. My kids were in

the audience and if I had lost I would have had to spend

the rest of the night acting like a good loser, explaining

how it’s an honor just to be nominated (which it is) and how I’m still happy even though I lost.

Once I got on stage emotions hit me. I was planning on thanking a couple people, saying some-

thing funny, and generally playing it cool. Instead, I choked up and started to cry. In my head I

thought, “Christ, I’m going to be one of those assholes who cry when they get an award. I hate

those people.” But there it is.

Tell me about the origins of TMCM! It was a comic in

the Daily Texan, right?

Sort of. I was drawing a daily strip in the Texan- mostly

Tooth and Justice and after that ended I tried other strips;

the Life and Times, Interlude, etc. I drew Too Much Cof-

fee Man as a mini-comic to promote a book collection of

my daily strips (Children with Glue). Then I

used TMCM to draw ads for a local bookstore.

When do you really feel the change… going from do-

ing a Xeroxed mini-comic to a full-fledged slick publi-

cation? How did you handle the switch?

It was a long slow evolution. I photocopied minis but

when they sold too fast I had a professional printer print

them. I also worked with friends to publish an anthology

(JAB) comic book and I was drawing a daily strip (and I

was working at a video store). It took me a year to draw the first

issue. I drew it with 3 levels; the creator, the character and the

reader. People thought I was doing 3 stories but I really thought

of it as one story. For example, the third issue is the origin issue.

I had the origin of the character and I had the origin of the idea.

I haven’t seen the TMCM magazine around for a while. Are

you still doing it? It was one of my faves.

I stopped doing the magazine when I did the opera. I couldn’t

split my attention that much. Also, magazine distributors were

going out of business and it was getting tougher and tougher to

make a profit.

Tell me about the TMCM opera, and “The Refill”. How did

that come about? An opera based on a comic, and one as

quirky as yours, that is pretty unique! How was it received?

I wanted to do an animation with Too Much Coffee Man and I thought doing a short to music

would be cool. DS Crafts, A friend of my family writes operas and he’d wanted to do

aTMCM opera but I’d always been dubious. I sent him a short love song to love (“I Love Lov-

ing Love”) and he wrote some music to it. It was perfect. He understood my humor and he

pushed it farther. I felt like writing a full opera with him was a creative opportunity that I could

not pass up.

I was very excited to see that you still have your hands in the zine pot, with God is Disap-

pointed in You. Is there a lot more coffee in your version of the Bible?

I love hand crafting zines. I stapled over

20,000 Too Much Coffee Man mini comics.

You’d think I’d be burnt out but I still love

seeing a giant pile of unfinished books slowly

shrink while watching the finished stack grow.

The finished book is coming out from Top

Shelf early next year. It has all 66 books of the

bible and a lot more cartoons.

What’s next on the horizon for you? Does it

look like the animated show will ever come

to fruition?

I wouldn’t mind working on TMCM animation again. I’d really like to animate the opera...

www.tmcm.com

I met Aaron at his bookstore in Williamsburg,

Brooklyn. I thought I was meeting him at

Autonomedia, an anarchist collective that

prints and distributes books and pamphlets.

So, having gotten lost (I thought), I popped

into this bookstore to ask for directions. There was no one at the table that served as the regis-

ter. Then I saw a guy come out from the back, so I asked “Can you help me?” Then, I recog-

nized him from some old pictures in his zine, and said, “I think you are who I’m looking for.”

He told me he hadn’t worked at Autonomedia for a while, and that this was the place. He

smiled a little and we talked for a few minutes about a mutual friend, Rex, who he’d been

neighbors with in Pensacola. “I’ve never met anyone like him,” Aaron said. I laughed in

agreement. He asked me if I had ever heard about Warning fanzine, from Alaska. Heard about

it? I had all the back issues and pored over them, and

interviewed Frank Harlan (aka Bill Bored) for an AK

punk history. I was way too nervous to tell Aaron all

of this, him being of one my writing heroes and all.

Anyway, he said how difficult it must have been to

keep a scene going up there and I fully agreed. Then,

I suppose (after he’d finished a cig) the interview

proper started, even though with the master chroni-

cler of minutiae, it seemed like it had started when I

walked through the door. Near the end of our inter-

view, I asked him if he was working on something

new, and he said he “had something he was building

up steam on.”

On New York

“I moved here seven years ago”, he said. “But lived here almost every summer for seven be-

fore that.” I commented on how wrong it felt to be busting out a notebook and pen and with-

out missing a beat or changing his facial expression, he said “Wrong is fine.” If I can say any-

thing from our meeting, it’s that he seemed like the calmest person I’ve ever seen. I asked him

why he decided to root down in New York, and he said, “I think I was just looking for a place

to live. I had a band, a club, in other places, but they weren’t sustainable. Is Alaska sustain-

able? Sure, if you want to keep going through generation after generation of people. It was

depressing—young people getting jobs at Office Depot and moving in with their significant

other instead of fulfilling their own potential. And plus, being 30 to 35 in New York isn’t old,

you know?

