Home » NewPages Blog » Blog Items » Page 15

Words Without Borders Campus Expansion

wwbcampusWords Without Borders promotes cultural understanding through the translation, publication, and promotion of the contemporary international literature. Words Without Borders Campus brings that literature to high school and college students, teachers, and professors. On their website, you’ll find fiction, poetry, and essays from around the world, along with resources for understanding it, ideas for teaching it, and suggestions for further exploration.

Most of the literature presented comes from the online magazine, Words without Borders. Words Without Borders Campus is asking for your help to reach more students and add new countries and literature to their site. With their collections of literature from Mexico, China, Egypt, and Japan, WWB Campus has already reached more than 1,500 high school and college students in the United States and throughout the world, with access to their site remaining completely free.

To take their program to the next level, WWB Campus is asking its supporters — readers, educators, and even students – for help with a new crowd-funding campaign and to spread awareness of WWB Campus. WWB Campus would like to double the number of students reached, adding new features to the website, and introducing literature from more countries (Russia, Iran, and West Africa are in the plans). For more information about how you can help, visit the WWB Campus website. You don’t have to donate money – using the site and spreading the word about it helps too – #InspireGlobalReaders!

Amercian Life in Poetry :: Peter Everwine

American Life in Poetry: Column 587
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Someone told about a blind man who stood at a busy intersection, waving toward all the passing cars. When asked why he did that, he said that there might be someone in one of those cars whom he knew and he didn’t want to miss the opportunity. Peter Everwine, a California poet, here gives us another such waver, from his book Listening Long and Late, from the University of Pittsburgh Press.

everwineThe Girl on the Bullard Overpass

The girl on the Bullard overpass
looks happy to be there, getting soaked
in a light rain but waving her hands
to the four o’clock freeway traffic
in which I’m anything but happy.

You might think she’s too dumb
to come in out of the rain, but rain
or shine, it doesn’t seem to matter.
She’s there most every afternoon,
as if she does this for a living.

Some living, I’d say. Doesn’t she ever
get bored, or wish someone would stop
and say, “Where to?” and her life would change?
That’s how I’d be, hating the noise,
the stink of exhaust, the press of people.

I can’t imagine what her life is;
mine is confused and often fretful.
But there’s something brave about standing alone
in the rain, waving wild semaphores
of gladness to impatient passersby

too tired or preoccupied to care.
Seeing her at her familiar station
I suddenly grin like a fool, wave back,
and forgive the driver to my right,
who is sullen and staring as I pass.

I find her in my rear-view mirror,
then head for a needed drink and supper.
I don’t know where she goes, but I hope
it’s to a place she loves. I hope the rain
lets up. I hope she’s there tomorrow.

American Life In Poetry does not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2004 by Peter Everwine, “The Girl on the Bullard Overpass,” from Listening Long and Late (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Peter Everwine and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2016 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Glimmer Train Fiction Open Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their March/April Fiction Open competition. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers. Stories generally range from 3000-6000 words, though up to 24,000 is fine. The next Fiction Open will take place in July. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

Taiyaba HusainFirst place: Taiyaba Husain [pictured], of Mumbai, India, wins $3000 for “How You Respond in an Emergency.” Her story will be published in Issue 99 or 100 of Glimmer Train Stories. This is Taiyaba’s very first published story!

Second place: Edward Porter, of Oakland, CA, wins $1000 for “Storm Dogs” and publication in a future issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

Third place: Anne Vinsel, of Salt Lake City, UT, wins $600 for “Goyische Turkey with Post-its.”

A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.

Deadline soon approaching!
Short Story Award for New Writers: June 30
This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5000. No theme restrictions. Most submissions to this category run 1500-5000 words, but can go up to 12,000. First place prize wins $2500 (increased from $1500!) and publication in Glimmer Train Stories. Second/third: $500/$300 and consideration for publication. Click here for complete guidelines.

The Louisville Review :: Kid’s Corner Spring 2016

louisville review n79 spring 2016The Louisville Review accepts submissions from students in grades K-12 to feature in “The Children’s Corner” section of the journal. In the Spring 2016 issue, four young writers were published:

Kate Busatto, “The Communion”

Kiran Damodaran, “Collision Theory”

Andrew D. Swann, “Jelly Dreams,” “God Didn’t Make the World Round,” and “Worn and Broken”

Isabel Young, “Our Romance is Kamikaze:”

Get a copy of The Louisville Review to check out these new writers.

 

Poetry Magazine June 2016 Cover Art

poetry v208 n3 june 2016The June 2016 issue of Poetry features cover art by Anna Maria Maiolino. On Harriet: The Blog, Fred Sasaki provides more information about this artist who, it turns out, also creates visual and written poetry with all her works considered to be “poetic actions.”

Maiolino speaks about her series Photopoemaction, from which the June 2016 cover art comes:

“The photographic series Fotopoemação is a result of the elaboration of images that emerged from my written poems. [ . . . ] These series, other than constituting a challenge to the poetic labour, are efficient instruments of both innovation and freedom. They result from thinking about the things of the world, from the attempt to transform what we live through into consciousness in a poetic operational movement of conduct.”

