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Youth Drama Competition

Prick of the Spindle partners with the Pensacola Little Theatre for Outreach Initiative for Youth Drama: A drama competition, by adults, for youth. Grown-ups write it; kids see it. One winning play will be selected from three different age categories (4-8, 8-12, 12+) for production by the Pensacola Little Theatre’s Beyond Boundaries program in the fall of 2010. Submission Deadline: August 15, 2010

Zone 3 Winners and Interviews

The Spring 2010 issue of Zone 3 includes the winning entries of the 2010 Zone 3 Poetry Awards: George Looney, first place, Tara Bray, second place and special mention, and Peter Ramos, third place.

Also featured is new fiction by Michael Martone, nonfiction by Ander Monson and interviews with each author.

Writing Life in Life Stories

Each issue of Brevity includes articles on the craft of writing, and the newest issue includes an article of interest by genealogist and author Sharon DeBartolo Carmack – “Flesh on the Bones: Turning Dry Ancestral Details into a Life Story” and a humorous essay “My Muse – He’s Just Not That Into Me” by Drema Hall Berkheimer.

Brevity accepts submissions from writers for this craft essay feature, as well as other content for their online publication.

New Lit on the Block :: Asian American Literary Review

Under the editorship of Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis and Gerald Maa, the Asian American Literary Review is “a space for writers who consider the designation ‘Asian American’ a fruitful starting point for artistic vision and community.” In addition to their twice yearly print journal, AALR will publish an online feature entitled “Dear John Okada.” This monthly web exclusive “features an open letter to John Okada, Carlos Bulosan, Siu Sin Far — the shades of Asian American literature past—regarding the state of Asian American literature today.” The first of these installments features a letter to Agha Shahid Ali from Dilruba Ahmed.

The Spring 2010 issue of AALR is available now and features poetry by Cathy Song, Oliver de la Paz, Paisley Rekdal, April Naoko Heck, Mong-Lan, Eugene Gloria, Nick Carbó, and David Woo; an interview by Kandice Chuh with Karen Tei Yamashita; prose by Ed Lin, Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Sonya Chung, Hasanthika Sirasena, David Mura, Gary Pak, and Brian Ascalon Roley; book reviews and a forum with David Mura, Ru Freeman and Alexander Chee.

AALR reads submissions from June 1 – September 1. Their first two issues are already closed, so any submissions sent in will be considered for publication in 2011.

AALR was also reviewed on NewPages here.

Short Story Month

Swing by Emerging Writers Network blog, where Dan Wickett is celebrating National Short Story Month by hosting (and participating in) weekly discussions of specific short stories. The discussions will focus on two collections in particular, with up to around a dozen people discussing one story from each collection each week. It’s a lot to keep track of, but rich in terms of connecting with stories, authors, and critical readers.


Dzanc Books also just announced that Luis Jaramillo, Associate Chair of the Writing Program at the New School, is the winner of their 2009 short story collection contest. Jaramillo’s manuscript, The Doctor’s Wife, was selected from more than 100 submissions. This collection will be published in October 2012.

Room Contest Winners Issue

Issue 33.1 of Room, appropriately themed “Competition,” features the winners of the 2009 Room Contest:

Fiction
1st Place: “The Glorious Mysteries” Audrey J. Whitson
2nd Place: “Ghosting” M.E. Powell
Honourable Mention: “Sisters” Kimberley Alcock (available on Room’s website)

Poetry
1st Place: “I told my first stranger I was pregnant” Jessica Hiemstra-van der Horst
2nd Place: “Funny Bone” Wenda Nairn
Honourable Mention: “The Virgin Mary is a Collapsed Umbrella” Julie Mahfood (available on Room’s website)

Creative Non-Fiction1st Place: “April the Cruelest” Adrianne Kalfopoulou
2nd Place: “Why Wake Dayo?” Carla Hartenberger
Honourable Mention: “Behind the Glass” Ruth Morris Schneider (available on Room’s website)

The 2010 contest is currently open for submissions until June 15.

Fifth Wednesday Guest Editors & New Interns

The Spring 2010 issue of Fifth Wednesday Journal includes works selected by guest editors Edie Meidav, fiction, and Monica Berlin, poetry, and fall guest editors have been announced: Amy Newman, poetry editor, and Lon Otto, fiction editor.

Fifth Wednesday Journal has also added interns to their staff for the first time, and welcome the efforts of Cassandra Clegg, Richard Clegg, and Rachel Hamsmith in this issue.

