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New Lit on the Block :: Slippage Lit

slippage litI have a friend who likes to order items on a menu that are sound fun to say when we go out to eat. That’s how I first came to try calamari and bibimbap. It’s also a way to discover great new lit mags, like Slippage Lit, whose co-editors, Jacob Parsons and Admir Šiljak, along with Social Media Editor Semina Pekmezović, admit they chose the name because they just like the way it sounds. But that’s not the only reason. Continue reading “New Lit on the Block :: Slippage Lit”

Cleaver Magazine’s Writer-to-Writer Craft Essays

Lea PageCleaver: Philadelphia’s International Literary Magazine online features Writer-to-Writer: Essays on Craft and The Writing Life.

Recent essays include “On Revision: From story to STORY, With a Little Help from a Doomed Vole and Robert McKee” by Lea Page [pictured]; “From Play to Peril and Beyond: How Writing Constraints Unleash Truer Truths” by Jeannine Ouellette; “Into the Woods: What Fairy Tale Settings Can Teach Us About Fiction Writing” by Dana Kroos; “Three Secrets to Create the Writing Life You Want” by Lisa Bubert; “In Defense of Telling” by Scott Bane.

Polish Poetry in Translation

The latest issue of New England Review (40.2) includes “Polish Poetry in Translation: Bridging the Frontiers of Language” edited by Ellen Hinsey [pictured], NER‘s international correspondent, with translations by Jakob Ziguras.

ellen hinseyHinsey discusses her approach to this collection, coming to the difficult question of “how to choose among so many brilliant authors? Should one pick a range of poets, or focus on individual key texts that might reflect a Polish reader’s idea of major ‘missing’ poems?”

Continue reading “Polish Poetry in Translation”

2019 Dogwood Literary Award Winners

Issue 18 of Dogwood features the winners of the 2019 Dogwood Literary Awards:

gillian vikDogwood Literary Award in Fiction
Judge Phil Klay
“Whom the Lion Seeks” by Annie Lampman

Dogwood Literary Award in Poetry
Judge Lia Purpura
“The Cancer Menagerie” by Gillian Vik [pictured]

Dogwood Literary Award in Nonfiction
Judge Lia Purpura
“The Taste of It” by Nikita Nelin

The deadline for the 2020 contest is September 5, 2019. Winners in each genre receive $1000 in addition to publication. See full guidelines here.

Prime 53 Summer Challenge

ChrisForrestIf you love rules and regulations, following forms and formulas to make something work, gnashing your teeth and pulling out your hair to meet perfection – and you love poetry – then you’re going to love this free Prime 53 Summer Challenge Poetry Contest

Press 53 Poetry Editor Christopher Forrest [pictured] and Publisher and Editor in Chief Kevin Morgan Watson devised a new poetic form: the Prime 53 poem.

Continue reading “Prime 53 Summer Challenge”

“The Water of Life” by Zac Thompson

qu i10 summer 2019Wrap up your summer and get ready to head back to school with Zac Thompson’s “The Water of Life” a stage/screenplay in Qu #10. The characters, Leah and Carrie, are young, romantic partners at the close of their two-month summer relationship, each preparing to go to college—Carrie away to university and Leah to the local junior college. Leah, a preacher’s daughter, has set up a baptistery so the two can bind their relationship with a ritual. The dialogue is subtly quick and revealing, Leah being the pragmatist and Carrie the comic; Leah the “intense” dramatist and Carrie the lighthearted, “afraid to express [her] feelings.” It’s an intimate scene, full of the love and subsequent gut-churning realism young people face when their paths are on the verge of separation. A memorably bittersweet read.

 

Review by Denise Hill

Ecotone Offers Venerable Instructions

With the Spring/Summer 2019 issue, Ecotone Editor Anna Lena Phillips Bell [pictured] introduces a new “department” to be included in each issue of the journal, “Various Instructions, in which writers and artists will offer lists, prompts, formulas, how-to’s, and the like.”

anna lena phillips bellDrawing inspiration from Eric Magrane’s “Various Instructions for the Practice of Poetic Field Research,” Bell writes that “these instructions are an invitation to think deeply in and with place. They have proved enduring; I’ve been glad to use them in teaching and in my own poetic practice.”

Continue reading “Ecotone Offers Venerable Instructions”

The Sealey Challenge – Week Two Update

sealey challenge booksWe’re two weeks and a day into The Sealey Challenge, and I’m admittedly half a book behind. “Challenge” is right. Between daily responsibilities and attempting to eke the last bit of fun from the remaining weeks of summer, my poetry reading has slid onto the backburner this past week, despite the enjoyment reading more than a dozen different poets has given me.

Participating in the challenge continues to give me insight into my own habits and, well, laziness. However, this year’s reading has brought me to a local coffeeshop every couple days, so now other regulars are checking in on me and my progress. “What are you reading today?” or “Still kicking?” greets me when I walk into the cozy little building. I now have cheerleaders and accountability, something to keep me “kicking” (though I probably won’t admit to any of them that I’m a day behind when I visit today).

Are you participating in The Sealey Challenge, and are you keeping a better or worse hold on your reading than I am? What is your favorite book you’ve read so far?

Stay tuned for flash reviews of some of the books I read during the challenge, and click the “Read more” button below to check in on which books I’ve finished so far.

Continue reading “The Sealey Challenge – Week Two Update”

“A Civilized Man” by Robb T. White

thriller magazine v2 i1 july 2019Robb T. White’s lead story “A Civilized Man” is provided as a sample of the July 2019 Thriller Magazine (2.1). White’s narrator opens the story with, “What is a civilized man?” and walks readers through his fiancé’s disappearance and ultimate discovery of her brutalized dead body. The predictable dead-end investigation is offset by the narrator’s unexpected choice of action as he lays down his own justice. “It’s odd that I feel no guilt or shame.” The narrator confesses, “Quite the opposite. I feel . . . pleased, if that’s the right word.” Likewise, in reading the objectively detailed sequence of events, I felt no guilt or shame in his actions either. Pleased ? Maybe that is the right word.