Check out the full blog post to read more, or stop by the Poetry webpage to listen to this month’s podcast and check out the work inside the June 2016 issue.

Ninth Letter’s 2015 Literary Award Runners-Up

ninth letterAmong the blue-font decorated pages of the latest issue of Ninth Letter, readers will find an art feature and interview with Bert Stabler and Katie Fizdale, a look at Detroit by Caitlin McGuire in the “Where We’re At” section, and the 2015 Literary Award Runners-Up, listed below.

Creative Nonfiction:

Julie Marie Wade, “The Regulars”

Fiction:

Zach VandeZande, “Status Updates”

Poetry:

Monica Sok, “Here Is Your Name”

Rachael Katz, “All About Flash”

Check out all the other goodies inside this new, shiny (no, really, it’s literally shiny) issue of Ninth Letter and grab yourself a copy.

RHINO 2016 Prize Winners

rhino 2016The 2016 issue of RHINO is out and includes the 2016 Editors’ Prize winners and the 2016 Founders’ Prize winners inside.

Editors’ Prizes 2016:

First Prize

Lee Sharkey, “Tashlich”

Second Prize

Catherine Wing, “Report from the Neandertal Mind”

Honorable Mention

Teresa Dzieglewicz, “Stranger, thank you for giving me this body”

Translation Prize

Anonymous translated from the Anglo-Saxson by Bill Christopherson, “The Seafarer”

Founders’ Prize 2016:

First Prize

Greg Grummer, “The Great Butterfly Collapse”

Runners-Up

Katie Hartsock, “On the Heat of Upstate Travel in the Advancing Polar Air”

Teresa Dzieglewicz, “St. Maria Goretti speaks to the girl”

Readers can find these poems on the RHINO website, with a full table of contents linking to the writers’ websites.

december’s 2016 Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize Winners

december v27 n1 spring summer 2016The Spring/Summer 2016 issue of december features the winner and finalists of the Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize (with submissions opening back up in autumn). This year, the magazine received over 1,200 contest entries, which were then narrowed down to 20 semi-finalists. From these selections, judge Marge Piercy selected the following for the winner, honorable mentions, and finalists.

First Place:

Jim Dwyer, “Enlightenment”

Honorable Mention:

Kate Gray, “Reassurance” and “For Every Girl”

Finalists:

José Angel Araguz, “Cazar Means to Hunt Not to Marry”

Debbie Benson, “Uchi Vallai”

Kierstin Bridger, “Preparing to Sink”

Tova Green, “March Storm at Abbots Lagoon”

John McCarthy, “What I mean When I Say I Don’t Box Anymore”

M.H. Perry, “Cardamom, Osprey, Banff, Us”

Cocoa M. Williams, “Leda on a Stoop in St. Bernard Projects (1974)”

Grab a copy of december’s Spring/Summer 2016 issue to read these poems.

Concho River Review Celebrates 30 Years

concho river review v30 n1 spring 2016Concho River Review recently launched their Spring 2016 issue which marks the beginning of their 30th year of publication. With the first issue released in the spring of 1987, founder Terry Dalrymple expected the journal to last for only five years. Now, he estimates CRR has published around 7000 pages throughout the years with 250 pieces of fiction, 900 poems, 200 pieces of nonfiction, and 300 book reviews. Whew!

Happy anniversary, Concho River Review. We hope to see you around for many more years (and pages).

Agni Online Exclusives

agniAgni Online offers free access to fiction, poetry and essays as an extension of their print publication. These contributions are offered exclusively online, and recent works include “Pinays” an essay by Ricco Villanueva Siasoco; “Seam Ripper” flash fiction by Kathryn Hill; “I Fell Asleep Among the Horses” poem by Kathryn Starbuck; “One Hundred Years of Solitude, or The Importance of a Story” an essay by Oksana Zabuzhko; “Sibboleth” an essay by Dan Beachy-Quick; “First Boyfriend” a poem by Chase Twichell; and “Jury Duty” a story by William Virgil Davis.

Books :: New Flint Anthology

happy anyway ed scott atkinsonBelt Publishing, publisher of city-based anthologies written by and for Rust Belt communities, are releasing a new anthology in the first week of July: Happy Anyway: The Flint Anthology. Edited by Flint writer and Belt Magazine contributor Scott Atkinson, Happy Anyway reveals Flint “at its funniest, its weirdest, and its saddest.”

There’s more to Flint than the water crisis that’s gathered the country’s attention in the past months. Preorder a copy of Happy Anyway to see all sides of this Michigan city, or check out the other anthologies which look at Detroit, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, with Akron and Buffalo anthologies in the making.

Carve Magazine Premium Editon Contest Winners

Carve Magazine offers all of its stories online for free for readers because, the editors write, “good honest fiction should never disappear into obscurity.” The Premium Edition is what they call their print issue, which includes content readers cannot find online. The Spring 2016 issue features winners of their inaugural Premium Edition Contest, an annual open October 1 – November 15 for fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. One winner in each genre is awarded a $1000 cash prize and publication in the spring print edition. The 2015 contest winners are:

FICTION: Joe Dornich in Lubbock, TX for “The Reluctant Son of a Fake Hero”
POETRY: Moira Thielking in Katonah, NY for “Pirating (Salt Enough)”
NONFICTION: Kerry Muir in Annapolis, Maryland for “Martin”

A full list of semi-finalists and finalists can be found here.

