Most literary magazines are a nice, tidy size – the sort of thing you can buy
at a bookstore, dump into a book bag or backpack, and get back to a day or a
month later. Buying a copy of Mississippi Mud, on the other hand, feels
more like a commitment. At 11 1/2″ x 17 1/2″ inches, it’s
too large to hold any other way but carefully, almost reverently, with both
hands. And the artwork, starting with its full-color, well-rendered cover, is
of such high standard that it would be almost cruel to fold it up.
When Joel Weinstein started Mississippi Mud in Portland, Oregon, 22
years ago, it was intended as a vehicle to publish friends and colleagues from
his native Denver. It grew out of a through-the-mail writing workshop, where
members of the group sent dittos to one another. That’s dittos, not copies,
those being the days of purple ink and the Dittomaster.
Over the course of 37 issues,Mississippi Mud has gained a solid
reputation and a range of accolades, including mentions in Esquire,
numerous grant awards, and positive word-of-mouth among writers. It was also
used as a prop in the movie Crossing Delancey. It’s this sort of
attention that has elevated the magazine to a status that the 48-year-old
Weinstein, who moved to Austin this past January, couldn’t have imagined at the
outset.
The writing and artwork found in Mississippi Mud ranges in subject and
approach, but carries a particular flavor that reflects Weinstein’s taste for
witty, dark, urban-oriented work. Though most works were tapped fromartistic and literary talent in the region, established writers like Ursula
K.
Le Guin and Katherine Dunn have shared space in the magazine with a crop
of lesser-known but talented, vibrant, sharp-penned writers. Some of them, like
Seattleite Stacey Levine, a recent PEN Award winner, have used the magazine as
a foothold to bolster an already-strong regional reputation.
Weinstein’s hand is clearly present in each issue. He derives theme titles
for
each issue, like “Safe in Heaven” and “Jive,” from the threads he sees in the
poems and stories he selects. Yet it’s clear from his enthusiasm when he talks
artwork and printing that there’s a dedication and passion for the graphic
aspects of the magazine unusual for literary magazine editors. In fact, the
qualities that attract him to written works often carry over into visual
arts.
As soon as Weinstein started typesetting the magazine in 1976, he began
implementing flourishes, like headpieces and tailpieces framing pages of text,
which were derived from popular turn-of-the-century publications. They became
more elaborate with each issue, and sometimes transcended decoration. In one
issue, each headpiece was a line of men heaving rocks down a row of joggers,
who made up the tailpiece. It was designed so that the magazine doubled as a
flipbook.
As Weinstein “became more organized in [his] thinking,” he became more
active
in attracting artists to the magazine. He once utilized found objects as
artworks; by 1978, he was commissioning artists on a regular basis to
illustrate covers and stories. Gradually, Weinstein made moves in the physical
nature of the magazine: expanding the size several different times, improving
the printing quality, moving to full color.
The art has become sophisticated enough for Print, one of the leading
national graphics publications, to give Mississippi Mud awards for issue
35 (in 1992) and issue 36 (last year). Weinstein seems especially pleased that
the editors dutifully referred to issue 36 by its theme title, “Mountebank
Blowjob,” and even now, he points with a playful, mischievous relish to where
they’ve printed the name. Yet the awards are an indication of how substantial
the artwork has become.
“I look for art that’s narrative,” Weinstein said. “I like it to have
something that’s really going to grab people, something that has graphic
immediacy without being superficial or without being merely graphic. I like
ambiguity and mystery, the type of piece you have to wrestle with.”
“I also like things that deal with American popular culture,” he added. “I
love things to be soaked in irony. Not just art that makes fun of low culture,
but high culture, too. I like work that reflects lived experience, which is
something I look for in written submissions, although I might be more forgiving
with artwork if there’s an immediate energy to it. Then I might not be so
stern.”
Because the printing quality has been so good in recent issues, Weinstein has
been able to reproduce not only photos, prints, and line drawings, but also
paintings with obvious textures intact, and in one case, a quilt. Some artists
take Weinstein’s idea of narrative art to a literal extreme. Portland
contemporary art curator John Weber, in Issue 34’s “Life In Motels,” framed
sparse photos of buildings and motel rooms with an equally sparse text about an
affair enacted in weekly rendezvous in low-priced motels.