 

Review by Denise Hill

Detroit Working Writers Poetry Contest Winners

Based out of Schoolcraft College in Michigan, The MacGuffin Spring 2019 features the winners of the Detroit Working Writer’s MacGuffin Poetry Prize, awarded at the group’s annual conference last Fall:

diana dinvernoFirst Place
“Ann Arbor” by Diana Dinverno [pictured]

Second Place
“I Thought I Couldn’t Take It With Me” by Vicki Wilke

Honorable Mention
“Whispers” by 
Jack D. Ferguson

Also included in this issue is a biographical sketch and selection of poems from The MacGuffin’s 24th Poet Hunt Contest Guest Judge Richard Tillinghast. Winners of the Poet Hunt Contest will be published in the next issue of The MacGuffin.

 

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

massachusetts review

Sorry coulrophobics, and pretty much anyone creeped out by clowns, but this still from Kate Durbin’s portrayal of “the trickster figure of the clown and white box of the Facebook timeline” in her short film Unfriend Me Now! (2018) is just one of many images also included in the Summer 2019 issue of The Massachusetts Review.

parhelion

Such an iconic image of summer on the cover of Parhelion #5. This photo by Anne Eastman is one of many featured in her portfolio in this issue. Read her artist’s statement to learn about her approach to photography, which includes evenings dancing as as “Little Miss Funshine” at the Fantasy Bikini Club in LA.

court green

Court Green Summer 2019 made me laugh out loud: images of Elizabeth Taylor are used to link to each writer on the publication’s home page. Other publications commonly use the writers’ photos here, but Court Green’s spin on that is hilarious. Since moving from print to online, this use of themed circles has become their hallmark.

Two Poems by Leslie Marie Aguilar

wildnessTwo whirlwind prose poems by Leslie Marie Aguilar in the May 2019 issue of wildness online speak in abstractions melded with concrete symbols, creating a contemporary mythology of the self. “Bone Altar” begins, “Legends begin with valerian root, red clover, & a touch of tequila.” and instructs the reader to call upon ancestors. “Cartography,” just at the moment I think the poem’s speaker is deeply troubled, assures me, “If this sounds like a cry for help, like shouting into a canyon & hoping to hear a voice different than your own, it’s not.” Two dizzyingly brief works with lasting impact.

 

Review by Denise Hill

David H. Lynn Announces Retirement

david h lynnIn his “Front Matter” editor’s note to the July/August 2019 issue of Kenyon Review, David H. Lynn announces his intention to step down from his role as The David F. Banks Editor of the publication:

“. . . about a year from when this issue arrives off the press, I’ll be stepping down as editor. The decision came to me rather suddenly, I confess, and several years earlier than I’d previously imagined. What had long seemed a comfortable bike ride, despite occasional potholes and sudden challenging hills that maintained my interest and attention, was now unexpectedly weighing in my legs and on my shoulders. I was growing a bit weary and impatient for other vistas, other challenges.”

In discussing the role and responsibilities of editor, Lynn responds to the label of gatekeeper :

“It’s hostile and resentful, suggesting that the role of literary editors is to maintain high barriers. With all my heart, however, I believe that the appropriate charge for an editor of the Kenyon Review is to resist any such notion of guardianship, of excluding any class or set of writers. Rather, whoever is appointed to follow me, she or he or they, should continue to seek to include, to aggressively search out new voices and new talents and even new media with which to publish them, while also nourishing and supporting many of those talented authors we have discovered and honored for the past two decades and more.”

We wish Lynn a smooth transition away from his wonderful work with Kenyon Review – may he indeed be met by beautiful vistas and invigorating challenges.

CRAFT Literary – Summer 2019

craft literaryCRAFT Literary’s mission is to “explore the art of fiction with a focus on the elements of craft.” They do this through publishing fiction with commentary, pieces on craft, interviews, and more.

Recent publications include Cathy Ulrich’s flash fiction piece “Being the Murdered Extra.” Ulrich imagines the backstory for the quintessential crime show “dead girl.” Written in second person, readers are put in the place of the auditioning girl while still feeling disconnected (you’re dead after all) as the story moves on to breathe life into the background characters of the background character: her mother and her roommates. This story is accompanied by two paragraphs of commentary on the craft.

The “Craft” section of the website includes sections titled “Essays,” “Interviews,” “Books,” and “Roundups.” In “Books,” find reviews, and in “Roundups” check out lists like “TV Adaptations We Love” and “CRAFT Fiction by the Elements.” A recent interview with Ariel Gore is introduced by a bonus essay on Gore’s We Were Witches by interviewer Melissa Benton Barker.

Jody Hobbs Hesler in “If You Can Name It, You Can Fix It: A Craft Glossary” writes about the benefits of giving clear feedback during writing workshops. In the essay, she points out how it’s easy to provide feedback of what’s working, but harder to articulate what could use some help, so she offers her own help by pointing out some common issues such as “Cliches of the Body” or “Too Much Reality vs. Realism.” Hesler provides a convenient little glossary for writers and those who workshop.

CRAFT Literary provides a deeper look into fiction while offering writers plenty of material to help out with their own writing processes.

 

Review by Katy Haas

‘Cyborg Detective’ by Jillian Weise

cyborg detective weiseJillian Weise’s bio at the back of her latest collection, Cyborg Detective, boasts an impressive professional history, from books published to awards won to disability rights activism to starring in the tongue-in-cheek web series “Tips for Writers by Tipsy Tullivan.” In Cyborg Detective, Weise continues to show off her skills while holding the mirror up to the literary community.