Books :: Manifest West #5

manifest west 2016Forthcoming in July is the 2016 installment of the Western Press Books (University Press of Colorado) series, Manifest West. Published annually, the series produces one anthology focused on Western writing, and is edited and produced by students in the Certificate in Publishing program at Western State Colorado University.

The fifth volume of this annual anthology features the theme “Serenity and Severity.” The twenty-nine included writers explore the theme, the duality impacting identities, lifestyles, outlooks, worldviews, and values. Contributors include Rebecca Aronson, Heidi E. Blankenship, William Cass, David Lavar Coy, Gail Denham, John Haggerty, Ellaraine Lockie, Juan J. Morales, Scott T. Starbuck, and more.

For more information and a full list of contributors, check out the University Press of Colorado website.

Books :: Coming Soon from Open Letter

gesell dome guillermo saccomannoOpen Letter has announced they will be publishing Gesell Dome by Guillermo Saccomanno this upcoming August. Translated from the Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger, the novel won the 2013 Dashiell Hammett Award (annually given to a book published in the field of crime-writing), and chronicles the passion, violence, crime, and corruption that take place during a winter in Villa Gesell. Recording the various voices in the town is Dante, the local newspaperman, resulting in a thrilling and captivating read.

Preorder a copy of Gesell Dome now at the Open Letter website, where you can also find an excerpt of the novel.

The Common Contemporary Arabic Stories

commonIssue number 11 of The Common is co-edited by Acker and prominent Jordanian author Hisham Bustani is titled “Tajdeed: Contemporary Arabic Fiction.” The publication features the work of 31 contributors from 15 Middle Eastern countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen all translated for contemporary English-speaking audiences.

Teachers: The Common in the Classroom provides a way to introduce your students to global literature. Students recieve a discounted subscription price (2 issues) and you recieve a desk copy and sample lesson plans along with an in-person or Skype visit from Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker, or one of the publications participating authors.

The Missouri Review 2015 Jeffery E. Smith Prize Winners

missouri review spring 2016The Spring 2016 issue of The Missouri Review is titled “Wonders and Relics” and some of the wonders readers can find in the issue include the winners of the 2015 Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize.

Fiction Winner:

Emma Törzs, “The Wall”

Poetry Winner:

Phillip B. Williams, Four Poems

Essay Winner:

Genese Grill, “Portals: Cabinets of Curiosity, Reliquaries, and Colonialism”

Excerpts from the winning pieces and a foreword by the magazine’s editor, Speer Morgan, can be found on The Missouri Review website.

Carolina Quarterly Artist Monica Canilao

slabfortMonica Canilao’s art is featured on the cover of The Carlolina Quarterly Summer 2016 issue, and even though is only a section of a larger work, I was struck immediately by the image. Canilao is an artist who describes her work as “stitching, painting, printing, and breathing life into the refuse that dominates our time and place.” The Carolina Quarterly provides Canilao 16 full-color pages in addition to the artist’s introduction, in which she writes: “My art practice is a way to generate a personal and living history. My community and collaborators, my roots and their neraly lost traditions, my neighborhood and its trash piles are all integral, necessay parts of my life and art.” A quick internet search of Monica Canilao provides a wealth of images of her work, from the canvas to murals in city buildings, installations within building spaces, and into the desert. Originally from Califormia but spending time in Detroit, Michigan, I was pleased with this introduciton to her work; I hope to see more of it in the future – perhaps even in real life.

Image: Slab City desert, part of a collaborative project with photographer Aaron Huey for the forthcoming book Shelter. The home Canilao built also doubled as a set for a short film called Bring Water, in which she played a role.

The Fiddlehead’s 25th Annual Literary Competition Winners

fiddlehead 267 spring 2016The Spring 2016 issue of The Fiddlehead features the winners of their 25th annual literary competition:

Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem

Michael Eden Reynolds, “False Dichotomy or Monocot”

Honorable Mentions

Alison Goodwin, “Consumed”

Jeff Parent, “Made By Robots”

Short Fiction First Prize:

Brent van Staalduinen, “Skinks”

Honorable Mentions

Sarah L. Taggart, “The Way It Is In A Place Like This”

Cathy Kozak, “Dirty Girls of Paradise”

These works can be read on The Fiddlehead website along with commentary from Editor Ross Leckie on the winning entries.

Rattle Features Los Angeles Poets

rattleIn addition to the open poetry contributions, Rattle #52 features a tribute to 21 Los Angeles poets, and an interview with L.A. native-born poet Brendan Constantine, author of collections Letters to Guns (2009), Birthday Girl With Possum (2011), and Calamity Joe (2012).

