The Ear Hustler

Call for submissions: Love Stories

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:42:16 -0500

Our Halloween mini-issue was a great success and we had a lot of fun doing it, so we’ve decided to try the mini-issue thing for Valentine’s day. <3

We would, therefore, really like to see your best love stories. As noted under our submissions guidelines, this is a great opportunity to try a happy story. We’d also love to see stories of:

Lost love
New love
Old love
Perverse or obsessive love
Doomed love
Crazy love
Unrequited love
Forbidden love
Love won after a long and valiant struggle of some kind.

Send us something romantic! Send us something compelling! I won’t say that we won’t give bonus points for foggy heaths or tortured souls who glitter in the sunlight, only that we might not. But, it would still be nice to see something set on a heath!

And as with our other mini-issue, we will only have space for three stories! Competition will be intense! So be sure to send us your very best work by sometime in mid-February, and we’ll pull it all together, and it will be awesome!

Issue 5: The Prize Issue

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:23:55 -0500

Issue 5 is up! This one features our esteemed Golden Hustler, C.J. Arellano, whose story “Fantasia of an Eight Year Old Piano” wowed us with its emotional depth, technical proficiency, and unique approach to form.

This issue also features fantastic fiction by Thomas Cannon, Mike Sauve, Janice Soldering, and Graham Tugwell. Check it out now!

Issue 4 is now live!

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 03:41:39 -0400

Issue 4 is now on the internet and trying to break into your house. Hot new fiction from Mika Chance, Joel Clark, Danica Cummins, Steven Miller, and Sarah Sorensen. Seriously, go read it before it does something drastic.

www.earhustlermag.com

Thank you to all our great writers and readers!

Call for submissions: The Golden Hustler

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:49:40 -0400

The submissions period for the Golden Hustler is now officially open. Submit to us between now and November 20, 2011 for your chance to win a $100 cash prize, publication in Issue #5, and the great honor of being the first Golden Hustler.

As a reminder: we are also accepting submissions for our Halloween mini-issue. If you have something scary you’d like us to see, get it to us between now and sometime in mid-October.

That is all.

The Golden Hustler

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 11:47:49 -0400

Starting July 15, we will be accepting submissions for our one and only cash prize: The Golden Hustler.

Here’s what’s up: Graham and I (Katherine) would very much like to pay each and every one of our authors, but for now that’s not possible. Hence, The Golden Hustler because somebody has to get paid. (Lord knows, it ain’t us.)

$100 dollars cash (or the equivalent in a foreign currency) will be awarded to the very best story submitted to us between July 15 and November 20 2011. The winner will be announced in tandem with the publication of Issue 5. The winner will also see publication in this issue.

Right. So. What do we mean by the very best story? We mean the story that best exemplifies what we’re looking for - a compelling plot, strong prose, and perhaps most importantly - it’s got to have some heart. It’s got to make us feel something. If worthy stories present themselves, we may award runners-up. Runners-up may receive a certificate and prize-ish item TBD. Might be a logo mug. Might be something else.

So breaking it down:

Award: $100

Submission period: July 15-November 20 2011

Winner Announced: early December

Spread the word!

Call for submissions: Halloween mini-issue

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 10:32:47 -0400

On October 31 we’re going to be putting out our first Halloween special and we want you to submit to it.

We’re looking for:

Scary Stories
Creepy Stories
Ghost Stories
Murder Mysteries
Supernatural Tales
Witches, goblins, ghouls, vampires, poltergeist, the devil, dead things, strong unseen forces, darkness, and all that other stuff.
Or whatever else feels seasonally appropriate to us at the time.

Submissions should be around 8 pages in length, but in truth we will probably not hold fast to that. If you would like to be considered for publication in the Halloween issue, please say so in your subject line and get it to us by no later than October 20, 2011.

Competition will be fierce as we have space for only three stories in this mini-issue, so send us your very best work!

Issue 4 + schedule

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 17:07:09 -0400

Hello internet. I’ve been speaking with wonderful co-editor Katherine, and we have some exciting news about the future of The Ear Hustler! She’ll be sharing that with you in the days to come, so keep an eye out for carrier pigeons, smoke signals, strangers with lavender-scented envelopes, and twitter updates.

Today, I’m simply very happy to say that our 4th issue is shaping up excellently, and that it will be ready to go and in your e-hands at the end of the month. Please give it your e-love.

And because our publishing schedule has always been opaque (even to us), here’s what the next year of The Ear Hustler should look like:

Issue 4 - August 2011

Issue 5 - December 2011

Issue 6 - April 2012

Issue 7 August 2012

We’re always eager for new work, so go ahead and submit something to earhustlermag@gmail.com

Keep hustlin’!

