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New Lit on the Block :: The Common

Editor Jennifer Acker and Poetry Editor John Hennessy head The Common, a biannual print publication from Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Inspired by this mission and the role of the town common, a public gathering place for the display and exchange of ideas, The Common seeks to recapture an old idea. The Common publishes “fiction, essays, poetry, documentary vignettes, and images that embody particular times and places both real and imagined.”

The first issue (00), much of which is available online via PDF, features works by Ted Conover, Yehudit Ben-Zvi Heller, Michael Kelly, Honor Moore, Sabina Murray, Mary Jo Salter, Don Share, Jim Shepard, and Marina Tsvetaeva.

The Common is currently accepting submissions for Issue 01. The submission period is September 15-December 1.

Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Winners :: September 2010

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their July Very Short Fiction competition. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories with a word count not exceeding 3000. No theme restrictions. The next Very Short Fiction competition will take place in January. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: J. Kevin Shushtari, of Farmington, CT, wins $1200 for “The Vast Garden of Strangers.” His story will be published in the Winter 2012 issue of Glimmer Train Stories, published in November 2011.

Second place: Graham Arnold, of Downers Grove, IL, wins $500 for “The Story Is in the Reflection.”

Third place: Nahal Suzanne Jamir, of Tallahassee, FL, wins $300 for “In Perfect English.”

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

Deadline soon approaching for the September Fiction Open: September 30

This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers. Word count range: 2000-20,000. No theme restrictions. Click here for complete guidelines.

Video Web Series of Touring Poets in New York

Monday, September 27, Coldfront Magazine debuts a new feature: TOURIST TRAP, NYC – a video web series that follows touring poets to some of New York’s top tourist destinations, as well as lesser known bars, reading venues and unheralded back streets. Each episode will feature one or two poets as they explore the city, discuss their work, how urban landscapes influence their writing, the history or importance of landmark they’ve chosen to visit, as well as any art/literature related conversations they might deem relevant along the way. Each episode will culminate with a short, 1-2 poem reading at their destination of choice. Episode 1 features the poet Julie Doxsee.

Banned Books Week Sept 25 – Oct 2

Visit Banned Books Week online for information about book challenges, events, and a Google map marking locations where books were challenged 2007-2009 – see how your state ranks.

The 10 most challenged titles for 2009:

ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: nudity, sexually explicit, offensive language, drugs, and unsuited to age group

And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: homosexuality

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Reasons: racism, offensive language, unsuited to age group

Twilight (series), by Stephanie Meyer
Reasons: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
Reasons: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult
Reasons: sexism, homosexuality, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group, drugs, suicide, violence

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler
Reasons: sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Reasons: sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
Reasons: nudity, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

CNF Wants Narrative Blog Posts to Reprint

From Stephen Knezovich, Associate Editor / Mentoring Director, Creative Nonfiction:

Creative Nonfiction is seeking narrative blog posts to reprint in an upcoming issue. We’re looking to get input from folks, like yourself, who are plugged into the online literary community, and we hope you’ll send us your suggestions (or, you know, if you wanted to post this call on your Twitter/Blog/Facebook pages, we’d like that a whole lot, too).

We’re looking for: Vibrant new voices with interesting, true stories to tell. Narrative, narrative, narrative. Posts that can stand alone, 2000 words max, from 2010. Something from your own blog, from a friend’s blog, from a stranger’s blog.

Deadline for nominations: Monday, September 27, 11:59 PM EST.

For more details and to nominate a blog post go here.

Free Spirit Publishing Seeks Teen Advisors

Free Spirit Publishing, the leading publisher of books that support young people’s social and emotional health, seeks young people, grades 6 and up, to join its teen advisory council. In order to keep the publisher’s books and other products current and relevant, the advisory council provides valuable feedback on things like design, art, and content. More information and applications are available on this flyer: Free Spirit Publishing. Application review is ongoing.

Franz Wright and Eugene O’Neill on Drunken Boat

In addition to its regular offering of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, photo essays, and readings, Drunken Boat #12 online has new and unpublished poems, prose, and 14 images of hand-written drafts by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Franz Wright as well as a tribute to 20th century dramatist Eugene O’Neill entitled Celtic Twilight, with essays by over two dozen Irish-American authors and artists.

