books

It’s been a long run for THE2NDHAND broadsheet, perhaps the last periodical on earth to be launched without a prefabbed website to bolster its offset-printed pages (though ’twas to follow shortly, publishing flash and serial fiction here weekly from late 2000 on). We mean: THE2NDHAND is a page. A big one — 11×17-inch block of black text peppered variously with photo-illustrations, comics, line drawings, distributed in storefronts first in Chicago, then in an ever-growing list of cities around the U.S. New writing, simply, has been its focus since editor and publisher Todd Dills founded it in 2000 — a small format its physicality, but a loud mouth and a big heart its most important parts.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign raised funds to print the book, All Hands On: THE2NDHAND after 10 arrives this summer to celebrate and lay down the best of the mag’s 10+ years of publishing writing by the budding insurgents of the American lit landscape — and others, no doubt. True to form, the book begins with a section of new, as-yet unpublished work.

Order All Hands On: THE2NDHAND AFTER 10 by sending a $15 ppd payment through PayPal via the “Add to cart” button or to todd@the2ndhand.com.

SPECS FOLLOW:
ALL HANDS ON: THE2NDHAND After 10, 2000-2011, 300+ pages, perfect-bound paperback, a reader edited by Todd Dills w/ an introduction by T2H coeditor C.T. Ballentine and featuring new work and other features by: Michael Zapata, Jamie Iredell, Patrick Somerville, Amanda Yskamp, Nadria Tucker, Fred Sasaki, Ben Stein, Susannah Felts & Todd Dills, a mini-epic poem (“Chicago”) by Doug Milam, Matt Cahan and Mike Nowacki

**Cover design by Featherproof Books’ (and T2H contributor) Zach Dodson
**Illustrations for the lead section by comix artist/cermacist Andrew Davis
**Author illustrations by Chicago artist and T2H janitor-in-residence Rob Funderburk, Davis, and Nashville printmaker/illustrator Martin Cadieux
**Special sections with multiple short stories by Marc Baez, coeditor C.T. Ballentine (including the entirety of his “Friedrich Nietzsche Waits for a Date” novella), Philip Brunetti, Al Burian (the Burn Collector zine and associated books), Tobias Carroll (“The Scowl” blogger), Spencer Dew (Songs of Insurgency), Kate Duva (cohost of our Chicago “So you think you have nerves of steel?” reading series), David Gianatasio (Mind Games), Mickey Hess (Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory), Joe Meno (The Great Perhaps, Hairstyles of the Damned), Jonathan Messinger (Hiding Out), Doug Milam (Still the Confusion), Anne Elizabeth Moore (Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity) with comic adaptation by Josh Bayer, Greggory Moore, Kevin O’Cuinn, Heather Palmer, Michael Peck, the Pitchfork Battalion (a collaborative crew with roving membership, including many of those already listed, plus, featured in the book, Sean Carswell, Jim Murphy, Emerson Dameron, and Dominique Holmes), Lauren Pretnar, Patrick Somerville (The Cradle), Jill Summers, Paul A. Toth (Finale), and Nadria Tucker.

—
THE2NDHAND maintains a list over at Amazon.com of selected books by contributors to the broadsheet and this online magazine. Get over there and take a look: Books by THE2NDHAND Contributors.

—
In 2004, THE2NDHAND published the predecessor collection to our 10th-anniversary All Hands On collection. All Hands On: A THE2NDHAND Reader collected the best of the broadsheet and online magazine’s first four years foraying into the literary world, centered in those days in large part in Chicago’s vibrant lit scene. The books features an introduction by Canadian writer and independent publisher Jim Munroe, and stories by dozens of writers, from Joe Meno to the magazine’s editor to stalwarts of those early years such as Joe Jarvis, Eric Graf, Germania Solorzano and many more.

Or mail a check for $12, made out to Todd Dills, to THE2NDHAND c/o Todd Dills, 1430 Roberts Ave., Nashville, TN 37206.

Praise for All Hands On:
Like placing your ear beside some kind of magical, future radio and listening to the shocking world of the strange and new…. ALL HANDS ON, an anthology of new work and old, features the best of the magazine and a look at what may stand as the underground lit world’s most interesting contemporary writing. –Punk Planet

THE2NDHAND has been the most exciting literary vessel in Chicago, opening a comfortably padded room for the anecdotal fiction writers and the experimental tale-spinners to play together where no one will get hurt. Read through this collection of four years worth of stories, and you’ll see the line between the two isn’t as clear as all that. And in the way the strongest species survive, it would seem the cross-pollination that happened over the years has strengthened both sides. –PopMatters.com

THE2NDHAND is really about writing…. This is in many ways better thanMcSweeney’s, and in many more ways better than McDonalds. –Roctober

THE2NDHAND is at the direct center of the underground writing scene in Chicago.” –Chicago Tribune

THE2NDHAND might be a true heartbreaking work of staggering genius, and unlike McSweeney’s, you might be able to afford this one. –Clamor