Barge Journal is a biannual print publication with preview content available on the website and e-reader formats forthcoming.

Editors Shawn Maddey, Justin Maddey, Christine McInnes, and Hallie Romba say they started Barge Journal “when we realized that there was a particular aesthetic that we shared and found in many up-and-coming writers, but that seemed relegated to the internet. We really wanted to bring the fervor and style of innovative internet publications to the print world, where a lot of it is highly underrepresented and overwhelmed by more ‘literary’ styles. We also wanted to be able to raise awareness of indie publications to broader audiences of artists and readers.”

What can readers expect to find in Barge Journal? Maddey writes, “We like to say ‘stuff, not things.’ Expect lots of playfulness with language and form, expect risks, expect stuff that you’d be hard-pressed to find in print many other places. Few works we publish are easy reads, and you won’t find any traditionally structured stories or hard genre delineations – instead we strive to publish work that pushes its readers to think, to think differently about literature, and to enjoy the process of doing it. It doesn’t hurt to find comfort in a bit of ugliness, either.”

Contributors to the inaugural issue include Gregg Williard, Yarrow Paisley, M.J. Nicholls, R.L. Swihart, Joshua McKinney, Matthew Dexter, Kristine Ong Muslim, Art Zilleruelo, Colin Winnette, Thomas O’Connell, Nicolas Destino, Paul Kavanaugh, Jonathan Dubow, Margaret Bashaar, Zdravka Evtimova, Andrew Borgstrom, Parker Tettleton, Bob Shar, Travis Blankenship, William Akin, Janann Dawkins, and Neila Mezynski.

As Barge Journal moves forward putting together Issue #2, the editors’ goal is “to always be pushing the boundary a little bit further while having as much fun with it as possible. We would love to be able to include more visually-oriented work and comics/art as well. A lot of our current efforts are focusing on expanding our role as a press, beyond the journal. We will have a series of chapbooks forthcoming (currently by solicitation only, sorry), and are soon going to print with our first full-length book (a comix anthology) as well as a series of literary/arts greeting cards with some great artists and literary works paired up – so, a few great projects to get excited about.”

Barge Journal accepts submissions only online through Submishmash on a rolling basis. Genre identification is open, and the editors state a preference for work that is difficult to classify by genre.

Maddey adds, “We love to interact with our readers, submitters, and contributors, so we invite you to follow us @bargepress on twitter or /bargepress for facebook.”

Heavy Feather Review is a biannual ebook published by editors Nathan Floom and Jason Teal

HFR editors describe the content as “an eclectic mix of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, or any hybrid thereof. Every issue of HFR is its own animal. Writers, and those concerns of writers, change with time, and so does HFR.”

Contributors to the inaugural issue include Alex Austin, Nick Barr, Anhvu Buchanan, Seth Berg, J. Bradley, Chloe Caldwell, Karen Craigo, Lori D’Angelo, Rick D’Elia, Larry O. Dean, Elizabeth Ellen, Nicolle Elizabeth, Ricky Garni, Roxane Gay, Amy Glasenapp, Howie Good, David Greenspan, Len Kuntz, Thomas Patrick Levy, D.W. Lichtenberg, Adam Moorad, Meg Pokrass, Molly Prentiss, Andrew Rihn, Paul Arrand Rodgers, Steve Roggenbuck, Matthew Savoca, Bradley Sands, Peter Schwartz, Gregory Sherl, Zulema Renee Summerfield, J.A. Tyler, James Valvis, Robert Vaughan, John Dermot Woods, Jake Wrenn, and Joshua Young.

Future plans for HFR include “print, press, music festival.” As Teal notes, “HFR is actively looking to exist in more real and real forms.”

HFR is taking submissions for both its homepage —thoughtful essays/posts concerning art, life, anything — reviews, interviews — and HFR 1.2, arriving in summer 2012. Deadline for 1.2 is August 15, 2012. Submission accepted via Submittable.

The Adroit Journal is a triannual downloadable PDF publication edited by Peter LaBerge (Editor-in-Chief), Ameerah Arjanee and Magen Eissenstat (Poetry Genre Editors), Connor Cook and Kratika Mishra (Fiction Genre Editors), Michele Ang (Art/Photography Editor), and additional staff members.

LaBerge tells me, “The Adroit Journal was conceived for mainly two reasons: as a fundraising vehicle for an organization called Free the Children Organization, and as an opportunity for teenagers to come together to produce a collection of quality literature.” A link to Free the Children is provided on The Adroit Journal website, and donors make their contributions directly to the organization.