Brevity Essays on Craft

Check out these craft essays in the September issue of Brevity – online:

Exploring Intersections: An Exercise in Dismembering and Remembering Selves by Lockie Hunter
A writing exercise that has generated a great deal of excitement in my nonfiction classes is one I call the “self-adjectives” exercise. Its intent – to locate your interests and passions by listing self-descriptors – is similar to Sherry Simpson’s “tiny masters” exercise (Brevity craft essay, Issue 28) and rarely failed to spawn enthusiastic responses…until I began teaching at Warren Wilson College.

The Wonder of Geese by Bryan Furuness
One of the worst teachers I ever had was a man named Sam, who led my first writing workshop in graduate school. He used to stop class whenever geese flew past the window. “Geese!” he’d say, interrupting whoever was speaking, even if it was himself. The class would look dutifully at the geese, and some ass-kisser would say, “Wow,” or, “That’s really something, how they V up.” By the time we’d get back to the discussion, Sam would have forgotten what we’d been talking about, and everyone else would pretend to have forgotten, too. But not me.

Q&A: Using Tension and the Narrative Arc by Brendan O’Meara
An interview with Thomas French, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives, on the challenges of long-form journalism and how the writer uses tension in the story to create a dramatic narrative.

Narrative Poetry Prize Winners

Winners of the 2010 Narrative Magazine Poetry Contest have been announced:

First Prize
Kate Waldman

Second Prize
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Third Prize
Ezra Dan Feldman

Finalists
Mermer Blakeslee
Laton Carter
Katharine Coles
Maria Hummel
Gray Jacobik
Jenifer Browne Lawrence
Lynn Melnick
Steve Price
Marsha Rabe
Christie Towers

Upcoming Narrative Magazine contest deadlines:

The Fall 2010 Story Contest, with $6,500 in prizes. Open to fiction and nonfiction. All entries will be considered for publication. Deadline: November 30, 2010.

The 30 Below Story Contest 2010, with $3,550 in prizes. All entries will be considered for publication. Open to all submissions from writers and artists age thirty and below. Deadline: October 29, 2010.

Submissions :: Women Arts Journal

Women of Note Quarterly is coming back from hiatus (website working but under construction) as Women Arts Journal, a peer-reviewed online journal now at the University of Missouri-Saint Louis, Women of Note Quarterly is accepting submissions of scholarly essays, fiction, poetry, visual art, and interviews by women or about women in the fields of music, fiction writing, poetry, and visual art. Please send submissions of up to 8,000 words in Microsoft Word format or TIF files of original artwork to wia[at]umsl.edu for consideration in the fall 2010 issue.

What Does Fiction Promise Us?

Spurred by a reader’s letter, Senior Fiction Editor Ronna Wineberg takes on this question in her forward to the Fall 2010 issue of Bellevue Literary Review:

Recently, a reader wrote us a letter and objected to a story we had published. She felt on of the characters in the story was unfairly dismissive of nurses. Her letter caused us to think about the BLR‘s goals. What can a reader expect from creative work about health, healing, and illness published in a literary journal?

Literary work about these themes differs from scholarly work, of course. Articles in medical journals must be fair, based on fact or rigorous research. A personal essay that appears in the BLR is grounded in fact as well, although the writer often expresses an opinion. But a short story and sometimes a poem create a fictional world. What does fiction promise us? How does the world of a story differ from a creative essay or scholarly article?

All readers bring their own experience to a work of literature. The reader who wrote to us understood the objective reality of the medical world and the importance of a strong partnership between doctors and nurses. But fiction does not always reflect reality. A character can think what he or she wants. A short story allows a reader to enter another person’s mind, to be privy to thoughts that might not otherwise be expressed.

Fiction doesn’t promise us a measured view of life or even a fair view, and it doesn’t always present a flattering portrait of people or a profession. A short story provides the reader with the vision of one author and the perceptions of the characters in that story. Readers, like our letter writer, may be offended by a story or feel that a character is insensitive. However, this is the beauty of fiction: it allows the reader to live another life, experience a new perspective, journey into unfamiliar worlds.

