Author Archives: Gandy Dancer Staff

by | April 8, 2015 · 1:46 pm

On the Influence of the Internet

Posted by Brendan Mahoney, GD Poetry Reader for 3.2

There’s a website that has a URL with sixty ones in it. Not the phrase “sixty ones.” The number one sixty times. Upon arriving at 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.com, you’ll be asked to “go to Rupert Murdoch’s Myspace page to be my friend.” The entire website is just one page, as far as I can tell. One page plastered with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face superimposed onto the bodies of what I think are Sailor Moon characters and phrases in both English and Korean. If you take the time to hover around the website you’ll find a few other treats, like .gifs of ‘90s Arnold and other Korean and English phrases like HOLY PLASTIC BEEFY, which flash onscreen when you mouse over certain sections of the page. The best part about this page, in my opinion, is that this whole display that I just described takes up about three-eighths of the browser.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Superimposed

Arnold Schwarzenegger Superimposed

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by | April 6, 2015 · 1:00 pm

Is Poetry Dead? Let’s Settle It Once & For All

Posted by Chrissy Montelli, Poetry Editor for 3.2, Contributor for 3.1, & Reader for 2.1

It seems like every three months or so, I find a new article that declares poetry is dead—or at least questions how long it will take for poetry to die. The Washington Post did so two years ago. Newsweek did the same ten years before that. Heck, Thomas Love Peacock claimed poetry was dead in “The Four Ages of Poetry” all the way back in 1829! It doesn’t really make sense to me, especially since the majority of people who shout from rooftops about poetry’s death rarely explain why poetry is supposedly dead, except “nobody reads it anymore.” But with every declaration of the “death of poetry,” hundreds of poets fly in to defend the genre and prove the naysayers wrong. By 1989, poetry had been declared dead so many times that Donald Hall called for “death to the death of poetry”—and it’s been sixteen years since then, with more and more declarations each year. There are so many people on both sides of the argument that poetry might as well be characterized as the Schrödinger’s cat of the literary world.

Our solution, then, is to open the box. Continue reading →

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by | March 30, 2015 · 12:34 pm

Adventures in Albuquerque: A Reflection on the 2015 Sigma Tau Delta Convention

Posted by Katie Waring, GD Managing Editor for 3.1 

Last week, as everyone else was making their way to warm vacation spots (or home!) for Spring Break, 16 other Geneseo students and I landed in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the 2015 Sigma Tau Delta International Convention. If you’ve never heard of it, Sigma Tau Delta is the International English Honor Society for undergraduate students (and yes, our initials spell out “STD.” Advice to people thinking of applying for the 2016 convention: don’t google “STD Conference,” you won’t get what you’re looking for). Continue reading →

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by | March 18, 2015 · 11:11 am

As You Read This, I’m Already Dead: Writing and Video Games

Posted by Robbie Held, GD Poetry Reader for 3.2

As far as I can discern there are three kinds of video game writing: “In,” “About” and “For.” “In” and “For” deal directly with the production of a video game whereas “About” takes video games as inspiration and creates a separate object such as a poem or essay or story. Although writing in video games, that is, writing the text or dialog that actually appears in the game, is part of the process of writing for video games, the two are distinct enough to deserve separate attention. Continue reading →

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by | March 12, 2015 · 1:00 pm

Zen and the Art of Rejection

Posted by William Hess, GD reader for 3.2

I am, like many other writers, more intimate with rejection than I am with my own family. I know rejection’s cold sting, its metallic tang, its false adrenaline rush in the moments before reading the slip. Each time my writing is rejected, I recognize these familiar feelings. My family member’s birthdays? Those I fumble.

