Except in this one instance, I kept putting the ripped out pages aside.

For about nine months, the Chris Heath article in GQ about the tragic, sad, bizarre, and bewildering exotic animal catastrophe in Zanesville, Ohio has sat on my desk. “I don’t have time right now,” I would say as I moved the pages. Or, “I want to be able to concentrate on this, maybe tomorrow.”

But on some level, maybe the more accurate truth is that I didn’t have the guts to read the article.

Finally, I did.

And I’m ecstatic that I made it all the way through. Heath’s piece is dark and sad, but also illuminating and interesting. It’s by far one of the best pieces of glossy magazine writing I’ve read this year.

So yeah, I know I’m about nine months late. But still… Check it out here.

While the itself contains a full-color insert with 21 photos of guitar heroes like Phil Collen of Def Leppard, the gang from KISS, Warren DeMartini of Ratt, George Lynch, John 5, Stacey Blades of LA Guns, and many others, there are almost fifty cool photos and snapshots on the Facebook group. There are even some quirky scenes that Scott witnessed while on his guitar hero journey.

‘Like’ the official PC Facebook page today to join in on all the fun.

This book tracks Scott’s obsession with hard rock and heavy metal guitar players and features appearances from a Who’s Who of axeslingers.

Be sure to pick up a copy at your local brick-and-mortar store today, or visit any of the online retailers listed here.

TUESDAY, JULY 31, 2012 7:00pm
Barnes & Noble
1739 Olentangy River Road
Columbus, OH 43212
614-298-9516

THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 2012 7:00pm
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
161 Lexington Green Circle
Lexington, KY 40503
859-273-2911

Be sure to check out the article, with lots of photos of Urban and his vintage gear here.

“With local independent bookstores like A Different Light in the Castro and Modern Times in the Mission struggling to make ends meet, not to mention Borders’ bankruptcy and the general panic of the book publishing industry in the face of the e-reader, it would seem that literary pursuits of all kinds are under attack in this digital age,” Harmanci writes. “But literary journals — a long-tail publishing phenomenon before the Internet made other niche offerings accessible — are thriving.”

The article explains why these journals are doing well. Most have smaller staffs, many are non-profit organizations, most of them are nimble endeavors able to react quickly, and so forth. Those points are totally valid and the journal staffs should be applauded for their yeomen’s labor. As a fan of lit journals, I’m happy to see reports (particularly when so much of publishing news is so dreary) that they’re doing well.

But there’s another reason literary journals continue to succeed: Their readers are the same people submitting stories to them. Those core, dedicated aspiring authors hoping to be published in The Toilet Paper Review or whatever aren’t going to be as fickle as the casual consumer who moves away from hard-copy texts purchased from brick-and-mortar stores.

In a 2008 comment, Waldo Jaquith writes, “We’re on track to receive 10,400 submissions this year” at the Virginia Quarterly Review. Meanwhile, the journal’s Advertising Information page counts their circulation at 7,000+. Jaquith’s comment laments that many submissions come from authors who do not read the journal. And while it’s true that many writers machine gun stories to publications they’ve never seen, the statistics of more than 10,000 submissions and 7,000 readers cannot be ignored.

In a similar vein, Glimmer Train (one of my favorite lit outlets) is reported to have a circulation of 16,000 while receiving “nearly 40,000 stories a year” according to their website. It should be noted, for the record, that Glimmer Train publishes four issues a year, so maybe you can divide the yearly submission count into each issue for 10,000 submissions and 16,000 readers. Same thing for the VQR. Maybe the 10,400 submissions can be divided into 2,600 stories per issue while retaining 7,000 per issue. But still, the bottom line of the point remains valid.

This isn’t to say literary journals can relax on the beach and watch subscriptions roll in as hoards of MFA grads and other aspiring authors support the magazine in hopes of getting published. But it would certainly seem to account in some way for the continued buoyancy of the publications. Every reference book and every editor interview preaches that aspiring authors should familiarize themselves with a journal before submitting. While many boneheads ignore this advice, a great many well-intentioned writers follow the prescription and plunk down their cash before submitting.

It was a helluva fun article to write and research, with input from guitarists as diverse as John 5 and Brent Mason. Check it out here.