The 28th issue of JAAM, in 2010, will be the DanceDanceDance issue, edited by Clare Needham and Helen Rickerby.

We are looking for:
poetry – short fiction – creative non-fiction – images
Writing that dances – literally, conceptually, metaphorically

Writing about dance – dancing writers – life as a dance

Dance reviews will be considered, as will:
programme notes   –   choreographic poetry
short stories about dancing the fandango on a moonlight night in Ngaio…

Anything, in fact, that can be tied (loose or tight) to our theme…

…if there’s something magic in the way it moves us.

Closing date for submissions: 31 March 2010

For publication in: September 2010.

Please send your work to:

or jaammagazine@yahoo.co.nz

or

JAAM
PO Box 25239
Panama Street
Wellington 6146
New Zealand

This is our media release for JAAM 27.

Go wandering with JAAM 27

Cover of JAAM 27

The latest issue of JAAM literary magazine, JAAM 27: Wanderings, has just been released.

When guest editor Ingrid Horrocks called for submissions she asked particularly for ‘wandering fiction, poetry and, especially, creative non-fiction’ that featured literal wanderers and travellers, or ‘works that digress in creative ways from narrative, argument, or genre’.

Ingrid, a lecturer in creative writing at Massey University in Wellington, has long had an interest in wandering and journeys; both in her own life and as a subject of study. She lived and worked in Japan, and completed post-graduate study in York and Princeton. Her PhD thesis was on wanderings in eighteenth-century literature and she has since received a grant from the Marsden Fund for her study Reluctant wanderers: women re-imagine the margins, 1775–1800.

Ingrid has also utilised the literary possibilities of wandering in her own creative writing – Natsukashii (Pemmican, 1998) is a chapbook of poems inspired by her time in Japan, while Travelling with Augusta, 1883 & 1999 (VUP, 2003) is an unconventional travel memoir.

In JAAM 27 she has gathered together much fine writing that wanders in expected and unexpected ways. It wanders across the globe, through memory, the past and the imagination, with a good deal of genre bending.

This issue features more creative non-fiction than ever before – Ingrid’s specific invitation to writers of that genre seems to have tapped a seam of creativity. A highlight is Martin Edmond’s ‘from The Thousand Ruby Galaxy’, which wanders blithely across the boundary between fact and fiction. Helen Lendorf weaves past diary entries and present reflections on her experiences of ‘stumbling into motherhood’ into a compelling non-fiction narrative.

As Ingrid says, ‘The poetry section of the issue leaps into flight with Sue Fitchett’s ‘Wing Walking’ and ends with Robert McClean’s free-wheeling homage to that most perambulatory of poets, Frank O’Hara’. Other wandering poets include Diana Bridge, Jessica Le Bas, Johanna Aitchison, Tim Jones and Vivienne Plumb.

The fiction section has a combination of new and well-known voices, including Kirsty Gunn, Michele Powles and Tina Shaw. Many of the characters in these stories wander imaginatively while journeying physically, and several feature a surprising recurring motif – snow.

JAAM 27 looks particularly resplendent in its attractive cover designed by Anna Brown, featuring artwork by Rachel Walker. And, in a first for JAAM, this issue features a four-page colour spread of playful but disquieting photographs by Wellington student Mike Ting.

JAAM is published by the independent JAAM Collective based in Wellington, and is run by co-managing editors Clare Needham and Helen Rickerby. JAAM is supported by funding from Creative New Zealand.

JAAM is available from good bookshops or by subscription. For subscription information, visit http://jaam.wordpress.com/subscribe/ or email jaammagazine@yahoo.co.nz.

For more information, or to interview Ingrid, contact:
Helen Rickerby
jaammagazine@yahoo.co.nz
027 7385 977

Cover of JAAM 27

I think it’s our most beautiful issue yet.

As well as having the most well-designed cover so far (thanks to designer Anna Brown and artist Rachel Walker), it also is the first to feature colour images inside the journal (four pages of photographs by Mike Ting),

Contributor’s will (mostly) have their copies by now, and subscribers and bookshops will get theirs next week.

