Online Magazine is Home to a Variety of New & Exciting Works

Eclectica Magazine is what it says it is: an online magazine that is eclectic in what it accepts and publishes. It is great as it is inclusive; they publish different, new and exciting pieces on a variety of topics. Writers who may want to submit here should not feel constrained or inhibited to send in anything fresh and interesting. The editors of Eclectica choose a variety of different writing forms to include on the site, ranging from travel writing to fiction to poetry to nonfiction to reviews. They do not stick to a specific genre. As a reader it was fabulous to look at it as should I want travel, I clicked travel, fiction, another click, poetry, another and so on. All the writing is different and all impressive.

This said; what society and the world we live in necessarily influences our choices and ideological understandings of what we believe to be good writing and hence what we will publish. While not necessarily being specific, or wanting to be, Eclectica is clearly an American internet publication. The writing topics within the different categories focus on:

• American sport.

• Travel in the West; Switzerland and Britain.

• The movies in America, or at least somewhere developed, and Western futility.

• The fiction was set, in the main, in the Western domain.

• And so on

So any writer who submits to this site must bear this in mind. The reader who will go to the site is probably not resident in Southern Sudan, and won’t necessarily relate to anything experienced by a person who lives in another faraway space. This is a limitation, but within this limitation the writing that is chosen is experimental and enlivening. In addition to this the reader of this site, in order to understand and relate to it, must be educated within the Western tradition, a person who is of another cultural education will not necessarily understand or value the writings included in it.

The site is straightforward and easy to navigate. The home page is broken up into specific headings; fiction, poetry etc. so easy to scroll down, click and browse. If a reader wants to sit down and concentrate on a specific piece, not a problem, or if they want to skim thorough it, this is easy. I was impressed by its simplicity and ease of use. Thus should a writer have a piece accepted by the site editors it will, once published online, be easy and accessible.

The first thing I read was the spotlight, right at the top of the home page. Each issue has a spotlight author. In this issue it is Lee L Krecklow, whose piece is called "What is Victor." It is clear that the editors believe this piece exceptional and so highlight it, give it the spotlight. And it is a good read. The form was unusual, not the traditional story arc and then resolution, so while there was a story it was really a series of vignettes told by others about Victor. Victor is someone; an uncle to a young boy called Joel, a client in a diner, a fellow soldier to a man called Richard, a son to Harold, a cousin to Amanda. All the characters are interlinked somehow, the pivotal person being Victor. As the piece progresses it is clear, and this leads back to the title, that we are not aware of what or who Victor is; we know more about the people he interacts with and their response to him, rather than Victor himself. I enjoyed it that the focal point of the piece, the title, is someone that we do not know, we know him through others, and their perception is not always pleasant or unambiguous. It was a great story, well worth being the spot light.

Underneath this is the editor’s overview, here the editor’s outline what they have chosen and why. It is relatively pro forma and clear. What is apparent is that they choose pieces that are appropriate to whom they perceive their market is, and this market is Western. Most of the writers are American, there are two Australians, and most have been published previously or have something that is in the pipeline, they are not unknown in the Western literary world. ‘From the editors’ indicated that it is not a magazine for the inexperienced writer or reader, and it is not a site that is culturally diverse. The stories are about the Western world where culture and values are more or less the same all over.

The opinion piece is called the Salon. Here Thomas J Hubschuman provides us with nostalgic insights on going to the movies, or rather what it was like to go to the movies a while ago when you could buy a ticket and go in at any time, this may be the beginning or the end, and then you watch the movie starting somewhere. Going to the movies a while ago is used as a metaphor for the human condition, the America human condition, it is almost agreed that there is no other. There is some social commentary, for instance Americans believe in the individual and his promise of greatness but think little about community or how social change may be effected, the recognition that all people keep writing their stories in predictable and clichéd ways.  The last paragraph where he sums up his search, this is believed to be all of our searches, is that we will come upon a star and soon realize the American dream if we just keep using the right creams and doing the right things. It is a great satire; I enjoyed it. Whether a person living in Sudan or China would understand or enjoy it is however doubtful.

In the fiction category there were a number of pieces:

• "Kinoapparat" by Mike Malloy is a science fiction about immortality, but of course there is a glitch to this, if you want to be immortal you must be a two dimensional person not a three dimensional one, literally and metaphorically. It has an interesting structure in that it is epistolary. Letters are written to Germans, this is a riff on Bob Fosse movie Cabaret, or the Christopher Isherwood book. They are written to Meine Damen en Herren, and report on a certain German doctor; he is referred to as Herr. It is a great story; however there are a slightly prejudicial overtones in relation to Germans and their previous scientific experiments on other humans.

