Two New Books

Electric Boy Scout:: Guerrilla Typewriter is a largely non-fiction book dealing with the pressures on Control and the possibility of using art and literature as methods of social resistance. Part essays, part interview, part stories, and part something else, this book takes you on a trip to the future and beyond.

Get a copy of the book from Amazon here or email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com to order direct from the publisher

File Folders: Painting in Ephemera is a brand new book of art featuring stunning paintings from a personal collection made during 2022. A great way to bring home a thrilling series, you can get copies of the book from Amazon here or email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com to order a copy direct from the publisher.

Submissions Open for D.O.R Issue 3

It’s that time again! The LJMcD Communications magazine of experimental art and literature is getting ready for a third issue and we’re looking for your work!

We can’t pay anything for your submissions, but we do offer contributors a print copy of the magazine at reduced cost (just covering printing and shipping)

All submissions should be in word doc format and sent to lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Please include a short third person bio in the body of your email to accompany your piece.

Poetry: please send up to five poems not more than a million lines. Any subject, any style, but the weirder and more experimental the better

Prose: short stories, text experiments, essays and whatever else you got up to 5000 words.

Art: send up to 5 high def images. Please include titles and any accompanying information you would like printed alongside your images (medium, process, etc.) It’s also fine if you want your if you want your images to stand alone without extra information.

Anything Else: we are open to new ideas and anything else you’ve got. If you’ve got something that you think would fit within an issue of D.O.R, please don’t hesitate to send it through or send a query and see if it would work.

And, if this is your first time, don’t forget to read the past two issues of D.O.R which can be read or purchased here

LJMcD Communications Bookshop

Hi All,

You may have seen recently that we set up a physical store to sell LJMcD Communications stock as well as other assorted titles from our personal collection. Well, now this stock is open to everyone!

Have a read through the catalogue below and see if anything takes your fancy. If it does, simply email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com with your order and the book(s) will be posted to you as soon as possible.

More titles will be added periodically, but for now you can browse through this great collection of work and make purchases as you see fit.

Please note: All prices are in AUD. Shipping will be calculated at the time of order.

bookshop-stock-3Download

D.O.R Issue 2 now Available

In what seems like a whirlwind, Issue 2 of the LJMcD Communications literature and arts magazine filled up and hit the shelves!

You can purchase print copies of the magazine from Amazon right here or you can email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com with your order details and I will send a copy to you asap.

Or, feel free to download and read this free pdf and share far and wide!

D.O.R Issue 2Download

I do recommend getting the print edition if you can afford it, the art and poems just look better on the printed page, but if not, it’s more important that the work gets read.

Enjoy! And keep an eye out for issue 3!

Submissions Open for D.O.R issue 2

SUBMISSIONS CLOSED

Hi all,

I’m happy to announce that the LJMcD Communications literature and arts magazine, D.O.R, is opening up for a fabulous second issue.

I’m looking for poetry, prose, and art on the edge of sanity. Bold new experiments in text and form. Anything that pushes the boundaries of what we can do with language and symbol. Full details below.

POETRY: Send up to five poems as a single word document. No restriction on form or subject matter, just make it interesting. You’ll find I’m more interested in experimental poetry than I am in traditional sonnets and the like, but I’m open to anything. Up to a million lines, but make them count!

PROSE: Up to 5,000 words in a word document. Short stories, prose poems, essays on contemporary magick, whatever ya got, just make sure you’re doing something new with your words. I want my head to spin with the modern world.

ART: Send up to five high def images in a single email along with any additional information you want published like titles and media.

Send all submissions to lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com. Please include a brief third person bio in the body of your email to accompany your piece if it is accepted.

Unfortunately, I cannot offer payment for accepted pieces, but all contributors will get the option of a print copy of the magazine at printing/shipping cost.

You can check out the first issue of the magazine in pdf or print copy here

Now, go forth and send me your best and weirdest work!

Electric Boy Scout:: Guerrilla Typewriter pre-order and proof copies

Hi all,

The largely non-fiction book from Lachlan J McDougall, Electric Boy Scout:: Guerrilla Typewriter, is comin out in June and pre-orders for the print book are now open.

The book deals with language and symbol and how we can manipulate these to bring about a social artistic revolution and end the influence of Control in our day to day lives. Let’s see what the Amazon blurb has to say.

The future is now and there’s nothing left but the recordings.
This book is a program for taking on the world at large. A step by step guide to bringing about the revolution from within. You may try to fight the change, but when the Scouts come calling, there’s nothing else you can do.

A deconstruction of the role of language and a prescient dissection of the modern Control virus, Electric Boy Scout is full of helpful and practical tips for circumventing the Control narrative and substituting your own. Learn to take control of your life. Learn the limits of what you are doing and how to push them ever further. Learn a few tricks from the master at work.

You can pre-order the book by emailing lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com with your order details and a print copy will be sent to you soon after release date in June. Or, to get the book sooner (as well as getting a limited collector’s edition), reach out and see if any of the limited proof copies are still available. In addition to your proof copy, LJMcD Communications will send you a free pdf of the book so you can get reading straight away.

So, get in touch and order your proof copy, or pre-order a print copy today!

