A Note on Dormancy

If you’ve visited the site in the last number of months, you’ll notice that there hasn’t been anything new. As you might be able to guess, The Safety Pin Review is effectively over (at least in its current iteration), but we are determined to end this right – in the nebulous future, there will be at least one more issue and, yes, the winner of our contest.

In the meantime, there are over 50 back issues to look at!

Apologies for any email that has gone unanswered – the only thing to blame here is my own human inefficiency.

Best,
Simon

**UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE** SAFETY PIN’S FIRST CONTEST

**SPECIAL UPDATE**SPECIAL UPDATE**SPECIAL UPDATE**

Popular demand dictates that we EXTEND OUR 1st CONTEST DEADLINE to January 1, 2014 at midnight.

Which means you have until THE NEXT YEAR to finish honing your 75-character masterpieces.

Check out the full contest guidelines here.

Resolutions aside, this may be the best decision you make in the last three weeks of this calendar year.

CAN YOU DIG IT.

THE SAFETY PIN REVIEW’S FIRST CONTEST

The editorial we of the Safety Pin Review are thrilled to announce our first-ever contest, details of which can be found below. Not only will the winning piece be distributed and worn by at least four operatives across the globe (and later turned into a shirt!), but it will also be painted, designed and presented in a radical new format as yet unseen in the SPR. We are so excited to read your work.

Please read all of the contest guidelines carefully, as they are quite different from our regular submissions guidelines.

*If you’re new to the SPR (welcome!), I’d recommend you check out our About page and one of our back issues to see what we’re about.*

The winning piece will be painted onto a patch, which will then be distributed to 4-5 operatives around the country/world, who will wear it simultaneously for a week. The patch will be designed in a form very different from all of our past issues. I can assure you: it won’t be anything like we’ve done before.

In addition, the work will be published digitally as an issue of the Safety Pin Review, with accompanying action photos and commentary by the operatives. Finally, later on down the line, it will be made into a t-shirt, which will be given free to the winning author and be available to all for purchase.

Submissions are open from November 1, 2013 to midnight on December 15, 2013  January 1, 2014. The winning piece will be announced in January 2014, and published in various forms shortly thereafter.

Each piece should be no longer than 75 characters, including spaces, and including title. Titles are not necessary, and may only serve to frustrate your character count, but if used should be put in quotes. Yes, it’s extremely short, but we like it this way.

Please do not send previously published work.

Because these entries are so short (and thus tacitly encouraging of wild, voluminous experimentation), please limit your submission to three well-honed pieces.

While we generally encourage formal experimentation, given the way in which the winner will be published for this contest all submissions must be in plain text – that is, you should stay away from anything that requires alternate fonts, mysterious foreign characters, or wonky formatting, because it cannot be maintained for publication. On a similar note, please do not include line breaks.

Any submissions heedless of the above technical guidelines (for shame!) will be ignored.

Far be it for us to dictate the content of your submissions, but given the peculiar way in which the winning entry will be published, here’s a list of encouraging words (which, in a way, are always relevant given the medium and format in which the SPR publishes):

Feel free to be meta, self-referential, mysterious, reflexive, reflective, algorithmic, corporal, ghostly, mythic, “within you,” aphoristic, ethereal, exhortative, inspiring, threatening, or none of the above. Rather than thinking of the pieces you’re creating as “stories” or “poems,” it may be better to think of them as “signs.” But then again, maybe not – if you’re stubborn, you’ll ignore all of this and it will still be great.

The contest is open to anyone and everyone, obviously. If you’ve worn, submitted to, or been published in the Safety Pin Review before (or even are wearing for this contest), all the better. Consider this eager encouragement to submit again.

To submit, please send submissions in the body of an email to safetypinreview [at] gmail [dot] com with the words “SPR contest” in the subject line. Please do not send attachments – the text should be simple enough that you don’t need them. Include a line introducing yourself. We like to know who’s taking the time to send work our way.

There is no entry fee, because that’s not punk at all.

To sum up: send up to three (3) unpublished pieces of no more than 75 characters each (including spaces and optional title), in plain text, to safetypinreview [at] gmail [dot] com, with the words “SPR contest” in the subject line, between November 1 and December 15, 2013 January 1, 2014.

If you have questions, please ask in the comments so that everyone can see my responses.

Please note that regular submissions are *closed* during the entry period for contest submissions (between November 1 and December 15 January 1). They will re-open after the contest ends. If you’ve been fooling around with work to send us, why not whip it into a contest submission?

There are so few words; really, there’s no excuse not to enter. We are ecstatic to read what you come up with.

NEWSFLASH IN WHICH THE NEWS BECOMES US

!!! NEWSFLASH !!!!

