MRW Call for Submissions
January 15th, 2008
Marcy and I will be editing the Spring issue of the Mississippi Review Web. Here’s the call for submissions. Please feel free to forward this to any and all interested parties, and to post wherever appropriate.
24 Words Per Second: The Movies Issue
We are writers who watch a lot of movies. Maybe it’s no surprise that the films we see have a way of seeping back into our fiction: plots that echo silent film, narrative gimmicks borrowed from the French New Wave, characters who spend too much time at the multiplex or model their lives after movie stars. For the MRW Spring issue, we are looking for short stories with a cinematic bend. What that means, exactly, is up to you. Perhaps your story references Aki Kaurismäki, moves like a screwball comedy, or features cinemaniacs trying to kick the habit. Maybe it’s narrated from the perspective of Natalie Wood’s ghost. As long as it’s inspired by the movies, we’re interested.The deadline is March 15. Send submissions (3000 words max) to mississippireview.movieissue@gmail.com.
Next Stop Hollywood
June 1st, 2007
Speaking of true friends and good writers: this week marks the release of Next Stop Hollywood: Short Stories Bound for the Screen, an anthology of cinematic shorts that features a story by my friend and fellow Center for Writers graduate John Minichillo. John’s story, inspired by Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” is called “Blind Man in the Halls of Justice.” Editor Steve Cohen pitches it as A Civil Action meets Scent of a Woman, but I see it as 12 Angry Men crossed with Half-Baked. Alexander Payne could do a fine job directing it.
The official site for Next Stop Hollywood hosts excerpts, information for writers who want to be in the next edition, and a list of great movies based on short stories, including Psycho, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Killers, Freaks, and Animal House. (They should add Away from Her ASAP.) My copy’s on its way.
The Dead Girl
December 7th, 2006
Toni Collette, Marcia Gay Harden, Rose Byrne, Mary Beth Hurt and finally Brittany Murphy are the main characters in interconnected episodes surrounding a murder that play like high quality short stories. I’m too swamped to say anything else right now, but I have a feeling this movie will be talked about for a while. Opens December 29.
The Dead Girl. Karen Moncrieff, 2006. ****
[tags]toni collette, marcia gay harden, rose byrne, mary beth hurt, brittany murphy, karen moncrieff, piper laurie, giovanni ribisi, james franco, mary steenburgen, kerry washington, film, murder, short stories, 4 stars, drama, episodes[/tags]
