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

Free Pamphlets for May 2023

Hi all,

This month we’ve got two brand new pamphlets to love and enjoy.

First up, we have Questions I Didn’t Know I’d Asked by the incomparable Mona Mehas. This chapbook of poetry inspired by Tarot and Oracle will knock your socks off with its intimate magic. Download a copy of the pamphlet below.

Questions I Didn’t Know I’d Asked [PDF for Website]Download

Secondly, we have The Poets Have the Floor, a thrilling extended prose poem told across three columns to whet your appetite for the fare of Lachlan J McDougall. Download a copy of the pamphlet below and see what you think!

The Poets Have the Floor (PDF for Website)Download

The next round of free pamphlets goes out in July, so keep an eye on things and make sure you don’t miss these great publications.

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!

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.

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.

Review: ‘The Book of Breeething’ by William S Burroughs

A sort of scattered set of musings on language and symbol mixed with a thrilling collection of illustrations, this book is a short, wandering piece that reads like a knowledgeable ramble. Burroughs certainly has a point, but he refuses to make it, allowing it to grow organically out of abstract, dreamlike prose.

The illustrations are just gorgeous and Robert F Gale has done a fantastic job bringing the strange prose to life. Without the illustrations, this book would not work. With them, it is lifted to a high plain of fancy and wonder.

It is not Burroughs best book, and certainly not his clearest, but it is an interesting little addition to the cannon. For a collector like me, it is a must, but if you’re looking only for content, you can find these thoughts better expressed in other books. Still though, it is a fascinating excursion.

Review: ‘The Cracked Looking-Glass’ by Katherine Anne Porter

A cute story about the loves and marriage of an Irish immigrant woman and her aging husband. A good psychological portrait with a thread that keeps you hooked throughout.

Nothing overly stimulating or exciting in this one, but it performs its task well and without hesitation. At the end you feel like you’ve learned something, but this is a vague feeling and you can’t put your finger on what.

I can’t say as I recommend this book overly, but I wouldn’t avoid it either. It is a plain and simple diversion and it performs well under the circumstances.