At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!
An online journal devoted to brevity and where genre isn’t important. The work that appears in concīs shows up first on the homepage and then is later compiled into a seasonal issue. One thing is for certain: concīs proves that length matters not when it comes to quality and the Spring 2017 seasonal issue bears this out.
With no offense to anyone, it is refreshing to review a multi-genre collection coming from outside a university. That doesn’t make the contributors any better or worse from either source, but it does provide an added perspective. As a group, the contributors to Mudfish 19, are not aspiring student writers; they are practiced artists providing us with practiced skills that encourage thoughtful reading and reflection. The independence of a private press also gives us a much larger selection of authors, painters, and photographers than we can hope for in any one issue of a university press.
Foundry online poetry journal is true to its name in that it views poems as “manufactured objects—the intangible cast into forms.” But unlike the foundries of yore, Foundry magazine is a great deal more flexible in its production, supporting an array of poetic forms and styles. In fact, in searching for a singular descriptor for the type of poetry readers can expect to find here, it was not possible. The editors encourage poems that “feel as much as they think,” and that’s probably the best descriptor I could imagine to draw readers in.
Published out of Southeast Missouri State University Press, Big Muddy showcases works and authors “related to the Mississippi River basin and its bordering ten-state area.” While that might at first seem limited, there is no sense of that limitation in reading this publication. On the contrary, the genre styles, subject matter, and author backgrounds are so broad, “big” is even an understatement. More like its river’s namesake, this Big Muddy meanders, rages, roils, and gently laps through the gamut of literary creative expression.
Continue reading “Big Muddy – 2017”In their “about us” section, elsewhere says it cares “only about the line/no line. We want short prose works (flash fiction, prose poetry, nonfiction) that cross, blur, and/or mutilate genre.” And, true to their word, that’s exactly what the work in the latest issue achieves. Filled with evocative language and eerie imagery, the pieces here straddle the lines between prose poetry and flash fiction, sometimes almost seamlessly.
There’s that famous line in Forrest Gump that many people (even people who haven’t seen the film) will know: “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” That’s honestly what went on in my mind while reading through the latest issue of Literary Juice. The most current issue has four poems, one fiction piece, and one super-micro story comprised of only 25 words (which is a neat concept unto itself) under a heading labeled “Pulp.”
Chtenia is a unique publication that focuses on translating, sharing, and re-discovering Russian literature, both classic and modern. Each issue has a special theme and Volume 10 Issue 2 focuses on happiness. It contains a variety of pieces, including plays, poems, short stories, and chapters of books, each one circling around the theme of happiness.
A mystical melancholy permeates the summer issue of The Gettysburg Review. In fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, writers have tapped into the underground spring of emotion and pulled up some of the ambivalent detritus that accompanies life. This is not to say that the themes in the works included in this issue are dismal; there is a life-affirming quality in acknowledging human emotion in literary texts where strength can be summoned in what may seem like weakness but is more resolute and evolutionary.
The Briar Cliff Review, a publication of Briar Cliff University in Sioux City Iowa, has published its 29th issue, and for 29 years it has held to its mission “to discover and support new and mid-career writers and artists, to keep literature and art alive for future generations.” This it has done in a beautiful issue of art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that serves readers finely-crafted portions of each genre. The annual publication is worth the wait.
With prosy poems and poetic prose, Cimarron Review provides fodder for intelligent readers. Founded in 1967 and a member of CLMP, the magazine regularly nominates its writers to “notable contests.” The Winter 2017 issue is a clean, slim volume, the pages almost square and formatted with a lot of white space so the reader can breeze through. Of the 25 writers, 14 are male, and a different 14 had published one or more books, while 8 were either MFA graduates without publications, or had published in fairly-unknown magazines.
The newest issue of Gulf Coast (v29 n2) features winners from two of their annual contests. Established in 2008, the Barthelme Prize for Short Prose is open to pieces of prose poetry, flash fiction, and micro-essays of 500 words or fewer. One winner receives $1,000 + publication; two honorable mentions receive $250. All entries will be considered for paid publication on the Gulf Coast website as Online Exclusives.