Rattle editors write, “Los Angeles is our home city, but we’re an international magazine and not especially sociable, so we wanted to peek in and see what’s happening in the local scene. Greater Los Angeles is home to almost 20 million people, including a very eclectic but widely dispersed poetry community: Take your pick of the many poetry readings and open mics happening daily—but good luck driving there! It’s also a city full of complicated history and cinematic beauty. As always, we put out an open call for submissions, and were impressed with what Angeleno poets had to offer, including a love poem for Los Angeles by L.A. Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez.”

Other Angelenos featured inclue: Resa Alboher, Allan Aquino, Chanel Brenner, Brendan Constantine, Jack Cooper, Alejandro Escudé, Alexis Rhone Fancher, Alan Fox, Jack Grapes, Ron Koertge, Deborah P. Kolodji, Lester Graves Lennon, Ruth Madievsky, Risa Potters, Raquel Reyes-Lopez, Lynne Thompson, Amy Uyematsu, Charles Harper Webb, Mari Werner, and Cecelia Woloch.

Michigan Quarterly Review Flint and Beyond

michigan quarterly reviewThe Spring 2016 issue of Michigan Quarterly Review provides witness to the travesty of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan – only a stone’s throw from MQR’s home in Ann Arbor. Jonathan Freedman addresses the issue using Michigan’s state promotional campaign slogan “Pure Michigan” – aptly titling his editorial “Impure Michigan.”

Like many who respond to this man-made disaster, Freedman points the blame directly as it should be: “The real impurity, then, extends from the polluted water to the polluted political system that allowed emergency managers to run cities without being answerable to them, to the cover-their-ass bureaucracy, to the governor who reverses Harry Truman’s credo by whining that the buck stops everywhere but his desk. The real impurity is the stupidity, selfishness and racism that is structural to the politcal system in this and far too many states.”

Included in the issue is “Flint and Beyond,” a special section on the Flint water crisis: Flint native Kelsey Ronan explores the effect on her family in “Blood and Water,” Tarfia Faizullah dedicates her poem “I Told the Water” to Flint, fiction by Matthew Baker, “Pheasants of Detroit,” and Jack Driscoll, “Calcheck and Priest” look at life in Michigan today.

Books :: 2015 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry

antiquity michael homolkaIn July, readers can find copies of Michael Homolka’s debut poetry collection Antiquity on shelves. Homolka’s collection (with a cool, minimalist, textured cover) won the Sarabande Books Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry in 2015 and was chosen by Mary Ruefle. Ruefle writes in her introduction, “The poems in Antiquity very much abandon themselves to language, to the collective poetic endeavor, and they do so in a rich, textured, and sustained voice . . . ”

Readers can preorder copies of Antiquity from the Sarabande Books website, where advance praise can also be found.

Books :: Spring 2016 Round-Up

With summer lurking around the corner, let’s hit the “pause” button and take a look back at some Spring 2016 books.

In March, Adrian C. Louis’s Random Exorcisms was published. Winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize from Louisiana State University Press, Random Exorcisms is deeply rooted in Native American traditions and folklore, in a style entirely Louis’s.

The Girls in My Town by Angela Morales, published in April, was chosen as a past NewPages Editor’s Pick. The autobiographical essays in The Girls in My Town create an unforgettable portrait of a family in Los Angeles. Poignant, serious, and funny, Morales’s book is both a coming-of-age story and an exploration of how a writer discovers her voice, and won the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Contest.

Also published in April, is the poetry collection lore by Davis McCombs, which won the Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry through The University of Utah Press. Linda Bierds, who selected the winning piece, says, “In thirty-eight haunting poems, McCombs offers that something to us—a wholeness attained not only through the stories and traditions of a culture but through the fusion of poet and place, poet and past.”

Check out the three titles above and order copies for some beach reading.

Crab Fat Magazine Makes Changes

crab fat magazine logoCrab Fat Magazine, the online literary magazine featuring feminist/queer work with a flair for the experimental, has made a few changes lately. Instead of publishing quarterly PDF issues, Crab Fat will now publish monthly online HTML issues (with the past PDF issues still archived and available online). Issue 8, published May 22, is the introduction to this new format. An annual “best of” print anthology will also be produced with the 2015 edition set to release later this month.

Harry Potter Alliance Advocates and Activists

The American Library Association (ALA) joined the Harry Potter Alliance in launching “Spark,” an eight-part video series developed to support and guide first-time advocates who are interested in advocating at the federal level for issues that matter to them. The series, targeted to viewers aged 13–22, will be hosted on the YouTube page of the Harry Potter Alliance, while librarians and educators are encouraged to use the videos to engage young people or first time advocates. The video series was launched today during the 42nd annual National Library Legislative Day in Washington, D.C.

The video series provides supporting information for inexperienced grassroots advocates, covering everything from setting up in-person legislator meetings to the process of constructing a campaign. By breaking down oft-intimidating “inside the Beltway” language, Spark provides an accessible set of tools that can activate and motivate young advocates for the rest of their lives. The video series also includes information on writing press releases, staging social media campaigns, using library resources for research or holding events, and best practices for contacting elected officials.

