The Cupboard | d a v e m a d d e n

New Cupboard: Becoming Monster

I include “The Cupboard” as a post category and really rarely ever use it.

The Cupboard is a quarterly pamphlet of creative prose I put together with two friends in different cities. It used to be an anonymous pamphlet stapled together by clumsy hands and left in places around Lincoln, Nebraska. Now it’s basically a series of prose chapbooks. Still printed in Lincoln, but distributed through the mail. It’s often a lot of work but it’s rarely thankless. I’m proud of it.

Here’s the cover for our latest volume, out last week:

It’s an examination of the monstrous and the human and how they might intersect. Christopher Higgs is the right kind of person to be thinking about this. Not because he’s a monster but because he’s a great thinker. A stand-up guy.

The great thing about The Cupboard is that books only cost $5, which is what a beer costs in this town when you go macrobrew or local. Plus you can keep our books in your pocket much longer. Head over to our Web site to order a copy, or subscribe maybe and get four mailed to you over the course of a year(-ish).

New Cupboard Volume: Andrew Borgstrom's <em>Explanations</em>

At last! After a prolonged delay caused by trying to figure out the workings of this pamphlet series I co-edit now that I live in a new state, the next volume of The Cupboard is out and ready for you .

Andrew Borgstrom’s Explanations is a deceptively slim volume, comprising just thirty-six voices explaining the ways of the world. But such voices! And such ways of such a world! It’s impossible for me to pick a favorite, but here’s one I love incredibly:

A Critical Thinker Explains Of and For

Oxygen! That’s what I would die for, fight for, fight to the death for, die gasping for. If I died of lung cancer, I would have died for cigarettes, and for freedom, and for pleasure, and of addiction. The coroner will say you died of something, and the eulogist will say you died for something. It’s largely setting. Some of us die fors, but all of us die ofs. They want you to tell them what you’re willing to die for, but not what you’re willing to die of. If you don’t know what you would die for, you may not know what you’re living for, but you can be assured it’s the oxygen you’re living of.

You can also subscribe to The Cupboard, if you haven’t already. Still just $15 for four quarterly volumes.

Caia Hagel’s Acts of Kindness and Excellence in Times Tables

I know it’s gauche to gush, as a small-press publisher, about the books you publish; best to let their brilliance stand representatively alone. But I want to take a minute to talk about how excited we were when Hagel’s story came to The Cupboard’s inbox, and to try to get you to understand why you need to read it.

First off: it’s a story about a new kind of superhero who sings in a cabaret act.

Second: isn’t this sort of a perfect reason not to read a piece of fiction?
Continue reading Caia Hagel’s Acts of Kindness and Excellence in Times Tables

the cupboard, the cupboard.

For a couple years now, Adam Peterson and I have been putting together a literary pamphlet named The Cupboard. It used to be monthly, can you imagine? (Pgh folks: remember when The New Yinzer was fortnightly?) Now it’s a quarterly, and while we’re a little behind on the seasons, we have a new volume out.

The Winter 2009 volume:
Mathias Svalina’s Play.

It’s so good. It’s 29 instructions for 29 games for children. You’ve never played a single one, and you have to play all of them this spring and summer. You can probably play a few in the fall, too. Winter’s of course for indoors and going off on your own.

The Cupboard only costs $5. This is cheaper than every other book you’ll ever buy. But even cheaper is getting four of them each year for only $15.

Mathias is such a nice and smart guy. He was so nice and smart to send this to us. Buy a copy, or subscribe for a year, and feel nice and smart for supporting independent publishing.