New Directions Releases First e-Book

New Directions Publishing has released a new edition of Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi available from Amazon as their first official e-book title. It features everything that can be found in the paper edition: an introduction by Will Self, the new cover by Rodrigo Corral Design, and an Afterword by James Laughlin biographer Ian S. MacNiven (also the editor of the Lawrence Durrell/Henry Miller correspondence published by ND, as well as Lawrence Durrell’s authorized biographer).

Upcoming e-book editions will include: Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust, Nathaniel Mackey’s Bass Cathedral, and Muriel Spark’s Memento Mori.

Cara Wants Your Creative Community Projects

From Poet Educator Activist Cara Benson:

Looking for creative works/projects in community. Creating a line of study, here. Please send all suggestions my way (cbenson67[at]yahoo[dot]com). Examples include: Kaia Sand’s Portland poetry walks, Claudia Rankine’s Provenance of Beauty, Tree Museum in the Bronx. Also, artmaking/writing with community.

Interventions.
Re-inventions.
Decorations.
Instigations.
And just plain old creation, in situ. Of situ.

Thinking social justice and sustainability. Yes, art and politics. Praxis, please.
I’m very much interested in theory and essays. Even numbers (statistics) on things like poetry reducing recidivism. Creative projects fostering neighborhood ties. Fostering concern for care of community, ecology. Cultural influence on politics. Oh, the Humanities…

[Stay tuned for results – to be shared with NewPages.]

Boston Review Makeover

Hardly recognizable by the cover, Boston Review has gone smaller and glossy, adding the new subtitle: Ideas Matter – guaranteeing that while the outside may change, the same quality content will remain flowing through its pages. Read more about the format change here.

NCTE Promising Young Writers Program

The school-based Promising Young Writers Program was established in 1985 to stimulate and recognize student’s writing talents and to emphasize the importance of writing skills among eighth-grade students. Students who are eighth graders in the present academic school year are eligible to be nominated for the Promising Young Writers program. Students must be nominated by their teachers. Home-schooled students may submit through a cooperating school. 2011 Promising Young Writers Brochure will be available in October. Send request for brochures to pyw[at]ncte.org. (Note: only mailed to school addresses.) Entry Deadline is February 1, 2011.

New Lit on the Block :: Mason’s Road

Mason’s Road is an online literary magazine sponsored by Fairfield University’s MFA in Creative Writing and run by the graduate students of the program. Mason’s Road publishes fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, drama, visual art, craft essays, writing exercises, and audio works, and will focus each issue on an aspect of the writing craft. Issues are published twice a year, in July and December, during residencies at Enders Island.

Each genre section opens with a letter from the editors of that genre, each addressing some aspect of their work in the selection process – for fiction, a discussion of voice; for creative nonfiction, touching on elusive qualities; for poetry, a litany of poetic voices – raw, fresh, metaphysical, familiar; and for drama, an interest in screenplay writing with an exclusive interview with Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist and screenwriter William Kennedy exploring “the hybrid and challenging form of the screenplay.”

Mason’s Road also includes a Radio Drama Cliff Hanger challenge in their drama section: “Your challenge – to pick up the story from this opening episode of our radio drama, or write the opening of a new radio drama. Whether the continuation of this script or a new one, it must be of true literary quality, entertaining, and provide another cliff-hanger ending…The Mason’s Road Players will produce the winning submission.”

This inaugural issue features fiction by Sandra Derrick, Laura Maylene Walter, Emily Davis Watson, Monet Moutrie, Mark Powell, Joel Kopplin; creative nonfiction by Brianna L. McPherson, Lia Purpura, Mary-Kathryn Bywaters, Michael Kortlander, Brandi Dawn Henderson; poetry by Lucas A. Gerber, Jeremy Francis Morris, Gladys L. Henderson, Jonathan Austin Peacock, Meredith Noseworthy, George Wallace, Robert Atwan, Julie E. Bloemeke, Shawnte Orion, Jason Michael MacLeod, Rhina P. Espaillat, J. Angelique LePetit, Paul Freidinger, Charlene Langfur, and Tim Hunt; artwork by Tinnetta Bell; and a conversation with Michael White on Voice/Persona.