As a species, we loath rejection—whether at the bar by a potential pseudo-lover or on the job market. But being told that your writing isn’t good enough, or “isn’t right for this issue” hurts so much more than, say, watching your date sneakily slink out the door. Writerly rejection is that much worse because it feels as if it is you—your self—that is being rejected. You work and sweat and bleed and hope, and in the end, it still isn’t enough. Blame for other rejections might be placed on any number of facets, all tangential to you. In matters of literary rejection I, for one, seek solace in my mother’s wisdom: sometimes your best just isn’t good enough. A comparatively jagged pill to swallow than, say, “A+ for effort!” Continue reading →

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by | March 10, 2015 · 11:30 am

Karin Lin-Greenberg Visits Geneseo

Posted by Sarah Diaz, GD Poetry Reader for 3.2 & former Poetry Editor for 3.1

Last week, the fiction writer Karin Lin-Greenberg visited campus to give a reading from her short story collection, talk with the senior creative writing majors, and spend some time with this semester’s managing editors of Gandy Dancer (Look for their interview with Karin in our next issue!). Karin is an assistant professor of English at Siena College and winner of the 2014 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for her collection Faulty Predictions, available at the campus bookstore, University of Georgia Press and Amazon. Continue reading →

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by | March 2, 2015 · 11:21 am

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee…or Tea: Exploring Writers’ Obsessions

Posted by Cortney Linnecke, GD Fiction Reader for 3.2

What is it about coffee and tea that so tickles writers’ fancies? Is it the sharp, earthy smell of freshly roasted beans? Is it the almost poetic way steam tendrils roll off a hot cup of tea like dragon’s breath? Or perhaps it’s the way baristas etch cliché but secretly satisfying designs into marbled latte foam?

No matter the reason, it can’t be argued that writers and hot beverages go together like Shakespeare and iambic pentameter. It’s a fact, as basic and fundamental as the knowledge that Dr. Seuss enjoyed a good rhyme or the consensus that Mark Twain rocked a mean mustache. If you need proof, just look at the world around you: there’s the popularization of mom-and-pop coffee shops, the increasing preference for foreign coffees and specialty teas, and the creeping and steadily escalating price of coffee (which hit an all-time high in late 2014). And let’s not forget the gargantuan size of the menu at Starbucks, which itself is a multi-billion dollar industry funded almost entirely by sleep-deprived artists, hipsters with drink orders the length of small novels, and of course, the occasional, bumbling tourist just looking for free wifi. Continue reading →

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by | February 25, 2015 · 12:00 pm

The Common: A Lit Journal with Place

Posted by Mary Auld, GD Creative Nonfiction Editor for 3.2

I’m discovering that it’s important to understand the world of literary journals in order to work on one. This world seems infinite and overwhelming, featuring variations in look, medium, funding, affiliation, and theme. Each magazine makes its own attempt at carving out a space for itself in the overall scene. The Common, published at Amherst College, stands out as a journal with a well defined orientation within the realm of literary journals.

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by | February 19, 2015 · 11:30 am

Interview with Michael Palmer of Iron Horse Literary Review

Posted by Andrew Nauffts, GD Art Editor for 3.2

Recently we had the pleasure of sitting down with Michael Palmer, one of the managing editors of Iron Horse Literary Review (IHLR). Our conversation ranged in topic from the magazine’s past, present, to the nature of lit mags, to Michael’s goals for Iron Horse. He was eager to talk about his role as managing editor and the world of literary magazines to our class of emerging writers and editors, and we learned a lot by speaking with him.

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by | February 16, 2015 · 2:30 pm

Finding the Time: Making (and Sticking to) a Writing Schedule

Posted by Ethan Keeley, GD Fiction Editor for 3.2

It often seems that our lives are endless collections of to-do lists and deadlines. Whether we’re in school or at work there are always things that must be done and seldom enough hours in a day to do them all. Relaxation is that rare oasis that soon dries up as a new day begins and the new to-dos congregate.Writer's Clock

While it would be nice to live in a world where all hours of the day were free for us to ruminate and type away with peace of mind, this is mere fantasy. Indeed, writing must take place amidst all the other duties of life, which are always trying to take precedence over it (see: classes, work, homework, social obligations, chores, sleep, basic hygiene, etc.). But if we’re serious about our writing we need to make it just as much a priority as all those other facets of life. We can’t just tell ourselves, “I’ll write when I have time,” because we’ll always spend that time in other ways, especially in ways that require less mental effort. Relaxation is so infrequent for most of us that we immediately go for that option when all other obligations are momentarily taken care of. Continue reading →

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