“IN SEARCH OF A METHOD” COMES SOON. THEN WE SLEEP AND DREAM.
Hello all.
It’s been a long time since I’ve updated Kentucky Meat Shower, and all of it has been spent working on Kentucky Meat Shower. The next issue deals with a sensitive subject that is not entirely my own. It required more delicacy and planning than initially planned. I scrapped and cut more than I have for any other issue, and I am proud of the result.
A few brief words on issue #27, “In Search of a Method”.
Once I started writing for the public, I began to recognize the more stories I told from my life the more I had to be open about pain that was close to the knuckle but over time, I got bored of using myself as material. So I quit. This quitting forced me to find other things to write about, which is a reason I sound quite a bit different today compared to how I did.
When I began to write of the issues of Kentucky Meat Shower that’d constitute the “A Prophet of His Own” trilogy, this strategy would no longer do. The simple reason is I decided I wanted to write about Richmond, and the easiest way to stake a claim to writing about Richmond would be to begin with my experiences here, specifically the ones that contained the most resonance to me.
The issue is when I conceived of this, I was like the person who throws a chicken in an open fire, sees how it cooks, and then declares it a roast. All well and good if you have infinite chickens and nobody coming over for dinner, which is a fine description of writing. On the other hand, I always planned on publishing this, so that led to a more messy composition than I would have liked. It became make chicken salad or get fucked. The bulk of the 2022-2023 Kentucky Meat Shower being one story is fine; it’s been artistically fulfilling and maddening. I’d prefer it to just be fulfilling.
So here is an announcement.
After the publication of Kentucky Meat Shower #27, I will be taking a long hiatus before I even begin writing issue #28. Do not expect to see issue #28 for a long time, because instead I am writing the entire run and then serializing them. I do not know when it’s coming out, because I have a very exhaustive project planned, and it will require me to read actual books, do a lot of research, and live a life.
This is the first of many announcements.
This news, that the main artistic project of mine is going to be taking a working hiatus, may be a cause for shock (even if I haven’t put out an issue for some time). Because it would then beg the question, “Where are you going?” The answer is nowhere. I’ve been doing a lot of evaluation of what would make me happy as an artist, and I’m not unhappy with what I do. I just want to do more, and to do more, I have to do things differently.
Kentucky Meat Shower was always building up to being written as a zine that’d then be serialized and turned into a full length project, because that’s a more sustainable way for me to work. This is also to escape from it being the only thing I work on.
Specifically, I want to work on other zines. This year at Richmond Zine Fest, I launched Muleskinner Press with the help of my partner Wren. That distro gives me license to do whatever I want. I can put out short stories. I can put out poems. I can put out a coloring book if it pleases me. I do plan on taking that license and doing whatever I want, which will sometimes be Kentucky Meat Shower.
Because Muleskinner Press is such a line to artistic freedom, it is time for another announcement.
Christophersloce.substack.com is instead going to be muleskinnerpress.substack.com. The site itself will be renamed Muleskinner Press, with Kentucky Meat Shower now to be treated as the flagship and primary publication under Muleskinner Press. But as far as a change in orientation goes, Muleskinner Press is more important than Kentucky Meat Shower now because it is necessary for it to be for the continued success of Kentucky Meat Shower.
These may seem cosmetic but they are strong indicators of what we should expect from me and my writing going forward. To me, writing is too important to leave on a computer. What I am most looking forward to in the new year is compiling the old writings, including an edition of Kentucky Meat Shower issues 23-27 (these comprising the “A Prophet of His Own” trilogy in the form it always should have been), putting them together, and getting it to people who want a physical form of my writing. I once said Kentucky Meat Shower is a zine, and it is. Now it’s time for it to be the zine it always hinted at, and it needs time to grow. But there will be other zines, and other surprises.