FOX deadline extended! Submissions please!

That's right! The next issue of FuseLit, for which we court your lickable, chaseable, scavengeworthy art, poetry, prose and music is called FOX, and you now have a snatch extra time to send us your finest scribblings on the subject! See bottom of post for details!

Here's the gist, for those new to this joint:

1. You take a good long look at the word of choice and think "hmm, FOX, you say..."



2. You write, sketch, paint, strum or toot a piece based around that word.



3. You send it to us and we have a good ruminate and enjoy your finery before letting you know whether we'd like to include it in FuseLit.



4. FuseLit is for serious AND fun! Share it with friends and tamarins!



All contributions to fuselitmag@yahoo.co.uk by December 31st please!

New Friends

Following a meeting on the South Bank with the editors of three other arts journals, we've added links to their respective publications. Please follow said links and investigate. Apologies for the untidy state of the links page. We'll have it spruced up shortly.

Meanwhile, if you're on Facebook, there's now a Fuselit group you can join. Thanks very much for everyone's submissions to 'Cabaret' so far. Some really unique stuff! There's still room for a few more pieces though, and a week or so left to get them sent in!

- Production Editor

Post-Edinburgh Glow

Ahhhhhhhhh...

That was the sound of FuseLit laying down its baggage and flopping into bed after an exhausting but brilliant trip to Edinburgh.

Firstly, two observations: Having spent this past year in the grime and cram of London, Edinburgh itself is non-stop beautiful. If you've never been, I recommend it heartily. Set into a hillside with stunning old buildings and really friendly people, it also has a thriving art scene, which is where Observation 2 comes in.

The people of the Forest Cafe, an almost completely voluntary organisation run to support the arts and provide a free venue for performers and people to run workshops and hold events, are amazing. The venue itself is a lovely, roomy, bohemian space with a chilled out atmosphere, loyal patrons and delicious vegan food (and this is an omnivore speaking), and the people themselves are dedicated, welcoming and passionate about art of every flavour.

The night itself was great fun, beginning with stripped down percussive joy from top musical improviser Juan, before the aural delights of Tintin-meets-Flynn jubilante Jon Stone, lion-maned surreal poet Cliff Hammett and Italian firebrand Andrea Tallarita.

Sadly the divine Bek "Tron" Galloway couldn't come, but in her absence, we read "Night Rates", one of her rather excellent recent FuseLit contributions. As compere (of sorts), I read out work by FuseLiteers past and present to show our appreciation and to represent them in absentia. These included the short story "Babel's Tower" by Caroline Robinson, "Both of Us In Baseball Caps" by long-termer John Osbourne and from the pages of BATTERY, "The Practical Advantages of Kung Fu over Karate" by Gerard McKeown.

The night ended with a set by FuseLit CD contributors Damn Yer Eyes and the Forest Reggae Collective, to great aplomb.

Special shout-out to Shannon, who gave us a roof over our head, put up with our 2am entrance following flooding-delayed train troubles, a grand old night out afterwards and rather lovely tea.

Also thank you to Ryan Van Winkle for inviting us down in the first place and everybody at the Cafe who helped us set up and prepared THAT chocolate cake for which I am curently jonesing.

What a grand old time, eh?

In other news, check out the new website, from which at last you can order the sexy miracle that is NUDE in its lingerie-esque format! We do like to give you guys something special. Contributor copies are currently winging their way to eager hands with our thanks and we hope you enjoy the issue. It's been fun to make.

Lots of FuseLove,
Kirsty x

More news on NUDE

Fuselit subscribers! Nude contributors! We are working out backs off to get Nude finished for you, and we are down to one final obstacle - the CD. We have a single track that still needs mixing down, and then must burn like crazy, and make sure they are packaged nicely with a track listing. It'll be worth the wait!

We've officially set the date of release back to 14th, and to give us more time to promote Nude, we're setting the deadline and release date for issue 11, Cabaret back a month.

Meanwhile, all of you who can possible make it - come to our launch party next Saturday in Edinburgh, and bring a bottle of wine. It's gunna be ace.

- Production Editor

'Nude' delayed

Hi Fuseliteers. It's the production editor here, hijacking the editor's blog. I'm logging on to let you know that Nude has been delayed by hopefully no more than a week. As per the Fuselit tradition, we had the whole thing designed, formatted, pdf'd and ready to blaze about a month ago, and have spent the intervening time trying to figure out how to print it. The timely Forest grant has allowed us to buy a new Lexmark laserjet, which solves most of the problem. However, it only arrived yesterday.

Luckily, I have today off work (by which I mean, since I'm a freelancer, that I have no work and can thus expect no pay), so before I got dressed or had breakfast, I set about installing the printer and running off proofs. It's now nearly half past three and I've just finished! Holy moley! Don't ask.

All being well, we can run off enough copies for everyone over the next three days, which just leaves the CD's to burn. One busy weekend should see us postbox-bound.

Now I must eat and get a haircut.

- Production Editor

Edinburgh Performers wanted and Mimesis Competition

Greetings one and all Fuseliteers!