Books :: BOA Editions Award Titles

boa editions logoOut now from BOA Editions, LTD. is Remarkable by Dinah Cox, winner of the BOA Short Fiction Prize. From the publisher’s website:

Set within the resilient Great Plains, these award-winning stories are marked by the region’s people and landscape, and the distinctive way it is both regressive in its politics yet also stumbling toward something better. While not all stories are explicitly set in Oklahoma, the state is almost a character that is neither protagonist nor antagonist, but instead the weird next-door-neighbor you’re perhaps too ashamed of to take anywhere. Who is the embarrassing one—you or Oklahoma?

In Fall, Kathryn Nuernberger’s poetry collection The End of Pink will be released. The winner of the 2015 James Laughlin Award, The End of Pink (Nuernberger’s second collection) is “populated by strange characters” and is “equal parts fact and folklore.” Copies are available for preorder at the BOA Editions, LTD. website.

Books :: 11th Tartts First Fiction Award Winner

enigma of iris murphy maureen millea smithIn July, look for Maureen Millea Smith’s The Enigma of Iris Murphy from The Livingston Press. Winner of the eleventh Tartts First Fiction Award, Smith’s short story collection looks at “A prison’s visitation room; a veterinarian who understands the thoughts of animals; an Omaha police sergeant; a banking executive who consoles her dying friend; a librarian who sleeps with giraffes—all linked by the life of Iris Murphy.”

While awaiting its July release, readers can check out The Livingston Press’s website where they can find an excerpt from The Enigma of Iris Murphy and preorder a copy.
[quote from publisher’s website]

Gulf Coast Prize Winners :: 2016

The summer/fall 2016 issue of Gulf Coast, in addition to a lot of great writing for their themed “Archive Issue,” includes winners from two of their contests:

The 2015 Gulf Coast Prize in Translation
Judged by Ammiel Alcalay
Winner ($1000 + Print publication)
Samantha Schnee for her translation from Carmen Boullosa’s The Romantics’ Conspiracy.
Honorable Mention ($250 + Online publication)
Rebeca Velasquez for her translation from Irma de Águila’s El hombre que hablaba del cielo, or The Man Who Spoke About the Heavens.
Brad Fox for his translation from Sait Faik Abasiyanik’s novella Havada Bulut, or A Cloud in the Sky.
Commendation
Jonathan Larson for his translation of Friederike Mayröcker’s études.
J. Bret Maney for his translation of Guillermo Cotto-Thorner’s Manhattan Tropics.

2015 Barthelme Prize for Short Fiction
Judged by Steve Almond
Winner ($1000 + Pring publication)
“Taylor Swift” by Hugh Behm-Steinberg
Honorable Mention ($250 + Print publication)
“The Deer” by Nickole Brown
“Threeway” by Wes Wrobel

Hudson Review 2016 Fiction Contest Winners

The Hudson Review has announced the winners of their 2016 Short Fiction Contest:

First Prize ($500)
“The Comfort Weaver” by Alia Ahmed
“The Colonel’s Boy” by Timothy Dumas

Second Prize ($250)
“Leah, Lamb” by Dana Fitz Gale
“Shadow Daughter” by Leslie Pietrzyk

Honorable Mention
“Einhorn’s Kosher Palace” by David Klein
“Those Who Burn” by Lara Prescott
“The Wedding at Valocchio” by James Vescovi

Alia Ahmed’s “The Comfort Weaver” is published in the spring 2016 issue of The Hudson Review and is also available full-text on the publication’s website here.

Chattahoochee Review 2016 Lamar York Prize Winners

The Lamar York Prize honors the founder and former editor of The Chattahoochee Review by awarding $1,000.00 each and publication to a winning story and essay. The 2016 winners appear in the spring 2016 issue.

Fiction Winner
Judged by Tayari Jones
“Y’all’s Problem” by Beth Ann Fennelly

Nonfiction Winner
Judged by Dinty Moore
“Trip” by Audrey Spensley

The Lamar York Prize is an annual contest that accepts submissions between October 1 and January 31.

[Cover art: The Baron in the Trees, 2011 by Su Blackwell; detail and artist’s statement included in the issue.]

Kenyon Review EcoPoetry

kenyon review v38 n3 may june 2016“Literature and the Anthropocene” is the title of The Kenyon Review Editor’s Notes in the May/June 2016 issue. The term ‘anthropocene, Editor David H. Lynn explains, is “a term coined by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000 to denote the current epoch, ‘in which many geologically significant conditions and processes are profoundly altered by human activities’ . . . As one response to these vast and accelerating changes we offer in this issue a special section of EcoPoetry, work that self-consciously addresses the relationship between the human and the natural world, gathered by our poetry editor David Baker. This is the second iteration—last year’s received wide acclaim—and my intention is that it will be an ongoing feature in our pages.”

To further encourage the genre, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop offers a nature writing session each summer. Collaborating with scientists at Kenyon College’s Brown Family Environmental Center, this workshop provides wrirters with guided scientific investigation, in labs and wetlands and woodland paths, along with time and strategies for writing. This nature writing workshop is one of several offered by the Kenyon Review.

[Cover art by Brett Ryder.]