Recent Reviews

Hi all,

I’ve been a bit slack on book reviews recently, so here’s a small collection of reviews in brief for the books I’ve missed.

Letter to my Mother by Georges Simenon—an engaging little read. At times boring, but overall quite interesting and really draws you into the deathbed musings of a long and strained relationship. A quick and simple read, I’d recommend for a rainy day. 3/5 stars.

Death the Barber by William Carlos Williams—fine poetry, but overall didn’t engage me that much. A quick read, there were some lovely images at times, but I think I was expecting more. 3/5 stars.

The Waste Land by T S Eliot—you can smell the charred landscape, the trash the death the strained amd curt relationships. It’s a wonderful poem and there’s not too much to say that hasn’t already been said. 4/5 stars.

The Problem that Has No Name by Betty Friedan—this is where it’s at. A wonderful feminist piece cataloguing the despair of the mid-century housewife and also the passion of the early feminists. Every word is powerful and resonates all to well in the modern world. 5/5 stars.

Schisms by Joshua Martin—another wonderful installment in the Martin cannon, this book teeters on the edge of sense and leaves you to draw your own lessons from the chaos of the text. A great, quick read, there’s nothing quite like it. 5/5 stars.

I’ll try to keep up with my reviews going forward, but there might be more of these reviews in brief coming your way.

Lachlan J McDougall

The Audrey Adventures Free PDF

Queen of smut, J. Ollie Manoeuvre, has made The Audrey Adventures, her collection of experimental scifi erotica, available as a free pdf. Here at LJMcD Communications we are always looking for new ways to make work available and Manoeuvre has very kindly agreed to make her book available for free. We do suggest however, that if you like what you read, you go ahead and purchase the book to help LJMcD Communications and J. Ollie Manoeuvre continue doing what you love.

You can get a copy of the book from Amazon here, or email lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com with your order and a copy will be sent to you direct from the publisher.

A little about the book: Here’s what the blurb on Amazon has to say: Five startling queer erotic stories to dazzle and delight. Join Audrey as he jets through space meeting strange men and sampling their pleasures, follow him as he tastes the delights of the shapeshifters, tag along as he winds his way through the temple of flesh. Each story is sure to titillate and excite your deepest desires, so why don’t you have a look inside?

Interested? Well, just download the pdf below.

the-audrey-adventures-five-erotic-stories-1Download

You might also like to check out all the other great books and pdfs we have on offer here.

Review: ‘Omon Ra’ by Victor Pelevin

A scathing indictment on Soviet Russia and their flair for theatrics, this book presents itself like Catch 22 nourished on Kafka and put through the bleak Russian mill of Dostoevsky. I loved this book—it made me laugh and weep and rage with bitter impotence.

The coldness with which it treats the bureaucracy of the USSR is all the more interesting considering just how shortly after the fall of the state it was published. It holds back no punches and really goes to town on the two-faced doublethink of a nation bent on one-upping the West. It is not your usual critique though, it does not declaim a failed communism, but a failing of men and political advisors. It is a failing of the spirit and it has infected the Russian consciousness as far as Pelevin is concerned.

The story centres on a young man, Omon, who is being trained for a flight to the moon to show the Americans who’s boss. But really it is about the malicious scheming, the resigned indifference, and the callous cruelty of the systems in place around him. He has wanted to be a cosmonaut since he was a small child, so why is this great feeling so hollow?

Overall, however, I think this book speaks in a very modern way to the vast cannon of Russian literature. It speaks to Dostoevsky, to Gogol, and even to Pushkin. It speaks of despair and the urge to life in the face of adversity. This is a truly terrific book and I highly recommend it.

LJMcD Communications call for Ephemera

As you may know, LJMcD Communications publishes free zines and pamphlets from time to time. To date these have been the work of press founder and main contributor, Lachlan J McDougall, but now the call is open to have your work published as part of this wonderful free mail out network.

What we’re looking for: set your word document to A5 paper size and put together material up to 52 A5 pages in length. Please, no more than that as the zines become unwieldy, but anything up to that length is workable.

We’re looking for experiments here. We’re looking for something that’s been on your mind and you just need to get it out. You might want to check out the free pamphlets that have already been distributed here.

What’s in it for you: well, it’s a free mail out service, so there’s no monetary recompense, but it’s a great way to get your work out to a wide audience and it will put you in a good position if you ever want to submit a book for consideration with LJMcD Communications. There’ll be the option to limit the number of print copies if you’re into rarity, but otherwise your pamphlet will be distributed to the mailing network and included with orders of books and other mail outs and go on the ‘Catalogue of Ephemera’ for collectors of LJMcD Communications work.

Your pamphlet will also be put aside for inclusion in an anthology volume collecting all the LJMcD Communications ephemera in the future.

You will hold complete copyright over your work and can withdraw the zine at any time or use it for your own purposes, whatever you like!

There is also an option to put the pamphlet out as a full book after a period of time to set it in stone as part of the LJMcD Communications catalogue.

How do I submit: start by familiarising yourself with the zines the press has already put out, then put together your own zine manuscript and email it to lachlan.mcdougall@gmail.com for consideration. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible and let you know how to proceed from there.