Plus, there’s this perception that I write

about everywhere I’ve been. I was in

North Carolina for four years, and Flor-

ida for four years, and I never wrote

about that. I wrote my most serious

things about Berkeley while living in

New York. In Pensacola, we ran a book-

store that was five times this big, right

downtown (smiles), free coffee, good

selection of stuff, we worked for free.

Compared to what we made in a month there, we make in a week here.

On Zines, Publishing (and Teaching)

“People have this idea about me that I’m against mainstream publishing, but it’s less a moral or

aesthetic issue than an economic one. Any publisher is going to take a book that costs eighty

cents to produce and charge sixteen dollars for it. Which is fine, there are things that are worth

paying that much for. But when something is cheap and weird looking, people will take a

chance on it, even if they don’t know what it is. At this point, I can sell more of my magazines

and books putting them out myself than any publisher can, and part of that is keeping them

cheap. Very few authors are getting printed in quantities large enough

that you can count on their books finding their way to stores like this

second-hand, where they are cheap enough to take a chance on. To

answer the other part of your question, yes, I would put on a shirt and

slacks and teach, but to teach writing, not zine-making. But I find it a

little bit depressing that people learn things, and then only become

teachers. I think you should stake your own claim for a minute in -

between.” He was very excited when I told him about my students at

the Fortune Society memoir class, and how much they liked his writ-

ing. “Yeah, my friends found that students in prisons are very recep-

tive.”

On Writing

“There’s a lot of stuff that happens to me that’s unbelievable. But

memoirs are your own life, and for the last decade, I’ve been mainly

writing about other people. You want it to be true, but not necessarily factual. It veers into fan-

tasy a lot of the time. Not fantastical, But saying what you would have liked to have said! It’s

not only writers that need an editor! It’s like…either writing your own obituary or that of some-

one you know, trying to capture that while they are still alive. You can say things in writing that

you can’t say out loud. The more you present yourself, the more no one will ever know you

anyway. You present yourself as you wish you could be. If I’m at a party with you, I’m drunk,

talking shit. But, if I have the time to go over this thing 500 times, hopefully I’ll be less hurtful,

briefer, and more insightful. I think writing makes you a better person.”

5 Tips for Writing Powerful Short Memoir by Josh Medsker (from Literary Legs.com, Jun ‘11)

Writing memoirs is tricky. The fact that something interesting hap-

pened to you doesn’t mean that people will want to read it. That is

where your craft comes in. I have found that these tips were espe-

cially helpful.

Find a subject with a lot of action When writing short memoirs, it’s important to focus in on a time in

your life that was particularly eventful. This doesn’t necessarily

mean action movie-style events. Make sure that there is a strong

emotional pull, if not life-changing outside factors. No one wants to read about your Sunday

afternoon musings on the meaning of life (unless you are Aaron Cometbus).

Be specific and give details

Poet Michael McClure has said that what is the most personal is also the most universal. In or-

der to pull off a successful piece of personal writing, you will have to get down and dirty. Give

street names of where things happened, give praise and blame to those who deserve it, and

name names. If you don’t feel comfortable using people’s real names in your work, you can

change them in further drafts. It is helpful, however, to write that first version with the real

names in. It will keep the emotions right on the surface for you. Notice how you feel as you

write. If you get caught up in the writing and feel the emotional pull, your readers probably will

too.

Keep in mind that there is a certain amount of fiction in memoir writing

Now, I’m not talking about pulling a James Frey and making stuff up, but there is a certain

amount of fictionalizing that goes on when you write memoirs. You aren’t going to remember

the exact conversation you had with your mom when you joined the army, but with fiction tools

like dialogue and suspense, you can recreate the same emotions.

Keep it short

One of my writing teachers, poet Ellen Hagan, passed this idea on to me. She suggested keeping

the first draft short. Three pages and no more. That way, you say what you need to say, and get

out. The action of the story should take place within 48 hours.

Look for that turning point

Another good tip Ellen gave me is to look for the emotional turning point. Write a definite be-

ginning, middle, and end--with the turning point roughly two-thirds of the way through. In or-

der to create this turning point, you will have to mine your memories of the event for the most

powerful feelings, and see where things started to change for you. I wrote an emotionally drain-

ing piece about the sudden death of my cat, Louis. The teary phone call to my wife, and my ad-

mitting that he was gone was the turning point in the story. It will be uncomfortable for you, but

if you don’t convey true emotions in the piece, don’t expect to move your readers.

WHAT THE REVIEWERS SAID ABOUT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS

Didja know there's a new school of punk by the name of Pencore? Get your lit on!- Punk Planet Overall it was a pretty dull read- Broken Pen-cil (Canada) A thoughtful literary zine... well put together- Clamor

The interviews were quite good- Readers Guide to the Underground Press

Winner of an Honorable Mention in the Zine

Yearbook Vol. 7, The Best Zine Writing of 2003 Twentyfourhoursine.blogspot.com