Entasis

Welcome to Entasis.

It’s been awhile.

And I’m sorry for that — somewhat. The truth is, life has been good, by and large, rife with projects to work on, people to love, and passions to pursue. Which is all swell and dandy, but all of these things steal time from the routine business of managing a literary journal’s submissions process that has, of late, garnered much more attention than we’ve been used to. There have been growing pains and I’m afraid that not all of the plates we set spinning made it in one piece to the release of this issue.

So please step carefully and watch for broken glass. The good news is that the Entasis monster is showing vital signs that are pulsing independently of the editors’ mouth-to-mouth breathing and vigorous chest massages (the uncomfortable details of the Frankenstein tale you’ve never heard). Entasis is beginning to tell its own story, which is the story of new, unsolicited voices that make editing a journal an exciting task. Already we’ve had some early, very visible finds. Sara Jimenez, who was published in our first issue, was an artist/finalist on Bravo’s Work of Art. And a movie based on Beth Raymer’s book (an excerpt from which was published in Entasis’ second issue) Lay the Favorite and starring Bruce Willis and Catherine Zeta-Jones, will be released this year.

In order to accommodate our growth in readership we’re going to be implementing a new submissions system that will make our growing list of unread submissions, as well as timely communication with our submitters, manageable. We’ll also be locating the journal, the blog, and all previous and subsequent issues, in one place. More frequent updates and less technical overhead means that we’ll be able to focus the positive energy that the journal has been generating into responding to and attracting an increasingly talented pool of artists and writers who deserve to have their work showcased. We’ve been very proud and fortunate to publish the people we’ve featured in Entasis — many of these people are friends. But it’s been exciting to see the new names who’ve been attracted to our journal based on our published content, because it is that interaction and the results from it that give a journal its particular feel. With that in mind, this experience has been an education.

So thank you for your patience and I hope that you’ll be returning soon to track our editorial and blog updates, subscribe to our feeds, and to submit, submit, submit your work. I look forward to making Entasis into a deeper, stronger, richer voice on the basis of your readership and our exchange.

Peace, love, global cooling,
- Greg McClure

Mazel Tov, Entasis III.

We have a long way to go before we match The Dial’s eighty-six issues but then, they could afford to pay T.S. Eliot ninety-five thousand dollars for ‘The Wasteland’ (oh poets, you were born in the wrong age!). As I read submissions, I started to realize that Entasis had an aesthetic, so here’s a minifesto. We didn’t want Chekhovian stories: that’s like listening to bluegrass or Dixieland. We also didn’t want ‘experimentation’ for the sake of being different: thank you, oulipo, but art isn’t science and most experiments fail. The stories that thrilled us were about unusual places or made the usual strange, but in every case they felt necessary. Greg November’s conjunctio oppositorum contrasts the certainties of science with the miseries of relationships, which always go wrong but in different ways every time (lucky us). Melissa Unger sneaks up on death – who, although surprised, manages his usual spare grin.  As our guide to the boxing underworld, Charles Farrell shows us exactly how contingent morality is. Three pieces that couldn’t be more different all share something essential – a sense of wonder. The artist is a little kid with chops, playing new variations in his never-ending encounter with experience.

- Robert Anasi

• Welcome to Entasis.