WING AND FLY by THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills: new centuries, places, gorillas call.

SITES/BLOGS:

CHICAGO UNDERGROUND LIBRARY: a zine library/reading room and more.

NO COLONY: The combination of two online mags, Atlanta-based Blake Butler's Lamination Colony and the San Diego mag, No Posit.

Sinister Compendium: The literary/sociopolitical quarterly by the soap makers of The Left Hand, based in Tuscaloosa, Ala. They're also responsible for the book exchange KURE, or Knowledge Underground Railroad and Exchange.

Paper & Carriage: Chicago-based mag devoted to a "slow media" approach -- each issue is handmade.

n+1: Based in NYC, the journal n+1 showcases the best in intellectually left lit and discourse.

THE2NDHAND FAQ Editor Mickey Hess's blogchronicles all things Hess -- from hip-hop marginalia to events news and more. Hess, author/editor and professor at N.J.'s Rider University, lives in Philadelphia, Pa.

THE TERMINAL: Birmingham news, events, and opinion, The Terminal was launched in April 2007 by Andre Natta and continues its synthesis of the city's cultural and political life, all in one spot.

LITERAGO: Chicago lit, for you. Launched April 30, 2007, this site covers the ever-burgeoning scene in the stone shouldered city.

THE DEAD MULE SCHOOL OF SOUTHERN LITERATURE: Chapel Hill, N.C.-based mag operating on the principle that every good story deserves a dead mule. THE2NDHAND contributor Rebekah Cowell edits fiction for them.

HIGH HAT: Pop culture, with a literary twist.

DECOMP: Project of Pittsburgh-based editor Jason Jordan, also a THE2NDHAND contributor, this online mag features reviews, fiction and nonfiction, including a number of THE2NDHAND contributors among its authors' ranks.

MONTEVALLO LITERARY FESTIVAL is sponsored by the English Dept. at the University of Montevallo south of Birmingham, AL. The yearly fest happens in the spring.

CHARLES BUCHANAN is a Birmingham-based editor and print maker, whose work will be featured in our upcoming all-visual issue. See his Pop Goes the City blog for all things Birmingham.

BIRMINGHAM ART WALK: the two-day September juried show shuts down a few blocks of downtown Bham for revel.

LARGEHEARTED BOY: The Large-hearted boy is a Birmingham-based lit and music blogger -- great site, generally, of particular interest is his "Book Notes" section, where writers create a Mixtape complete with liner notes to go along with their lit creations. Reminiscent at times of the Bookmouth blog.

KEVSVILLE is the project of frequent THE2NDHAND contributor Kevin O'Cuinn, whose Unfinished Stories series selects work from an array of excellent writers the world over.

PETELIT: Joliet-based THE2NDHAND contributor Peter Anderson's lit news/views blog, with a heavy nod toward the Chicago scene.

WIDE AWAKE PRESS is based in Greenville, SC, specializing in comics. Their sixth 666 issue is a horror-themed book collection featuring none other than the great Andrew Davis (see Antipurpose).

FEATHERPROOF BOOKS is a Chicago small press publishing fiction -- brainchild of Jonathan Messinger and Zach Dodson. Featherproof's first title, our own Brian Costello's The Enchanters vs. Sprawlburg Springs, came out December 2005. Their second title, THE2NDHAND editor Todd Dills's Sons of the Rapture, is out now.

THIEVES JARGON: a lit mag based in Massachusetts, including work lately by THE2NDHAND contributors Spencer Dew and Glenn Lester, among others.

FALL OF AUTUMN, a new Chicago-based and web-centric distro of independent media.

JUST SEEDS is the brainchild of former Chicagoan and artist/activist Josh Macphee (Stencil Pirates), a distribution center for radical art, books, and other media. His posters are particularly excellent (way way back, Macphee's offset print shop in Chicago's 2000 W. Fulton complex printed THE2NDHAND, issues 3-7).

PAUL A. TOTH is a frequent contributor to THE2NDHAND and author of the brand-new novel FISHNET, due out this month from Bleak House Books. His last one, FIZZ, is highly recommended as well.Paul podcasts from here: stories, interviews, books, and more.

GORSKY PRESS: Todd Taylor and Sean Carswell of Razorcake, LA punk fanzine, run this press for independent books.

RENO: Mixing a variety of styles in his painting and drawing, Reno's work varies in focus from the scatalogy and spontaneity of the feel of R. Crumb's comics to the more fine control of figure painters.

MILAM.blogsite.org is experimentalist Doug Milam's home base. Find here notes from his ongoing perusal of political expose. Milam's the author fo a splendid collection, Still the Confusion (see links on his site), a novella and stories that engage the function of memory and creativity in making a life, for oneself and on the page. It's a revolution, really. Highly recommended.