For companion artworks to stories, Weinstein relies on his knowledge of
individual artists’ styles and tastes. “When I read a story, I think of an
artist who will respond to a story. Not one that would give an illustration of
the story or a literal rendering, but someone’s whose work would be evocative
of the story. Or I give to someone who would be challenged to do something
different for the story.”
Getting to the level of knowledge where he can call on an Austin artist to do
that will take some work. Weinstein already has enough written material to put
out issue 38, and he’s made tentative plans to do so in the fall. But that’s
dependent on Weinstein rebuilding his magazine’s Portland-based infrastructure
in Austin.
Weinstein moved here to join his girlfriend, Cheryl Hartup, a first-year art
history grad student at the University of Texas. He hadn’t pictured himself
leaving Portland before he met Hartup, and “never in a million years” had he
pictured himself moving to Austin before last year. But the more he’s learned
about the city, the more parallels he sees with Portland – including the
potential for weaving Mississippi Mud into the city’s literary and
artistic fabric.
“I think one of the reasons I thought I could do the magazine in a city like
Portland is the size of the city and its character,” he said. “Portland’s
cultural life is very dominant in the city, and I get the sense that that’s
happening in Austin as well. My perception is that there’s a lot going on here.
There’s a lot of good, raw energy bubbling up.”
So far, most of his involvement with the city’s open mike culture has come
from University of Texas-sponsored readings, seeing nationally-known visiting
and touring writers. From what he’s heard and observed, “Austin seems to have a
lively reading scene. It seems much livelier than Portland’s.”
As a freelance arts writer for the Austin American-Statesman,
Weinstein
has been actively learning about local artists. Again, UT has been a resource,
with its master’s thesis show exposing Weinstein to artists he’s become
interested in. But he expresses a desire to network and meet more potential
contributors.
“I really want to expand my knowledge of local artists and writers,” he adds.
“I’d like the magazine to be a reflection of the community.”
Obtaining advertising support is another of Weinstein’s paramount concerns in
rebuilding the magazine. The improvements he made to the magazine were made
possible by the advertising support of Portland businesses at crucial times.
The businesses that supported Weinstein in Portland – art galleries,
bookstores, cafes, and restaurants – are typically the types of establishments
which advertise in literary magazines. With Mississippi Mud, the
difference is in the presentation.
Weinstein places all of his advertising in a back section of the magazine,
using a storyline or theme which is then bounced from ad to ad. In one issue,
for instance, a demon came to Earth, explored various consumer goods and
services, and concluded in a letter back home to Hell that “Earth is a great
place because they have war and cigarettes.” In another issue, each business
was featured on a fortune telling card adorned with line drawings and titles
like “All That Glitters,” “Passion/Tumult,” and “L’Age du Jive.”
Weinstein’s eventual goal is to publish two issues of Mississippi Mud each year. In between the two years it took to follow issue 36 with 37,
Weinstein published a tabloid-size journal called Rotund World. The
tabloid, one of many independent publications distributed in Portland
bookstores and record stores, was a place for essays, reportage, and
miscellaneous mayhem that didn’t fit into a literary format. He saw the
publication as a way to feature good writing in a format Portland residents
were familiar with.
A typical example of a Rotund World piece, a detailed account of the
culture surrounding pick-up basketball games, was penned by MM fiction
editor Rob Spillman, a New Yorker who once worked at the New Yorker and
Vanity Fair. Alongside the features, some contemplative and some
humorous, were bits where Weinstein “had snide fun,” such as a list of
Portland’s 25 most obnoxious people.
A publication like Rotund World might have more of a niche (and less
competition) in Austin, and although Weinstein entertains the thought of
reestablishing it here, he’s more focused on Mud for the time being.
“I’ve been encouraged by the people I’ve met here so far,” Weinstein said.
“I’m getting the magazine out on the stands here now, and I’ll be trying to get
them out at more readings.”
“I’m open to submissions,” Weinstein said. “One thing I don’t like is when
people come up to me and say, `Here, read this now.’ But I love getting them in
the mail. I always like getting mail.”
Poetry and artwork submissions, as well as requests for the magazine, can
be sent to Weinstein at: 1505 Drake Avenue, Austin, TX 78704. Fiction
submissions can be sent to Rob Spillman at 221 First Avenue, New York, NY
10003.
This article appears in May 19 • 1995 and May 19 • 1995 (Cover).