- Graham

Issue 3 and News

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 04:44:00 -0400

Greetings, my gentle readers! We’d like to announce that Issue 3 is up and awesome at earhustlermag.com!!! Much thanks to our authors for their fantastic stories, their patience with our process, and their good humor.

In Ear Hustler news: Henceforth, The Ear Hustler will be published thrice yearly. The next issue will mark the anniversary of the Ear Hustler’s creation (if not its publication quite exactly) and it should be up around abouts August 1 2011. This will give us an extra month per issue to gather together delightful tales with which to astonish you.

And, finally, over the past few months we were saddened to learn of the deaths of two of our very favorite writers: Brian Jacques and Dianna Wynn Jones. Graham gives a shout out to Mr. Jacques’s influence in his bio on our website. Here I’d like to do the same. I freaking loved the Redwall series. I read them all when I was young and I am a little ashamed to admit that I had a crush on Martin the Warrior. (The Ear Hustler also has complicated relationships with animal characters. Hrm…) Dianna Wynn Jones I discovered much later - actually, unfortunately, only last year. But, my god! I read A LOT and its a rare writer who makes me forget that - whose work I read with a childlike zeal. I feel almost squishy inside when I read these two - so excited, so outside of myself. I can’t quite bring myself to say any of those old cliches like: the world of fantasy lit will be a little dimmer without them, or we’ve lost some greats; we’re always losing greats. Out of their tradition will come other writers, also great, who we’ll lose in eighty years time. So, instead: Dang! Those two were good as hell!! Let’s go revisit their respective canons.

Much love and until next time,

Katherine

Hey Hustlers

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 08:51:24 -0500

Whoa moley we’ve been quiet! One of our editors has just done a BIG THING (not illegal) and so is totally busy with that. But don’t worry! We’re reading stories and preparing for issue 3, so keep sending stuff in and keep hustlin’!

Happy 2011, readers!

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 10:48:12 -0500

Recap: 2010 saw the launch of our illustrious magazine, and the publication of Issues 1&2, which would not have been possible without talented writers who were brave enough to send their work to a fledgling journal.

During our first six months of operation, we received some really outstanding submissions, only one piece of hate mail, and several sexy photos intended for Hustler. We also amended our policy on flash fiction; when we launched, we gathered short works up into our figurative bosom and attempted to hold them close, however they were too slight - we needed meatier pieces. In short, we no longer accept flash fiction.

So, yes, 2010 was a very exciting year for The Ear Hustler.

2011 holds the promise of four more issues. Maybe exciting changes to the website… surprising new fonts? Who knows! I hope we get some more sexy photos.

In conclusion:

To our past authors: thank you for your hard work, and thank you for your stories.

To our future authors: we look forward to reading your work! Let’s make the next four issues the best ever!

To my co-editor and friend, Graham: thank you for putting up with me, for your totally rad web design, for the ridiculous amount of work you do, and for daring to dream that we could make a literary magazine happen. I never would have thought to do this, but it has been really, really fun, even when it’s a pain.

Keep on hustling in the New Year!

<3 Katherine

Christmas Comes Early

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 12:36:57 -0500

Everyone!! The Ear Hustler Issue Two hits the web December 18th! Tomorrow!!!

Also! The Morning News has released the longlist for the next Tournament of Books, my favorite online book tournament! Yes!!! Get excited!!

I have to use up the rest of my 2010 exclamation mark quota!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay.

Envy III

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:29:08 -0500

Dude, WTF: it’s another poem.

I was at a reading last week, mixed-genre, when a poet took the mike. Her name was Charlotte Seley and she read some poems I really liked.

So I Googled her and found her defunct blog which had a bunch of poems on it, including one of my favorites from the reading. So yeah. I want it. Some place that publishes poetry? Grab this.

It’s called “One Hundred Bucks.” Here’s the first stanza:

I made a dress out of one hundred American singles.
It is crisp. Green. Dry clean only.
Fits my contours perfectly. I say,
“I feel like one hundred bucks!”
whenever I put that dress on.

Read the rest here.

Do it.

Dispatches from the CLMC

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 07:29:36 -0500

Another of our missed connections. Flagged and Removed in Austin, TX.

Saw a Writer Boy Toy

I was window shoping at Toy Joy when I saw you looking at a Hermione action figure. Suddenly, you thrust the figure back onto the shelf, pulled a tiny notebook from your back pocket, and began to scrawl something hurriedly. It was hot. I wanted to pour some Amortentia down your throat. What were you writing, I wonder? An incantation? A to-do list? A love letter? I can handle a magic wand. I’m an online literary magazine, The Ear Hustler. Give me some of your magic.