Poems such as “Cattulus Tells Me Not to Write the Rant Against Maggie Smith’s ‘Good Bones,’” “10 Postcards to Marie Howe,” and “The Phantom Limbs of the Poets” cover the topic of ableism in the writing community and the ableist language and ideation that many writers and artists keep using in their craft. Using this language might not seem like a huge deal to writers without disabilities, but poems like “Attack List” (which is continued on Weise’s Twitter as a transcription informs [braille included]) show the danger of these microaggressions by making us face full-on, violent aggressions. In her list, Weise rethinks Josef Kaplan’s Kill List and Steven Trull’s “Fuck List” with the headlines or summaries of murders and rapes of disabled women. The words we choose matter.

A favorite part of Cyborg Detective for me is “Cathedral by Raymond Carver,” in which Weise reimagines the three characters of “Cathedral,” the blind man actually given a background, a personality, sexuality, agency, all things Carver did not provide.

As a nondisabled reader and writer, I find Weise’s work revealing and informative, a reminder to check my own vocabulary for ableist language and my own thoughts for ableist ideas, and to put an end to them. Weise never resorts to handholding as she does all this, but points out the bullshit with biting wit, dark humor, and a punk rock, cyborg attitude.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Writing Prompts from Abrams Noterie

writing abrams blog postAbrams Noterie, imprint of ABRAMS Books, publishes stationary, artbooks, journals, and activity books, with a four-part collection on writing to be released this September.

Created by the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, each book of the collection focuses on a different aspect of writing: Writing Action, Writing Character, Writing Dialogue, and Writing Humor. Prompts, writing exercises, and words of advice make up each volume, with plenty of space for writers to scribble down their ideas.

In Writing Action, writers are asked to describe what a scared teen feels during their first driving class, and on the opposite page they’re asked to write what a reckless teen might be feeling. In Writing Humor there are zany scenarios to explore, including “the silent type: You’ve fallen in love with your daughter’s Ken doll and have decided to tell your husband.” Page after page reveals a new and fun scenario to capture.

These four well-designed titles include around 100 pages of inspiration, a nice choice for writers looking for a little bit of guidance.

2019 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize Winners

The newest issue of Ruminate Magazine (Summer 2019) features the first and second place winning entries of their 2019 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize selected by final judge Jessica Wilbanks:

porter huddlestonFirst Place
“The Foundation Above Us” by Porter Huddleston [pictured]

Second Place
“The Proctor’s Manual” by Kristin Leclaire

Honorable Mention
“The Emperor’s Clothes, The Empire’s Language” by Jamila Osman

For a full list of finalists and judge’s comments about the winning entries, click here.

In addition to publication, this annual prize awards $1500 to the first-place entry and $200 to the second-place entry. The deadline for entry is October 27, 2019. See full guidelines here.

 

Blood Orange Review – Spring 2019

blood orange reviewThe latest issue of Blood Orange Review offers plenty of good writing, the nonfiction inviting readers to consider where they come from as the three writers do the same.

Melissa Matthewson answers the question of her essay’s title “Aren’t There Any Beautiful Things in Your Own Country?” with “Yes. No. Also, fewer.” A response to Susan Sontag’s “Unguided Tour,” Matthewson writes of the beauty living along the California/Mexico border, the beauty that continues to fade as time passes.

In “We Carry Smoke and Paper,” a desire to perform a Chinese red egg ceremony for her daughter’s one-month celebration leads Melody S. Gee to think about how she and her mother each fit into the label of “Chinese,” and how Gee particularly fits, raised in America for basically her entire life, daughter of a mother who single-handedly tries to keep her Chinese traditions alive. This is an insightful and revealing piece on cultural and familial identity.

Questioning familial identity is the backbone of “Crescent” by Rochelle Smith. The piece begins:“John Coltrane is my father. The jazz saxophonist, yes [ . . . ]. I’ve known this all my life. Or that’s not true, not all my life, really only since I first heard his music, which was in college.” Readers may have their doubts, but Smith backs up her claim with proof of how Kenneth, the man her mother marries, couldn’t possibly be her real father. “I’ll tell you two stories about Kenneth,” she says, letting the reader into her story, “and then you tell me.” But we find this is all wishful thinking, like the angsty teenage years where the flitting thought comes up: “maybe I am adopted—there’s no way I come from these people.”

Check out the nonfiction in the latest issue of Blood Orange Review and take some time to think about where you came from.

 

Review by Katy Haas

2019 Sealey Challenge Kicks Off

sealey challenge booksAugust is here and with it comes the third annual Sealey Challenge. Started by Nicole Sealey in 2017, the challenge is to read a poetry book or chapbook every day for the month of August.

I participated last year, and it felt like such a satisfying way to round out the summer months as I brushed off the cobwebs and dove into a new book each day.

I managed to end the 2018 challenge learning new things about myself, my reading habits, and my tastes in poetry. I practiced getting out of the house with a new book, the changes in setting feeling like a fresh new adventure. Where would I settle in to read that day, and where would the poet bring me after that?

After a few days, it became clear I simply wasn’t reading enough poetry throughout the other months of the year and there wasn’t a good excuse. If I could read thirty-one books in just as many days, I could carve out more time to read poetry the rest of the year. (Did I stick to this? Not as much as I’d like, but hey—baby steps!) This year, I’m stocked up on chapbooks for a more manageable approach to the challenge for myself. Somedays it is definitely difficult to make time, and chapbooks make the work load a little easier to handle.

Along with learning about my own reading habits, I was also introduced to new favorite poets and books, the magic my body becomes by Jess Rizkallah, Acadiana by Nancy Reddy, and WASP QUEEN by Claudia Cortese among these.

Give Nicole Sealey’s Twitter a scroll-through to learn more about the challenge and see what other readers are up to during the month. I’ll be back later this month with updates on how the challenge is treating me as I move through my picks, which you can see by clicking the “Read more” button below.