Issue Zero

Issue Zero: Hustle is the first “raucous experiment” of 48 Hour Magazine. Using new tools to erase media’s old limits, editors Heather Champ, Dylan Fareed, Mathew Honan, Alexis Madrigal, Derek Powazek, Sarah Rich wrote, photographed, illustrated, designed, and edited a magazine in two days. “From noon on May 7th through noon on the 9th, a team circled up around the original Rolling Stone conference table in Mother Jones’ offices to transform 1,502 submissions from around the world into a chorus of voices, all harmonizing around the same theme: hustle.” Available via MagCloud, 48 Hour Magazine features 60 pages of writing and artwork. Plans for upcoming issues are in the works, after these folks get some sleep.

The Southern Review’s Issue with Baseball

“When The Southern Review resident scholar Andrew Ervin came to me last summer with the idea of doing a special feature on baseball for our spring 2010 issue,” starts Jeanne Leiby’s Editor’s Note, “I was skeptical. My initial concern was that our slush pile would be overrun by Sunday-afternoon-playing-catch-with-Dad sentimentality and easy metaphors that didn’t challenge, compel, or embrace the literary standards that represent The Southern Review‘s history and present. In short, I didn’t think there was much to say about baseball that hadn’t been said a thousand times.” Instead, Leiby writes of her amazement at the complexity of works received, the translations representing baseball’s far-reaching appeal: “the depth and breadth was astounding.” And once again proved the value of literary magazines in our contemporary culture to bring out new work: “the work not yet seen and the voices not yet heard.” Until now.

Smories Now Live

Ralph Lazar & Lisa Swerling are the creators of Smories, a free website for kids to watch little films of new stories being read by other kids. Inspired by their daughter, Smories “is a place for unpublished children’s story writers worldwide to get their work published free online, whilst retaining all rights. The stories will be text only (not illustrated), which will remove a common obstacle to publication for many aspiring writers.”

These are absolutely delightful films. The audio and video quality are solid, and the young readers do a great job (the accents will be an added delight for fans of Harry Potter). I don’t know how kids will respond to this, so any readers out there who want to comment on a young viewer’s response, please do so.

The FAQs on the site provide complete information about rights, content, and submissions.

Passings :: Frank Frazetta

“Frank Frazetta, an illustrator of comic books, movie posters and paperback book covers whose visions of musclebound men fighting with swords and axes to defend scantily dressed women helped define fantasy heroes like Conan, Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, died on Monday in Fort Myers, Fla. He was 82. ” (NYT)

Survey :: Africa in Higher Education

Ph.D. student Natasha Himmelman, University of Cape Town is conducting a survey on

African Studies
Africana Studies
Diaspora Studies
Caribbean Studies
African American Studies

in institutions of higher education. Seeking undergraduate, postgraduate, and recent graduate responses to simple 10-question survey:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2Z6QC7C

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact Natasha at nhimmelman[at]gmail.com

SciFi World View

World Literature Today‘s newest issue (May/June 2010) includes a special section devoted to speculative fiction. Editor Daniel Simon writes: “SF in WLT?” and answers with, “In the current issue, it matters less how we define the world and more how we see through it, or around it, and into the realm of other possibilities.” And so, SciFi it is – featuring Kij Johnson, China Mieville, Federik Pohl, George Zebrowski, James Gunn, Lavie Tidhar, Pamela Sargent, Paul Kincaid, David Fowler, Grady Hendrix, Tom Shippey, and Davor Slamnig.

Exclusive online content includes Rob Bollmar’s podcast interview with Cory Doctorow, the complete text of the short stories by Pamel Sargent and Lavie Tidhar (excerpted in the print edition), Paul Di Filippo’s extended reviews of the best speculative fiction of 2009, and much more SF-related content.

the Unrorean’s New Editor

Begun as an answer to Aurorean editor Cynthia Brackett-Vincent’s frequent quandary, “I wish this fit the Aurorean!”, the Unrorean publishes poems that are too long, too dark or too experimental for the Aurorean’s format. Its tagline: “$2 each U.S. (less than a cup of gourmet coffee & more satisfying). One-year subscription {2 issues} $4 U.S. (much more satisfying than just one issue!). There are no formal guidelines or deadlines, & we do not send proofs. Work sent solely to the Unrorean is not acknowledged (but we promise to take good care of your poems).”

Now, the Unrorean welcomes Devin McGuire as Editor as it expands readership and visibility as a small-press broadsheet. Cynthia Brackett-Vincent will be behind the scenes as Managing Editor.

Its format: 11×17; laser-printed; folded into 5 1/2 x 8 1/2. Various colors. 2-4 11×17 pages. Although there are no formal guidelines for the Unrorean, material submitted from approximately January-June is considered for the Summer/Fall issue and material submitted from approximately July-December is considered for the Winter/Spring issue.

