The Spring 2016 issue of Rumninate Magazine celebrates ten years of publication! The volume features comments from readers, staff, and contributors who share their experience with “ruminating and contemplation – being still and attentive, pausing and listening.” The cover art, “Rhino” by Nicholas Price, actually appeared on the very first cover of Ruminate. Editor Brianna VanDyke says it is featured again as “a playful nod to our roots and the beautiful and gusty perserverances of a little arts magazine celebrating ten years.” And, in gratitude to their readership, tucked into each anniversary issue of Rhino is a gorgeous letterpress broadside which reads, “Always We Begin Again” – After St. Benedict. What a treat Ruminate has been for the past decade, and we all hope for many more to come!

I normally try to focus my blog notes on one “something” per lit mag per post, but the newest issue of The Georgia Review has several somethings worth note. First, congratulations to the Review for achieving 70 years of continuous quarterly publication! Congratulations to Emily Van Kley whose poem “Dear Skull” won the 2015 Loraine Williams Poetry Prize and is featured as the first work in the issue. Editor Stephen Corey’s “To Our Readers” takes a fun trouncing on the form when he declares: “I hearby announce the invention and likely demise of the ‘braided editorial,’ an offshoot from the ‘braided essay’ that has been rather de rigueur in recent years in some literary circles – to such an extent that people teach how-to classes, and anthologies of such works are probably imminent.” Also worth note: William Walsh’s interview with and inclusion of several poems by Rita Dove. And this among so much else to recommend.

New England Review v37 n1 includes a literary criticism section entitled The Mind at the End of the Palm: Wallace Stevens Thinking. In a series of five essays, “five poet-critics consider Wallace Stevens, with a focus on Stevens as a ‘philosophical’ poet (or not). The first four were presented as a symposium at the AWP Conference in 2014 [by David Baker, Linda Gregerson, Carl Phillips, Stanley Plumly], then gathered by David Baker and edited for print; the final essay, by Carol Frost, came to NER serendipitously, at about the same time. They all look closely at Stevens’s poetry and why it continues to engage us so deeply, more than a hundred years after he published his first poems.” Baker’s contribution can be read on the NER website here.

The newest issue of The Bitter Oleander: A Magazine of Contemporary International Poetry & Short Fiction (v22 n1) features an interview with comtemporary Greek writer Dimitris Lyacos as well as a seletion of his poems from his Poena Damni triology, translated by Shorsha Sullivan. An excerpt from his interview with TBO’s editor and a selection from his featured work can be read on The Bitter Oleander’s webite here.

MĀNOA publishes two volumes a year of contemporary writing, often the first time in translation, from throughout Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas. Past volumes have featured new work from such places as the People’s Republic of China, Tibet, Nepal, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Viet Nam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Australia, Cambodia, French Polynesia, the Pacific Islands, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, as well as Canada, Mexico, and South America. The two most recent issues of MĀNOA are Story Is a Vagabond: Fiction, Essays, and Drama by Intizar Husain and The Colors of Dawn: Twentieth Centruy Korean Poetry. Husain, considered one of the greatest writers in Urdu, passed away at the beginning of the year in Lahore, Pakistan. His volume published just early in 2015 provides a fitting tribute to his impact on the literature of his culture.

The newest issue of The Wallace Stevens Journal (a publication of the Wallace Stevens Society) is themed: Wallace Stevens and Walt Whitman. Society Vice President Glen Macleod writes in his introductory essay: “When I first proposed an MLA roundtable discussion on Walt Whitman and Wallace Stevens, it seemed like a natural pairing. . . A panel on this topic might prompt some fresh perspectives on a well-established case of literary influence. The topic turned out to be more interesting and more controversial than I anticipated.”

Macleod introduces each of the following essays, excerpts of which can be read on the publication’s Project Muse page:

“A Prefatory Note on Whitman, Stevens, and the Poetics of Americana” by Tyler Hoffman
“Between Surface and Influence: Stevens, Whitman, and the Problem of Mediation” by Patrick Redding
“Whitman and Stevens: No Supreme Fiction” by Matt Miller
“Beach Boys: Stevens, Whitman, and Franco-American Modernism” by Lee M. Jenkins
“Whitman and Stevens: Certain Phenomena of Sound” by Roger Gilbert
And a questionnaire – in which Macleod and Journal Editor Bart Eeckhout ask Tony Sharpe of Lancaster University questions about Whitman and Stevens in the United Kingdom.

Guest edited by Bill Kartalopoulos, “International Comics” is the theme of the March-April 2016 issue of World Literature Today. Editor for the Best American Comics series, Kartalopoulos also teaches comics history and the graphic novel at Parsons The New School for Design and the School of Visual Arts. Along with his introduction, the magazine features an interview with artist David B. (B. is short for Beauchard), “Baby Boom (excerpts)” comics by Yūichi Yokoyama, and essays “Casting Shadows: Anke Feuchtenberger’s Comics and Graphic Narration” by Elizabeth Nijdam, “Frémok: Comics Out-of-Bounds” by Erwin Dejasse, “International Comics: Five Groundbreaking Publishers,” “Six Comic Books For Further Reading,”  and “Ilan Manouach: Defamiliarizing Comics” all by Bill Kartalopoulos.