Continue reading “2019 Sealey Challenge Kicks Off”

Apple Valley Review – Spring 2019

apple valley review v14 n1 spring 2019Our families and the people we care about affect much of how we feel or what we do in life, so it’s appropriate that many of the poems in the Spring 2019 issue of Apple Valley Review center on family.

Gail Peck’s speaker thinks of “The Perfume I Never Gave My Mother,” the scents of “flowers [ . . . ] desire [ . . . ] youth” clouding around her as her mother’s health fails, scents reminding her of the way her “mother loved flowers. [ . . . ] Always an arrangement / on her table that could take your breath away.” Mark Belair considers the silence and absence of his grandfather’s house after he dies, offering us a tiny glimpse through “the mail slot,” also the title of the piece. Seen through the innocent scope of the speaker’s childhood self gives us a refresher on loss as he fully understands it for maybe the first time.

Lynne Knight writes of two family members in her set of poems, her father in “At Twenty” and her sister in “After My Sister’s Mastectomy.” The former recounts a tumultuous relationship between father and daughter as she watches him angrily smoke cigarettes on the sidewalk below her apartment. Knight expertly captures the complicated push and pull of loving someone while hating parts of them at the same time:

hating his daughter
even as he loved her, for making him yield
to love’s weakness, its longing
for nothing to change.

The latter poem of Knight’s draws on images of outdoors and nature to explore the finiteness of life while encouraging us to appreciate the bits of beauty, wonder, and humor the outside world offers while we’re here.

In addition to these works, this issue offers much to discover, including two fiction pieces by Jeff Ewing and Jeff Moreland, poems by Doug Rampseck, and more.

 

Review by Katy Haas

American Life in Poetry :: Gary Whitehead

American Life in Poetry: Column 749
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Lately I’ve been worried about the welfare of a young groundhog who lives under our front deck. His back legs won’t support him and he drags them behind. This poem has been a good lesson for me. That groundhog is neither MY groundhog, nor does he need my pity. This poem is by Gary Whitehead of New York, from his book A Glossary of Chickens: Poems, published by Princeton University Press.

gary whiteheadOne-Legged Pigeon

In a flock on Market,
just below Union Square,
the last to land
and standing a little canted,
it teetered—I want to say now
though it’s hardly true—
like Ahab toward the starboard
and regarded me
with blood-red eyes.
We all lose something,
though that day
I hadn’t lost a thing.
I saw in that imperfect bird
no antipathy, no envy, no vengeance.
It needed no pity,
but just a crumb,
something to hop toward.

Note from American Life in Poetry: We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. 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 ©2013 by Princeton University Press, “One-Legged Pigeon,” by Gary J. Whitehead, from A Glossary of Chickens: Poems (Princeton University Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Gary J. Whitehead and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2019 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.

American Literary Review – Summer 2019

american literary review spring 2019In the latest issue, American Literary Review brings readers the winners of the annual ALR Awards. The 2019 winners feature Ellen Seusy in poetry, Cady Vishniac in fiction, and Julialicia Case in nonfiction.

Seusy’s “The Spiral Jetty” is an ekphrastic poem about Robert Smithson’s titular art piece. Seusy’s speaker compares Smithson’s creation with six-year-olds creating bowls from mud and spit, pointing out how “It’s the making that matters most,” even now that “we’re / out of breath, still running. Still tasting / dirt and salt. The work holds water, still.” It isn’t the finished product or the public reception that matters most—it’s the act of creating.

The narrator in Vishniac’s “Bumper Crop” faces the consequences he’s created for himself. The main character—bitter and a bit insufferable after his recent separation from his wife—encounters chickens on the way to the daycare where he works, an interruption to his usual day of hitting on his co-teacher, being too protective of his son who attends the daycare, and holding grudges against children. Vishniac crafts an entertaining story with a satisfying karmic ending.

Karmic endings also come into play in Case’s “The Stories I Do Not Know For Sure.” The nonfiction piece centers on Case’s former coworker David and his wife Sandra. The two concoct stories about their lives, stories that eventually fall apart, revealing muddled truths underneath. Case ends the piece reflecting on the stories we tell and the realities they create, recreate, or destroy. The gripping piece almost reads like a thriller, each paragraph revealing a new detail about Case’s story and the stories David and Sandra weave.

The winners of the ALR Awards are a great introduction to American Literary Review, and this year’s contest is currently open for submissions until October.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Three Poems by Jeannine Hall Gailey

spoon river poetry review v44 n1 summer 2019A recent series of poems by Jeannine Hall Gailey in the Spoon River Poetry Review is a testament to the tenacity of poetry and its poet. In her first chapbook, Female Comic Book Superheroes (Pudding House Publishing, 2005), I met Gailey as a stealthy kick-ass feminist poet. Her works were subtle but fierce, drawing character, voice, and reader into a collective sense of powerful control. Her following five books continued on this vein through recurring themes of mythology, fairy tale, feminism, science, science fiction, and the apocalypse. Through the years, I also kept up with her blog, where she shared her diagnosis of MS. But, as she first noted, back in 2013, “. . . I don’t want to define myself by this or any of the other weirdo health stuff I have. I am maybe a mutant, but I have a lot of good things in my life too.”

Continue reading “Three Poems by Jeannine Hall Gailey”

‘Rise and Fall of the Lesser Sun Gods’ by Bruce Bond

rise fall lesser sun gods bondPerhaps it is because this was written in January, and in my part of the world, the temperature was hovering around 0 degrees. Maybe it is the hours I had spent hibernating and devouring hours of classic movies from the 1940s and 50s aired on TCM. Or maybe it’s simply the idea of a ‘radio in the sand’ emitting static and faint music from another place in the universe—Hollywood.