Readers can expect to find a complete variety of poetry and fiction within the pages of The Adroit Journal. “Often readers and contributors remark that they cannot find a singular type of work that The Adroit Journal considers,” LaBerge notes, “because we consider (and publish) all different kinds.”

Some of the many contributors to date include: Poetry – Carol Guess, Dorianne Laux, Annie Finch, Lee Upton, Matt Mauch, Laura Kasischke, Darlene Pag

HOOT is a unique monthly traditional-mail delivered postcard print format with additional separate content online.

When asked Why start a literary magazine?, Editors Dorian Geisler and Amanda Vacharat replied: “This is a great question. It does seem counterintuitive, a little bit, to start a literary magazine now, in 2012 – when there are already a bazillion magazines struggling to find readers and subscribers. We started a literary magazine because we thought we saw an unfilled niche, based on what people are looking for right now. It’s not that people don’t want to read new authors anymore, it’s that they don’t want it to take up a lot of time. People want concision. Furthermore, they want things that are shareable and self-defining (think Twitter and Facebook posts). So, we made a magazine that’s short, and affordable, which (hopefully) looks good enough to be hung on a fridge, and is small enough that it can be easily passed along to others.”

I have personally received the HOOT postcards, and as a fan of postcard lit, can attest that these are some of the best quality cards in full color that I have seen.

HOOT editors claim that their publications contain “Zest! We like zest. So readers can expect to find it! By which we mean: surprises – not ‘twist’ endings, but a wide variety in styles and subject matter from issue to issue. HOOT readers can also expect to find art that is visually appealing and also varied in style.”

For the print (postcard) issue, there is only have one author per issue, so to date contributors include J. Bradley, John Steen, William Henderson, and Andrea Uptmor. Online issues, contributors to date are Meagan Wilson, Meghan Slater, Christopher Grosso, Stewart Lindh, William Doonan, Maria Anderson, Justis Mills, Caroline Zarlengo Sposto, Nick Sanford, Stephen Ross, Linda Simoni-Wastila, Thomas Mundt, and Marcy Campbell.

HOOT‘s plans for the future are “all about the idea that literature isn’t just for capital-L Literary types.” Editor Amanda Vacharat explains, “There’s quality work being written that has appeal for a much larger audience, as long as it fits into their schedules. So, we’re playing with the idea of printing literature on a variety of other mediums. We also want to make contemporary writing available to people who might not otherwise have access to it. We’re working towards a model where we can send some subscriptions into prisons and inner city schools and libraries. [Editor’s note: YEAH!] Also, starting in March, we’ll be running free, in-person writing workshops locally (Philadelphia).”

Submissions are year-round and rolling. For print, writers can submit by mail or online. There is a $2 fee for submitting online via Submishmash (which the editors encourage! because this is how they are able pay their authors). But, mail submissions are accepted too, with a SASE. All for-print submissions are automatically considered for online publication. Authors only interested in online publication can submit by email.

In addition to all of this, HOOT editors run free online workshops every Wednesday evening in a chat room – for flash fiction/non-fiction and short poems (<150 words). "Basically," Vacharat says, "we'll read your work right there and give you immediate feedback. You're also welcome to help give feedback on other people's writing. We're very supportive, while still being honest. We try to give very specific things to work on. It's great for all writers - but especially if you're thinking of submitting, you'll also get a great sense of what we tend to like (and not like)." [Pictured: HOOT: ISSUE 2, November 2011, “Poem” by John Steen]

Edited by Cynthia Reeser, Prick of the Spindle Print Edition comes to readers biannually in October and April of every year and is available in paper copy and eBook (Kindle).

Already having established the well-known and respected online quarterly publication, Prick of the Spindle, Reeser comments: “I started the print edition in part to expand our audience and readership, as well as the scope of what we publish. As a nonprofit, we wish to initiate subscriptions and also to be able to pay our contributors, and the print edition helps us to do both.”

Prick of the Spindle readers can expect to find fiction, drama, nonfiction, poetry, interviews, and essays of a more formal nature, as well as artwork and experimental text/image pieces.

The inagurual print edition includes an interview with Sandy Longhorn, poetry by Jessica Cuello, Nandini Dhar, Claire Stephens (text/image), nonfiction by Juan Daniel Mill

What do celeb’ author Lemony Snicket (AKA Daniel Handler), luminary poet Nikki Giovanni, Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler, Sister Spit founder Michelle Tea, MacArthur Genius Award winner Yiyun Li, literary legend Walter Mosley, Pushcart nominee Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, and thirty young writers at an urban public high school have in common?