I’ll post our media release here soon, with more info. You can also read what one contributor, Mary McCallum, thinks about it (she likes it) on her blog:  http://mary-mccallum.blogspot.com/2009/09/wanderings.html.

Montana Poetry Day 2009

JAAM is celebrating Montana Poetry Day 2009 by featuring a poem – ‘come here at once’ by Emma Barnes – from our latest issue (JAAM 26) on our home page.

For other ways to celebrate Montana Poetry Day on the 24th of July 2009, visit the official site or NZLive.com.

/

come here at once

by Emma Barnes
/
This is what you said about my body
bang bang bang, three words all in
one row. Out of your mouth. I drove
past a greenhouse filled with lights.
I drove past a hill covered in tiny, tiny
light bulbs. At the end of the night
I felt my hips in disgust, my head
tipped back to catch words in my
throat. This is it all over. I am, I am,
I am, I am, I am, I am, I am everything.
The winter is coming and I can feel it
crawling, reaching for my knees. I
experience a sudden and unfortunate
craving, my eyes, they double blink.
/
Later in the gardens you talk at me
about whether a grain of sand makes
a difference to a beach. Pulling up
carrots my fingers shriek along their
fluffy tops. The grain of aforemention
-ed sand ticks over in my mind. My
mother yells to invite me to a wedding
I won’t want to go to. The baby cries
and I see you lift your head. I see your
breasts spill milk. I gulp back small
gusts of happiness that I am not you. I
gulp and gulp. My throat continuing
with what I started, here in this place.
If one more person tells me I am crazy I
/
am likely to head that way. You know?
I am not a great well, you yell into.
I am a woman with legs, a woman
with a long torso, a woman with
out the shame that you carry around
in a bag, over your shoulder, in your
shoe, tucked against your arch, no.
This is the week, everyone just cuts
me up. Broken milk bottles. Little
knives. They work harder and harder,
the more quickly I refuse them. That
is the small truth of  it. That is the
secret in a nutshell. That is what
you should know if  you know me at all.

/

Emma Barnes hasn’t long been back from a couple of years in Japan, but she’s been busy – she launched the first issue of her new literary magazine Enamel in early 2009. As well as in JAAM, her poetry has been published in publications, including Landfall, Catalyst and Best New Zealand Poems 2008.

Isn’t it beautiful! I’m very excited.

This cover was designed for us by Anna Brown of Anna Brown Design: www.abdesign.co.nz . The artwork, Falling through time, is by Rachel Walker. You can see more of her work on her website: www.walkerillo.com.

JAAM is moving along swiftly – I’ve typeset it and today I’m hoping to finish off all the proofreading changes. So I’ve also had a sneak peek at all the contents.

Guest editor Ingrid Horrocks has selected lots of fabulous work by a mixture of new and well-known writers. The thing I’m most excited about is the creative non-fiction.  It’s been great to have so much submitted, and we’ll definitely welcome more creative non-fiction in the future.

We’re on track for having it out in September. It’s one to look forward to.

The 2009 Sir Julius Vogel Awards have been announced (actually, this was a wee while ago). Unfortunately JAAM 26 didn’t win the Best Collected Work category, but it was great to have been shortlisted. As Tim Jones puts it, his short story collection Transported and JAAM 26 (which he edited) were pipped at the post by ‘up-and-coming author Elizabeth Knox’ (or rather, NZ literary superstar). Congratulations Elizabeth.

Congratulations also to Helen Lowe, who won both Best Novel – Young Adult for her novel Thornspell, and Best New Talent for  a body of work that included two poems and a short story that were published JAAM 26.

JAAM 27 is progressing along nicely, so it seems like a good time for an update.

Thanks very much to everyone who submitted. You should have heard back from us by now – if you haven’t, your reply will be on its way soon.

We had a record number of submissions this time – guest editor Ingrid Horrocks read her way through at least 400 submissions. This gave her a wealth of things to choose from, but made it hard for her to pare it down to what we can actually print.