2016 Barthelme Prize
Judge: Jim Shepherd
Winner
Andrew Mitchell, “Going North”
Honorable Mentions – Both also received print publication
Molly Reid, “Fall from Grace”
Marya Hornbacher “A Peck of Beets”
Winner
Carina del Valle Schorske for a translation of Marigloria Palma
Honorable Mentions
Ondrej Pazdirek
Tim DeMay
Arkana is a new biannual online journal published by the Arkansas Writers MFA Program at the University of Central Arkansas. While the name may seem obviously connected to the place, “arcana” can also mean a secret or a mystery, or a powerful and secret remedy, some “great secret of nature that the alchemists sought to discover.” This definition, the editors explain, is what they want Arkana to be all about: “discovering powerful voices that haven’t previously been heard, but speak to human nature and the human experience. Publishing every genre possible, and with the welcoming flexibility online offers, the editors want to “be the literary journal of mysteries and marginalized voices—to champion the arcane.” Continue reading “New Lit on the Block :: Arkana”
The newest issue of The Florida Review (40.1, 2017) features winners of the 2016 Editor’s Awards. This annual award accepts submissions in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Winners receive $1000 upon publication in TFR with finalists also being considered for publication.
Nonfiction
Winner: Rebekah Taussig, “I Called Mine Beautiful”
Finalist: Robert Stothart, “Nighthawks”
Poetry
Winner: Paige Lewis, “Angel, Overworked”
Finalist: Donna Coffey, “Sunset Cruise at Key West”
Finalist: Christina Hammerton, “Old Pricks”
Fiction
Winner: Derek Palacio, “Kisses”
Finalist: Nicholas Lepre, “Pretend You’re Really Here”
Finalist: Terrance Manning, Jr., “Vision House”
Happy 40th Anniversary to Willow Springs magazine of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and interviews published out of Spokane, Washington. Issue 80 features approriate celebratory cover art by Marta Berens (“Crystal Structure”) of a small girl seeming to be caught in mid-dance, and inside this issue, the poem “Anniversary,” by Elizabeth Austen includes these closing lines: “I twist as if I, like the jellyfishdress, / am suspended, still / thick with possibility, still buoyant.”
May Willow Springs continue on another forty years – buoyant and thick with possibility!
Each year, PEN America grants one winner of the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction a $25,000 cash prize, given in memory of Robert W. Bingham. The 2017 winner, judged by Jami Attenberg, Tanwi Nandini Islam, Randall Kenan, Hanna Pylväinen, and Akhil Sharma, is Rion Amilcar Scott with Insurrections (University of Kentucky Press, August 2017).
In the debut collection, Rion Amilcar Scott gives life to residents of the fictional town of Cross River, Maryland, a largely black settlement founded in 1807. Written in lyrical prose, Scott presents characters who dare to make their own choices in the depths of darkness and hopelessness.
Stop by the University of Kentucky Press website to listen to interviews with the author, learn more about the award-winning collection, and order digital or print copies.
Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts introduces The Toni Beauchamp Prize in Critical Art Writing to provide a venue and support for young and mid-career U.S. writers. “Grounded in both scholarship and journalism, critical art writing occupies a specific niche. The best examples appeal to a diverse readership through an accessible approach and maintain a unique voice and literary excellence. The Prize will consider submissions of work that has been written (or published) within the last year. A variety of creative approaches and formats to writing on the visual arts are encouraged, and can include thematic essays, exhibition reviews and scholarly essays.”
There is no fee to enter this contest, prizes will be awarded for first ($3000) and two runners up ($1000) as well as print/online publication. Deadline: September 1, 2017.
Toni Beauchamp [pictured] was the president of Art Lies Board from 2002-2004. See the Gulf Coast website for more details.