Alaska Quarterly Review on Poems and Painting

peggy schumakerThe spring/summer 2016 issue of Alaska Quarterly Review includes the special feature “Sparks: A Conversation in Poems and Paintings” with Poet Peggy Shumaker [pictured] and Artist Kes Woodward.

From the Introduction: “This collaboration began when two friends decided to share an artistic conversation. Kes Woodward asked Peggy Shumaker to write a poem, and he created a painting in response to it. Peggy wrote in response, Kes painted in response, again and again. As each piece added its vividness to the conversation, both writer and artist found they were responding not just to the last piece, bu to the entire body of work. The work has taken many unpredictable and startling turns, adding to the intensity of this third art – an art that’s not language alone, not purely painting, but the bonding of the two.”

Briar Cliff Review Contest Winners

briar cliff reviewVolume 26 of The Briar Cliff Review includes the winning entries from their 2015 annual writing contest.

Poetry Winner
“Midwinter, My Mother” by Laura Apol

Fiction Winner
“Thirty and Out” by S.J. MacLean

Nonfiction Winner
“On Kindness” by Laura S. Distelheim

In addition to publication in the gorgeous full-size format print copy – which includes full color art  throughout – winners receive $1000 each. This annual contest runs from August 1 – November 1 of each year.

Have Book Will Travel

have book will travelYou know you’ve got a great idea when you create something that makes others say, “IT’S ABOUT TIME SOMEONE DID THAT!”

Founded by Author and Editor Neil Aitken, Have Book, Will Travel is a searchable database of authors willing to travel, reading series currently seeking guest writers, and venues available for booking events. “Our goal” writes Aitken, “is to develop Have Book Will Travel into a valuable online resource that will make the task of planning a reading or a book tour easier and less confusing for all involved. We also encourage instructors and schools where budgets might be too tight to fly an author in for a reading, to consider bringing an author in via Skype for a classroom discussion or a video conference reading. By creating a central repository of information, we seek to simplify the search and to make more authors available to more venues.”

Authors can add themselves to the database, as can hosts of reading series and managers of bookstores, galleries, libraries, theatres, restaurants, or other types of performance venues for authors. On the flip side, users can search or browse the full lists of authors, series, and venues or search each by state and province in Canada. Some of these links don’t have much or anything just yet, which means there’s room for you to get in there and “add”! Sign up authors, series and venues!

Become an Official Teens’ Top Ten Book Group

Coming in August 2016, library staff may apply on behalf of their teen book groups for a chance to become one of fifteen Teens’ Top Ten official book groups with Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of the American Library Association (ALA). The fifteen book groups will carry out a 2 year term, which will take place from January of 2017 through December 31, 2018. The official book groups are responsible for reading, submitting reviews, and nominating titles for the Teens’ Top Ten list.

Interested groups may sign up for updates about the application period here. Learn more about the book group project and eligibility requirements here.

The Teens’ Top Ten is a “teen choice” list, where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year. Nominators are members of teen book groups in fifteen school and public libraries around the country. Nominations are posted the Thursday of National Library Week.

School Library Research Journal Seeks Co-editor

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), is seeking a Co-editor with experience in scholarly research and publishing for its online journal, School Library Research. Click here for a full position description. Qualifications include PhD, EdD, or equivalent terminal degree and tenure or tenure-track faculty status at a college or university. Applications are due June 6, 2016.

Nominate Top Teen Titles

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of the American Library Association (ALA) has announced that teens aged 12-18 can now nominate their favorite titles to be considered as a 2017 Teens’ Top Ten nominee via the public nomination form.

In previous years, nominations were limited to the official Teens’ Top Ten book groups while the voting process for the official “top ten” titles was open to the public. In efforts to ensure that the “top ten” better reflect the opinions of teens everywhere, nominations for the preliminary round of nominees is open to the public. Book title nominations submitted in the current year will be used for consideration of the following year’s list of nominees. Teens can submit a book title now through December 31, 2016 to be included in the pool of the 2017 nominee candidates. For books to be eligible for consideration, they must be published between January 1– December 31, 2016.

Submit a suggested title via the public nomination form here.

Black Warrior Review 11th Annual Contest Winners

black warrior reviewThe Spring/Summer 2016 issue of Black Warrior Review features the winners of the publication’s 11th Annual Contest in Prose, Poetry, and Nonfiction. Each winner received $1,000 and publication; each runner-up received $100.

Fiction judge Alissa Nutting selected “The Twins” by Jill Rosenberg as the winner and “Fellowship” by Kimberly Parsons as the runner up.

Poetry judge Heather Christle selected “b careful” by Mark Baumer as the winner and “Wolfmoon” by Mary-Alice Daniel as the runner-up.

Nonfiction judge Mary Roach selected “Huron River Drive” by Will McGrath as the winner and “Three Great Lyric Passages” by Hugh Martin as the runner up.

