This e-book collects the best of issues 3 through 9 of the widely-respected paper lit-journal, THE WHIRLIGIG. From 2000-2006, Frank Marcopolos edited the magazine, distributed worldwide by Tower Records, which garnered enthusiastic praise from critics, writers, and readers alike. As an editor, Marcopolos had a keen eye for up-and-coming talent. He published Khaled Hosseini (THE KITE RUNNER), Jeff Somers (THE ELECTRIC CHURCH/Avery Cates Series for Orbit), Nick Mamatas (SENSATION), Ann Sterzinger (NUSQUAM), and ...
This e-book collects the best of issues 3 through 9 of the widely-respected paper lit-journal, THE WHIRLIGIG. From 2000-2006, Frank Marcopolos edited the magazine, distributed worldwide by Tower Records, which garnered enthusiastic praise from critics, writers, and readers alike. As an editor, Marcopolos had a keen eye for up-and-coming talent. He published Khaled Hosseini (THE KITE RUNNER), Jeff Somers (THE ELECTRIC CHURCH/Avery Cates Series for Orbit), Nick Mamatas (SENSATION), Ann Sterzinger (NUSQUAM), and many others before they were more broadly recognized as bright literary stars. This collection contains both short stories and poetry from an "underground culture" so diverse as to boast the likes of the urban hermitt, "Queen of the Small Presses" Lyn Lifshin, Richard Kostelanetz, Mike Cipra, and Emerson Dameron.
These are stories of the 2 a.m. bar stool, of whiskey-scented cubicles, of mystical kangaroo caves, of prairie dog vacuums. They are stories of Socrates, of Asoka, of Pill Dombrowski, and of the amazing Martin Landawer. These are vital voices that echo within you long after out of earshot. Here is the authentic, the wild, the truth. Here is salvation scatter-shot through with shrapnel and firestorms and ferocity and lust and love.
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FROM THE PAPER MAGAZINE:
"Packed with good yams...an energizing read!" - Broken Pencil magazine
"A goldmine of good fiction." - Xerography Debt magazine
"The Whirligig is one of the most important lit journals being produced in this country." - Karl Wenclas
"What The Whirligig is is a grand read." - Jeff Somers, author of THE ELECTRIC CHURCH
"All in all, The Whirligig is a strong zine….There are stories here that deserve to be heard" - Project Pulp
"Some good lazy-day reading from a host of talented little-known writers." -Stuff Magazine
"A good place to find new voices." - Gavin J. Grant
"Definitely worth checking out." - Fran McMillian, Xerography Debt
"Try it. You will like it." - Julie Dorn, Xerography Debt
"Loki and Odin wrestle the frost giants to get their hands on each new issue of The Whirligig." - Michael Basinski, SUNY Buffalo Libraries, Rare Books Collection
You get this true lion-roaring sense that Editor Frank Marcopolos knows what he likes, and how to read, and how to publish, and he has guts, and eats insects on Wheaties with bleach. He has made a fine thing here. I recall that Bukowski started writing slight, short stories and I think that maybe the folks in here, well – Marcopolos has discovered the next generation and is opening them up and allowing them to fly into our thick, chocolate, blood-hooded, and howling nights.
Zeen Beat
- Karl Wenclas
For all its modest presentation, The Whirligig is one of the most important lit journals being produced in this country.
Xerography Debt Magazine
- Davida Breier
One of the best collections of fiction I’ve read in a long time. Seriously. I read a ton of zines, novels, short stories, whatever crosses my visual path, and this was an exceptional collection. I read more every chance I got.
Broken Pencil Magazine
- Broken Pencil
This lit-zine outta Brooklyn is packed with good yams. The Whirligig is an energizing read, and a great lit-zine from Henry Miller’s hometown.
Xerography Debt Magazine
- Stephanie Holmes
Reading The Whirligig is the next best thing to going on summer vacation.
Frank Marcopolos began writing as a kid in the evenings after summer days of competing--always unsuccessfully--against the older neighborhood kids (the evil "teenagers") in the P.S. 207 schoolyard. After long, hot days of sporting failures, he discovered that by writing stories, his fictional heroes (almost always coincidentally named "Frank") could always end up saving the day from the taller, menacing forces arrayed against them. He usually composed these stories by flashlight as he wrote in a black-and-white Mead notebook while seated on a shelf in his bedroom closet.
For some reason, this love of creating alternative--glory-promising--realities never died within him, and continues to this day. (Thankfully, his boyhood habit of naming all of his main characters "Frank" HAS died, however.)
Frank still lives in Brooklyn, NY, not far from that very schoolyard, among others where he also spent portions of his youth failing at various sports. He notes with sadness that the current trend in public education is to chain up all schoolyards during the summer, presumably so that the painted-on-cement bases can't be stolen.
Frank rocks a cable-free lifestyle, and ALWAYS knows where his towel is.
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