I have to admit to being slightly creeped out by The Malahat Review cover art “Fly Face” by Aurel Schmidt – but at the same time, I can’t bring myself to look away from the fine detail of this pencil and acrylic on paper.
Sandy Skoglund‘s “Fox Games” is the perfect image for The Missouri Review Summer 2017 theme “Mischief Makers.”
I’m not sure if the cover images “Remote Lighthouse” by David Mark / “Delta Flyers” by Barry Jones was intentional – with the black and white lighthouse – given the special art feature in this Summer 2017 issue of Able Muse: A Zebra Theme – a photographic exhibit of zebra imagery from artists worldwide.
A collection of essays has never been so utterly tragic and full of truth. James Allen Hall’s I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well is overflowing with vulnerability, and it is the vulnerability that makes the reading experience worth it. Hall’s essays demonstrate his ability to marry poetry and prose in a relationship that I hope will only continue to blossom.
Continue reading “I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well”
In recent headline news: 14,000 inhabitants of British Colombia were evacuated as wild fires approached; 8,000 Southern Californians dashed for safety; 62 victims died in a forest fire in Northern Portugal; London’s Grenfell Tower fire took the lives of “around 80 people.” The threat of infernal combustion is the leitmotif that ties Dave Housley’s latest collection of short stories Massive Cleansing Fire together. Although it is unknown whether the fires that bridge the stories are started by folly or malice or divine lightning rod, what remains clear is the horror, destruction and often mundane reactions to our inevitable demise. As the flames approach, an insurance salesman commits double suicide, a clown and a monkey die together, a writer hiding in the Museum of Modern Art attempts to save some Rothkos, a bible thumper prays away, and a lab worker at a New Mexican cryonics lab follows final instructions. Suspenseful, dense, and unpredictable, Housley keeps the pages turning.
Martha Cooley’s first book-length collection of essays, Guesswork: A Reckoning with Loss, is premised on the fact that eight of Cooley’s friends died within 10 years. I’m not sure that’s unusual for anyone who’s eased past a 50th birthday. Nevertheless, Cooley and her husband Antonio Romani spend 14 months in Italy’s Castiglione del Terziere where she reflects on life, friends, and her mother. She surveys the effects of losing loved ones and her means of adapting to those losses in this blend of travelogue and memoir.
Are you a smoker? When did you start smoking? How many cigarettes have you smoked in your lifetime, and what were the brands? Did they have filters? Have these questions ever crossed your mind before? Maybe you’re not a smoker, so these questions are useless to you, but maybe you used to be a smoker and now you’re trying to recall some of these answers. Or, maybe, you are a smoker, and some of these questions are on your mind every single day. That is exactly the case for Gregor Hens.
The writing of a travel memoir is, from my perspective, very much akin to the unfolding of the journey described. In spite of copious amounts of preparation, forethought, and heartfelt intent, it is all too easy to stumble along the path, or even find oneself completely lost somewhere along the way. After all, how does one successfully navigate the terrain of readers’ expectations? Are they looking for landscapes captured through lush, photographic language or a dredging of the traveler’s inner landscape? How much anthropology, history, reflection or poetic license is enough? Perhaps too much? All the while remaining true to one’s own experience.
As I read Ariel Goldberg’s The Estrangement Principle, a book-length meditation, examination, and critique of the term “queer art,” I was reminded of an essay I often teach: G. Douglas Atkins’s “The Return of/to the Essay,” in which he argues for a type of academic criticism which “reestablish[es] contact with the Anglo-American tradition of the personal or familiar essay without sacrificing intellectual rigor or forgoing the insights and accomplishments of recent theory.”
At one point while I was reading The History of the Future, someone asked how it was, and I looked up and exclaimed, “The essays are almost too perfect.”
If you happened to glance at the number of pages in this manuscript (listed above) you’ll have noticed that it is much longer than your typical book of poems. In fact, The Others is not really a book of poems; it is a thick 4 x 7 paperback that looks very much like a typical novel. Amazon calls it a “gripping, eerie, and hilarious novel-in-verse,” and that description seems about right.