Continue reading “‘Rise and Fall of the Lesser Sun Gods’ by Bruce Bond”

‘The Language of Bones’ by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

language of bones spraginsElizabeth Spencer Spragins’ passion for bardic verse in The Language of the Bones is irresistible. I can’t imagine a writer who, after reading this, wouldn’t try her hand at it or even use this as a class text to inspire students. Though Spragins does not provide ‘guidelines’ for the forms she utilizes – four Welsh (cywydd llosgyrnog, rhupunt, clogyrnach, cyhydedd hir) and one Gaelic (rannaigheacht ghairid) – a Google search offers plenty of resources (including an article by Spragins herself).

This “American Journeys in Bardic Verse” takes readers from Virginia to South and North Carolina, the deserts of the Southwest, the forests of the Northwest, and all the way to Alaska. Each poem is accompanied by endnotes to provide historical and cultural contexts. Because Spragins has specifically chosen to give “voice to the unspoken, the overlooked, and the forgotten,” these poems require prior knowledge for greatest appreciation, and each is a kind of history lesson. The “starving time” in colonial Jamestown; the forcible removal of the Cherokee Nation from their homeland; people, events, and landmarks of the American Civil War and the south are subjects Spragins educates her readers about through deftly crafted meter and rhyme which, she instructs, is traditionally read aloud.

Spragins also includes contemporary issues and does not shy away from controversy, as in her poem “At Standing Rock,” commenting on the treatment of Lakota Sioux. “Polar Night,” “Hunters,” and “Northern Lights” stand in witness to the devastations of climate change. And the book closes on a series of poems that return to places where nature and spirituality intersect, in “Sedona,” “The Garden of the Gods,” the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (“Sacred Songs”), and Muir Woods (“Spires”). A looking outward from who and where we are physically to something much greater and beyond.

Read more about Elizabeth Spencer Spragins and The Language of the Bones in an interview with Ceri Shaw on AmeriCymru.

 

Review by Denise Hill

What Do You Do With Your Books?

anthony varalloCrazyhorse Fiction Editor Anthony Varallo’s Editor’s Note to the Spring 2019 issue couldn’t be more timely. In it, he recounts a conversation with a colleague asking, “What do you do with all your books?”

A conundrum for most NewPages readers, no doubt, since being book people still means holding onto physical copies of books, no matter how many e-versions we could be reading also/instead.

I once envisioned the perfect adulthood as being one surrounded by books. I guess I also should have envisioned the time to read them all! Much like the Twilight Episode, Time Enough At Last, we here at NewPages find ourselves surrounded by books and literary journals with barely enough time to glance the covers and contents before another batch arrives in the mail.

We do make time, however, to read, to write reviews, to appreciate others’ reviews, and keep up with the literary world in general. Still – here are all these physical books.

Varallo [pictured] writes, “For many years, I acquired books with the idea that I was building a library. A library that would give me pleasure for years, I’d hoped, or a library that might be useful to others . . . “

We had also held such visions at one time, purchasing a dozen or so quality bookcases and having some built in. They quickly filled the office and spilled into numerous rooms in our home. And who read them? Did we have time? Did they even “look good” ? As Varallo comments, “I tell my colleague about the tower of books on my nightstand, the one that stretches higher than my lamp. I describe the books stacked horizontally on my bookshelves, not in the artful, decorative style you sometimes see in glossy magazines; these are stacks of pure necessity. Books piled on top of other books, sometimes bending the covers of the books beneath them.”

This is the reality of ‘too many books.’ Yes, there is such a thing as too many books. And the truth of the matter in our case is, they should be freed onto others so that they can be read.

We cleared off the bookshelves in the office. Cleared out almost every bookcase in the house. We boxed up books and magazines and donated them to various libraries, colleges, universities and K-12 classrooms in our area and a bit beyond (Hello Alaska friends!). After this initial clearing out, we are still met with a steady stream of books and lit mags that come through. It is our work, after all.

What to do with them? We have a plan hatching and look forward to sharing it with you later this summer. In the meantime, What do you do with all your books?

Final Short Story for New Writers Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their final Short Story Award for New Writers competition. The award was given for a short story by a writer whose fiction has not appeared with a circulation greater than 5000.

rachael uwada clifford1st place goes to Rachael Uwada [pictured] Clifford of Baltimore, Maryland, who wins $2500 for “What the Year Will Swallow.” Her story will be published in Issue 106, the final issue of Glimmer Train Stories. This will be her first fiction publication.

2nd place goes to Douglas Kiklowicz of Long Beach, California, who wins $500 for “I Used to Be Funny.” His story will also be published in Issue 106 of Glimmer Train, increasing his prize to $700. This will be his first fiction publication.

3rd place goes to Ashley Alliano of Orlando, Florida, who wins $300 for “Trust.” Her story will also be published in Issue 106 of Glimmer Train, increasing her prize to $700. This will be her first fiction publication.

Here’s a PDF of the Top 25.

Concho River Review – Spring/Summer 2019

concho river review v33 n1 spring summer 2019It doesn’t matter if you gravitate toward fiction, nonfiction, or poetry when cracking open a new issue of literary magazine—the Spring/Summer 2019 Concho River Review has you covered.

John Blair kicks off the issue with “The Glass Mountain,” a piece that drips dark energy. Ray’s young, troubled niece moves in with him and his wife after her mother dies. Sexual and violent tension build throughout the story, finally culminating in an explosion of darkness.

In nonfiction, Brandon Daily revisits a dark time in his own life in “A Moment In Our Life, Again,” an intimate taste of the turmoil a couple feels when trying for children and experiencing multiple miscarriages. Daily gives the point of view of the father in the heartbreaking scenario, his pain orbiting his wife’s. The piece takes place as Daily waits outside the bathroom door, waiting for bad news, and then moves backward to shed light on the years and previous miscarriages that led up to this one, the moment suspended, hanging over readers like a shadow.

