This issue of Broken Pencil lists the results of the Indie Writer’s Deathmatch, in which Nana K. Adjei-Brenyah emerged victorious. The revised winning story, and two runners up are on display. Running underneath the stories are comments which appeared on the website during battle (including one from me). Contentious stuff. I love it.

Natalie Zina Walschots’s profile of Annie Koyama and the comics press she founded is excellent, and was timely, appearing on newsstands just before TCAF.

Also inside, tons of reviews, including my review of the zine Super Fun Satan Club, and a few poetry books.

It’s snowing. A lot.

Last night my power went out for three hours, and I had to work in the dark, my only illumination candlelight and the fading glow of a dying laptop.

As a result, once again, my kitten’s eyebrows have gone all curly. She’s adorable, but more than a little stupid when it comes to open flames.

It’s still snowing.

Distracting linkage, carefully curated just for you:

• There’s no such thing as writer’s block.
• Stop attacking poetry, guys.
• Not even Spectric poetry.
• Our $20 bill is only patriotic if you’re Norwegian.
• Moderately priced art is disappearing.
• Want to know what it’s like to be an artist? Try this video game.
• Women game, they always have. Dudes, stop freaking out.
• It’s only taken 73 years for DC to hire a woman to draw Batman.
• Must read: Alix Ohlin’s skilful deconstruction of the women central to Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth, and Jeffrey Eugenides The Marriage Plot, and the narrow way men portray women, particularly as readers.
• More on awful profiles of women, with ideas on how to fix them.
• Roberto Bolano on writing short stories.
• Powell’s shares advice on how to take a great author photo.
• Impressive author sculptures.
• The reality behind funding a self-published book through Kickstarter.
• A profile on Lou Reed’s muse, Rachel.
• Contrary to what you may believe, in fact it is cyclists and pedestrians who are subsidizing drivers. Suck on that SUVs.
• Check out the Amelia Bloomer Project, recommending great feminist books for young people.
• Did Gollum live under the streets of Toronto in 1978?
• Calvin & Hobbes superimposed in real photographs. Magical.
• The Internet has a Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. That’s all you need to know.

If that’s not enough to distract you, try Procatinator, a blend of cat gifs and music. This is a real thing.

Broken Pencil 57 is the prison issue, with stories on artists who have been arrested for their art, the inside story on zine publishing behind bars from Ashleigh Gaul. Natalie Zina Walschots has a great profile on BookThug’s DIY punk roots – I had no idea.

In the latest issue I’ve got a few reviews: a fiction review, Attemptations by Kim Clark, and three poetry reviews, The Crystal Palace by Carey Toane, A Dark Boat by Patrick Friesen, and Kerosene, by Jamella Hagen.

As always, there’s also a ton of great zine, comic and artzine, litzine and chapbook, fiction, non-fiction, graphic novel and poetry reviews from a plethora of writers.

In the coming days, samples and excerpts are likely to appear on Broken Pencil‘s website. Check it out.