Erdağ Göknar has a conversational way of writing poetry, yet his phrasing is not at all ordinary. He allows us to eavesdrop on his life in Turkey and America in his first book of poems Nomadologies. Göknar teaches Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University, and is an award-winning translator, but it has been a circuitous journey to arrive at his current status.
Glimmer Train Bulletins are produced monthly with essays written by writers (published in GT) and creative writing teachers on topics related to craft and the industry.
In the most recent issue, #157 August 2017, Rowena Macdonald offers 10 tips for writing dialogue, offering this advice: “. . . remember, when it comes to writing dialogue in prose you need to convey the impression of reality rather than verbatim speech.” Silas Dent Zobal [pictured] offers a meaningful exploration of finding the heart of the story and the difficulty of writing about what can’t be written: “That’s what I want to tell you. Here, right here, is where you can find the heart of the heart of your story. Not in a place but in no place. Not in clarity but in ambiguity.” And Joshua Henkin provides commentary on developing character background: when Mia comes from Montreal instead of Maryland, it changes how her family got there and the impact of their choices on her character in story – and the writer’s responsibility to the “seeds of a narrative.”
Three excellent essays that would be great semester kick-off reading for any creative writing class, and some great basic craft conversation for all writers to consider. Signing up for the bulletins is free.
Second Look is a section in One online poetry journal in which various writers are asked “to take a second look at poems they admire and discuss informally what they admire about the work.” Some of the poems include “Woman Falling” by Franz Wright, “homage to my hips” by Lucille Clifton, “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London” by Dylan Thomas, “Looking for Songs of Papusza” by Bronisława Wajs, “Celebrating Childhood” by Adonis, “Looking for my Killer” by Thylias Moss, and “Requiem” by Anna Akhmatova.
The Mom Egg Review print literary journal about motherhood also has an online quarterly component called the Mer Vox, featuring writing, artwork, craft essays, hybrid works, and interviews. Recent craft essays include: “Women Writers, Mothers And Friendships: How We Sustain Each Other,” an Interview by J.P. Howard, MER VOX Editor-at-Large, of Mireya Perez-Bustillo and Patsie Alicia Ifill; several essays on “Poetry as a Reflection of Self on the Page” curated by J.P. Howard – “Release the Dam: A Poem is a River” by Keisha-Gaye Anderson, “Writing the Narrative Poem” by Heather Archibald, “Poetry as a Reflection of Self on the Page!” by J.P. Howard, and “Poets and Performance” by Jacqueline Johnson; and a number of writing prompts from the editors as well as other writers (Janet Hamill, Cynthia Kraman, Tsaurah Litzky).
NewPages Guide to Alternative Magazines features publications not typically found in local chain bookstores on topics including the arts, nature and ecology, health, human rights, LGBT, and more. Among these publications is American Forests, which invites writers to submit works on the topics of outdoor recreation, environmental issues and tree-related science, adventures, forest policy, community forest programs, benefits to trees, unique ecosystems, and “Earthkeepers” – “a person or group of people, current or historic, that has worked to protect or responsibly manage a forest.” See complete writers guidelines here.
Ever stuck your foot or hand into ice cold water and held it there, feeling the numbness of the aftershock? How about the whacky idea of a polar plunge – your whole body into an icy lake – can you imagine what that must feel like? Believe it or not, that’s the exact sensation the editors of Cold Creek Review were going for when they named their online publication. “We wanted to focus on literature and art that makes you feel paralyzed,” Editor-in-Chief for Poetry and Nonfiction Amber D. Tran tells me. “We imagine reading and reviewing our featured pieces leaves you with a sense of frozen time, like you were being submerged in a body of ice-cold water.” Continue reading “New Lit on the Block :: Cold Creek Review”
From The Florida Review interview with Denise Duhamel, focusing on her newest collection Blowout:
TFR:
Given the times we suddenly find ourselves living in, is there even more pressure to write in the moment?