Judges’ comments on the winning works and a full list of all the finalists can be found here.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

crazyhorse 89Still Life with Apple by David Harrison is a rich oil on canvas acquired for the Spring 2016 issue of Crazyhorse, which also includes the winners of their Crazy-shorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest.
sarah katharina kayssI liked this slightly dizzying photo on the cover of Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley. Credit goes to German photographer Sarah Katharina Kayß, whose work provides unique perspectives on architecture.
colorado reviewI want to believe it is the Blue Bird of Happiness that adorns the Spring 2016 cover of Colorado Review [no photo credit given].

The Bellingham Review 2015 Contest Winners

bellingham reviewThe Spring 2016 issue of The Bellingham Review features their 2015 literary contest winners.

Contest judge Bruce Beasley selected Ming Lauren Holden’s poem, “For My Aspirated,” as the recipient of the 49th Parallel Award for Poetry. Beasley said the poem “stunned me every time I reread it for its collision of mystery and absolute clarity . . . its insistent repetitions and piled-on rhetorical questions pounding against the unplumbable mysteries of loss.”

Eric Roe’s short story, “Notes From Lazarus,” earned the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction. Contest judge Kristiana Kahakauwila called the story, “a lovely meditation on love, devotion, and hope . . . finely crafted and controlled but never overwrought.”

S. Paola Antonetta, contest judge for the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction, described the pleasures of reading Leigh Claire Schmiddli’s work: “‘This Sonata, into the third movement’ is an essay that puns deeply to get at the deep truths of all those ways in which language, like life, evades our meanings for it. Divided, like a musical piece, into movements, ‘This Sonata’ evokes movement itself in all its forms . . . Piercingly lyric, haunting in its details.”

Books :: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

sir gawain green knight john ridlandForthcoming from Able Muse Press in August 2016 is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a new Modern English translation by John Ridland. Advance praise calls this edition one of the most readable and complete translations of the classic tale. Illustrations by Stephen Luke are found inside the pages, and provide the front and back cover art, the cover design similar to that of an old fairytale storybook.

A great addition to classic collections, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is now available for preorder from Able Muse Press.

The Malahat Review 2016 Open Season Awards

malahat 194Winning entries for the 2106 Malahat Review Open Season Awards can be read in the newest issue (#194). Interviews with each of the winning authors can be found on The Malahat Review website.

Open Season Award for Poetry Winner
John Pass, “Margined Burying Beetle”

Open Season Award for Fiction Winner
Katherine Magyarody, “Goldhawk”

Open Season Award for Creative Nonfiction Winner
Jennifer Williamson, “Light Year”

The Malahat Review, Canada’s premier literary magazine, invites entries from Canadian, American, and overseas authors for their annual Open Season Awards, with a prize of $1500 in each of three marquee categories: poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction.

Glimmer Train January/February 2016 Short Story Award for New Writers

alex jarosGlimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their 2016 January/February Short Story Award for New Writers. This competition is held three times a year and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. The next Short Story Award competition is open now: Short Story Award for New Writers. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to Alex Jaros of Kansas City, MO [pictured], who wins $2500 for “The Southwest Chief.” His story will be published in Issue 99 of Glimmer Train Stories.

2nd place goes to Gabriel Houck of Lincoln, NE, for “A Working Theory of Stellar Collapse.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train, increasing his prize from $500 to $700.

3rd place goes to Sonia Feigelson of Brooklyn, NY. She wins $300 for “Easy, Exotic.”

A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

three elements reviewBenjamin Duke’s Home Again, Home Again fills the front and back covers of the Spring 2016 (#10) issue of 3 Elements Literary Review, an online publication that challenges writers and readers alike with issues themed with three elements. Spring’s elements are Measure, Cleave, and Sliver.
apple valley review spring 2016Taking the old and making it new again is this spring issue of the online Apple Valley Review, which features cover artwork: “Cabin in the Woods, North Conway, New Hampshire,” 1848, oil on canvas by Thomas Cole.
michigan quarterly reviewSix Million is the photograph by Conor MacNeill on the cover of Winter 2016 Michigan Quarterly Review. It was taken in Berlin at the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas – the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and is companion to the opening essay by Philip Beidler, “This Way to the Führerbunker: Gertrud-Kolmar-Straße, Berlin, Mitte.”

Books :: The Inklings Coloring Book

inklings coloring bookIf you haven’t joined the adult coloring book bandwagon yet, now is a great time to hop on. Black Squirrel Books, an imprint of The Kent State University Press, released a new coloring book last month. The Inklings Coloring Book—with illustrations by fantasy illustrator James A. Owen—features 15 line drawings inspired by the works of Oxford’s famous Inklings.

Inside, J. R. R. Tolkien has tea, Christopher Tolkien stands outside the Tolkien Home, Charles Williams is at Oxford, and these illustrations are all mixed in with dragons, dwarves, elves, and more, with the Bandersnatch hidden in many of the images.

Fans of fantasy literature can take a break from their latest adventure and relax with some fantastical coloring with The Inklings Coloring Book, available now.