As you probably know, the theme for this issue is ‘wandering’. Ingrid’s call for submissions asked for fiction, poetry and non-fiction pieces that dealt with the idea of wandering. ‘As well as work that features literal wanderers and travellers (a mainstay of New Zealand literature) we’re also interested work that wanders – works that digress in creative ways from narrative, argument, or genre.’

This left a wide door open for all kinds of work, approaching the theme from all angles. Some writers were inspired by the theme to write new work, while others submitted pieces they’d already written that fitted the theme. General submissions were also considered.

A wide range of writers will be represented, new and established, young and older, New Zealanders and a few from overseas. I’m particularly excited to hear that there’s going to be more creative non-fiction than we’ve ever had in JAAM before.

We’re aiming to publish in September, but we’ll post more news before then.

Submissions for JAAM 27 (2009) have now closed. Thanks to everyone who submitted – there were lots and lots of you! We’ll be replying to you all soon.

JAAM 27, edited by Ingrid Horrocks, will be published in the second half of this year. There’ll be more news on that later.

Keep an eye out for news about JAAM 28, (to be published in 2010), which is already being planned.

In the meantime, you can still buy copies of JAAM 26 – $15 including postage, or for an even better deal, subscribe to JAAM. Email jaammagazine@yahoo.co.nz.

JAAM 26 has received a very favourable review by Keith Nunes in the latest issue of the Poetry Society magazine A fine line (March 2009).

A begins by saying ‘New Zealand is bubbling over with great writers and storytellers – just look at JAAM 26.’ And continues, ‘The annual publication by the JAAM (Just Another Art Movement) Collective is a triumph for editor Tim Jones and the team. The 164-page journal is an entertaining mix of poetry and prose that challenges and moves the reader.’

He says that he isn’t a big fan of speculative writing, of which there is some in JAAM 26, but ‘the stories I read in JAAM 26 won me over.’ He particularly mentions Tracie McBride’s story ‘Last Chance to See’.

Among the more traditional prose peices he highlights ‘When an Older Brother Dies’ by LE Scott, ‘Banshee’ by Darian Smith, ‘Voodoo’ by Renee Liang and ‘A Body of Land’ by Michele Powles. And he gives Michael Botur a ’special mention’ for his ‘imaginative and amusing’ story ‘Historic Breakfasts’.

Of the poets, he praises Laurice Gilbert’s poems ‘Divided World’ and ‘Island Bay’. ‘Both soar and toy with you and leave images lingering.’ He continues:

The highlights come thick and fast with a number of poets impressing, including Janis Freegard with ‘he has your eyes’; Dean Ballinger’s ‘Antananarivo’; Helen Heath with two poems; Barbara Strang’s ‘Fatigues’; Sue Reidy’s ‘Bottomless Love’ and Miriam Barr’s ‘3 Phases in a Journey (Towards Self)’.

He concludes with the very positive: ‘All in all this is a wonderful journal and one which provides the reader with hours of thought provoking and entertaining reading. Well done.’

JAAM 26 is a finalist in the Collected Works section of the Sir Julius Vogel Awards for science fiction and fantasy works.

JAAM 26 was guest edited by Tim Jones, and contained a number of speculative and interstitial stories and poems – hence its eligibility for the award.

All congratulations are to go to Tim himself, who assembled such a fine issue of JAAM, and who knew about the awards in the first place. Tim also deserves congratulations because his own book of short stories, Transported, is up against JAAM in the same category, along with The Invisible Road, by Elizabeth Knox.

JAAM has a couple of other connections to these awards too. Helen Lowe had poems and a story in JAAM 26, and they are part of the body of work for which she has been selected as a finalist in the Best New Talent category. Also published in JAAM was ‘Banshee’ by Darian Smith, which is a finalist in the Best Short Story category.

Members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy and Fantasy Association of New Zealand will vote at Conscription, the 30th New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention, in Auckland on Queen’s Birthday Weekend.

Tim Jones has some more about this on his blog: http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2009/03/sffanz-press-release-finalists-for-2009.html