Ladies and Gentlemen this call for submission is scheduled for one fall, and it is for inclusion in the most electrifying anthology in the history of CanLit....
In professional wrestling slang, the term "job" describes a losing performance in a wrestling match. It is derived from the euphemism "doing one's job," which was employed to protect kayfabe (in other words, the portrayal of events in the wrestling industry as real). As professional wrestling is scripted, inevitably a wrestler will be required to lose to an opponent....
Inspired by Michael Holmes's 2004 collection of poetry Parts Unknown: Wrestling, Gimmicks and Other Works and Nicholas Sammond's 2005 collection of essays Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling, comes Jobbers: A Can-Lit Wrestling Reader.
Jobbers wants your best non-fiction, fiction, visual art and poetry that reviles, reflects or revels in the art of professional wrestling. Capture the steroidal zaniness of the cartoon rock and wrestling mid 1980s or the over-gimmicked dark ages of the early 1990s. Recall with nostalgia the glory days of pre-McMahon black and white regional integrity, or muse on indy church basement glory.
We are also interested in writing by women who may be able to offer a different slant at this form of pandemonium, a great opportunity to subvert the norm, riff off stereotypes and play with form. Think Cindy Lauper, Aretha Franklin, Salt N' Pepa and other females who have cross-overed, even temporarily, into the fray. You're next!
Explore the exhausted locker rooms of your local small-time wrestling league. Write erotic love poems to your favourite bespandexed hero or villain. Give us a "hell yeah" as you investigate the middle-finger-in-the-air screwjobs of the Attitude Era. Give us humour or heartbreak, caustic wit or hyperbolic fandom.
So whether you're a local hero, heel or not quite sure, send us your best wrasslin'-inspired literature.
No limits, no restrictions, and no rules, but remember to do your "job". Edited by Toronto Literary Tag Team jobbers Spencer Gordon and Nathaniel G. Moore.
Deadline: May 15, 2011.
For more info email NGM at bowlbrawl [at] gmail dot com
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