Fiction you can touch (and that might touch you)

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 21:27:47 -0400

In the beginning, of course, all fiction was interactive. Occasionally Grothkank the Storyteller would appear at the fringes of the tribe’s fire and moan about the amazing things he’d seen, things he’d be happy to relate, if maybe someone could find a few strips of mammoth meat for him. Thus fed, he’d begin his tale, pausing, inventing, adapting to the responses he saw in his audience, and making frequent requests for more meat and water at the most suspenseful parts. This went on until one day Grothkank misjudged the crowd and ended his story by revealing that many of the characters were in a purgatory-like plane of existence, waiting until they could all hug and enter the afterlife together. Angered, the tribe killed Grothkank and left his corpse for the carrion eaters.

Anyway, it was probably something like that. But then we began writing stuff down, thousands and thousands of years of history happened, and digesting fiction became a solitary, static enterprise. Authors write their books a certain way, and we read them that way, observers to the world the author created. It’s a pretty good system, I think we can all agree.

But some people are experimenting with what can be done with computers, the internet, and interactivity. In this special feature, The Ear Hustler makes an investigative report into the world of interactive fiction and brings back… the truth.

By which I mean to say I participated in some interactive fiction. In this ongoing series, I’ll tell you about it.

— Graham

Galatea by Emily Short
This was the first piece of interactive fiction I sat down with serious intent to complete, and it remains one of my favorite. Galatea is inspired by the Greek legend of Pygmalion from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which Pygmalion, a great sculptor, carves a woman out of ivory which he falls in love with. In Short’s story, the reader takes the role of a contemporary art critic at a gallery opening, the centerpiece of which is the statue Galatea, which has recently become “animate.” The entire story takes place in Galatea’s showroom, and all you can do is speak with Galatea. The story is a conversation. You can ask Galatea about herself, her opinions, her memories. Depending on the conversation you have, you’ll reach a different ending. It’s worth playing through several times to see the various options and nooks and crannies of the story. One complete reading will probably take about ten minutes, and I encourage you to check it out. You can download Galatea from Emily Short’s site (scroll down to the bottom), which also provides a link to an interpreter, which you’ll need to read the story. The story itself provides all the instructions you’ll need: simply type “help.” My only tip is: ask about specific words in Galatea’s dialogue. If she speaks about X, and that interests you, ask her about that exact word.

Got Moby Dick.

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 07:44:00 -0400

How to promote a fledgling journal? Let me count the ways. In the Springtime of our promotions, we attempted a series of Craigslist Missed Connections, which were promptly Flagged and Removed.

Here, the first of several.

“Got Moby-Dick, Wanted Writer-Dick”

I was at Powells and my hand brushed yours when we reached for the same copy of Moby-Dick. You let me have it, which I thought was kind, but I wanted… you. I thought I saw the impish light of creativity in your eyes. Maybe you could come over some night and tell me a story, one I’ve never heard before. I’m an online literary journal, “The Ear Hustler.” Word me. Word me hard.

Professor Daddy Meehan, on Issue #1

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 12:11:00 -0400

Daddy Meehan is an English Professor at a small liberal arts college in the south. He is also famously misanthropic as regards contemporary fiction. Readers take note: what follows is high praise indeed!

“[I] Read your literary magazine and found the content witty and charming and imaginative, a great deal better than what one usually gets in such new publications.”

Aww. Thanks, Dad!

Further words upon the publication of Issue #1

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:44:37 -0400

Katie and I are confident editors. We know what we like, and we started The Ear Hustler with a specific aesthetic vision and intent.

But no matter what the editors of a magazine have in mind, it is the authors, and their stories, that do the real work of establishing a magazine’s identity and voice. It wasn’t until we started accepting stories that we could know what kind of magazine we were creating, and it wasn’t until now, now that our first issue is available, that we could say “OK, this is what The Ear Hustler is.”

So what is The Ear Hustler?

It is an anxious mother, a put-upon friend, a nervous teenager, a long conversation, the product of a lot of work, a great collection of fiction.

It has a really, really strange relationship with animals.

We couldn’t be here without our authors, and we wouldn’t be here without you. Thank you. There’s only one thing left to do.

Go read.

- Graham

Upon the publication of Issue #1

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:34:44 -0400

Issue #1 has arrived! Thank you for your submissions. Thank you, brave authors, for your vigorous edits. Thank you, kind readers, for your time.