Mason’s Road is accepting fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, drama (stage or screen), art, craft essays, and audio drama from both emerging and established writers and artists for Issue #2 until Nov. 1, 2010. The issue will focus on strong settings – pieces that evoke a particular place or time.

Mason’s Road will award a $500 prize to the best piece of creative writing published in the first two issues of the journal.

Books :: A Story of Hope

A Child’s Garden: A Story of Hope by Michael Foreman (Candlewick Press, 2009) is a beautifully written and illustrated children’s book about a young boy who nurtures a new green shoot he finds amid a garbage heap in a war-ravaged land. The vine grows to cover a fence that separates two communities – how they became that way is never told, nor is exactly where the story takes place. From the images – the landscape, the building structures (whole and crumbled), and military uniforms of the guards – it looks to be desert area – and the children are all portrayed as light-skinned.

The vine grows to cover the fence, inviting birds and butterflies and children all to play together on either side of the fence, but the military guards from the “other side” of the fence come and tear it down. It regrows from seeds spread and shoots in the ground – first on the militarized side, where a young girl nurtures it, and the guards allow her to do so. Soon, new sprouts come up on the young boy’s side of the fence, and the vines from both sides intertwine. “Let the soldiers return,” thought the boy. “Roots are deep, and seeds spread… One day the fence will disappear forever, and we will be able to walk again into the hills.”

The illustrations begin with stark grey-brown “colorless” images and progress with the growth of the vine to vividly rendered watercolor scenes. The color is not overbearing – but as the story starts from bleak, peaks, then returns to bleak – the introduction of color is a stunning in appearance, and equally stunning in its loss as the vine is ripped from the ground. Of course, just as the vine shoots reappear through the earth’s surface, so too does the color seep back onto the page, ending in a joyful burst of color: the boy’s hopeful challenge of unification.

A Child’s Garden is a poignant story for both children and adults in a world where we are inundated with messages of cultural division and derision. This book provides a central concept – a simple vine – as a way to explore this very difficult topic with young adults.

Salt Hill Journal Blinded by the Light of Carlo Van de Roer

“Blinded by the Light” is a portfolio of photographs by Carlo Van de Roer and featured in Issue 25 of Salt Hill Journal. Each image is a photograph of a museum display and captures the reflection of the camera flash on the glass barrier. The image creates the illusion that the beings within the display are aware of the light as a result of its placement: wolves running through the snow-coveredforest appear to be chasing the light, a pair of bongos cautiously entering a thicket seem to be stopped, inspecting the light before progressing. A brilliant (no pun intended) concept deftly executed and worth picking up a copy of Salt Hill Journal to have your own well-produced copies of these photographs.

Word Literature Today International Short Fiction

The September 2010 issue of World Literature Today includes a first-ever marquee section devoted to International Short Fiction, introduced by guest editor Alan Cheuse, who is best known for his frequent book reviews on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. Authors contributing short stories include Ana Menéndez (Cuba/US), Raija Siekkinen (Finland), Nicole Lee (Malaysia), Andrei Cornea (Romania), Fatou Diome (Senegal/France), Cyrille Fleischman (France), Simon Fruelund (Denmark), Benjamin Percy (US), Amanda Michalopoulou (Greece), Alix Ohlin (Canada), and Ru Freeman (Sri Lanka), with original artwork by Edel Rodriguez on the cover and Danica Novgorodoff inside.

Prairie Schooner Honors Hilda Raz

The fall 2010 issue of Prarie Schooner features a A Celebration of Hilda Raz, who has retired from UNL and from the editorship of Prairie Schooner as of August.

Raz was editor of Prairie Schooner since 1987 and the founding director of the Prairie Schooner Book Prizes in poetry and short fiction published by the University of Nebraska Press. In 1993 she was named the first Luschei Professor and Editor in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska where she has worked intensively with graduate students in the Ph.D. program. Raz, also received the 2010 Stanley W. Lindberg Award for Literary Editing. This award is presented to someone who has labored to uphold the highest literary standards in a magazine or small press.