BANG! is a monthly author online showcase published by The New Guard. Three pieces in any combination of previously unpublished poetry shorts or fiction or nonfiction are featured online for a month. Submission period runs all year round with the next installment planned for April 4, 2016. The March 2016 BANG! author is Lyall Harris. Past authors have included Alexandra Oliver, Mike Heppner, Marc Mewshaw, Timothy Dyke, Marcia Popp, Quenton Baker, Joshua Graber, Charles Wyatt, Julio Duggan, Jonathan Segol, Lissa Kiernan, Roger Bonair-Agard, James Kimbrell, Bridget Boland, E.G. Cunningham, Melissa Goode, Mark Wagstaff, Carla Stern, Sarah Glass, Jennifer Amell, Zakia R. Khwaja, Julie Poitras Santos and Amy Nash.

Vine Leaves Literary Journal, featuring “the lost writing form of the vignette,” is accepting applications for Editor-in-Chief to manage the biannual print  and digital publication as well as develop a clear vision for its literary and financial stability. Qualifications include a creative self-starter with a minimum two years managerial and editorial experience; a voracious and diverse reader with extensive literary and design networks, excellent communications skills, and a relentless passion for supporting aspiring writers; ideally, an author yourself. This is a part-time, renewable, three-year contract, beginning late June 2016 reporting to Publisher Jessica Bell. This is a volunteer position until the Journal becomes profitable, when a reasonable salary will be negotiated. Applications close Friday, April 29, 2016 with Skype interviews late May/early June. Full posting here.

Arcadia 10.1 is themed “The New Chican@” with guest editor Ito Romo. The issue features short fiction by Luke Neftalí Villafranca, poetry by Octavio Quintanilla, fiction and nonfiction by Sarah Cortez, and a poem by Tim Z. Hernandezm, with original art from Vincent Valdez. Romo writes in his introduction, “I wanted to put together a group of artists who, with their art, be it visual or literary, tell a story honestly and beautifully – those were my only criteria. And so, I’ve chosen a group of Mexican American artists who have recreated for us, with images and words, the current strange and dark malaise of the invisible, of the forgotten.”

For Rattle #51, the editors put out the call for submissions from women poets with the same great uncertaintly every magazine risks when planning a themed issue or special feature. Rattle editors must have been pleased, as the issue features “a lengthy tribute to 31 feminist poets” selected from “the thousands of poems” submitted. Also included in the issue is a conversation with Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts. The feature explores the question, “What does it mean to be a feminist poet in the 21st century?” Rattle editors surmise: “There might be as many answers to that question as there are feminist poets—each of those featured provide their perspectives in an especially important contributor notes section.”

Featured poets: Lisa Baird, Michele Battiste, Roberta Beary, Heather Bell, Claire Blotter, Leila Chatti, Ann Clark, Barbara Crooker, Denise Duhamel & Maureen Seaton, Julie R. Enszer, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Beth Gylys, Kelsey Hagarman, Sandra Kohler, Amy Miller, Abby E. Murray, Jenny Qi, Jessy Randall, Laura Read, Lucinda Roy, Yaccaira Salvatierra, Amber Shockley, Robin Silbergleid, Julie Steiner, Lisa Summe, Katherine Barrett Swett, Kelly Grace Thomas, Amy Uyematsu, Julie Marie Wade, and Sara Watson.

The inaugural issue of the revived Courtship of the Winds features a Digital Forum in which the editor asks five questions related to education reform, including “What does it mean to be well-educated?” and “Which educational systems in the U.S. or in other countries would you point to as a model for reform efforts here? What has made them successful?”

Editor William V. Ray engaged a variety of professionals in the conversation, and while based in Massachusetts, the topic is pertinent nation wide. Participants include: Rachael Avery Barton, Middle School History Teacher; Michael Capuano, U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’ 7th District; Kenneth Hawes, Senior Lecturer in Education, Wellesley College; Phillip James, History Department Coordinator, Lincoln-Sudbury R.H.S.; Véronique Latimer, High School Art Teacher; Arthur Unobskey, Assistant Superintendent, Gloucester Public Schools; Isa Zimmerman, Executive Director, Massachusetts Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

The Courtship of Winds publishes two online issues per year of poetry, fiction, short dramatic pieces, essays, photography, art, and short pieces of music.

Since 2009, Verse has been dedicated to publishing a collection of works from each selected contributor. Readers who enjoy spending more time with one author will appreciate this format; the most recent issue offers nearly 450 pages to only 14 portfolios by Natalie Eilbert, Sandra Simonds, Timothy Liu, Eric Pankey, Karla Kelsey, Leonard Schwartz, Kate Colby, John High, Kathryn Cowles, Douglas Piccinnini, Laressa Dickey, B.J. Soloy, Aleah Sterman Goldin, and Kevin Varrone. Verse is housed in the English Department at the University of Richmond, with Faculty Editor Brian Henry’s ENG 393 students involved in the editorial process.