Duhamel:
Yes, absolutely. I was thinking so much about how my next book, which is not out yet, is going to be called Scald. [The book came out in February 2017, after this interview.] It’s about feminism and it’s dedicated to three different great feminists. I was so in the zeitgeist of a Hillary Clinton presidency and women, and now I feel so unmoored. But I’m so glad I wrote it when I wrote it because, while I wasn’t thinking of Hillary necessarily when I was writing it, I felt this movement towards women and the feminization of power and saving the planet. Now, we really have to stay in the moment and not stick our heads in the sand. I mean you may have to stick your head in the sand for a week to survive, but then we have to come out strong.
TFR:
I felt like I often heard people say, “We are having more conversations about race during Barak Obama’s presidency and we will talk more about gender with a female president.” Do you feel like we will talk more or less about gender given the president we ended up with?
Duhamel:
He’ll talk a lot less about gender and even his wife will say less. I was reading something just this morning about how she wants to be more like Jackie O. It’s so retro and cultural regression to the max, right? She really wants to go back to the 1960s pillbox hat and not even say anything. We are in big trouble, but I also think because this election is so egregious and Clinton didn’t lose to a man who was moderate or even a Mitt Romney or John McCain, she lost to a misogynist who calls women the worst possible names, I think women are not going to give him a pass. We are going to come back strong, especially since we had a taste of what could have been. I can’t imagine women going, Oh well, we’ll let it go.
TFR:
No.
Duhamel:
I think we’ve been letting it go for decades and centuries and I don’t think we can let it go anymore.
TFR:
I think that’s also what I admired about your book. You didn’t let it go. You talked about it.
Read the full interview on Aquifer: The Florida Review Online.
The July/August 2017 issue of Poetry Magazine “is the product of a new partnership between the magazine and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, and it launches as part of the Smithsonian Asian American Literature Festival, held July 27–29, 2017, in Washington, DC.” In his section of the introduction, Timothy Yu writes, “‘Asian American poetry’ is itself a political category. Like the term ‘Asian American,’ it is a category constantly redefined by new contexts; yet it is also one that demands attention to the intersections of poetics and race, and that claims value for the act of placing poems within an unfolding Asian American literary tradition.”
Authors whose works are featured in this special issue include: Ocean Vuong, Chen Chen, Rajiv Mohabir, Hoa Nguyen, Kazim Ali, Khaty Xiong, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Zubair Ahmed, Cathy Linh Che, Kimiko Hahn, John Yau, Sarah Gambito, Li-Young Lee, among others. Read the full contents here.
It may be halfway through summer, but it’s not too late to enjoy the Spring 2017 issue of Canadian literary journal The Fiddlehead. This issue holds timeless treasures, including the winners and honorable mentions of the Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poems and the Short Fiction Prize.
Living in Michigan, it’s hard not to be near water. Surrounded by the Great Lakes and oodles of smaller inland lakes and rivers, residents are never farther than a few miles from fresh water. Whether one enjoys swimming, fishing, kayaking, or tanning on the sidelines, they never need to travel far. The Lake, the online, UK-based, poetry magazine, fulfills a similar function: editor John Murphy provides readers with poetry and book reviews that refresh and entertain. With a new issue arriving every month, readers are never very far away from new poems.
Blood Orange Review has existed for eleven years and has continued to stick to their founding mission: “to create a home for the emerging and established writers.” The May 2017 issue gives a home to twelve writers and one interview with Rita Wong.
This issue of Dogwood features winners and finalists of their annual prizes for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Opening the publication is nonfiction winner “Sweet Dreams are Made of This” by Anna Leahy, which sets the tone for this issue. Neither the contest nor the issue were themed, but nostalgia would be the single emergent concept from Leahy’s essay that by pure coincidence runs through the rest of the publication. I can honestly say, of all reviewers, this focus fell on the wrong person. The last thing in the world I want to spend my mind space on is waxing stupidly over the past. Fortunately, Leahy’s essay does more than set a tone, it sets a whole new attitude about nostalgia.