Honoring her work and contributions to the literary community are submissions from James Engelhardt, Carole Simmons Oles, Ladette Randolph, Janet Burroway, Glenna Luschei, Mari L’Esperance, Sarah Kennedy, Biljana D. Obradovic, Kelly Grey Carlisle, Erin Flanagan, Pam Weiner, Tim Skeen, Lee Martin, Karma Larsen, Robert Pack, Nancy Welch, Floyd Skloot, R.T. Smith, Kara Candito, Kate Flaherty, Alicia Ostriker, Aaron Raz Link, Peggy Shumaker, and Maxine Kumin.

Jeremy Benson :: NewPages Literary Magazine Review Editor

NewPages welcomes Jeremy Benson as the new Literary Magazine Review Editor.

Jeremy writes stories, poems, criticism and letters. In 2008, he received a degree in English and Creative Writing from Hope College in Holland, MI, with supplementary courses through Western Michigan University’s Prague Summer Program. He is the Postmaster General for the Aloha Project, the poem-on-a-postcard blog that celebrates National Poetry Month, and is a proud dork for Paul Simon, RadioLab, and LEGO.

Immediately upcoming on his to-read list, Jeremy has Tinsel Strength by Robin Brox, an essay or two by David Foster Wallace, a book about knots and a magazine on workshop organization, and your soon-to-be-submitted literary magazine reviews–the latter obviously taking priority over the rest. So let’s get him started: visit the NewPages writer’s guidelines, then send him a message at jeremybenson[*at*]newpages.com.

Big Muddy 2010 Contest Winners

The newest issue of Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi Valley features the Southeast Missouri State University Press’s 2010 Fiction Contest Winners. Kel Munger (“Missus Finn”) won the Mighty River Short Story Contes and Erica Lehrer won the Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Contest. James H. Crews, Jr. is this years winner of the Copperdome Chapbook Contest for What Has Not Yet Left to be published by MSUP.

Former Booker Prize Judge Holds Writing Contest on Twitter

Master storyteller and former Booker Prize judge Frank Delaney is launching his second Twitter Writing Challenge on Monday, September 13: write the best, most arresting simile you can in 140 characters or less. “Similes add flavor and clarity; they fix an image in the reader’s mind. A good simile in a passage of writing is like a raisin in a cake — sweet, and separately memorable, it heightens the relish,” the bestselling writer and former BBC broadcaster explains.

The prize for the three best simile writers is lunch with Frank Delaney in New York City, whenever the winner is in town (and barring scheduling conflicts,) or a signed copy of the Advanced Readers Edition of Frank’s next novel “The Matchmaker of Kenmare” (Random House, February 2011).

Lynchberg College Residencies

The Thornton Writer Residency, a fourteen-week residency at Lynchburg College, including a stipend, is awarded annually to a fiction writer for the fall term & a poet or creative nonfiction writer for the spring term. The residency also includes housing, some meals, & round trip travel expenses. The writer-in-residence will teach a weekly creative writing workshop, visit classes, & give a public reading. Submit a copy of a previously published book, a curriculum vitae, a cover letter outlining evidence of successful teaching experience, & contact information for three references by October 15, 2010. There is no entry fee. If you would like your book(s) returned, please submit a SASE with sufficient postage. Visit the website for more information.

Kentucky Arts Council Teachers Initiated Program Grants

The Kentucky Arts Council is offering Teacher Initiated Program grants for short-term artist residencies scheduled to take place in the spring of 2011. These grants give professional artists an opportunity to demonstrate their art forms and provide students and teachers repeated hands-on experiences in the making of art. Artists also collaborate with teachers to design and implement innovative programs that provide the tools to continue utilizing art across the curriculum after the residency is completed. Application Deadline: October 15, 2010

Witness (re)Turns to Three Issues Per Year

Witness had announced that in 2011, the publication will be “returning to its roots”: in addition to their annual print issue, they will begin publishing two online-only issues each year in May and September. The print issue will be devoted to a single topic, the theme of which will be announced at the opening of their submission period, and the online issues will feature new work of any theme.