The issue concludes with twenty-seven poems by twenty-seven poets. Some of my favorites include “Migratory Bird Count” by Walter Bargen, a light piece on perception; “Some Good News” by Grant Clauser who points out the little bits of human kindness and comfort we can cling to; “AX” by Timothy Krcmarik, a small study on the speaker’s five-year-old son; and “Hunger” by Elena Lelia Radulescu, wives’ tales exploring the delicate balance of loneliness. Regardless of which poem a reader decides to start with, all are straight forward narratives telling stories in clear voices.

Both poetry and prose in this issue of Concho River Review promise readers a satisfying selection.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Converse College Low-Res Celebrates Ten Years

lisa hase jacksonWish I could have been at this party: Ciclops Cyderie and Brewery in Spartanburg, SC created a beer release of “Sense and Sprucability – A Writer’s Tale,” based on a recipe by home brewer Jane Austen to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Converse College Low-Residency MFA. At the same event, South 85 Journal, the semi-annual online literary journal published by the MFA program, welcomed Lisa Hase-Jackson [pictured] as their new Managing Editor. Hase-Jackson is herself a published poet and served as Review Editor of 85 South Journal  in the past. Read more about the upcoming change here.

‘Ill Angels’ by Dante Di Stefano

ill angels di stefanoDante Di Stefano creates a fascinating read of precise opinions and clever phrasing with poetry in his new book, Ill Angels. If I were to divide it roughly into subject chapters, one would be musicians, another would be portraits, then love poems to his wife, verses about America, and poems for his students. Throughout the book, a characteristic worthy of attention is his skill in giving fresh meaning to words.

Continue reading “‘Ill Angels’ by Dante Di Stefano”

American Life in Poetry: James Davis May

American Life in Poetry: Column 745
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

The following poem by James Davis May, published in 32 Poems Magazine, has a sentence I’d like to underline, because it states just what I look for in the poems I choose for this column: “We praise the world by making / others see what we see.” Here we have moonflowers opening, for a man and his daughter, and for us. The poet lives in Georgia and is the author of Unquiet Things  from Louisiana State University Press.

james davis mayMoonflowers

Tonight at dusk we linger by the fence
around the garden, watching the wound husks
of moonflowers unclench themselves slowly,
almost too slow for us to see their moving—
you notice only when you look away
and back, until the bloom decides,
or seems to decide, the tease is over,
and throws its petals backward like a sail
in wind, a suddenness about this as though
it screams, almost the way a newborn screams
at pain and want and cold, and I still hear
that cry in the shout across the garden
to say another flower is about to break.
I go to where my daughter stands, flowers
strung along the vine like Christmas lights,
one not yet lit. We praise the world by making
others see what we see. So now she points and feels
what must be pride when the bloom unlocks itself
from itself. And then she turns to look at me.

We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. 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 ©2018 by James Davis May, “Moonflowers,” from 32 Poems Magazine (Number 16.2, Winter, 2018). Poem reprinted by permission of James Davis May and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2019 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.

Final Family Matters Competition Winners

Glimmer Train has chosen the winning stories for their final  Family Matters competition. This award was given for a short story about families of any configuration. 

robin halevy1st place goes to Robin Halevy [pictured] of Big Pine Key, Florida, who wins $2500 for “Bright Ideas for Residential Lighting.” Her story will be published in Issue 106, the final issue of Glimmer Train Stories. This will be her first fiction publication.

2nd place goes to Arthur Klepchukov of Germantown, Maryland, who wins $500 for “The Unfinished Death of My Grandfather.” His story will also be published in Issue 106 of Glimmer Train, increasing his prize to $700. 

3rd place goes to Christa Romanosky of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who wins $300 for “Ways to Light the Water on Fire.” Her story will also be published in Issue 106 of Glimmer Train, increasing her prize to $700.

Here’s a PDF of the Top 25.

Bending Genres Monthly Online Workshops

nancy stohlmanBending Genres online literary journal offers monthly online weekend genre workshops. For $111 each, writers can sign up for “Mutate Through the Five Elements: Flash Your Fleshy Pearls” July 12- 14 with Meg Tuite, “Opening the Back Door: Absurdism as a Way to Truth” August 23 – 25 with Nancy Stohlman [pictured], and “Human Typography: Sculpting Surprising, Broken – and Real – Characters for More Compelling Stories” September 20 – 22 with Robert Russell. For more information about each workshop and registration, click here.

About Place and Dignity as an Endangered Species

about place journalPublished by the Black Earth Institute, dedicated to re-forging the links between art, spirit, and society, the May 2019 issue of About Place is themed “Dignity As An Endangered Species.”

Issue Editor Pamela Uschuk notes that the editors “chose work that addressed the question, what is dignity?” from the starting point that “dignity is endangered during these times.” Assistant Editor CMarie Fuhrman asserts, “It is necessary that we begin to define, for ourselves and as a Nation, that which makes us human, humane.” And Assistant Editor Maggie Miller explores the concept of dignity and closes her preface: “With chin up, shoulders back, we too go forward – with dignity given not  taken away.”

Contributors to the issue include Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, Jacqueline Johnson, Patricia Spears Jones, Fenton Johnson, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Linda Weasel Head, Kelle Groom, Maria Melendez Kelson, Cornelius Eady, Sagirah Shahid, Inés Hernández-Ávila, Gerald L. Coleman, K.LEE, K. Eltinaé, and Kimberly Blaeser.

Submissions for the next issue of About Place Journal are being accepted until August 1, 2019 on the theme: “Infinite Country: Deepening Our Connection to Place, Culture and One Another.” Editor Austin Smith and Assistant Editors Taylor Brorby and  Brenna Cussen Anglada.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

georgia review

Toyin Ojih Odutola is the featured artist on the cover and inside the Summer 2019 issue of The Georgia Review. Odutola is “a visual artist consumed by the literary. Her drawings of figures are often cloaked in narrative allusions, and the build-up of marks on the page becomes a language which can be read.” The introduction and portfolio of her work can be seen here.

basalt

Rise, an archival ink jet print of a portrait of Lauren Schad of the Cheyenne River Lakota tribe by photographer Leah Rose is featured on the 13.1 2019 cover of basalt. Leah Rose is a Native American artist of the Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa tribe who writes, “Reconnecting with my Anishinaabe heritage has become my calling.” See more about her and her work here.

hiram poetry review

Editorial Assistant Danni Lynn McDonald is credited for the clever photo on the Spring 2019 Hiram Poetry Review cover: each reader holding a back issue of the publication to their face. Exactly how I found myself moments later, engrossed in my reading!