When I think about my long-standing and (too often) abusive relationship with fiction, I always remember Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind. Rhett and Scarlett have recently discovered their affection for another, but he is leaving to join the Confederate army. He says, “In spite of you and me and the whole silly world going to pieces around us, I love you. Because we’re alike. Bad lots, both of us. Selfish and shrewd. But able to look things in the eyes as we call them by their right names.”

For me, that’s exactly what good fiction does - it calls things what they are. And I love it. And I’d like to do the same and call it when I see it. And I think, with putting together this issue, we’ve accomplished just that.

I’m glad to be able to move forward with my Rhett Butler-fiction analogy intact, and Graham and I are thrilled to have been able to put together a collection of stories that we ourselves would be delighted to read. For me, that’s been a primary goal and motivating factor all along: find weird stories, honest stories, stories with feeling, and publish them. How else to determine what constitutes “good” fiction than by some primitive emotive response? I’ve read enough fiction-by-numbers to know that some tried combination of scene, character, eccentricity, obsession, &tc do not a good story make.

But, frankly my dears, I find it altogether too easy to get rhapsodic about my ideals concerning fiction, or else thrash invectively about, oh, how sad that deep feeling seems to have fallen out of fashion… Instead, I will leave it at: We are about good ass stories, and today we are proud of our authors and of ourselves.

<3 Katie

On Design

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:09:05 -0400

We’ve got a lineup of great stories, we’ve got a release date, we’ve got a stock of celebratory beers waiting in our fridges. All that’s left for The Ear Hustler Issue One is The Ear Hustler Issue One.

…

Originally this was going to be a post about the design process of The Ear Hustler, but after reading what I had written I realized it was super boring. So, one click-drag-and-delete later, I’m pleased to announce the very first* online literary magazine design awards! And what better way to stage the awards than four fierce, one-on-one battles? Without further ado!

* (according to a Google search for “online literary magazine design awards”)

THE FIRST EVER ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE DESIGN AWARD BATTLE

Best Column of Text - Elimae v. McSweeney’s

And the winner is… Elimae!

Elegant, succinct, perfect. Beats McSweeney’s by a mile.

Most Like a Hotel - Hotel St. George v. Trickhouse

And the winner is… Hotel St. George!

This was a tough call. In the end, I’d say Trickhouse is more like a nice bed and breakfast - there’s an intimate scale, everything’s nicely labeled and there’s always fresh brownies in the kitchen. Hotel St. George is like that place where the bellhop stole your key en route to the room, and when you tried to get to the front desk to complain and get a new one, you ended up in an anechoic chamber where old men were listening to smooth jazz and you were like “WTF?” You ended up stuck in that place for two years, remember?

Design I Would Most Like to Have as a Tattoo - Electric Literature v. PANK

And the winner is… Electric Literature!

While there’s something deeply appealing about the Norman Rockwell-tinged images that grace PANK (that guy holding a torpedo/bomb would look great on my bicep), the explosions of color and madness that comprise the covers of Electric Literature would make perfect sleeve tats.

Best Design, Overall - Harp & Altar v. Fringe Magazine

And the winner is… Harp & Altar!

Damn this is good. Elegant, clear, lovely. Fringe’s design is slick and fun, but it can’t quite match the peace and lucidity of those three letters, the smooth glide of that column as it closes upon command.

Thanks for coming, everyone. Congratulations to all the winners. And to get you salivating, here’s a sneak-peek at a draft for the layout of The Ear Hustler Issue One. Check out the real deal on August 31st!

Countdown to Issue #1

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 15:08:51 -0400

When Graham and I got together last Spring to begin this undertaking, we spent a lot of time sitting in the sun dreaming of the fame and approbation that would soon be ours. We drank beer. We talked about “what’s wrong with fiction today?!!” And we determined that contemporary realism and experimentation for the sake of experimentation had both undermined our reading enjoyment. What happened to plot? Where was humanity allowed to shine? Where had all the cowboys gone? Need these things be merely the domain of that oft-maligned “genre” fiction? Were these wayward fictions out there? Could we make for them a home?

That part (the drinking in the sun and hating and dreaming part) of founding a lit mag was fun and exciting, because prior to the reception of actual submissions, anything was possible. Then came the submissions, and frankly I was amazed at how many of the pieces were pretty darn good, and how many writers had taken a chance on us. I am so glad that there are so many people out there writing and submitting. Thank you thank you thank you.

We are now entering the final stages of our preparations. We have been communicating with our authors, tracking changes, inserting comments, and conducting epic international skype calls. Our humble magazine will debut August 31.