Rewind back exactly one year, to January 2011: in a renovated Art Deco theater complex in Downtown Oakland, CA, a seminar-sized group of young writers put their noses to the grindstone. That day marked the first day of the Enizagam course at Oakland School for the Arts (OSA), a public charter school that admits students grade-blind on the basis of artistic auditions.

OSA was founded in 2002 by CA Governor Jerry Brown—then Mayor of Oakland. It serves over 600 talented middle and high school students. Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, Chair of Literary Arts, explains: “These kids competed for acceptance into the program. They want to be here, and I want to give them a private-school-caliber experience, tuition free. To do that, I completely overhauled our literary journal, which was once a typical publication featuring student work.” It hasn’t been easy. While the school has stacked up accolades for its arts-based methodology, and for closing the achievement gap between student subgroups, its arts programs receive zero public funding.

The students, and Frazier, run the journal as a labor of love. Frazier describes the young staff as “sophisticated readers, poised to apply razor-sharp focus.” The students gain the nuts-and-bolts experience of running a serious literary journal, and Enizagam’s readers gain access to stunning new writing selected by fresh editorial eyes.

Enizagam’s goal? To become the first secondary-student-run literary publication with serious national acclaim. It may already have achieved that. While run by urban high school kids, it is written by and for adults. Last year, it received submissions from award-winning authors working across—and beyond—the U.S. Contributors included Jendi Reiter, Laura Shearer, Nick Kriefall and Rae Gouirand, who has just come out with a new book of poetry: Open Winter, winner of the 2011 Bellday Poetry Prize. Bookstores have begun shelving Enizagam, and the 2012 issue’s literary contest judges will be Lemony Snicket and Nikki Giovanni. Robert Olen Butler and Michelle Tea judged last year’s competition.

Yiyun Li and Walter Mosley will soon be interviewed by the journal’s student staff for the 2012 issue. Kerby Lynch, Student Co-Editor in Chief, interviewed Farm City phenom’ Novella Carpenter for the 2011 issue. Says Lynch: “Among other questions about her urban farm, I asked Novella how often the goats’ breath smelled delicious. Her answer? ‘Always.’” The student staff is “juiced” to see the new next issue on bookstore shelves in 2012.

Writers: “We can’t wait to dig into this year’s submissions!” Check out the 2012 Enizagam Literary Awards in Poetry and Fiction at: http://enizagam.org

[Press release provided by the editors of Enizagam; Cover Art: Zooey Yi]

Kudzu Review is a biannual online ecojournal. Editor-in-Chief M.P. Jones IV writes that the title is from his grandfather’s, Madison Jones, house “which we lovingly called ‘Kudzu’ for the plant which proliferated along the property line. He was a farmer, writer, literary critic, and professor in Auburn, Alabama.”

The biannual publication is available in PDF and on Issuu, and looks to publish “savvy, sharp, well polished literature that captures life in a post-natural world” and works that “cast new light on rapid species extinction, climate change, food production, technology, sustainability and community.”

The first issue of Kudzu Review features fiction, poetry, and artwork by
Aaron Poller, André Babyn, Ann Cavlovic, Anthony Rintala, Ashleigh Rajala, Becky Garrison, Cassie Premo Steele, Dominic James, Donal Mahoney, Donna Emerson, Drew Jennings, Dwain Wilder, Ed Zahniser, Jack Foster, Jeanpaul Ferro, Joan Colby, John Bohannon, Joseph Rhea, Karla Linn Merrifield, Kenneth Pobo, Lakshmi Eassey, Laurie A Skelton, Maggie Koger, Mercedes Lawry, Sue Blaustein, Susi Lovell, Thomas Fussey, Trent Laubscher, and Tiffany Morris.

Kudzu Review is also offering a “fundraiser” for their publication: woodcut carving t-shirts, each individually hand pressed with a unique front design and back logo. T-shirt buyers have their names listed on a page “forever” in recognition of their support.

Kudzu Review is open on a rolling basis for e-mail submissions of short stories, flash fiction and poetry, and Submishmash submissions of art and photography.

Kudzu Review is staffed by Senior Editors: M.P. Jones IV, Editor-in-Chief; Arthur Wilke, Field Editor; Robin Ward, Web-Design Editor; and Associate Editors: Powell Burke, Fiction & Revisions Editor; Jane Alford, Nonfiction & Revisions Editor; Rivers Langley, 20-Year-Man Assistant Editor; and Ashley Sams, Visual Art Editor.

