Editor's Note
Three years ago, I lived and studied in Pittsburgh, PA, where I worked alongside TNY Managing Editor Kristofer Collins at Caliban Used & Rare Bookshop slash Desolation Row Records. Summer 2006 marked a period of creative revival for TNY. At the time, Kris, Scott Silsbe, and Ellie Gumlock were busy reinventing the then-defunct Pittsburgh literary organization, taking do-it-yourself cues along the way from revered indie publications and non-profits such as Kitchen Sink, Punk Planet, and The Believer. By uploading TNY to the web, re-staffing the editorial board with stir-crazy University of Pittsburgh undergrads eager to find loopholes in their school’s experiential learning program—three credits for free beer, books, and indie rock? Yes, please!—and planning multidisciplinary events such as September 2006’s The Return of The New Yinzer, Kris, Scott, and Ellie planned to leave a footprint for Pittsburgh’s younger community of artists to step along, against, across, between, beyond, and—perhaps most importantly—into.
My favorite kind of artist is a catalyst: a collaborator, strong in his or her own creative convictions, whose work, presence, and enthusiasm forms a chemical reaction, precipitates change. Artwork that moves me the most does so because it bangs and rattles around on the page, refusing stasis.
This issue of The New Yinzer compiles a diverse, international selection of work from younger artists whose work is alive and kicking in a lattice of interconnectivity. These artists find the delicate balance in their subject matter’s expansion and contraction. Their fine distinctions and sudden webbing inspired me to theme the summer 2009 TNY the “small” issue. I hope you discover transformative rearrangement in the wee things found here, things that pay attention to, directly address, or represent the not fully formed, the seemingly insignificant or unimportant, the little, compact, short, bijou, tiny, miniature, microscopic, cramped, elfin, etc. Artwork that zooms in and out, looks up at tall buildings, addresses issues of agency: writing that expands in its own thinginess.
The New Yinzer played an integral role in shaping my experience as a young writer creating art in Pittsburgh. It is an honor to return this way to Pittsburgh, to take a walk around in Kris’s editorial shoes, and to so closely focus on this particular assortment of work, now fully formed.
—Claire Donato
Brooklyn, NY & Providence, RI
Special thanks to Jeff T. Johnson and Justin Katko, who provided me with invaluable advice and assistance during the editorial process.
All Material © 2009 The New Yinzer and its respective authors