Essay Advent Calendar

It's December 2nd here in Japan, but I think it's still December 1st in the US, where most of my readers are, so I'm only a bit late on this:

An advent calendar by Essay Daily. Last year Ander Monson did an advent calendar, and this year Essay Daily, which is not really daily as they themselves admit and which is edited by Monson, is keeping up the tradition.

Since the December 1st entry isn't up yet, I don't feel too bad about being late with the news myself. Keep an eye on that link and enjoy!

UPDATE: There is now a post for Dec 1st at Essay Daily. Not sure if it counts in the advent count down or not, but here it is.

And it looks like Diagram, also edited by Monson, has an advent calendar this year too! The first entry is a schematic, one of the features of Diagram that makes it singular. (If you are unfamiliar with Diagram, they publish poetry and stories and reviews and what they call text, in addition to unearthing schematics.)

A Deck of Diagrams

I'm a big fan of Diagram, the online journal celebrating its tenth anniversary (in journal years, that's impressive!) with an anthology that takes the form of a deck of poker cards. Read here about how 10 of Diagrams has (as you might expect) the kinds of schematics which the journal is so known for as well as contributions from writers such as Jenny Boully (one of my faves), John D'Agata, Albert Goldbarth, Ben Marcus, Lia Purpura, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Mark Yakich, Charles Wu, and Diagram editor Ander Monson.

Visit the website to see a few examples of playing cards, which are fully functional as, well, playing cards.

Enjoy!

Ander's Advent Calendar

Why was it the 23rd of December before I discovered Ander Monson has an online advent calendar? Aaargh (but thanks to Dan Wickett of Dzanc Books for posting about it on Facebook--better late than never). Still, I can enjoy ex post facto the daily December entries:



Like the title page of Albert Goldbarth's MFA thesis.

Or this outline by Monson, which is a companion piece to the outline-instead-of-an essay that I loved form his book Neck Deep and Other Predicaments (Graywolf, 2007).

Or this Example of a Depth Hoar Crystal Collected from the Base of a Snowpit in Wyoming. (Ha, I typed Death Hoar Crystal at first!)

Or Monson's own "The Problem With Memory."

Happy Holidays (and look for the arrow at the bottom of the page to enter the daily entries.)