The Bacon Review, edited by the writer/designer Eric Westerlind and philosophy acquisitions editor Jason Barry, was founded in 2011 as a review of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and intellectual life. After only two issues, Westerlind and Barry have just announced that they would like to shift from a bi-monthly to a monthly publication, but will continue to limit content to four pieces per issue.

The Bacon Review also includes a featured called “Hot Seat” where authors whose works are selected for publication will be asked to participate in a half hour online chat regarding their “piece/writing/bovines/whatever else comes up” in the site’s chatroom (open to members who sign in). As Westerlind and Barry write, “We are interested in our authors as people; we want to know what inspires and motivates our contributors to write their stories, poems, and non-fiction.” The chats will be live with discussions archived on the site. Members will receive advance notice of scheduled chats.

The Bacon Review ontributors to date include Parker Finn, Melanie Braverman, William Doreski, Howie Good, Keith Batter, James Collector, Pablo Armando Fern

analogpress.net is a new online biannual literary journal “focused on featuring the vision of today’s writers, poets and artists dedicated to the idea that literature should make universal themes relevant to the generation that the writer belongs to . . . cutting edge, on the fringe, anchored in classic intuitions: poetry, fiction, non-fiction topics, art & photography.”

Contributors to the first two issues include Laurits Haaning, Robert Lietz, Danielle Altic, Jonathan Steffen, J.T. Andrews, Robert Dicarlo, Peter Fernbach, D H Sutherland, Nicholas Petrone, Dylan T. Price, Lee D. Rorman, Richard Stolorow, Hanny Castano, Kellee Rich, Santiago Dominique, Susanna Douglas, Petra Gabriele Dannehl, Jeremy Mayer, Kate Zaliznock, Edward Harsen, Mark Goad, Ryan Palmer, Hanny Castro, Gretchen Meixner, Tom Rowley-Conwy, Mar Trujillo, M.Y. Lermontov translated by Teimuraz Chanturishvili, and Madeleine Swann.

analogpress.net accepts e-mail submissions of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, art and photography. Submissions for 2011 are currently closed but will open again January 31, 2012.

Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art is a new biannual literary magazine “devoted to all species of translation and border-crossing”: original poetry, essays and images that “aspires to challenge comfortable gestures and distinctions.” Tongue is an autonomous project of the Pirogue Collective — the arts and culture expression of the Gorée Institute. Editors are Adam Wiedewitsch, Colin Cheney, R.A. Villanueva, and Janine Joseph.

Tongue can be read online using the Issuu format or downloaded in several versions of PDF (suitable for mobile viewing – 1.35MB; high-resolution – 33.6MB; suitable for high-quality CMYK printing – 65.5MB).

Issue One launched in December and features new work from Geoffrey Nutter, Darren Morris, Claudia Rankine, Alfonso D’Aquino & Forrest Gander, Kiwao Nomura & Forrest Gander & Kyoko Yoshida, Cecily Parks, Idra Novey, Sally Wen Mao, Adam Small & Mike Dickman, Venús Khoury-Ghata & Marilyn Hacker, Brian Oliu, Birgitta Trotzig & Rika Lesser, Nathalie Handal, Ewa Chrusciel, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and photographer Zhang Xiao.

Still in its first year of publication, Thrice Fiction Magazine is published – yes – three times a year and is filled with stories, art, and “a few surprises from a variety of talented contributors.” Readers can download a free PDF or eBook of Thrice Fiction at no charge, or opt to purchase a full-color printed copy from MagCloud.

First-year contributors include Marty Mankins, Jack Foley, Vahid Jimenez, David Simmer II, Michael W. Harkins, John M. Bennett, Ann Bogle, Brandon Rogers, Chris Mansel, Adam Heath Avitable, Matthew Hill, RW Spryszak, Jeff Swanson, Aleathia Drehmer, Robert Kroese, Lisa Vihos, C. Brannon Watts, Echo Chernik, Nathan Garvison, and Kyra Wilson.

Thrice Fiction Editor RW Spryszak accepts e-mail submissions of “standard short stories as well as flash fiction but also various forms that kind-of sort-of look like fiction but may also be poetry. The stated mission of this magazine is to combine standard, more traditional fiction that we like alongside our fearless commitment to the new, unusual and unique.”

Art Director David Simmer II accepts submission queries from artists.