“Blurring Borders,” their thematic print issue, will be available in January, followed by an online issue in May and another in September. Then, in January 2012, Witness will publish their next print issue, focused on disaster. New calls for submissions for all of these editions can be found at their web site.

By publishing online-only issues, Witness editor Amber Withycombe say the publication “will be able to cost-effectively share more writing with you and simultaneously grant broader access to the work we publish. We will make no distinction between the quality of the work that appears in our print and online issues, and contributors to each medium will be paid equally. Additionally, all of our online content will be free to readers.”

Tupelo Press Subscription Books

Tupelo Press has compiled their 2010 subscription list of books. For $99 you can get nine books – shipping included. A great deal on some notable authors’ works presented in high quality production: John Cross (Winner of the 2007 Snowbound Chapbook Award), Martha Zweig, Ilya Kaminsky, Gary Soto, Rebecca Dunham, Megan Snyder-Camp, Ellen Dor

Millay Colony for the Arts Inaugurates Cave Canem Residency

September 1, 2010 (Austerlitz, NY) Millay Colony for the Arts inaugurates a Cave Canem Residency beginning with the 2011 season. The Colony, which offers one-month residencies to six visual artists, writers and composers every month between April and November, has designated one of each year’s 48 coveted spots for a Cave Canem poet.

Founded in 1996 by poets Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady to remedy the under-representation and isolation of African American poets in MFA programs and writing workshops, Cave Canem is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.

“We’re pleased to partner with the Millay Colony for the Arts to establish an annual residency for a Cave Canem poet,” said Cave Canem Executive Director Alison Meyers. “Opportunities for writers to work uninterrupted in tranquil surroundings are rare—so this residency is a very welcome addition to our program of services.”

Caroline Crumpacker, Executive Director of the Millay Colony, agreed. “All of us at The Millay Colony are honored to be working with Cave Canem, a generous/generative organization that has added so much depth and intelligence to the conversation around and within contemporary poetry. We very much look forward to welcoming Cave Canem fellows to our Colony and, thereby, expanding the conversation that takes place here.”

To Apply:

Cave Canem Fellows will go through the juried application process. One Fellow is guaranteed a residency. The rest of the Cave Canem Fellows who’ve applied will also be considered for additional spots.

Online application submission for 2011 Residency Program.

Application submissions via mail also available for 2011 season.

Cave Canem Fellows should indicate their status as such in the application. Details and form are available on the website. Applications must be postmarked or posted by October 1, 2010 for a month-long residency in 2011.

For more information, please call our Residency Director Calliope Nicholas at 518-392-3103 or email at residency-at-millaycolony-dot-org.

Zombie 101?

Zombies are the subject of a new course at University of Baltimore – ENG333 (really? half of 666?). “It’s a back door into a lot of subjects,” Jonathan Shorr, chair of the university’s school of communications design, says. “They think they’re taking this wacko zombie course, and they are. But on the way, they learn how literature and mass media work, and how they come to reflect our times.”

Fiction Residency George Washington University

The George Washington University 2011–2012 Jenny McKean Moore Writer-In-Washington (Fiction). An appointment beginning in the fall of 2011 for a writer of fiction to teach two semesters at The George Washington University as the Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Washington.

The successful candidate will teach a small fiction workshop each semester for members of the metropolitan Washington community. No tuition is charged for these workshops, which are not open to University students. The successful candidate will also teach two classes, one each semester, for students at The George Washington University.

This position is funded by an endowment from the Jenny McKean Moore Fund for Writers. The late Jenny McKean Moore, who had been a playwriting student at The George Washington University, left in trust a fund to encourage creative writing, & the trustees of the Fund helped design the program. The position is intended to serve as a fellowship for the visiting writer, since it involves only a moderate teaching load, & the program’s location at a university in the center of Washington should offer additional attractions for the writer.

