Panties for peace

If you’ve already told the Postal Regulatory Commission you won’t stand for a sellout to big media (and if you haven’t yet, there’s still time to weigh in before their hearings on Tuesday, October 30), perhaps you’re feeling a little bored, a little blue.
Happily, there’s a cure for such listlessness, and it even involves the [...]

Safe Sex, Indian Style

This video on safe sex and condom usage is from Nrityanjali Academy, Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India.
I have to say, I wish Americans would let condoms be this friendly…

Post office: another chance for small journals!

I’ve written before about the U.S. Post Office’s misguided (read: guided by TimeWarner) plot to raise postage sky-high for small periodicals and simultaneously lower it for huge ones. The Postal Regulatory Commission voted to put these new rules in effect on July 15; a massive petition effort has caused them to hold hearings on the [...]

Ms. Magazine Turns 35

I have a love/hate relationship with anniversary issues, particularly when they are celebrated in quarterly ones like Ms. Magazine. The issue quickly diverts from present day feminist politics to a historic trajectory of where we’ve come and where the heck we’re going. A who’s who list is cultivated to show the breadth of feminist leaders—which [...]

Vote for the Best Novel of the Last 25 Years

Here at Fringe, we love novels, writers of color, and women writers (along with a whole lot of other things like feminism, culture, and judging from our blog tags, more feminism). That’s why the New York Times’ list of the Best 25 Novels of the Last 25 Years made us sad. (As the Guerilla [...]

Flannery O’Connor and Heroes

So this is my first blog attempt and I’m assuming it’s going to suck, but stick with me. Good intro, right? Now I’ll talk about what kind of food got stuck in my teeth this morning (cinnamon apple sauce) and my favorite kind of toilet paper (whatever that commercial is with those red [...]

Two Cities: A Love Story by John Edgar Wideman: A Review by Katie Spencer

This is the thirteenth of a many-part series written by the staff and editors of Fringe Magazine, who will be reviewing books from the Pool as part of the 25 Books Project
It may be that the most enduring, affecting art produced within modern cultures develops when cultures are in crisis. Think about the greatest Russian [...]

What’s in a Name?

To change, or not to change, that is the question – my last name, that is. I’m getting married, and I am struggling with this decision. I should note before continuing that my fiance is totally on board with whatever I decide (and even has expressed the opinion that maybe I should keep [...]

Advice to Submitters: Cover Letters

Here at Fringe, we see a lot of cover letters from submitters, ranging from the perfectly-composed traditional cover letter to the multi-page biography. A good cover letter allows your work to stand on its own, while a bad one can be off-putting to editors and start them out with an attitudinal deficit.
As a service [...]

Olympic Games and Sex Work

In a WeNews article yesterday, correspondent Wency Leung reported on sex workers founding a brothel in Vancouver to help with the aid of “cleaning up the city” in time for the 2010 Olympic Games. Let’s try to put a dialogue of the politics of sex work aside (prostitution is legal in Canada but solicitation is [...]