• "Sunflower Seed Splitters" by Lou Gaglia is a story of nostalgia. A young boy wants to be a baseball player and is reminiscing as he watches a game with his son. There is a lot of baseball stuff in it. I, who know nothing of the game found it dull, but then someone who knows this sport, as most Americans do, will find it more interesting. There are hints that the father is short sighted, metaphorically and literally, and can think of more than just baseball, his son and maintaining what is socially correct.

• "In Takes" by Kani Westhoff was a fascinating story of a couple who take in children, the relationship between a child and its birth mother and how a child should be forced to live, or die, without a mother dependency. There was some sex, at first it was slightly incongruous, but then as I read further I realised its relevance to the way the couple relate, the only way, and that violence is an accepted way of showing an emotion. It was a terrific story in which maternal bonds, sex, death and bodily changes are explored. And there were great descriptions of chicken farming and cooking.

• "Outside" by Simon Barker. This story is narrated by a child; consequently it was a child’s perceptions of his life and the people in it, but also of literature. It was slightly strange that a thirteen year old is so well versed in different literature; this requires the reader to suspend judgement and acknowledge that realism is a genre; a story does not have to be entirely real. The story ends with the obvious statement, which as a reader I felt was not required.  

• "Long Shadows in the Almost Fall" by Eli Cranor is about American football, also something specific to America, and disability. It was a poignant story about a man’s descent, literally, into a wheelchair and how his teammates, or at least those whom he used to hang out with when he was a player, treat and care for him, and then at the end, yes, he triumphs from his wheelchair. The story has a moral, we can all overcome if we just keep trying, and if you try hard enough and those around are caring, you can do it. The American dream fictionalized.

• "Two Opinions on Death of a Bird" by Benjamin Buchholz was short and pithy. A great take on different views of death, a sad and horrible happening, death and dignity, and a pragmatic approach. To the point and fantastic. Also this was a story where different cultural perspectives are acknowledged; it was a good read.

• "White Trout" by Lorna Brown is set in England. It is a story of ruined dreams and people who fuck up, whether this is their own fuck up or that this is imposed on them by others.

• "Black Doll" by Michael Graves is about a black woman who is desperate to become white (the young black woman puts a skin lightening cream on her face and her skin burns). It is also about a white woman and the trauma of an unwanted pregnancy, and then of course, punishment, the child is born with Down syndrome. The style is conventional but it raises some interesting points about race, women, mental disability and privilege.

• The poetry was great. There were several sections. The first was one where a few words are given out and people write three lines in which these words are included. It was fascinating to read how people interpret words differently.

The non-fiction section is made up of creative nonfiction.

• "Oceans in the Strip Club" by Sarah Tran Nhu An Myers is an interesting take on the Trans body and how a person who lives in one perceives it. The yearning to have her body revered and looked at in a strip club, the sometimes wishing for a penis when s/he wants to be close to a woman, the yearning for some intimacy which s/he does not have. A creative and spirited take on what it feels like, how it feels and how giving and taking happens in this not normalized world.

• "Days of Sky" by Judith Sevin is an impressive piece of vignettes of San Francisco. Looking out of a window and thinking, speculating, wondering what is there and what is happening. Great creative nonfiction, yes, there is San Francisco, but it is also a musing and dreaming of this space.

• The reviews, by Ann Skea, Australian, books, and Gilbert Wesley Purdey, poetry, were insightful and from reading them I knew whether or not I would buy the book, or poetry. They were to the point and gave a reader what they needed to know in relation to these writings. "The Futility of Resistance" was a great piece on resisting the internet age of constant advertising and commercialism. Loved it, but it was Western focused.

The satirical piece, "Decorum," by Kevin Keaney, I did not understand. Yes, fashion, consumption, but I was not really sure of the cultural idioms so therefore it is very reader specific.

Who is this magazine for?

I am of the view that it will be excellent site for a Western writer to submit to, the writer who understands the hopes and despairs of those in the West; the difficulties with children and sex, disability and death, sport and dreams. It contained some great writing, some interesting styles and some fantastic conceptual ideas. But in my view the pieces contained in it are targeted at a Western-educated audience; readers who know and understand and are sympathetic toward these difficulties.

I would send a piece here, but with the knowledge that it would be preferable, and my piece more likely to be accepted, if I write within this ideology.