The writer must have significant publications (fiction published by a well regarded press) & a demonstrated commitment to teaching. Like students in the community workshops, the writer need not have conventional academic credentials. He or she should reside in the Washington area while the University is in session, 1 September through early May. The historic Lenthall House, a 4-story Federal-era townhouse on campus, is normally available to the visiting writer through a subsidized rental agreement. The salary for 2011–2012 is expected to be $58,000 plus an attractive benefits package.

To be considered, applications for the 2011–2012 Writer-in-Washington position must be made by letter, indicating publications & other projects, extent of teaching experience, & other qualifications. The application must also include a resume & a selection of published fiction. Applicants are encouraged to send a book as their sample. Books will be returned if accompanied by an appropriate SASE. Only complete applications will be considered.

Review of all applications will begin on November 1, 2010 & will continue until the position is filled.

Applications should be sent to: Professor Gayle Wald, Chair, Department of English, 801 22nd St., NW (Suite 760), The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052.

Emerging Adulthood Observed in Literature

Psychologist studying “emerging adulthood” of 18-to-20-something characterize by five features, according to Clark University psychologist Jeffery Arnett: identity exploration, instability, feeling in-between, a sense of possibilities and self-focus. Sarah Barmak explores this new area of study looking at characters in literature, authors, and supporting cultural influences: Why 30 is the New 20.

Christian Teresi on Violence in Art

“I think about films and films that depict violence and don’t participate in the violence they depict. And there are films that depict violence and do participate in the violence they depict. It’s something I’ve really been thinking about over the last decade or so. I just saw a film I had to walk away from because I felt it was so violent to the viewer that it inflicted violence on them. Whereas a film like Boys Don’t Cry was about violence to this person, but the film wasn’t violent to us. I read about it. The directors and the actors really worked hard not to do that.

“Like when you watch a film that depicts a rape, and it’s horrifying and you can’t stop thinking about it for months, and we’re supposed to leave thinking rape is terrible, and that somehow its been done to us. I don’t think that is necessary at all. We have an imagination, and we can empathize without undergoing a violent act. So I’m very interested in ways art can move you and touch you but not afflict you. Look at Shakespeare. We read King Lear and you’re like, oh, my god, don’t do this, don’t do it. Cordelia’s over here and Lear’s in the storm, and you have to just stop reading and cry and put your head down, but it doesn’t feel as though it’s being done to us. It’s something we recognize. We too can be as obstinate and blind as Lear. We can see what’s happening. We participate, but we’re not being asked to carry it for Shakespeare.”

From An Interview with Marie Howe by Christian Teresi, The Writer’s Chronicle (May/Summer 2010).

New Lit on the Block :: Rubric

Based out of The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, Rubric is “an online interdisciplinary journal centred around the ideas of text and writing.” Previously only open to UNSW students, the new incarnation of Rubric is open to local and international work in all areas of creative writing and writing theory. The editorial team includes Josh Mei-Ling Dubrau, Kylar Loussikian, Ralph Stevenson, and Tanya Thaweeskulchai.

Rubric is a peer reviewed journal supported by the editorial board of Pam Brown (Associate Editor, Jacket Magazine), Paul Dawson (University of New South Wales), John Hawke (Monash University), Cate Kennedy (joining in 2011), Elizabeth McMahon (University of New South Wales), Stephen Muecke (University of New South Wales), Gordon Thompson (Victoria University, Melbourne), John Tranter (Editor, Jacket Magazine), and Alan Wearne (University of Wollongong).

This first issue of the new Rubric includes works by Alexandra Duggan, Amelia Streets, Kathleen Stewart, Narelle Goulden, Ralph Stevenson, Sam McAlpine, Shane Lee, Sylvia Petter, and Tamryn Bennet, whose graphic poem is llustrated by Skye O’Shea.

Rubric accepts works of poetry, prose, ficto-criticism, new media, and non-fiction, including short academic papers dealing with topics related to text and writing. Submissions are accepted from undergraduate, graduate, and academic sources and are peer reviewed by the appropriate member of Rubric‘s editorial board. The next deadline for submissions is October 1, 2010.

