Think of Puck as the tricksters’ day- or commonplace book or the blog that says, O, what fools these mortals be. Puck is a celebration, a raspberry, a transitory critique of the quotidian. It’s whatever the Pucksters (Brian Charles Clark and others) find interesting, newsworthy, annoying or amusing.
Puck seeks contributors. Irrepressible, wry, insightful writers, visual artists, filmmakers, musicians–”shrewd and knavish sprites”–are encouraged to contact Puck. Send an email with tantalizing prospects, links to portfolios or writing samples, or standard pitch. My address is funkendub AT gmail dot com–you know what to do, right? Attachments will receive all due suspicion.
Puck is who? what? where? when? why?
Me, Brian, I’m the editor of Puck, a journal of the irrepressible. I’ve been editing literary, marketing, PR and news things for a couple decades. In the 1990s, I published and edited Puck under the Permeable Press imprint. All told, Permeable Press published some 12 paperback originals (mostly novels), 16 issues of the magazine (which, however, traveled under a great many names besides Puck) and something like 50 chapbooks and assorted ephemera. (A very partial list of the more than a hundred contributors who published with Permeable Press has started at Wikipedia; please help to complete it; I’m going to go add Thom Metzger right now.)
Puck and Permeable Press got some great reviews back in the day. Critic and sci-fi gad about Larry McCaffery said that Permeable Press was “one of the ten most important indie presses” of the 90s. Christopher B. Martin, editors of Zines!, said that we should “think of Puck as a hip Harper’s or an Atlantic with an attitude.” Ben Myers, writing in Dreamtime Talkingmail, said that Puck was “a good looking and curious blend of cyberanarchist editorials, poetry, fiction and reviews.”
In 1997, I sold Permeable Press to Cambrian Publications, a venerable and respected name among science fiction connoisseurs. Cambrian has published brilliant, dangerous–dammit, Jim, irrepressible–fiction for three decades now, including previously unknown Philip K. Dick and, if I’m not mistaken, all the novels of Paul Di Filippo.
Now, I continue in the creative professions as a marketing and news writer for Washington State University and WSU Extension. I write about agriculture (plant science, genetics, livestock), especially organic and sustainable systems of food and beauty production, as well as the natural resource and design sciences.
Design science? Forever we hear about the chasm between art and science, only rarely realizing that the roof above our heads is precisely the bridge between the two. That the floor beneath our feet–carpet slowly exsouflating carcinogens–is a marriage (only sometimes made in hell) of materials science, engineering and design. But that’s because we tend to live in boxes.
If Puck and I don’t succeed in thinking completely outside the box, we at least try to visit the marginalized ones.
But when is Puck published?
For you print media die hards, let me spell it out: Puck is a blog. Puck is du jour. The deadline is rolling, the clock is ticking. That’s not only when, but why, as well.
[...] About Puck [...]
Puck » Puck is back
6 Jul 07 at 9:47 pm
[...] 5 08 2007 Just found out Brian Charles Clark is back with a brand new Puck attack. Clark founded the venerable Permeable Press in the early 1990s and is also the author of [...]
Puck. You. « TREVOR DODGE
5 Aug 07 at 1:58 pm
Are you the Brian Charles Clark that taught at Walla Walla Community College?
stevi
13 Sep 07 at 3:51 am
Note to a Potential Contributor
[written in reply to a writer wanting to know what the hell I'm up to here]
I guess the first thing to say is that Puck is a blog. I’ll be happy if I never am responsible for putting ink on paper again. So if you aspire for print publication, please know that I don’t and won’t go there any more.
That said, I’d be curious to read a short excerpt of [your novella]. I’m all in favor of genre-bending, and one-page chapters are an ideal length for the medium. So let’s see if we can find some traction and then, if needed, figure out what you being a contributor would mean.
As for reviews, I’m very interested. I’m mostly interested in what people like, rather than negative reviews–although a well-aimed negative is always welcome, too. With movies, I’m wide open, and it doesn’t have to be current. Thoughtful, shortish (1k words at most) reviews/essays/musings about films from any where, any time, are welcome. With music, I’m maybe a little pickier, but try me. If the music is available as mp3, all the better.
I’d usually shoo away anyone even remotely connected to an MFA program. But if you’re stuff is too weird for the program, than it might be good for Puck, so I’ll hope to hear from you.
Best, Brian
Brian
25 Sep 07 at 8:23 pm
Glad to hear you’re back, dude. (What’s funny is that I followed the same general route: I quit writing five years back, and now I’m too busy having fun with horticulture. Who knew that three months of living in Tallahassee would leave me this addicted to carnivorous plants?)
Paul Riddell
26 Sep 07 at 12:05 pm
Hi Brian,
I wrote some stuff today, as I do most days.
I wrote and then googled one thing that seemed important about hwta I had constructed — “artistic sonar” — and found one entry in “What We Bear: A Study of Suphysical Narrativity” and I’ve gone on from there, resonating along and now writing to you here.
Saying hello. I’m the singer and lyrcist of the literary rock duo Mecca Normal — which you may love or hate or be unaware of. Bunch of CDs over 20 years on K and Kill Rock Stars and Matador. And I have two published novels. And I paint. And make short films.
Making contact out of enthusiasm, possibly prematurely; I’ll continue reading and absorbing Puck and related material.
I add new writing, films, paintings and music to my blog almost every day. A la open studio, deadline, pressure to produce method of self-stimulation.
Right now I’m enduring hour three of one song Nickelback over and ever in a never before experienced method to limber up and react to the keyboard as with music — continously, driven forward as the music demands… OK, lemme not begin to unravle right here right now, oh ya baby… A la la la la la…
When I have an inspired notion as to how I might contribute here, I will make a proposal, unless, as I mentioned, you already hate me. Then I’d probably skip it.
Jean
Jean Smith
6 Nov 07 at 10:35 am
hello brian, it has been a long time. i see you are still busy with the fashioning of words biz.–!!music!! that is the immortal language– so it is forgotten in our time(s). puck is as puck was as will as won’t. erehtos. i don’t know if this a contribution or inquiry, an endorsement or revelation — i can’t get behind or in front of all this computer witchcraft. i hope you and puck remain well.
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~ . ~
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oh! now i know— blush — i looked down and this is a submitted comment… coool
the darin peabody
4 Jan 08 at 9:37 am
Reply to the darin peabody:
Write me, O Daddy O! Send us some poems, ey? Jes a little sumthin to chew on?
–Brian
Brian
4 Jan 08 at 8:14 pm