Driftwood Press – Issue 6.1

driftwood press v6 n1 january 2019In 2018, Driftwood Press began accepting graphic work for their book publishing arm, and as readers wait for their chance to pick up a new graphic novel, they can check out the graphic work in the literary magazine. The current issue published at the start of 2019 features three selections in graphic works: “LaughTrack” by J. Collings, “The Salton Sea” by Cindy House, and “Émigré Animals” by Jason Hart.

In “The Salton Sea,” House writes of her young son who, after refusing to complete a project, is given an alternate assignment at school. House’s eager willingness to patiently teach her poet son how to navigate in a world that doesn’t completely suit him is palpable in her poetic language and minimal illustrations, a touching piece.

Hart uses topiary animals to explore the immigrant experience in “Émigré Animals,” a man showcasing his resiliency as he creates the animals of his home country along the streets of his new home. The images of this comic reminded me of a children’s book, and I could easily see Hart’s topiary artist inhabiting a longer, expanded story.

“LaughTrack” is creative in its wordlessness; the only dialogue in the comic are streams of “hahahaha” laughter written in red. A man, miserable in his day to day life, feeds off the laughter he gleans from others, culminating in one final letdown. Despite the sullen tone hanging over the comic, the bright colors and sketchy lines make for a visually enjoyable read.

None of the three comics in Issue 6.1 of Driftwood Press are alike. Each brings something different to the table—different art styles, writing styles, subject matter—and I look forward to discovering even more comics offered in future issues and novels from Driftwood Press.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Editors Talk Poetry Acceptances

The editors of Frontier Poetry, in keeping with their mission “to provide practical help for serious writers,” especially emerging poets, has a series of interviews – Editors Talk Poetry Acceptances – with “great editors from around the literary community.” Frontier Poetry asks for “frank thoughts on why poems may get accepted/rejected from their own slush pile of submissions, and what poets can do to better their chances.”

esther vincentAdding an interview almost every month, Frontier Poetry has so far interviewed Kristin George Bagdanov of Ruminate Magazine, Rick Barot of New England Review, Chelene Knight of Room, Esther Vincent [pictured] of The Tiger Moth Review, Talin Tahajian of Adroit Journal, J.P. Dancing Bear of Verse Daily, Gabrielle Bates of Seattle Review, Melissa Crowe of Beloit Poetry Journal, Marion Wrenn of Painted Bride Quarterly, Hannah Aizenman of The New Yorker, Anthony Frame of Glass Poetry, Luther Hughes of The Shade Journal, Don Share of Poetry, Sumita Chakraborty of Agni, Jessica Faust of The Southern Review, and Kwame Dawes of Prairie Schooner.

‘Did You Know?’ by Elizabeth S. Wolf

did you know wolfSubscribers to Rattle received a bonus with their Summer 2019 issue: Rattle Chapbook Prize winner Did You Know? by Elizabeth S. Wolf.

When her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the 60s, Wolf’s father conspired with doctors, friends, and family to conceal the truth from her, a secret he ends up taking to the grave, a family member the one to finally break the silence. Wolf’s poems are about this time in her family’s lives, the title drawing from the conversation in which Wolf finds out about her mother’s illness:

“Did you know?” she asked.
“Know what?” I responded.
“Did you know the secret?” she asked.
“What secret?” I responded.
[ . . . ]
Now there was an “us”:
the ones who did not know.

Following the revelation about her health, Wolf’s mother challenges the life she created behind the shield of her husband’s secrecy; Wolf the voice in her ear urging her to finally do whatever she wants.

Wolf writes in a straightforward voice, never losing readers in overly flowery language, instead focusing on clearly relating her mother’s story, giving her a voice when she was denied one by her husband for so long.

Reading Did You Know? is an intimate peek into an archaic practice—a husband able to dictate his wife’s medical care while hiding it from her—but as women are currently fighting for bodily autonomy while access to abortion is challenged, the chapbook ends up feeling incredibly current.

 

Review by Katy Haas

“Where Am I?” by Heather Sellers

true story i27 2019If my mother and I walk out of a store into the center of the mall or exit a building onto any town’s main street, there’s a 95% chance she’ll ask me which way we came from and which way we’re now headed. If we park in a crowded lot, she follows as I lead to her hidden car. When I’m with her, I am the navigator, the way-finder.

In Issue 27 of True Story, Heather Sellers explores a ramped-up version of this particular problem with “Where Am I?”

The 33-page nonfiction piece begins in an airport, Sellers struggling to find her way out to her car. From here, we work back, finding this was always an issue, cultivated when she was young as her mother struggled with mental illness and her father with alcoholism. Knowing which way to turn, when it’s okay to turn on a red light, how to navigate a college campus or a familiar neighborhood, recognizing faces—this is all foreign to Sellers. However, Sellers writes all of this straightforwardly and clearly as if she’s describing how we can make it out of an airport, a route we can effortlessly follow, her words a way-finder at our side.

