Life at Open Heart Publishing

Posts Tagged ‘literary journal’

We here at Open Heart Publishing have had a ton of work on our plates but one bite at a time deadlines are being met and production is moving forward. With everything coming up on us in the next weeks I wanted to, halfway through; introduce you to our fearless leader, the Dictator of Deadlines, Debrin Case.

I remember when I first saw the friend request from An Honest Lie in my Facebook in box. I thought, “What the hell is an honest lie?” I’m glad I did the research because I was more than pleasantly surprised at what I found. There are so many small publishers out there, and I’m not one to point fingers, but Open Heart Publishing struck me immediately as one of the better ones. At the time Debrin was hiring and I was determined to get in on the Publishing business so I sent him an email. It wasn’t long before he got back to me and within a week he’d given me a call. I remember one of the first things he said to me was,

“I have to warn you I get a bit nervous around new people and when I’m nervous I cuss.”

It seems like such a small thing but it made him more real to me, more human, more accessible than the other interviewers I’ve had to deal with. I didn’t get the job then but Debrin and I remained in contact. When the time came he called me first and I appreciate it.

Debrin is a man with a focus and a plan and he does a fantastic job of bringing us all together to accomplish our goals. He may seem gentle and unassuming on the surface, but don’t be fooled he has an iron will and a remarkable depth of talent. He graces the Pages of An Honest Lie Volume 2 with a tale called Learning to Pray. today though we are going to talk to him about Open Heart Publishing and what exciting things are in store for us. But I’ll let him tell you about it.

Open heart Publishing: So you are the man who started it all. I feel I would not only be remiss if I didn’t ask, but I might get a few less than pleasant emails as well, so, what do you feel is a delusion of insignificance?

Debrin Case: I feel it would be a travesty for me to interpret the meaning of this year’s theme or the masthead . This is something I would rather leave to the interpretation of the individual reader as opposed to defining it and ruining all of the fun.

OHP: I can understand that. What is An Honest Lie?

D. C.: Like a Delusion of Insignificance, I feel it would be a travesty for me to interpret the meaning of this year’s theme or the masthead. This is something I would rather leave to the interpretation of the individual reader as opposed to defining it and ruining all of the fun.

OHP: Looks like we are going to be sticking with the party line on that one. But I asked him! No angry emails! Open Heart Publishing and the An Honest Lie anthologies are becoming pretty popular pretty fast; tell us something about where you are planning to take them in the future.

D.C.: AHL is heading into its second volume and wow what a great collection of authors we have found for our readership this year. It does my heart good to see a new cast of amazing authors to work with for volume 2, and as we get ready to embark on volume 3 it can only get better. As to what else to expect from Open Heart Publishing, the best advice I have is to keep checking us out. A wonderful collection of short stories from C.B. Calsing entitled All Along the Pacific will be available later this year, the winner of AHL Vol. 1 will be announced, yet another wonderful opportunity project, and of course Volume 2 of An Honest Lie should be available by late October.

OHP: I can hardly wait; it’s looking pretty good right now. Is your desire to publish other writers as strong as your need to write?

D.C.: Absolutely, in some ways it is even stronger. They are both important sides of me and my own personal missions of creating accessible fiction, and to promote and find new authors.

OHP: I’ve read some of your work and I know what’s waiting in the wings as far as Open Heart Publishing goes, I find your imagination fascinating. Where do you draw your inspiration from?

D.C.: Like all artists, and the rest of humanity, my inspiration is an amalgamation of everything I intake into my life. Whether this is through food, drink, music, movies, T.V., books, internet, conversations with strangers, moments of road rage… etc, in the end everything I do is a byproduct of everything I have consumed.

OHP: so many bathroom jokes and waste to writing comparisons to make, so little time. In your opinion, which is the more important discovery of humankind… plumbing or the written word?

D.C.: Definitely plumbing. Though I would like to believe that the written word has changed the world far more vastly than any other human invention, it has also brought about more debacles, damnations and epiphanies than any other invention before or after. Yet, it is in fact plumbing that has done more in the ways of health, safety and the unity of mankind than was ever dreamed of before. Just like pants that go on one leg at a time, so too do we discover that everyone goes to the bathroom and perhaps this could be the very medium by which world peace could be achieved.

OHP: People miss the simplest things sometimes. Are you a writer or a publisher first?

D.C.: I am dictator first, everything else is highly suspect.

