Monday Meditation

I have been super preoccupied with all of the all-of-a-sudden arrangement my family and me must make for our move to San Antonio two months from now. But I've also been preoccupied with the September 1st scheduled launch of the literary/arts micro magazine I'm creating with fellow blogger friend/editor extraordinaire Alyssa. We are finally at a place with it where it makes some sense to start talking about it. So here are the basic details:

Hellbent showcases bold, innovative work from diverse voices—literature and art that makes you question what you think you already know, and emphasizes stories about people, places, and things you may know nothing about.

“I see this nature… I know that its obedience is idleness. I know it has no laws: what they take for constancy is only habit and it can change tomorrow.”

– Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

I began this project because I felt like every time I want to be inspired by or lose myself in a lit mag, it never happens. I rarely ever found anything I thought was enriching or in any way meaningful. Sure, I read heartfelt poems, beautiful observations, wonderfully well-written streams of thought. But not much of it made me really think, or made me see anything differently. Now, I've by no means read all the lit mags out there, so it could be I just haven't stumbled upon the right ones. All I know is I want to read pieces with new perspectives and original thoughts. I want to read about why people are the way they are and why the world works the way it does. And I want to read about it all from the points of view of many different backgrounds, which I think is something that's missing in literature, even indie literature. Now, I don't just mean different races (although as a Hispanic writer myself, I do search adamantly for that). I also mean "different" upbringings, "different" schools of thought; worldly observers writing with a worldly purpose. I want Hellbent to be a thought-provoking little magazine.

That being said, we still have room this issue for one more art/photography submission, and one more fiction or creative non-fiction submission . If you're interested, email me at yve.chairez@yahoo.com for more information and guidelines, or DM me on Twitter @YveChairez.