Starting approximately next week, the SPR will attempt to feature a bi-weekly (i.e., occasional, between issues) round-up of news from its former contributors and operatives, including recent publications, announcements, awards, events, etc. This column will be called “________” (title to come). So, if you’re a previous contributor or wearer and have some recentish news about you or someone else from the SPR that you’d like to share, and that you think missed the eagle eye of our curator (rare), then please email us at safetypinreview [at] gmail [dot] com with the info and we’ll be sure to include it. Hit us up and LET’S PUBLICIZE THE PEOPLE WE LOVE.

So come on. Let’s do it. PUSH THE WHEEL OF LOVE. (This will probably be the title now.)

We are doing this because we are a huge enormous family. DISPATCH FROM A HUGE ENORMOUS FAMILY. (This could also be the title.)

LASSO OF LOVE (round-up, get it?).

In all likelihood, this will change titles every time.

xoxo
Simon

2012 Best of the Net Nominations!!

GREETINGS.

Welcome, at last, to the Safety Pin Review’s 2012 Best of the Net nominations. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in existence for over a year.

This was an incredibly difficult and stressful decision to make, and we were unable to select all of the stories we wanted to nominate (which would be all of them, duh, and, the window of eligibility doesn’t cover the entirety of the SPR’s storied [ha!] first year.) But we are in love with what we’ve chosen, as we expect you will be too, or already are. Read them all again, for the fortieth time.

The nominees are…

*opens envelope*

“STORIES”:

• Tucker Cummings, “Hic thalamum invasit natae vetitosque hymenaeos.” Issue Nine.
• David Sklar, “The Fisherman’s Widow.” Issue Twenty-Eight.

“POEMS”:

• Doug Paul Case, “On My Spaceship.” Issue Seven.
• Laura Hallman. “The Science of Your Intimacy Phobia.” Issue Twenty.
• Casey Hannan, “Where to Put Your Hand.” Issue Nineteen.
• Brian Hurley, “High Five.” Issue Five.
• Sonja Vitow, “After the Punch, Before the Swell.” Issue Twenty-Four.
• xTx, “When You Take Things That Aren’t Yours.” Issue One.

The quotation marks signify ARBITRARY GENRE DIVISIONS. Word.

Congratulations to all of the nominees, and enormous thanks to all the operatives for taking these stories to such exciting places. Here’s to hoping the SPR fucking storms the competition. With THUNDER-HOOVES.

I am still using the same paintbrush as I was a year ago.

Thank you all, readers and writers, for meaning the world to me.

❤

The SPR International

We have been erratic as of late. There are exciting things to come, though, heralded by this tweet:

Over the next month or so we are going to such exciting places. But first look where we’ve already been: Here we are in a really great article in Finzioni, an Italian literary/cultural magazine. If you don’t know Italian, run it through Google Translate. It will probably make your day a lot better. Thanks to Viviana Lisanti, who took the SPR to a whole new level.

Up until recently, I’ve tried to maintain the Safety Pin Review as a weekly magazine. But lately, it’s become impossible. Because all of our operatives are volunteers with crazy life-schedules of their own to deal with, it isn’t always possible to post issues and Action Shots as consistently as we’d like.

A lot of factors need to line up together in order to put together a great SPR issue, and, understandably, sometimes one falls out of place and things just don’t work out. Operatives have been known to disappear. Bearing this in mind, let’s go ahead and consider the Safety Pin Review a weekly, biweekly, and monthly magazine all at once. Rest assured we are always working, and will always strive to put out a quality issue, whenever it goes up. Word.

Our next issue should go up this week or next week, and then we should be on a steady stream for a while.

While you wait, why not peruse our newly updated and comprehensive as heck “Mentions / Press” page? It will probably be a good time. There are different languages there.

See you soon.

Love,
Simon

Me My We the World: Issue 24 Action Shots and Announcements

Oh my. We have so many things to show and tell you. First, on Thursday we were written about in the Los Angeles Times book blog “Jacket Copy” by Carolyn Kellogg, and it has been a surreal deluge of social media ever since. So many Facebook likes, so many retweets, so many new submissions and new friends. Our traffic has spiked to levels unheard of.

From the bottom of our collective hearts, we thank you all so much for your support. It means the world to us. Obviously this feels like a very, very big step.

Yet we have such places to go.

Because You Know that Path Leads Somewhere Special

Places like here, like California, now, this week, our heart of hearts, with our Operative A.K. Mayhew, whose back is now featured so prominently in the LA Times, wearing Sonja Vitow’s brutal little story. Fresh from this week’s operative, we present these gloriously high-defined Action Shots.