New Lit on the Block :: Camera Obscura

Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Camera Obscura is the kind of publication that will definitely keep readers demanding print publications they can hold in their hands. A biannual independent print journal and “internet haunt,” Camera Obscura features prose & photography by established, as well as, emerging writers and photographers. Don’t let the 9×6 format fool you – the high quality production makes the images on these pages fill the mind’s eye (a true model of how art is best reproduced for greatest viewer appreciation).

Behind the scenes at Camera Obscura are Editor M.E. Parker, Prose Editors Meredith Doench, Tim Horvath, Shane Oshetski, and M.E. Parker, Photography Editors Kate Parker and Lisa Roberts.

The first issue is a packed 128 pages, including fiction by Claire Bateman, Joshua Cohen, Patrick Dacey, Kane X. Faucher (Editor’s Choice Award for fiction), Amy Glasenapp, Cynthia Litz, Robert McGowan, Nani Power, Thea Swanson, Michael Trocchia, Ren

Cable in the Classroom

Television is emerging as the medium of choice for serious visual storytellers, says instructor Jason Mittell who teaches an entire semester using HBO’s The Wire. “If you have a compelling short story to tell, film is the medium to do it,” he said. “If you want to tell a long-form story or create a world where characters can grow, television is the place to do it.” Read the full story on the Rutland Herald.

Writers Grant Competition

The Elizabeth George Foundation is accepting applications for writing grants for 2011. Grants will be made to provide support for unpublished fiction writers, for unpublished and published poets, and for emerging playwrights. Interested writers should send a letter of inquiry to: Elizabeth George, Director, The Elizabeth George Foundation, PO Box 1429, Langley, WA 98260. Letters need to be received by the Foundation by July 1, 2010 to be considered for a grant for the 2011 calendar year.

Job :: Web Project Manager

The Poetry Foundation Web Project Manager. The project manager is responsible for the online experience of poetryfoundation.org, which requires defining website upgrades and additions to poetryfoundation.org and for managing those projects internally through the web design, development and implementation process. Candidates with a working knowledge of contemporary literary culture and/or poetry are especially encouraged to apply. May 15

New Lit on the Block :: The Packinghouse Review

Cofounded by David Dominguez (poetry editor), Rick Garza (fiction editor), and Alma Dominguez (managing editor), The Packinghouse Review will publish fiction and poetry biannually. Their first issue includes fiction by Neal Blaikie, David Borofka, Daniel Chacόn, and Liza Wieland, and poetry by Christopher Buckley, Gerardo Diego (translated by Francisco Aragόn), Frank X. Gaspar, Rojoberto González, Lee Herrick, David Hurst, Maria Melendez, Chad Prevost, Dixie Salazar, and Michael Spurgeon.

The Packinghouse Review also includes a Student Intern Editor, a position currently filled by Cecilia Ruiz of Reedley College, California.

The publication is available for single copy purchase via Amazon.

Poetry Northwest Relocates

Last year, Poetry Northwest celebrated its 50th anniversary, “quietly” – as editor Kevin Craft notes. The publication has not survived these five decades unscathed, having suspended publication briefly at the turn of the new millennium. But Poetry Northwest came back “reestablished as a nonprofit enterprise on a foundation of community support.” Facing and embracing change once again, Poetry Northwest has relocated from the Attic Writers Workshop in Portland, and returned to its birthplace of the Puget Sound region. The magazine is now “housed and published by the Written Arts Program at Everett Community College. But,” Craft adds, “it will depend, as it always has, on the support and interest of community of readers all over the country.”

This newest issue of Poetry Northwest (Spring & Summer 2010) features works by new and known writers: Bob Hicok, Linda Gregg, Paisley Rekdal, Sierra Nelson, Christopher Merrill, amy Greacen, Andrew Zawacki, Jason Whitmarsh, Joelle Biele, Jeff Hardin, David Sofield, Ted Gilley, Ronald Wallace, Spikanth Reddy, Kelli Russel Agodon, Rick Barot, Rod Jellema, Eamon Brennan, Lilah Hegnauer, Daniel Groves, Daniel Lamberton, Zach Savich, Jay B. Thompson, and Kevin Craft. Artwork by Claire Cowie and Jay Bryant.

