I sent this out to all my readers and contributors (and for the first time in my history of e-mailing forgot to use Bcc, and am really sorry!):

First, I want to thank everyone for a 10-year run of Jack Magazine, which began in the summer of 2000 and will celebrate its 10-year anniversary next summer. I am still accepting art, poetry, fiction, and reviews for the next issue. Let’s make this the best issue! Please see http://www.jackmagazine.com/submit.html for guidelines and ideas.

Though the 2010 summer issue will be the last static issue of the magazine, I am not sure whether to keep Jack’s blog open to commentary or to archive the magazine permanently. The transformation may take a while to decide.

Also, all of Jack is permanently archived at Stanford University’s LOCKKS program, and I do not plan to remove the domain. All the content will remain. I just won’t be publishing yearly issues after 2010.

Similar to the fate of my old site, 16-year-old Beat Generation News, I became too involved with other projects to keep the site up in the momentum with which I started it all. But Beat News is still up at Jack (http://beatnews.jackmagazine.com/), and I update it now and then, and it still has an excellent following.

I hope Jack lives on as well, and want to thank everyone for the success of it, especially co-founder Michael Rothenberg, who has been a great motivator and friend for over a decade now.

Also, when one thing dies, usually something else comes around, and that something is Moon Willow Press (http://www.moonwillowpress.com), which is my new editorial/publishing company that will more officially launch on January 1, 2010 — so until then, excuse the web design, content changes, and so on. I haven’t advertised much, except on Facebook, and am still in the process of getting into business directories, etc.

Moon Willow is a small press, and won’t be starting any paper book projects until late 2010. Right now I’m focusing on editorial projects and a couple e-books.

I am feeling very excited and creative about Moon Willow’s press initiatives, however, including using FSC-certified and recycled paper only, offering on-demand and e-book publishing, planting trees, getting involved with book recycling and donations, eventual membership incentives, and so on. The press’s focus will be non-fiction books on sustainable living, climate change, wildlife preservation, and many other related items as well as a small percentage of select fiction, with a broader range of subject type. I haven’t ruled out poetry publications either. I just have to make some real decisions by January.

I would like to encourage any of you to keep me in mind for partnering up in the future, if you are interested in book illustration, printing, or marketing. Just drop me a line!

Hi all. I have been pretty busy since the spring issue of Jack, but am now accepting submissions for the 2010 10th-anniversary summer issue. Please see http://www.jackmagazine.com/submit.html for submission and content guidelines. I am still also looking for a feature artist, though do have some queries out there. Please e-mail me if you are interested.

The theme of the next publication will be travel-related.

Moon Willow Press is a new startup and independent press initiative started by none other than your not-so-famous and not-so-primetime editor, Me. With years of editing and writing under my belt, I figured it was time to do this. The press will initially offer only editorial services in order for me to generate some revenue to start the publishing services.

The long-term mission is to publish fiction and non-fiction books and journals related to climate change, sustainable living, ecosystem preservation, and other environmental concerns. Moon Willow will use only recycled and ancient-forest-friendly materials as well as offer e-book alternatives.

We had a fantastic road trip through the Okanagan Valley recently, which included hiking in a wetland where cougars have been sighted recently, seeing pictographs by Ktunaxa First Nation tribes near Canal Flats, and sitting in a hot spring near a cold and rushing Lussier River. I might include pieces of this trip in the next issue. The next issue’s theme is travel, and though is slated for spring probably won’t go up until summer 2010 due to my work on Big Bridge at the same time.

Stephen C. Middleton’s poetry has been added to the current issue.

Laki Vazakas sent this video he made for his his friend Grant Hart’s song “Nobody Rides For Free.” Charles Plymell is featured prominently, and Ray Bremser, Mary Beach, Charles Henri Ford, and Claude Pelieu make cameos.

Paul Hawkins contributed The Benzedrine Highway Interview interview with Charles Plymell in the current issue of Jack Magazine.

Call For Papers
The Transnational/Global Beats: A Collection of Essays
Editors: Jennie Skerl and Nancy Grace
Deadline for abstracts: June 1, 2009

It can be argued that the Beats are the only multigenerational avant-garde movement that has achieved transnational status and the only one that has resulted in a mass counterculture. This is an invitation for quality essays that address Beat Generation writers and other artists from the perspective transnationalism and/or globalization.

Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:

1. Beat movements in countries other than the United States contemporaneous with the U.S. movement (parallel with or without direct contact);
2. Interactions, collaborations, and mutual influences between American Beat writers and writers in other countries;
3. Writers/groups that were influenced by the Beats and Beat travels to other countries, specifically younger writers in the 1960s influenced by Beat publications, but also later writers/artists as well;
4. Cultural production such as Beat-related coffeehouses, poetry festivals, little magazines, publishers around the world that show the influence, affiliations, collaborations with the American Beats; also the contributions of organizers, publishers, booksellers, etc.;
5. Discussion of Beat critiques of the postwar capitalism from the perspectives of globalization;
6. Beats and Pacific Rim culture and ecopoetics
7. Beats and geographic areas, such a the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Paris, India, Japan, China, Canada, and/or Northern Africa; and
8. Beats and race from a transnational perspective.

Please submit a 500-word abstract by June 1, 2009.
Send the abstract to both recipients (to Nancy Grace and Jennie Skerl).

Gary Snyder’s new book, with illustrator Tom Killion, is coming out in May. Some book signing dates are here.

Well I still have all that stuff on my hard drive, and though I’ve kept some things around, like Larry Keenan’s beat galleries, they aren’t very prominent. I’m slowly revamping the entire site at http://beatnews.jackmagazine.com, because I think it’s important to have around, a good resource. So the trio of the actual magazine, which is an annual publication, the old site that is a beat generation resource, and the combination of blog/twitter to keep things up-to-date, I hope this stuff is useful. It’s sure fun to do.

Just forgive me while I continue to add some foundation and paint to the beat news blog. Some of my bios were missing, like a fairly long one I wrote of Joanne Kyger. I have to add a lot of bios, and beef up the ones I have, and now I know why I stopped doing the site when I did. It was a never-ending project. I need to refresh my memory, read a lot more, and slowly build the site up to what I once hoped it would be.

Well, I just want to get it to the resource that it was from the mid-1990s to around 2001 just to have it there for now. I always welcome contributions too. In the past, several Kerouac scholars and others were key to helping me build information that I didn’t have in my brain or immediately at my fingertips.

The process of copying over stuff from old HTML to a new blog structure is taking awhile, so keep checking back.

http://twitter.com/jackmagazine is the link to my Twitter site. I think it’s a great place to post news links and shorts. If that would have been around during the days of my Beat Generation News site, it would’ve been great. I’m pretty sure you can RSS that feed if you want to. I’ll try to keep up-to-date on relevant news around the world.