CompostModern Discussion Forum

Thursday, September 27, 2012.  1-3PM

Our popular discussion forum is back! Live online! The CompostModern forum is made up of artists, poets, fiction writers, playwrights, scientists, mathematicians, musicians, actors and any one else interested in joining.  Instead of presenting formal lectures or panels, we open the floor to the community. Featured guests and audience members are able to talk freely and on equal terms about everything from beauty and meaning to pop-culture. As the name implies, the CompostModern forum aims to re-cycle our rich aesthetic history. If the project of postmodernism was to deconstruct traditions, it has left us with a fertile soil out of which new forms may emerge. It is with the belief that all new forms of art must evolve from a history that we approach the guiding question of the forum: What is creativity?

Admission free. Reservation required.  Write to info@dactyl.org for the meeting link.

2010 Dactyl Review Literary Fiction Award Winner Publishes New Book

June 6, 2012

Escher’s Journal by Norman Lock is now available from ravennapress.com.

“I wrote this imaginary journal to explain a genuine interest in Escher’s work and to think as profoundly as I am able about the grand metaphysical notions that spellbind even the most cynical practitioner of the arts in our time: truth and semblance, the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the timeless, natural law and the dictates of unconscious life, dreaming and the creative imagination. (Those of us for whom to write is to consider ideas, playfully more often than not, seem never to tire of these oppositions.) And so Escher’s journal is also mine.” – Norman Lock, from the Afterword

Click on the cover to purchase the book from Amazon and 4-6% of your purchase price (at no additional cost to you) will go to support Dactyl Review.

Dactyl Review: literary fiction reviewed by and for the literary fiction community

Ongoing
A new online review of strictly literary fiction, created for and by the literary fiction community. For readers. As literary fiction disappears from the pages of major book reviews, it becomes harder to find good books to read. With tags for style and influence and easy access to excerpts, Dactyl Review is unlike any other fiction review site, helping readers find the particular kinds of “literary fiction” they prefer. Because we’re not a commercial site, we don’t favor the newest books or books by best-selling authors. We publish reviews of only the best literary fiction, older and new, as judged by other literary fiction writers. For writers. Helping to promote and support the kind of work you admire will help build a readership for your own work. Reviewers with the highest percentage of positive feedback will be noted in the top ten reviewers section. Go to dactylreview.org

You Can’t Blame Me for Trying! : A Short Play, starring Ben Monk

February 23-26, 2012

Dactyl Foundation recommends the short play, “You Can’t Blame Me for Trying!”, starring Dasha Kittredge and Ben Monk (aka Ben Jorgensen), which is being featured as part of Week 3 of the Players Theatre Short Play and Musical Festival. The theme of all shows, in keeping with the Valentine’s Day holiday, will be “Sex!” (with an exclamation point). There will be FOUR performances:

Thursday, February 23, at 7PM
Friday, February 24, at 7PM
Saturday, February 25, at 7PM
Sunday, February 26, at 3PM

To reserve a ticket, visit the website below and select one of the four performances of “SEX!” listed above.
An important note: when purchasing tickets, you will be asked if you have a “promotional code.” The code is “cast.” Entering it entitles you to a $5 discount. The total cost of a ticket thus becomes $23.12 ($20 for the ticket plus a $3.12 “convenience charge”).

https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/277

(Please note that plays in the festival may contain nudity and that no one under 18 will be admitted to the theater.)

Shelf Life: A literary fiction award that doesn’t expire

Ongoing

For a number of years, publishing has been dominated by commercial fiction. Literary fiction novels and short story collections by small presses or independent authors have little chance of being noticed by reviewers or placed on bookstore shelves.  Even the literary fiction written by relatively well-known writers published by big houses has been pushed to the side by pseudo-literary fiction  — written and reviewed by those who don’t  know the difference between thought and sentimentality, poetry and the use of adjectives — such that the meaning of “literary” is lost. With the way the publishing system is currently organized, books aren’t given much time in front of judges and audiences. Those that don’t make it immediately are tossed in the remaindered bin. A deep pity, as literary fiction is slow-growing and takes time to find its audience. Continue reading “Shelf Life: A literary fiction award that doesn’t expire”