Fiction Noir

The newest issue of Criminal Class Review (v3n1) is devoted to fiction noir. The independent publication self-described as “Literary Scum,” initially set out to publish “hard luck tales that went unheard,” according to editor-in-chief Kevin Whiteley. “Our stories and poems seek to transcend the gap between song and story. We are interested in where the ‘hard luck’ songs originated, and the tales from the street which spurned them. Punk rockers, Hooligans, outlaws and the like…C.C.P. is not a shoulder to cry on, a place for broken hearts, or an album for family stories rather a fictionalized confession booth for felons, scumbags, and psychos. We don’t take anything less than blood, violence, and abusive aspects of life.”

Given that, it’s no wonder CCP was receiving more and more noir submissions, which resulted in this issue, featuring works by Rick Villanueva, William Hillman, Marguerite L. Harrold, George Tabb, Sam Allingham, Andrew Riconda, David S. Pointer, Daniel Porder, John Haggerty, Gleb Boundin, Douglas Thomas Wallace, David Corbett, Brian Murphy, Mickey Disend, Scott Palmer, Jim Goad, Lex Sonne, and Stephen Elliot.

New Lit on the Block :: Lo-Ball

Quietly entering the scene, Lo-Ball has all the promise of becoming an established publication. Editors D.A. Powell and T.J. Di Francesco mean to keep the production simple, touting the magazines as a “no frills” publication. This production approach passes no judgement on the magazine’s content, however, which includes in its first issue new poetry by J. Peter Moore, Rachel Zucker, John Casteen, Erin Belieu, Camille T. Dungy, Ely Shipley, Paisley Rekdal, David Trinidad, Katie Ford, Timothy O’Keefe, Ryan Courtwright, Ryan Call, Randall Mann, Kristen Tracy, Kristen Hatch, Luke Sykora, Stephen Elliott, John Beer, Peter Covino, Ash Bowen, CJ Evans, Ilya Kaminsky, Rachel Loden, Derek Mong, Benjamin Paloff, and Alex Lemon.

Published semiannually, Lo-Ball is available by single copy or two-issue subscription via PayPal – at one of the most low-ball prices I’ve seen on a lit mag in a long time ($4.99/issue). Printed by Bookmobile with glossy cover and nice stock, they’re not out to make money on this one (thus the .org, I’m guessing). And my favorite promotional line in the publication, “Lo-Ball respectfully reminds you to have your pets spayed or neutered. Or both.” How can you resist?

Visual Poetry

In addition to fiction, reviews, and spoken word, the newest issue (57) of The Pedestal Magazine features a Visual Poetry Gallery edited by Bob Grumman and John M. Bennett, and includes works by: Reed Altemus, Geraldo Baron, Guy R. Beining, Tom Cassidy, K.S. Ernst, Scott Helmes, M

Back to the Future: TKR Adds Letterpress

The Kenyon Review Editor David H. Lynn’s editorial in the newest issue (spring 2010) comments on the “future of literary publishing.” TKR itself went part-digital a while back with KROnline to complement TKR in print, as well as adding a daily blog, online book discussions, and collaborating with JSTOR to complete an electronic archive.

Lynn comments, “It surely would have been easier simply to continue printing this journal four times a year and leave it at that. But I’m convinced that sooner or later, such isolated publications will come to seem anachronisms, curiosities, not vibrant players in the literary community.”

But far from being a full-fledged missive on going digital, Lynn recognizes the continuing place of ink and paper in our lives, its historical relevance, and its place in the lives of future readers and writers, which is why TKR will be launching a small letterpress operation. “Even as we develop literary media for the future, I believe it’s our responsibility to keep the old technologies, teaching our associates where all the current publishing structures originated. Letting them get their hands dirty.”

TKR is planning printing opportunities for their summer program, and looks to add chapbooks and broadsides in the future, “just for the fun of it.”

Flyway Redefining Enviromental Writing & Contest Winners

Flyway: A Journal of Writing and Environment Managing Editor Liz Clift writes: “Flyway begins its 16th year, we reflect on the meaning ‘environment’ takes on for different people. Traditionally, environmental writing refers to writing about nature, often as an advocate of the natural world. With this in mind, it’s easy to view the manmade world as less important and thus deny it a place within the environmental literature canon. However, environmental writing now includes urban and other manmade environments as legitimate components of modern human experience. This issue of Flyway explores both human and nonhuman environments, because we shape the environment that shapes us.”

This issue also features winners of their “Home Voices” writing contest: Kathryn Sukalich (1st place), Kimberly L. Rogers and Rachael Button (honorable mentions), and their “Notes from the Field” writing contest: Cassandra Kircher (1st place) and Gabriel Houck (finalist).

Nominate 40 Under 40: the Future of Feminism

From the Feminist Press:

The Feminist Press is 40 years old in 2010 – what better way to honor the past than by celebrating the future! We are searching for 40 fabulous feminist women and men* to honor as the “40 Under 40” to pay attention to in the future.