Art & Text: Nancy Spero’s Torture of Women

“Nancy Spero’s Torture of Women is an epic work. Two years in the making, it’s composed of fourteen panels and totals 125 feet. Juxtaposing image and text, Spero collaged imagery drawn from ancient mythology with hand-printed and typewritten words. She collected first person testimony culled from Amnesty International reports, news items on women missing or dead, definitions of torture from the twentieth and thirteenth centuries, as well as the retelling of violent Sumerian and Babylonian creation myths, such as Tiamat being disemboweled by Marduk to create the heavens. Completed in 1976, and published this spring by Siglio Press, Torture of Women bears witness to what is often officially denied or left unspoken. It reveals the presence of the silent consensus, which allows the violence to be state-sanctioned and eternally mythologized.” Guernica Magazine

Lady Chatterly Could Incite Prison Fights?

“A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a Virginia prison policy that denies inmates access to classic literature with sexually explicit passages but allows them to peruse Playboy magazine…Prison officials argued that sexually explicit materials ‘are considered valuable currency and used in bartering’ by inmates, and that the possession of such items can lead to theft and fights.” [Larry O’Dell, AP]

New Lit on the Block :: ESQUE

Under the superior editorship of Amy King and Ana Bozicevic, ESQUE is a newly launched online journal. The first issue features work by poets loosely grouped under the categories of OETRY (“the kitchen sink”) and IFESTO (“everything but”).

OETRY includes “the texts of poets’ native turf: poems, prose poems, verse-fragments, visual po-work.” Contributors to this first issue are Charles Bernstein, Bei Dao, Tamiko Beyer, Jackie Clark, Amy De’Ath, Lidija Dimkovska, Kate Durbin, Steven Karl, Natalie Lyalin, Filip Marinovich, Sharon Mesmer, Miguel Murphy, Ariana Reines, Saeed Jones, Tomaz Salamun, Evie Shockley, Heidi Lynn Staples, Leigh Stein, Cole Swensen, John Tranter, and Matvei Yankelevich.

IFESTO is “a field for poets to lucidly engage beyond their poetry. It may include: manifestos, rants, theoretical or personal essays, half-formed statements of poetics, travelogues, music or literary or art critiques, a recurring dream.” Contributors to this first issue are Jennifer Bartlett, Jillian Brall, Ching-In Chen, Ken Chen, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Jennifer H, Fortin, Molly Gaudry, Roxane Gay, Matt Hart, Brenda Hillman, Dan Hoy, Ron Padgett & Olivier Brossard, Lars Palm, Joan Retallack, Brandon Shimoda, Anne Waldman, Franz Wright, and Carolyn Zaikowski.

ESQUE is a flash site, so allow a minute for the full content to load. Individual author’s works are available to print via PDF.

Sandburg-Auden-Stein Residency – 2012

Intensive Learning Term poet-in-residence program, from 30 April to 18 May 2012: 2012 Sandburg-Auden-Stein Residency.

During the 2012 Intensive Learning Term, the Olivet College Humanities Department will offer its sixth poet-in-residence position. The Sandburg-Auden-Stein poet will live on or near campus and teach ENG 247: Poetry Writing. The Sandburg-Auden-Stein poet will also host two public events: a public reading of his or her work and a stand-alone talk/discussion on a subject of his or her choice (publishing poetry, beat poets, def poetry, etc.).

An award of $3,100 (plus room and board) will be given to the 2012 poet. The Humanities Department faculty will evaluate the submissions and choose the winner. Poets who have published at least one book of poetry are eligible.

Submissions are due on Sept. 10, 2010, and should include the following: five poems from your most recent book, a single page personal statement regarding your poetics and teaching, a current résumé and two references. There is no entry fee. Please contact Kirk Hendershott-Kraetzer, Ph.D., Humanities Department chair, with your questions at (269) 749-7621 or khendershottkraetzer(at)olivetcollege(dot)edu

Electronic applications are strongly encouraged: .rtf, .doc, .docx formats accepted, .pdf preferred. Send to khendershottkraetzer(at)olivetcollege(dot)edu with “Residency application” indicated in the subject line.

Application materials also may be sent by regular mail to:
Sandburg-Auden-Stein Residency
Office of the Dean
Olivet College
320 S. Main St.
Olivet, MI 49076