Blog Contest #6

It's been so long since I've held one of my blog contests that I doubt most of you know what the fuck I'm talking about. Anyway, for fun and with thanks to the people who read this blog, I hereby announce the sixth contest in my ongoing if very sporadic series. Winners will receive one of the hard to find, me-related books on the list below, signed to you by me. The rules are the same ones I've always used: I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 100. What is it? The deadline for entries is midnight this coming Thursday, August 3rd, in your time zone. Post your guesses in the comments section below, although it's okay to post them in any of the comments sections between now and the deadline if need be. Make sure you don't guess a number that's already been entered in the contest because in that case it's first come first serve. There'll be four winners. The person who guesses the right number or comes the closest will have his or her pick of the prizes. The second closest will pick a prize among the remaining ones, and so on. I'll announce the winners on Friday. I'll ask the top winner to pick his or her prize and send their mailing address to the usual email address, and then we'll just go down the line of winners until we're done. Understood? If you have any questions about the rules or anything, just ask. Otherwise, if you're interested in snagging one of these items, good luck to you.



#1. JERK (1993): Seeing as how I've been mentioning 'Jerk' here lately due to its current transformation into a French radio play, and because it's o.o.p. and an extra copy just popped up in my search through some boxes in LA, and since it's a prettily designed, quasi-children's style book with lots of illustrations/art by Nayland Blake that is not one of the books of mine that people tend to own, I thought I'd toss it on the prize list. This copy is in near mint condition, as they say.





#2. LITTLE CAESAR MAGAZINE #1 (1976): I think most of you know I used edit a kind of punk rock literary and arts magazine called Little Caesar from the mid-70s to the early 80s. This was the first issue. LC grew into a heavily illustrated little behemoth of magazine over the course of its life, but the first issue was short, very simple, cheaply printed, and mostly contained poetry. So that's a warning. On the positive side, it features a amusingly punk rock manifesto-style introduction by yours truly, and it's very, very scarce.





#3. MY MARK (1982): This is a chapbook featuring the first piece of fiction I ever wrote that wasn't total shit. It's still one of my favorites among my work. 'My Mark' was later revised and included in my first novella 'Safe.' This chapbook was published in an edition of 500 copies by the poet David Trinidad's Sherwood Press. It's very rare. I featured it as a prize in an earlier contest, but I just found another copy in very good condition, and if you want it ...





#4. DISCONTENTS: New Queer Writers (1992): In the early 90s, I edited a 400 page anthology of writers and comix artists loosely associated with the queer zine phenomenon of the time. It featured work by a ton of amazing people (from Alison Bechdel, Dorothy Allison, and Eileen Myles to David Sedaris, Scott Heim, Gary Indiana, and many more.) It went out print within six months and has never been reprinted, although copies still pop up here and there. It's a great book, and one of the projects I'm most proud to have been involved with.