Help us choose the women and men of talent and commitment who best represent what feminism is all about: gender equality and social justice.

We are looking for people in all fields: the arts, community organizing, social justice, medicine, law, politics, business, philanthropy, etc. Please be sure to include contact information for your nominee(s).

All 40 honorees will be acknowledged at our 40th anniversary gala at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC on October 18, 2010. And when you send us your nominations, you’ll be entered in a raffle to win a ticket to the gala.

We’ve made history as the world’s oldest continuing feminist publisher. Send us your suggestions for “40 Under 40” and be part of the next 40 years and beyond.

Email your suggestions to Maryann Jacob Macias, Development Manager: mjacob-at-gc.cuny-dot-edu by Friday, May 14.

*Most of our honorees come from the northeast U.S. We wish we could fly people in from further away. Please donate if you can, to help us honor women and men from around the U.S. www.feministpress.org/support-us

Inkwell 2010 Contest Winners

Manhattanville College’s Inkwell Spring 2010 features a number of winners of their 2010 competition:

Poetry Winner: Starkey Flythe
Honorable Mention: Jim Knowles
Notable Finalists: Phillis Levin, Rachel Michaud, Dan Preniszni, Alinda Wasner (Fall 2010)

Fiction Winner: Aram Kim
Honorable Mention: E. B. Moore
Notable Finalists: Joan Corwin (Fall 2010), Starkey Flythe (Fall 2010), Daniel Austin Warren

Elizabeth McCormack Master of Arts in Writing Poetry Winner: Kristina Bicher
Elizabeth McCormack Master of Arts in Writing Fiction Winner: Terry Dugan

How Did You Meet?

Ploughshares, Spring 2010, edited by Elizabeth Strout, opens with her introduction, not just to this issue of the journal, but to Journals. She writes of her first awkward year away at college, where (like so many of us) she believed others to be so much more confident, comfortable, and learned. She slinks into the library and dashes to the first stacks, the periodical section, where she finds familiar magazines: “But I found a whole row of other things. Journals, some thick, others quite thin, lay on a tilting shelf with their faces toward me. Some had colorful covers, some had very simple and unassuming covers. Inside them–the type pressed into the paper, so that even touching them brought a certain thrill–I found story after story, poem after poem. Who knew? I had not known.”

Do you remember discovering literary magazines? It seems most of us do not know them until our college years, and often times by accident. I have made it my “mission” as a teacher to introduce my students to literary magazines, to make the introduction formal, purposeful, and as often as possible. To put a magazine into a young reader’s hands and say, “Read this, I’d like to know what you think of it.” And to be rewarded, time and again, as I was the time I put a copy of Agni into a student’s hands. She returned next class, looking at me wild-eyed, and said, “I never knew writing like this existed.”

And it is to the credit of editors as much as writers that this kind of writing “exists” and can be put into the hands of readers of all ages. New Red Cedar Review Managing Editors Ashley Luster and Emily Wollner comment: “As we embraced our roles as managing editors of Red Cedar Review, the journal that we had grown to love over the past few years, we made it a priority to define the nature of the material with which we were working. What does it mean exactly to be a literary journal? Associated commonly with dusty library tomes and complex pleonastic prose, the ‘L’ word is one that often frightens away people who lie outside of its writing communities and seemingly elite social circles. It seems, though, that the literary merit of a creative piece is not necessarily a consequence of its form or its language, but is something that lies within the way these factors work in tandem to present an idea. In this way, we strove to expand the definition of literary in this issue of RCR to include any spark of creativity that lends itself to ink and paper.”

Knockout LGBTQ Youth Suicide

Knockout is doing its part to fight suicide in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth population. Five percent of the proceeds from sales of the Spring 2010 (3.1) issue will go to The Trevor Project, which operates the only nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for LGBTQ youth. For more information, visit thetrevorproject.org.

Film :: Brontë Bonnet Dramas Forthcoming

From the TimesOnline: BBC Films, with the American company Focus Features, is first out of the traps. Jane Eyre is five weeks into a nine-week shoot in Derbyshire. Film4’s Wuthering Heights, made with Ecosse Films, the British company behind Nowhere Boy, is scheduled to start filming in Yorkshire next month…Alison Owen, the producer of Jane Eyre (and mother of the singer Lily Allen), said: “There is something about the current situation that the world finds itself in where the Brontës more suit the mood of the moment [than Austen]. Jane Austen is a lighter cut than the Brontës, who are much more brooding and bleak.”