The Land of Grass that Is Green

Speaking of which, Sonja has a story in the latest Gulf Coast, and we’ll be damned if it didn’t give us chills. It’s called “Master Bedroom,” and you must read it. You simply must. (The bio says it’s her first publication, but, oh, we know.)

I Just Want Somewhere to Rest My Tired Feet

It’s an exquisite little juxtaposition, we think, the stabbing beauty of Sonja’s SPR story so harmoniously matched with its environs.

A Coffee Is A Coffee Is A Coffee Is A PUNCHINTHEFACE

In the past day the Los Angeles Times article has been tweeted by some of our very favorites, among them: The Lit Pub; “The Book Bench,” The New Yorker’s literary blog; NAP Magazine; J. Bradley; xTx; oh my, there are too many. We thank them all.

AK AKA

And this is to all of you, to each and every one who ever needs a boost: we will always give you a shout-out.

* * *

PS. Some anonymous internet commentators have made snarky remarks about our ‘about’ page and how we pledge that our operatives are a collective network of “punks, thieves, and anarchists.” We tweeted this yesterday, and it should be obvious by now in any case:

Look What Happened: What’s Going on at the SPR

If you’re a regular visitor to the Safety Pin Review site, you’ve no doubt noticed that it’s been a few weeks since we’ve posted a new issue. Here’s what’s up:

Back at the end of February, I mailed a patch with Sharanya Manivannan’s story to an operative in Seattle, but it didn’t arrive on time. I’d been planning to take a week off in early March anyway, so I pushed the date for Sharanya’s story back a week, hoping the story would arrive. It didn’t. After three weeks, I decided the story had been lost somewhere in the mail and went about painting another patch to mail as a replacement.

Meanwhile, last week, I sent a patch to DC—featuring a story by B.J. Jones—and right now, we’re waiting on the photos that were taken of it. This should be posted as a new issue within the next few weeks.

As for Sharanya’s story, “Wishing on Stars,” today I was prepared to mail the second copy when I heard that the original had finally arrived, after a month in transit. God bless the USPS, they do get the job done eventually.

So: Sharanya’s story will be worn next week; this is the plan. The posting of the DC-story will be delayed until I get the photos and can give it a solid week’s worth of publicity on the site.

I’m sorry for the inconsistency, but this tends to be the case when you’ve got stories darting every which way across the country, occasionally at the cost of a totally reliable publishing schedule. In the next month, we’re visiting both coasts, and then, at the end of April, South Korea. In May: Turkey. July: Norway. So yes, exciting times ahead.

This post may be a little too process-heavy to be of much interest, but I just wanted to keep everyone on the up-and-up and make sure you know we’re still alive and kicking quite hard. We want you to know everything that we do.

In the meantime, submissions of course remain open, and we’re waiting on a second shipment of 100 SPR pins so you can wear the SPR wherever you go (check out at least two happy pinners, here and here).

Love,
Simon

SPR Gets Pinned: In Times of Love & Lust

THE SURPRISE IS BUTTONS. The SPR is proudly merching out with these wonderful one-inch pins, freshly pressed by Nathaniel Wolos of Decaying Youth Buttons, who is a proper treasure. Pin them to your favorite leather jacket/hat/body part and then dance around where everyone can see:

If you want to lay hands on one or more of these beauties, you have many options to do so. If you see me in real life, I’ll give you one. If you feel you’ve been denied, email me and I’ll hook it up. If you donate a dollar or more, I’ll send you one. Or you could just ask nicely, and I’ll mail one to you anyway. Handing out buttons is probably one of the most fun things to do ever.

I think all little literary magazines would benefit from buttons, and I think they should direct their attentions to Decaying Youth to make it happen. It’s a wonderful thing, these buttons, we think.

In keeping with openness, our new ‘Support !’ page has a monetary breakdown of what keeps the SPR going. Because I, for one, was curious about what it took to run an online lit mag, and I guess I know now (and you should too).

Our submission guidelines have also undergone marginal changes, if you’re in need of inspiration.

And an update on our schedule: we’re still a weekly, of course, but last week’s story appears to have been waylaid on its way to Seattle. All digits crossed that it arrives this week. We’ll press on nonetheless next week.

And hey, we surpassed 100 likes on Facebook! Join the fun.

SPR PSA

Hello, all. The Safety Pin Review is taking a week-long holiday break, so there isn’t a new story this week, but we’ll be back soon and submissions are still wide, wide open. Why don’t you write something about Paul Robeson (2), shoplifting, steampunk, or David Bowie? It could be fun.

In the meantime, write a story, submit a story, and/0r familiarize yourself with the City of Brotherly Love, because that’s where we’re going next.