OHP: Are there any authors, besides yourself, that you enjoy reading?

D.C.: There are thousands of authors out there besides myself that I love to read. Too many to list and to many egos to inflame or deflate by a mere mention or deletion from that list. I am a voracious reader, and in fact often read books without trying to discover anything about an author before I devour their work.

OHP: Who would you say is your writing mentor/ hero?

D.C.: My writing heroine is Ariel Gore, her book How to Become a Famous Author before You Are Dead is like a bible to me. I read it far more religiously than I ever read any assumed to be “Holy” text. If you are an author or a publisher and have not read this book, then stop reading this article now and hit Google, or whatever search engine you prefer, and find out more about this amazing book right this second. Seriously, you won’t regret it.

OHP: I haven’t read it yet … I know, I know. Do you have a writing nemesis?

D.C.: I sure do, and I have to see that bastard every morning when I get out of bed and wander my way into the bathroom. If you never realize that you are your own worst critic and at times your own worst enemy then perhaps you need to reexamine your artistic endeavors.
Being an artist is about introspection, and introspection is not as easy as getting your temperature taken, on the contrary it is more akin to exploratory surgery on a primitive battlefield where the doctors are still blissfully unaware of the concept of infections caused by dirty hands.

OHP: Indeed! I know how much work goes into producing an awesome literary product; do you have any advice for aspiring publishers out there?

D.C.: Keep to your deadlines. Nothing else matters above your word and keeping to your deadlines.

Is your life in shambles, can’t pay the rent, need a new car… tough shit, keep to your deadlines.

The world is doomed, the wrong political candidate won the election, there is a race of mutant rats overthrowing your city… ah well, stick to your deadlines.

An author needs an extension on their piece, an artist is having issues, your printer is going away on holiday, who cares… Keep your deadlines.

OHP: Why do you feel the need to write?

D.C.: Communication. Communication and communion with the rest of the human race is the endeavor of all people the world over. Whether this is via speech, interpretive dance, collages, decoupage, crochet or writing the need is the same it is in its presentation where we discover all of the dissimilar ways in which we are so similar.

OHP: Besides short stories what other writing endeavors are you currently engaged in?

D.C.: Tons of them. Currently I am working on 4 different books, and I am preparing 3 more volumes to be published this year by Open Heart Publishing.

OHP: It has been a pleasure picking your brain. Just a few more questions; what do you feel about the following quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge?”

D.C.: I believe Einstein was more accurate than he could have ever dreamed, and as the day’s move forward into months, then years, decades and eventually eons we will see just how far down the rabbit hole we can go while taking what we perceived of as reality along for the ride.

OHP: According to Anatole France “To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture,” in your opinion what do you believe is worth dying for? What do you believe is worth living for?

D.C.: I believe that everything is worth living for, I have yet to find one truly worthy reason to die and for this reasoning alone I am currently refusing any model of living which concludes with such an outmoded way of thinking.

OHP: Mark Twain once said that “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” What do you believe he meant by that?

D.C.: There is a bigger picture in all things with which you may be blissfully unaware at any given moment. As such you aren’t always seeing or understanding what is actually going on at any moment. Pay close attention to everything and all of the details. No matter how unusual, bizarre or even downright ordinary things may appear… they aren’t. They never are.

OHP: Most people have two stories for doing anything… a plausible excuse and the real reason, why do you really write?

D.C.: I write, therefore I am.
Or is it; I am, therefore I write?
Or is it simply, I enjoy telling a story whether good or ill conceived and in the end I want to get paid for it?

Yes to all of the above, and then a whole bunch more that I am quite sure would quite easily become a philosophical debate about the existence of bubblegum on the dwarf planet of Pluto and how that is causing certain politicians’ to vote no to better funding for public education art programs.

OHP: There is a great deal of talking going about your book “A Children’s Book of Necromancy”, I hear that anyone that reads it can become quite powerful and even learn how to raise the dead. Is this true?

Absolutely, Davin. “A Children’s Book of Necromancy,” is absolutely the most important coloring book ever to be published, and I personally promise with absolute barnum sincerity that anyone who reads this book will be able to raise the dead.

If you want to know more about this amazing volume visit the official website here, and you can also visit us at Animefest 2010 in Dallas,TX where you can meet myself and Darcy Melton (the illustrator).

OHP: We are coming up on the publication day for An Honest Lie Volume 2: Delusions of Insignificance very fast. Do you have any plans for a third volume?