There is something mesmerizing about a lightning storm; each flash lasts for only a moment, but holds tremendous power that electrifies the air and the imagination. Good flash fiction has the same effect on the senses of the reader, and the online magazine Vestal Review delivers the same power with each story. Ever since its debut in March 2000, Vestal Review has published exclusively flash fiction and is “firmly established as an exciting venue for exceptional flash by both emerging and well-known authors.”
Weber: The Contemporary West, published by Weber State University, highlights literary and artistic talents from its home state of Utah and along the Wasatch mountain range. Among outstanding work included in this season’s issue is David Lee’s lengthy poem, “Postmortem: After the Obsequies,” which blew me away.
The Hollins Critic is a unique literary magazine focusing on a serious survey of a contemporary writer’s work, while also sharing book reviews and poetry. Each cover features a unique portrait image of the writer made especially for the publication by Susan Avishai.
“Roaring Reading,” the July/August 2017 cover illustration by José Luis Merino, is a perfect compliment to the slim format of The Kenyon Review.
Another slim design, “Serenity Overflowing” by Chris Ogden is the cover photo for issue 12 of One, an online journal of poetry.
The cover of Ragazine.CC, a global online magazine of arts, information & entertainment, is a photo of the German duo Shari Vari, whose music is featured in this issue’s special section, “The Summer Seven: Listen to the Best Bands from Europe.”
Thanks to Hiram Poetry Review Editor Willard Greenwood for this rather nonchalent mention in the Spring 2017 Editor’s Note: “. . . with the release of Paterson, a fine film by Ohio native Jim Jarmusch, poetry is as cool as ever.” Released at the end of 2016, I hadn’t heard boo about this film, so set out to find it.
The film is about a former Marine – named Paterson (played by Adam Driver) – who lives a quiet, static life, driving a bus in Paterson, NJ, and writing poetry in his “secret notebook.” Lines of poetry Paterson thinks and then writes appear in his handwriting across the screen intermittently throughout the movie; the poems themselves were written by poet Ron Padgett. There are references to one of Paterson’s favorite poets, William Carlos Williams, with Driver delivering a delightful on-screen reading of “This is Just To Say.”
Well received by critics, The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody wrote: “Paterson is the man of all endurance. He does his dull job without complaining and finds charm and enlightenment in the conversations of passengers and pleasure in repeated viewing of the cityscape of his route. His poetry is imbued with the modest substance of his life.”
Some have described the movie as showing the creative process of poetry writing, but I’d say it more accurately reveals the kind of life poets live, with the process of writing poetry often inseparable from the day-to-day, moment-to-moment. And that is the beauty of what Jarmusch has created. He has absolutely nailed it in Paterson.
This past week, Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s book of poetry, Paterson Light and Shadow, arrived in the mail. With photographs by Mark Hillinghouse, this beautifully packaged hardcover explores Paterson, NJ, “this once great industrial city, envisioned by Alexander Hamilton as the birthplace of manufacturing in a new nation, a city now home to countless immigrants who still struggle to build lives and survive.” Fans of the film, fans of Williams and his own epic poem Paterson will appreciate the creative contributions of Gillan and HIllinghouse to this mystical yet wholly down to earth place.
Are we still talking about our addiction to Facebook despite its evils? Apparently, yes, we still are, with New England Review Editor Carolyn Kuebler contributing a new perspective to the conversation – especially for writers. In her editorial for Issue 38.2, she addresses some of the known issues with the social media platform, and comments that “Facebook seems to present a special kind of hell for writers” in that it “offers the possibility of an audience beyond one’s circle of friends (the real kind)—and even better, an audience that responds immediately, positively, and in great numbers.”
