The Beachies

Are y’all ready for this – Austin Islam

You should be this is huge. 2012 was the year of alt lit. Sure haters are going to hate. But the maters, well they are going to mate. With lust in the air around alt lit through hookups and whatnot, there are going to be many more alt lit children raised in alt lit families.  

New Category ‘Best Ohio’ – last year Ohio was brutally overlooked causing a great deal of pain and sadness. To rectify that I’d like to nominate the best Ohio ‘Male’ and best Ohio ‘Female’

Best Ohio Male – Noah Cicero – this guy seems more intense than me. I’m a sloth. Noah’s work sort of ‘wows’ me every time I read it. Usually I need to take a breath. 

Best Ohio Female – Sarah Swan – Sarah Swan is one of the nicest people I’ve ever had the absolute pleasure of interacting with online. 

Best Real Tao Lin – Jordan Castro from ‘Shoplifting from American Apparel: THE MOVIE’ 

Best Moustache – Willis Plummer 

Best Bag Kept Away from Children – Keep This Bag Away From Children – this comes out and looks beautiful all the time. Everyone who works on this spends a huge amount of time making it look ideal. 

Best Alt Lit Chapbook (Male) SFLISTW7.dat by Theo Thimo – when I first read his work I had no idea what to think. I read it several times until it was around 4 am in the morning. Then I wrote the review and worried it wasn’t funny enough. Sometimes things move me. This is one of those things. I really 

Best Alt Lit Chapbook (Female) I imagine you in your house, cleaning your chest by Sarah Jean Alexander – This is probably the nicest thing to ever come out about Baltimore. She gets the feel down solid. The amount of time to come out with something this good is impressive. 

Best Alt Lit ‘Cry’ of ‘Joy’ – Steve Roggenbuck in the New York Times Style Magazine – I think I cried I was so happy. Steve Roggenbuck worked hard this year. He even hung out with me in my apartment despite my lack of heat. Sure Steve might have gotten pneumonia from my apartment but he did get to live-tweet me sleeping so I think we’re even. 

Alt Lit Prom King & Queen – Jackson Nieuwland and Carolyn DeCarlo – this is so obvious it doesn’t even need to be explained. I love both of them very much and wish the best for the two of them. 

Best use of a snack pack as shampoo – Daniel Alexander stole my heart and my soul because he’s into that sort of thing. Seeing him shampoo his hair was a definite highlight. He also wrote a book. He also ate a book. 

Breakout Alt Lit Writer (Male) – Stephen Michael McDowell is amazing. I love this guy. He runs Habitat. Habitat is good. 

Breakout Alt Lit Writer (Female) – Lucy K Shaw is amazing. I love this girl. She runs Shabby Doll House. Shabby Doll House is good. 

Best guy to get cut in line at a Chinese Restaurant – Marshall Mallicoat got cut in line by a five year old kid. He ended up being pissed off but that was pretty funny. This is the best cutting in line I’ve witnessed all year. Nothing can compare. Guess Marshall should have gotten Chinese food to go instead of Chinese food to stay.

Best New Whale – Have U Seen My Whale? – Whenever this comes out I need to reserve most of the week to review it. Reviewing it is hard because there is so much good stuff in it.

Best New Meat Confetti – Meat Confetti has a great mix of material from all over the world. The fact that they will have critical essays about alt lit makes me enormously excited. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited. 

Best Alt Lit Villain – Murdoch LaMarche and I had a ‘trade-off’ series that was the closest thing I’ve ever had to an actual collaboration. He’s going to run the world somebody. I might as well get into his good graces. 

Best Initials in Alt Lit – Maybe Stephen Tully Dierks writes stuff occasionally, has beautiful pieces in HTML Giant and Shabby Doll House, but I remember him the best for his crazy-ass initials. Hopefully there will be a meeting between STD and myself at some point. Truly show me the STD! 

Best use of a dude’s butt - Karen Peltier works hard on the internet, supporting Steve Roggenbuck, supporting Spreecasts everywhere from Asheville, NC. I greatly care about Karen’s persona. Plus she’s a fan of Harry Pussy so she’s cool with me. 

Best use of James Franco in a Debut Novel - Mastodon Farm by Mike Kleine – I’ll be honest. I don’t know much about Mike Kleine. Mastodon Farm was incredible though. Name-dropping takes up much of the book. 

Best misattribution of quotes – Austin Islam rocks this game. He has screenshot poetry books too. Is Austin Islam the ultimate screen shot? His skills are impressive. His voice fills any Spreecast with hope. 

Best Nice Guy – Dennis Cooper is a force to be a-reckoned with. His output is incredible. He loves supporting others. In a world where people forget the importance of others, whether they be sloths or cats or dogs or rats or even the occasional Chairsly, Dennis stands alone ready to help out others. 

This isn’t about me. This is about you. Did this help to change the way you view the world? For those I did not nominate, do not fret. I had over 800 blog posts this year. Trying to cover everyone is close to impossible. I try my best. That’s all I can do.