Bellevue Literary Review 2016 Prize Winners

bellevue literary review spring 2016The Spring issue of Bellevue Literary Journal features the winners of their 2016 BLR prizes:

Goldenberg Prize for Fiction judged by Paul Harding
Winner: “The Foreign Cinema” by Lauren Alwan
Honorable Mentions: “Are You Having Suicidal Thoughts?” by John Noonan, and “First Child, Second Place” by Marylin Warner

Felice Buckvar Prize for Nonfiction judged by Mark Vonnegu
Winner: “Askew” by Esther K. Willison
Honorable Mention: “A Member of the Family” by Morgan Smith

Marica and Jan Vilcek Prize for Poetry judged by Ada Limón
Winner: “The Problem With Anatomical Thinking—” by Meridian Johnson
Honorable Mention: “The Interview” by Kathryn Starbuck

Daniel Liebowitz Prize for Student Writing
Winner: “The Lump” by Susanna Nguy

Uruguay Poet Idea Vilariño

vilarinoPoet Lore Spring/Summer 2016 features Jesse Lee Kercheval’s translation of Uruguay poet Idea Vilariño. In her introduction, Kercheval writes of Vilariño’s book-length work, Poem de amor, “her own Leave of Grass. . . stands as a testament to both the necessity and the impossibility of love in this world, especially for a passionate, independent woman determined to speak with her own voice.” Kercheval adds, “I believe it is important for English-speaking poets and poetry readers in general to have access to work, and am delighted to this selection of poems – in both Spanish and English – in Poet Lore. I hope all of Poemas de amor will soon be available in translation.” Several of the works are available in English on the Poet Lore website. A Guest begins:

You’re not mine
you’re not here
in my life
at my side
you don’t eat at my table
or laugh or sing
or live for me.

Southeast Review 2015 Contest Winners

southeast reviewThe Southeast Review spring issue (34.1) is chock-full of finalists and winning contest entries from their 2015 season.

World’s Best Short-Short Story Contest
Judged by Robert Olen Butler

Winner:
C. A. Kaufman, “Akron, Ohio: 1933”

Finalists:
Amina Gautier, “Thankful Chinese”
Lewis Holt, “Manliness”
Ashton Russell, “We Don’t Talk About Ifs”
Ashley Shelby, “Liberation: Kuwait”
Michaella A. Thornton, “Man Lace”

SER Gearhart Poetry Contest
Judged by David Kirby

Winner:
Carolyn Moore, “The Teen Romances Her Razor”

Finalists:
Sarah Gordon, “Creases, Folds”
Tom Kelly, “Funeral Glam”
Rebecca Lauren, “Elegy for a Band Mother”
Ralph Sneeden, “Contrapunctus (#2)”
Arne Weingart, “Piecework”

SER Narrative Nonfiction Contest
Judged by Bob Shacochis

Winner:
Will McGrath, “Death of the Virgin”

Finalists:
Heather Corrigan, “Widmarked”
A. Sandosharaj, “Dead Bird Stories for Nonbelievers”

Publishing Triangle Honors Best LGBT Writing of 2015

eloise klein healyThe 28th annual Publishing Triangle Awards were presented on April 21, 2016.

Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement
Eloise Klein Healy [pictured]

The Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction
Winner: A Poet of the Invisible World by Michael Golding (Picador)

Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature
Winner: The Middle Notebookes by Nathanaël (Nightboat Books)

Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
Winner: One Hundred Days of Rain by Carellin Brooks (BookThug)

The Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
Winner: “No One Helped”: Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy by Marcia M. Gallo (Cornell University Press)

The Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction
Winners [tie]:
Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage by Barney Frank (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
It’s Not Over: Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia, and Winning True Equality by Michelangelo Signorile (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

The Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry
Winner: Chord by Rick Barot (Sarabande Books)

The Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry
Winner: No Confession, No Mass by Jennifer Perrine (University of Nebraska Press)

For a full list of finalists and winners, visit the Publishing Triangle Awards website.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

macguffin winter 2016G. Davis Cathcart is the artist behind this sugar-crazed untitled work of a young man/boy enjoying his morning dose of Sugar Pops on the Winter 2016 cover of The MacGuffin.
green mountains reviewAnother comic cover on Green Mountains Review (v29 n1) is an illustration by Tim Mayer from OldGuy: Superhero. Selections of both poetry and images from the illustrated chapbook by William Trowbridge are featured within the issue.

Chinua Achebe Symposium

massachusetts review spring 2016Chinua Achebe fans: You’re going to want the newest issue of The Massachusetts Review (v.LVII, n.1; Spring 2016) “A Gathering in Honor of Chinua Achebe” on the front cover doesn’t quite convey the powerhouse of essays included within. The editor’s note gives more specific context: “In our Spring issue the Massachusetts Review is honored to feature the contributions to a recent symposium held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on October 14 and 15, 2015. ‘Forty Years After: Chinua Achebe and Africa in the Global Imagination’ was hosted by the university’s Interdisciplinary Studies Institute . . .” and included physician-executive Dr. Chidi Achebe (third son of Chinua and Christie Achebe), Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Denja Abdullahi, Jule Chametzky, Caryl Phillips, Okey Ndibe, Chika Unigwe, Chuma Nwokolo, Maaza Mengiste, and Achille Mbembe. Each of their contributions are included in this issue along with the originating essay, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” by Chinua Achebe.