After tracing back to examine the possible source of this predicament, she puts a name to it: prosopagnosia or topographical agnosia. Once it has a name, it’s easier to understand and cope with, which leads to the deeper point of Sellers’ piece. In witnessing others struggle, she notes that she’s not uniquely alone, and she realizes the compassion and patience she shows others lost with or around her. This sympathy is missing when dealing with her own directional mishaps, the rest of the piece a steady reminder for readers to treat ourselves and others with more compassion as we find our ways through the world.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Speer Morgan on the Resiliency of Literature

SpeerMorganThe basic stories in much of our canon of literature are hardly subtle. Their power and wisdom come from the discoveries about human nature and behavior through characters and their struggles. Beware of pride-bound, stubborn, pigheaded leaders—yes and beware of the idea that the themes of classic literature are “irrelevant” today. The resiliency of literature comes also in the clear and perfect expression of the moments and moods of life through language, many examples of which cannot be forgotten—Hamlet with the skull of his jester, Keats and his nightingale, or the sheer poignancy of Nick Carroway at the end of Daisy’s dock, looking out on the green light, thinking “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Speer Morgan, “Collisions,” The Missouri Review, Spring 2019

‘One Little Secret’ by Cate Holahan

one little secret cate holahan“People in glass houses should not throw stones”

One Little Secret by Cate Holahan is a brilliantly written novel enabling the reader to feel suspense as they whizz through the chapters.

The characters within the novel are very thought out, and the reader is able to visualize their appearance as well as learn about their personalities through the words on the page. Gabby, who is a detective, is a strong female lead, and this is nice to read as she is seen as a feminist character. Each character adds their own input into the story and their lives are all intertwined through a series of events which will be revealed within the novel.

Each chapter is full of suspense, and they are  short, so the reader is not left hanging or bored with the content. The plot is structured into two strands: before and after the murder.

The settings are beautiful within the book, and they can only be described as a  paradisiacal haven where only the rich of the rich get to go. The story is set, for the most part, in a huge glass rental house, and though cliché, the saying “people in glass houses should not throw stones” perfectly applies to this novel. Pathetic fallacy is used a lot to set the tone of each chapter as the plot twists and turns.

As the reader, you go through a roller coaster of emotions throughout, deciding who to side with and trying to work out who is lying and who is telling the truth. And you constantly question yourself as to whodunit.

Overall, this was a very good novel by Holahan, and I will not hesitate to pick up another of her books in the future, as I read this one in only one weekend!

 

Review by Tom Walker

CFS Contemporary Chicanx Writers

cutthroatCutthroat: A Journal of the Arts is collaborating with Black Earth Institute on the publication of a major anthology of contemporary Chicanx writers. Until August 1, 2019, they are accepting submissions of Chicanx poetry and prose from across the country.

The editors for this collection will be Luis Alberto Urrea, Pam Uschuk, Matt Mendez, Beth Alvarado, William Pitt Root, Carmen Calatayud, Carmen Tafolla, Octavio Quintanilla, Theresa Acevedo, Denise Chavez and Edward Vidaurre.

Submission Guidelines: “We are looking for Chicanx writers of poems and prose, from the rasquache to the refined. We want writing that goes deep into the culture and reveals our heritage in new ways. We want experiences, from blue collar gigs to going into higher education and pursuing PhDs. We want work that challenges. That is irreverent. That is both defiant and inventive. That is well-crafted. That is puro Chicanx. We acknowledge Chicanx is an attitude that may intersect with Latinx.”

For more information, visit the Cutthroat website.

“Pro-Choice Stories” – Jellyfish Review

jellyfish review blogIn response to the recent abortion bans in the United States, Jellyfish Review has been publishing a series of “Pro-Choice stories” with their usual selections. In the days surrounding the bans, my social media accounts exploded with people in my life coming forward with their own abortion stories, each of their needs and wants behind their choices unique. The Pro-Choice stories of Jellyfish Review mimic this: varying voices and points of view from different walks of life, all of them valid.

Now That I’m Being Honest” by Holly Pelesky is addressed to the child the narrator planned to abort and didn’t, back before she found her voice, highlighting how important the ability to make a choice is in a life. In “A Fetus Walks into a Bar,” Jonathan Cardew’s imagined fetus is cold-blooded and gun-toting, leading readers to consider the rights afforded gun owners vs. uterus owners.

None of It Was Easy” by Meghan Louise Wagner is a short, thirteen-part nonfiction piece that walks through each step, from the first hint that Wagner is pregnant to the afternoon the day of her abortion, ending with the sentence “I felt sick and empty but, most of all, I felt relieved,” her relief palpable.

Filled with tension is “The Morning After” by Andrea Rinard, a mother supporting her daughter after her daughter’s assault, the desire to protect her battling with the knowledge that she must let her daughter make her own choices.

The stories continue, each different, each important. The editors include links to pro-choice organizations after every piece, inviting readers to continue to support the choices others make for their bodies, all as different and important and valid as the stories Jellyfish Review presents.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Writers Consider #MeToo Now

Perle BessermanThe Courtship of Winds each issue asks five questions of writers whose work has previously appeared in the online publication. The Winter 2019 Digital Forum invited Perle Besserman [pictured], Sandra Kohler, Denise Kline, and Jennifer Page to respond to questions to discuss how they see the #MeToo movement now – post initial profound effect, post backlash, post Kavanaugh hearings, and post Christine Blasey Ford testimony.

The writers each responded to five questions posed by the editors, including the Kavanaugh hearings, Trump’s mocking Al Franken’s stepping down, “utilitarian calculus” as addressed by Sonia Sadha, the impact of movements like this, and any inherent ‘dangers’ for men and women in our current climate of accusations and speaking up.

‘Bicycle/ Race’ by Adonia E. Lugo

bicycle race lugoIn “Bicycle/ Race: Transportation, Culture and Resistance,” Dr. Adonia Lugo brings her anthropology dissertation research into a readable and accessible book, documenting the intersection of race, transportation inequality and bicycling. As a mixed race Chicanx, having grown up in Orange County, California, Lugo explores resistance against car culture as well as her own place in bike activism. Where does she stand in a majority white-led movement? Lugo’s book forces readers to understand the stakes of cars versus bikes, with particular consideration to history, race, and who gets left behind. Continue reading “‘Bicycle/ Race’ by Adonia E. Lugo”