FUTURE TENSE BOOKS is a Portland small press publishing fiction and a variety of other writing. It's the brainchild of onetime THE2NDHAND contributor, and a fine writer besides, Kevin Sampsell.

SO NEW MEDIA's a book publisher whose authors include the great Dave Barringer and Neal Pollack, among others.

ZULKEY.com is the home site of blogger/writer Claire Zulkey, a Chicago best.

storySOUTH showcases work from the "New South," a euphemism this editor has long resisted, but take from it what you will. Some good stuff here. They're also the progenitors of the "million writers awards," a recognition of great stories published online. THE2NDHAND won a notable story mention for 2004, "Pushkin on the Night Before the Duel," by Wes Kline.

THE NIMBLE FEW

Inkstains THE2NDHAND contributor Joe Deir is a founding board member of Chicago-based digilit journal.

NO MEDIA KINGS: hats off to Mr. Jim Munroe, maverick self-publisher and writer of some of the most intelligent and relevant science fiction out there. The NMK site showcases Munroe's books and offers a wealth of information and other resources for the would-be independent and/or self publisher.

THE Perpetual Motion Roadshow was an independent press touring circuit, making spring and fall monthly stops in Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, NYC, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. Organized by Jim Munroe and kept afloat by a variety of magnificent performers and city agents, including subsequent overall heads of organization when Munroe decamped from the prime role in 2005, this tour was a much-needed addition to the infrastructure of the independent media.

LUMPEN: Are you Lumpen Chicago?.

LOST AT SEA is the home site of the lored, and now defunct, "Sell Me to the Mayor" column first populated by THE2NDHAND contributors Joe Jarvis and Penelope Memoli and editor Todd Dills oh so long ago. But the folks over there are still kicking, with a host of media commentary, music and lit reviews, and other stuff. Give it a look.

THE AMPERSAND @ MPRSND.org is this: MEET PLEASED RUNT SIM/PL/RURALITY NEIN DUOPOLIS, or so you might think. A word-arts collective based very loosely in St. Louis, they are splendid.

KISS MACHINE, a conga-line of arts and culture with each subsequent issue based around a particular them, is the brainchild of a few folks, not least of whom is Ms. Emily Pohl-Weary, THE2NDHAND contributor and magnificent writer besides.

AKASHIC Books is doing great things, I do say. If you haven't heard of themselves already, get over there and check out the titles in their catalogue.

KISS MACHINE, a conga-line of arts and culture with each subsequent issue based around a particular them, is the brainchild of a few folks, not least of whom is Ms. Emily Pohl-Weary, THE2NDHAND contributor and magnificent writer besides.

SLOW TOE PUBLICATIONS: see here for Cleveland-based Matthew Wascovitch's Figure Order, written in collaboration with Valerie Webber, among other books and events.

BOOKMOUTH: a wonderful resource site for the self- and/or independent publisher, featuring likewise a wealth of interviews with authors, artists, and other culturemakers.

PINDELDYBOZ showcases quality fiction from around the globe, online and in print.

SLEEPWALK was founded in Chicago by, among others, THE2NDHAND contributors Joe Meno and Megan Stielstra as a home for lurid tales of lust and mystery from Chicago and beyond.

MONKEY BICYCLE: Prose! Tomfoolery! Toast!

WORD RIOT: very cool.

DICEY BROWN, care of editor Karen Ashburner and others, publishes poetry, fiction, photography, and more.

HOBART

SPOILED INK

McSWEENEY'S you know them, you love them or hate them. We like them.

EXQUISITE CORPSE

THE ILLUSTRATED APE

3AM MAGAZINE

NEW MOUTH FROM THE DIRTY SOUTH

TOM BRADLEY is a former lounge harpist. During his pre-exilic period, he played his own transcriptions of Bach and Debussy in a Salt Lake City synagogue that had been transformed into a pricey watering hole by a nephew of the Shah of Iran.

GREAT bookshops:
QUIMBY'S in Chicago, the absolute greatest.

COMIX REVOLUTION in Evanston, IL.

JIM REED BOOKS in Birmingham, AL, is as much museum as bookshop, hosting local lit as well as multitudinous 20th-century arcana.

THE INTERNATIONALIST on Franklin in Chapel Hill carries our stuff.

SHAMAN DRUM on State Street in Ann Arbor.

READING FRENZY in Portland.

BARBARA'S in Chicago, stayin alive.

SEMINARY COOP and 57th STREET in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, with a healthy online selection of great hard-to-find titles from the lovely Dalkey Archive press, among many others.

POWELL'S: a great online store, plus Kevin Sampsell's indie section in the Portland store's purportedly fantastic. They've got ALL HANDS ON, anyhow.

MAC'S BACKS PAPERBACKS: Cleveland Heights home for zines and books.

BOXCAR BOOKS: an oasis in Bloomington, IN.

MODERN TIMES: folks talk shit, but we like this place in the San Francisco Mission neighborhood.