The Selection Committee:
Megan Campbell & Ander Monson
Megan Campbell runs Bad Cholla Vintage, for your vintage clothing needs.
Ander Monson edits DIAGRAM, New Michigan Press, and Essay Daily, among other projects.
Content Editors:
Raquel Gutiérrez & Gabriel Palacios
Raquel Gutiérrez was first introduced to the politics of space when in 5th grade got dropped off at the Music Plus in Lakewood, California to stand in line for Guns 'N' Roses tickets only to realize she was a different kind of fan. A former life involved working for a Soundscan competitor back in the pre-MP3 days and now Gutiérrez is a poet and essayist pursuing her MFA degree in poetry at the University of Arizona. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she writes about space and institutionality and publishes chapbooks by queers of color with the tiny press Econo Textual Objects, established in 2014. Her work has found homes in FENCE, Zócalo Public Square, ASAP Journal, Huizache, The Portland Review, Los Angeles Weekly, and Entropy. She received an MA in Performance Studies from New York University and a BA in Journalism and Central American Studies from California State University at Northridge.
Gabriel Palacios is a poet and musician from Tucson, where he is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Arizona. His poems study the present-day imprints of colonial violence in the region of southern Arizona and northern Mexico known in the Spanish Colonial era as the Pimería Alta. The voyeuristic shortcomings of the work itself usually surfaces as a second subject. At ten he begged his parents to buy him a Skid Row T-shirt bearing a cartoon image of the Mona Lisa in tattoos and a nose-chain. “IT AIN’T ART IT’S ROCK ’N’ ROLL,” the shirt declared.
WTF
2019’s March Vladness was the latest edition of the baddest literary music single-elimination NCAA-style 64-essay competition around, focusing, in 2019, on goth.
March Vladness was brought to you by the team who brought you March Shredness (Hair Metal), March Fadness (90s One Hit Wonders), and March Sadness (Best/Saddest Songs of the College Rock Era). (Here's an essay about Sadness by one of the Committee Members.)
Each year we stage a 64-team, March-Madness-style tournament of songs. Writers assess and riff on and argue for (or in some cases against) each song, and each day in March we play the games, winner determined by a popular vote here on the blog and on the March Vladness twitter. The winner advances, until we determine a winner by month's end.