D.C.: Yes I do, but you will have to wait until next year to hear more.

Debrin Case has been making the story more interesting since 1970!
Debrin Case holds a B.A. in English Literature and is currently the founder/publisher of Open Heart Publishing, a company that promotes, showcases, and opens doors for new authors with its annual anthology
“An Honest Lie,” but also for children through its charitable project called, “The Opportunity Project.”
Additionally, Debrin oversees intuitive writing workshops, writes grants for charities (non profits and artistic endeavors), and is an experienced storyteller, ghost writer, and fiction writer.
Previously held the positions of editor for Hedge Wizard Press, and also co-editor for Red River Review.
When asked of the validity of his tales he will normally reply,
“My stories are 50% bullshit… and the rest is questionable, but at least they are honest.

http://debrincase.com/

All right loyal fans and followers. It is that time of the week again. An Honest Lie Volume 2: Delusions of Insignificance is that much closer publication. So far we’ve learned that some of us write “to differentiate ourselves(ed) from the madding crowd” and others suffer the yoke because we simply cannot stop slaving away. Maybe one day I will tell you all why I write, but this week, we have another of our talented writers I would like to introduce you to. Jessica Stilling hails from Manhattan where she lives and writes supported by a loving husband and son. When I got her interview mixed up with Author Jessica Dunn she graciously forgave me and set the record straight. Here is what she really had to say.

Open Heart Publishing: I understand you are a busy woman, so I won’t keep you long. AHL V2 is titled Delusions of Insignificance. What do you feel is a delusion of insignificance?

Jessica Stilling: I feel as if I should focus on the delusion part first. It’s like faking out a lie detector test and actually believing everything you’re saying. Then, with respect to the insignificance, it’s melding it in with your life.

OHP: What is An Honest Lie?

J.S.: An Honest Lie is something that becomes a part of who you are. It’s no longer a lie, because it’s become real. Though it’s still a lie logically, but logic is no longer important.

OHP: Now I’m going to get right to the hard stuff. I’ve been asking everyone the writer’s question; why do you feel the need to write?

J.S.: I get stories in my head, and little phrases. My characters start to talk to me and I know that they need to exist. I can’t leave them hanging. I feel wrong when I do not write. In fact I stop being able to sleep well when I’m between projects and not really working on anything.

OHP: There are a lot of small publishers out there, why did you decide to submit your work to An Honest Lie?

J.S.: I truly believed this story worked within the parameters of the overall concept of the collection. I believed in this story and I had a feeling in my gut. I also enjoyed An Honest Lie I.

OHP: We are so glad you checked it out. I really enjoyed reading “A Girl Walks into a Bar.” Can you tell us something about your inspiration for this story?

J.S.: My husband called this story horrific; in fact he refused to read it when I asked him to edit the piece before I sent it out on submission. He still hasn’t read it and I’m not sure he’s ever going to read it. The story is about many things, but what disturbed him most was the loss of a child. We’d just had our son when I wrote the story and I think it was my way of dealing with this sudden fear that I had of losing him. He’s two years old now and I’m (for the most part) over that new mother fear of walking into the bedroom to find that your child has stopped breathing, but I still check him once a night. This story is also about the nature of storytelling. It deals with the fact that you can tell one person’s story and still not get to the heart of who they are, the true heart of their story. Rebecca never knows who Ryan is because he never shares with her his story. She shares her story and so he is able to connect with her, but he never shares his story with her, and so she’s just the girl who walks into the bar to him. Ryan never really shares his story with himself either, it’s only Claire who knows it and understands him, which is why she seems so together at the end while he’s still falling apart.

OHP: We plan on working closely with the authors we choose for these volumes, should they wish to publish more stuff with us. Do you have any exciting projects in the works your fans might wish to know about?

J.S.: I write a lot. I write a little too much. I have a novel that my agent has been shopping for a while called Alice Down the Basement Window, a literary retelling of Alice in Wonderland. I also have a short story collection that I’m looking into shopping to small presses on my own in a little while. The collection, called Skimmable Cities, is a collection of short stories dealing with cities and city life. It doesn’t adhere to all those clichés, but it does deal with urbanness and how that affects how people live. The people in the stories have all lost something and in their surroundings they hope to perhaps find something else. I also just…well I don’t want to say finished, but I’ve come a long way to finishing a novel that I’ve been working on for a great many years, since I was in college, for my MFA thesis. The novel, God on the Wall, is about three boys growing up in Northern Ireland in 1982 during the Troubles. It’s about family and war and religion and friendship, brothers and brotherhoods and art. That’s a little grandiose I know, but I think history has a way of being grand on its own.