OK, so the Edinburgh festivities will be held on Saturday 21st July, as you know. We'll be producing a flyer and you can email us for any information, but you're all very much invited for a night of FuseLit reading and performance with quite possibly a Cabaret-themed party afterwards.

Furthermore, we want your performing skills! Any contributors to
FuseLits past and present need to email me about performing as we need to let the guys from the Forest Project know how many people need a floor to crash on. We're going to try and get a guitar amp, and I'm bringing a bass amp, and there's a PA there too.

Let's have a big raucous ole ball in Scotland to kick off NUDE in style!

OK, second item: Mimesis magazine are running a Mythic Poetry Competition. Full details can be found here: http://forum.deviantart.com/galleries/writers/873275/


Basically, writing a poem from the POV of a mythical character. Prizes include Lulu vouchers and subscriptions to the rather excellent Mimesis, so well worth entering!

OK, signing off! Let me know about Edinburgh if you want to strut yer stuff. I'm unpacking my feather boa as we speak!

Much FuseLove,
Kirsty x

Highland Fling!

OK, so Edinburgh is go 21st July! The Forest Collective, the same amazing folks who done gone give us a fantastic £100 grant to buy a printer with, are our co-conspirators in this endeavour, and we need your input on how to make it a weekend of decadence and artistic debauchery.

You're all invited. Come! Come! So far we're definitely doing a NUDE reading/show night, but we crave your ideas. Any thoughts for workshops/little events, or if anyone would like to read/perform their pieces from FuseLits past and present, plus perhaps one of your favourite outer-Fusely pieces, ceremonies, treats and barndances - all ideas welcome and we'll build a rough schedule!

Oooh, I'm excited!

K x

Extra Funding!

Thanks to the amazing, wonderful, non-heinous people of The Forest Collective, who are based in Edinburgh and aim to promote independent arts, little old FuseLit has been awarded a £100 GRANT!!! Before you say "Heyyyy - how bout that price rise?" we plan to put the entire sum towards a new colour laser printer so we can produce new issues at a better quality (and on time) for many moons to come.

This could not have come at a better time, as once again, technical glitches seem to be following NUDE like dirty old men. Just the thing to raise our spirits and so we thank The Forest Collective for their amazing generosity. Vive la FuseLit!

In other exciting news, we are hoping to plot some events in Edinburgh with the Collective to launch NUDE, including readings, performance, some possible workshops, and a lot of gambolling about. If you fancy it, come along and support your Lit! Provisional date is weekend beginning Friday 20th July.

Talking of NUDE, by God you're in for a treat when this little number pops through your letterbox or into your hand. Let's just say you'll be thrilled, chilled and fulfilled.

Meanwhile, on to the fishnets and feather fans of CABARET!

Deadline is August 1st - We want poetry, prose, artwork, music. All themed around CABARET, all fresh and new especially for FuseLit (NO back catalogue work please) to make this the extravagaza we've all been dreaming of.

The show must go on! Check out the website for more information on what's happening and coax friends, family members et al into our cult-like clutches.










Thanks everybody, as ever, for your top-notch support and love. FuseLit will save your family from any foe.

Mwah!
K x

Price Hike!

How's this for marketing spiel:

Hey, everybody. Great news. Fuselit is so good that we've now enabled you to spend even more money on it. That means for every issue you buy you're supporting culture, and good writing in particular, in an even bigger way.

Ha ha. Anyway. Yes. We have hiked the price of Fuselit up to £3for an issue. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, and most importantly, we are now trying to get it stocked in cool London shops, in particular the lovely Rough Trade, based in Neal's Yard, Covent Garden area. These shops don't really want us undercutting their prices on our website, and since they deserve some revenue from the sale, we've reset prices accordingly. Secondly, we thought it was kinda nuts (and off-putting) to have an extra postage fee higher than the cost of the magazine itself. It makes more sense to integrate the cost of postage into the cost of the magazine, and have *no* postage fee at all.

So it's £3 for Fuselit, whether you're buying it over the counter or through Paypal, and no hidden costs.

Thirdly, a price hike will enable us to make the magazine better. At 95p we were losing money every issue even though we only used a local reprographics centre to run off cheapo black and white copies. Hopefully, we now stand a chance of making enough from sales to invest in more cool materials, coloured paper and wotnot, and generally create a more fun-looking, cherishable minimag.

We're keeping with the extra mini-CD too, so we think it's really still a very fair price - £3 every couple of months for a pocket-sized burst of poetry, prose, artwork and music.It also allows us to set subscription prices at a level that is slightly more tempting. You're now saving a £1 on cost if you go for the 3 issue subscription, and £3 for a 6 issue one (so, you're effectively getting an issue free).

Before you say "Heyyyy - how bout that GRANT you mentioned?" we plan to put the entire sum towards a new colour laser printer so we can produce new issues at a better quality (and on time) for many moons to come.

Obviously, for those who're already subscribed up, the price change doesn't affect you, so you snapped up a snip! :)

So there you go. Price hike. Shouldn't hurt too much. Should help carve out a better future.

Thanks again everybody for your support - we're going to continue making FuseLit as amazing and irresistable as ever, beginning with a downright droolworthy NUDE, come start of July.

Much FuseLove, K x