OHP: Wow you do write a lot where do you draw your inspiration from?

J.S.: Sometimes from the people around me and the world that I see. I like being able to take images and ideas, scenes from my life and stories that I hear and twist and turn them around until they’re something else entirely. It’s a lot like impressionism in that way, writing. To write is to take the world, the truth, and hold it under water for a while, until it’s grasping for breath. That’s when you’ve made it your own and you can really play with it.

OHP: Almost all writers are inspired by “one who came before”, who would you say is your writing mentor/ hero?

J.S.: Linsey Abrams and Felicia Bonaparte from City College.

OHP: As much as we love some, there are always those we can’t stand, do you have a writing nemesis?

J.S.: Not at the moment. I just finished my MFA and I realize, logically, that we’re all trying to do the same thing. That there are only so many spots for “successful writer” that are going to be filled, but I don’t find myself in competition with them. I prefer to like these people.

OHP: Okay we are working up o the home stretch. I only have a few more questions for you. What do you feel about the following quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge?”

J.S.: When it comes to fiction writing this is definitely true. You can’t gain imagination. It has to be in you. It is the foundation for all great works. In fact imagination is the foundation of knowledge. Someone had to imagine any piece of information we have about the universe before they went about proving it. Also, you can look things up; you can get the knowledge you need to write a piece. You can’t look imagination up and come up with a great character or plot point.

OHP: Have you ever contemplated becoming involved in a revolution?

J.S.: Funny you should ask this question because I’m teaching a class I compiled next semester called Revolutionary Memoir. We’ll be reading Eamon Collins’ IRA memoir Killing Rage, Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, Malcolm X’s Autobiography, Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries, Nien Cheng’s Life and Death in Shanghai and Ishmael Beah’s Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, which brought me to tears, and I don’t cry easily when reading a memoir. I think revolution is an important part of the human condition. All people should want to throw off the chains of society at some point. Do I think I’d become involved in a revolution? Well, I haven’t yet and there’s plenty going on right now to start a revolution over.

OHP: That’s quite a reading list there. Do you think writers should call Ernest Hemmingway, Papa?

J.S.: I think there are other writers one could call Papa or Mama in the same way. It’s the job of all writers to blast through the world and other writers may connect better with different mentors.

OHP: According to Anatole France “To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture,” in your opinion what do you believe is worth dying for? What do you believe is worth living for?

J.S.: I’d die for my son, but I think that’s just selfish, because I could not live without him. Would I die for anything else…I don’t know. There’s a lot worth living for. My work is one thing, my family is another. Living in New York City sometimes makes my life more wonderful. Though to be a true New Yorker I think you have to simultaneously be head over heels in love with the city and absolutely despise it in the same breath.

OHP: Mark twain once said that “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” What do you believe he meant by that?

J.S.: I think it’s the same impressionism idea. What we see is only so much and while there is a “real world” that’s not what art is about. It’s about the real world according to person X. Everyone has equal access to the real world, not everyone has equal access to ideas and imagination.

OHP: Most people have two stories for doing anything… a plausible excuse and the real reason, why do you really write?

J.S.: It’s easier (and better) than living in the world.

Jessica Stilling enjoys skiing, running, and wandering aimlessly, preferably in quiet, restful places. She currently lives in New York City, which can be surprisingly quiet and restful. Ms. Stilling is a very recent graduate of the MFA program at City College of the City University of New York and currently teaches there. She has been an editor for The Muse Apprenticeship Guild, The Olive Tree Review and The Castalia Project online zine, her brief attempt at founding a literary journal in college. She has been previously published in many publications including The Mini-Mag, City Writers, Children, Churches and Daddies, Birmingham Words, Open Wide, The Hawai’i Pacific Review, Audience, Existere, Cause and Effect, The Blotter, Skyline Review and Kudzu. A story of hers was a finalist in the Summer Literary Seminars Kenya Contest and she is the winner of the Bronx Council on the Arts Chapter One award for her unpublished novel, Alice Down the Basement Window, which is currently being represented by Foundry Literary and Media. She lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her husband Adam and her son Addison.

Davin Kimble Jr. Editor

Hello everyone. It’s me … the new guy. I am sure that many of you are wondering who I am. I hope you all have visited my web sites, done your research and drew your conclusions; as all good writers should. I welcome your inquires and criticisms. You see, one of my guiding principles is being a better person today than I was on the day previous and, with much sweating and ponderous speculation I decided not to regale you with my greatness, instead I hope I can give you something I find much more important, how I see the art form we all share.

I see the art of writing much like I see the art of dance. Both are refined arts with years of preparation required before you are truly capable of producing a work of art. While the dancer spends hours in a studio practicing her steps, the writer spends hours spinning their words into sentences, those sentences into stories that grab, hold and dazzle the reader. I love that journey from the realization that the story is inside of you, to the finalization of the tale itself. You almost feel like you almost have to write “The End”, to close the door and free yourself to start again.

For me, there is no higher thing in a person’s life than to do something that has meaning to them. Many of us chase dreams, but few of us figure out that it’s better to put yourself in the path of your dreams so that they come to you. Your path, like mine is the path of the literate. It’s why you’re here; it’s why I’m here. The dance of the words across the page is just too mesmerizing to resist. So we don’t resist, we dance.

Here at Open Heart Publishing we are working to showcase the absolute best of those dances. We want to give our readers an experience that not only they will remember and tell their friends about, but one that they will return to on occasion. We want to create rainy day books, well thumbed and well loved tomes of “sacred texts”. In order to do that we realize that we have to work closely with our writers in order to produce a product that everyone can be happy with and proud of. We know, that this is not a dance we can do alone, this is an orchestra of creativity and it will only come together if we are all writing on the same page.

To that end, with the upcoming An Honest Lie Volume 2, we are going to be spending some time with the authors chosen for the book. We are going to find out some things about their craft, and the inspirations for their stories. We are going to find out what makes them dance across the pages one word at a time until the “The End”.

I hope you will stand by us as we move forward, turning Open Heart Publishing into a house you can rely on to provide you with quality literary entertainment, a serious and focused place you can trust your best work with, and a network that will work along with you to place all of us in the path of our dreams.

So, as I begin here with Open Heart Publishing, as we all continue into the great tomorrows in our lives, I would ask this of you, do your dance, incorporate it with ours if you can, if you dare to elevate yourself. With an open heart I welcome you all.

As some of you may already be aware our Jr. Editor, Erin Marissa Russell has decided to continue pursuing her education and honing her crafts of editing and journalism and has discovered much to her own dismay that she must relinquish her position at O.H.P. so that she may give her full attention to her education.

It is with a sad heart that we say goodbye to Erin, she is truly an amazing editor (as well as a myriad of other artistic talents (a fraction of which can be found in Volume 1 of “An Honest Lie”)), and writers of either a journalistic or literary nature would be wise to listen to her words of wisdom. We have learned a lot from her, and we believe that the same can be said from her about her time and experiences with O.H.P.

May your journey take you wherever you wish to go Erin; it has been a pleasure to have you with us at O.H.P.

Though we shall miss Ms. Russell, the presses at O.H.P. just do not stop, and there is a mighty large workload to take care of… so it is without further adieu that I am pleased to announce our new Junior Editor, Davin Kimble.

Davin Kimble

lives and writes from Fort Worth, Texas.
His writing career actually started when he learned to put words together. He remembers quite well the first story he ever wrote. Since then, his work has evolved into hundreds of short stories, poems, songs, essay’s and articles.

He is currently working on his first novel, tentatively entitled “Donovan,” a story about a 30 year old propaganda writer in a future war-torn America.

Davin also creates beats and lyrics for hip-hop and alternative music, and is an amateur photographer and digital artist.

His recent published works are “Stirrings in Hell” in the anthology, “The Devil Inside,” published by the House Of Horror Ezine ; “A New Way of Being”, published by House Of Horror Ezine in their anthology titled “House of Horror Best of 2009, Issue #2;” and “A Remarkable Picture” published by Twit Publishing in their anthology titled, “Twit Publishing Presents Pulp – 2010″. Davin is the Junior Editor for Open Heart Publishing.

To see more of Davin’s work, please visit www.davinkwriter.com.

Welcome aboard Davin, I can’t wait to start hearing about all of the wonderful things we are going to be seeing from Open Heart Publishing over the next few weeks.

From the presses at Open Heart Publishing in Dallas Texas, Happy reading all.

Debrin Case
Publisher: Open Heart Publishing