But, alas, what about when there is NO response? What about the silence of a Facebook post? “Writers have always known that theirs is a lonely art,” Kuebler comments, “but after spending time on Facebook it’s as if we have to learn this all over again. We have to remember that the audience for literature is largely silent; it takes its time.”
Read the full editorial here, and Kuebler’s closing comment of appreciation for writers, even if it is only ever offered in silence.
The Summer 2017 issue of Ruminate features 2017 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize winners with commentary from Judge Josh MacIvor-Andersen:
First Place
“Like This We Begin: An Essay in Two Photographs”
Sonja Livingston [pictured]
Second Place
“The Seven Stages of Not Eating”
Anne Boyle
Third Place
“Oh, Hi”
M. Sophia Newman
Loyal readers of NewPages book reviews may recognize a familiar name on the cover of Plato Poetica, the new poetry collection published by Kelsay Books in May 2017.
Author Daniel Klawitter has shared his thoughtful opinions on poetry books for NewPages for the past couple years, and now his own poetry collection Plato Poetica is out in in the world for readers. According to Carl Sharpe, founder and editor of VerseWrights, reading the collection causes Plato to become relevant, and also invites the philosopher to become “a friend, a confidante, an advisor, whispering in our ear in the 21st century language [ . . . ]. We are brought to realize that ancient philosophy and religion are only dry subjects if we allow them to be.”
Pick up copies from Kelsay Books to invite Plato into your circle of friends and add this poetry collection to your bookshelf.
Visit the new Broadsided Press website to catch up on the most recent art and poetry collaborations available for free, full-color download to post and share. May: “Backyard” – words by Melissa Fite Johnson, art by Amy Meissner; June: “My Father’s Hearing Aid” – words by Adam Chiles, art by Cheryl Gross; July: “Pink” – words by Terese Svoboda, art by Lisa Sette. Each artist and poet give a brief commentary on their work, which provides a great teaching tool for classroom use. Broadsided is looking to build a section of lesson plans for using broadsides in K-12, college, community centers, etc., so if you have some best practices to share, visit their website and click on TEACH.
In May, the Center for Literary Publishing released Beautiful Flesh: A Body of Essays edited by Stephanie G’Schwind. I find the eye-catching cover reason alone to pick up the nonfiction collection, but readers who require a little more persuading will be won over by the writing found inside. Selected from the country’s leading journals and publications, the eighteen essays build “a multi-gender, multi-ethnic body out of essays, each concerning a different part of the body.”
Contributors include Dinty W. Moore with “The Aquatic Ape,” exploring the curious design of sinuses; Peggy Shinner with “Elective,” examining the author’s “Jewish Nose”; and Matt Roberts with “Vasectomy Instruction 7,” considering the various reasons for and implications of the titular surgery. The fifteen additional contributors are Wendy Call, Steven Church, Sarah Rose Etter, Matthew Ferrence, Hester Kaplan, Sarah K. Lenz, Lupe Linares, Jody Mace, Samantha Simpson, Floyd Skloot, Danielle R. Spencer, Katherine E. Standefer, Kaitlyn Teer, Sarah Viren, and Vicki Weiqi Yang.
The Poetry Marathon is an annual event that challenges participants to write 24 poems in 24 hour, posting the writing online via a shared WordPress site. This year’s marathon begins at 9 AM EDT on Saturday, August 5, 2017 and ends at 9 AM on Sunday, August 6, 2017 There is also a half marathon from 9 AM until 9 PM Saturday or 9 PM until 9 AM Sunday. Registration is open from July 20 – 27.
The Poetry Marathon is run (no pun intended) by Caitlin Jans (Thomson) and Jacob Jans, two writers and web publishers living in the Pacific Northwest. There is no charge to participate in the marathon, and in 2016, over 500 writers started the marathon, but many did not finish. Clearly, this is not an activity for the faint of heart.
Last year, I participated in the half marathon and found it to be demanding, frustrating (sometimes forgetting to write my poem!), but in the end immensely rewarding. I have run marathons and half marathons, and the feeling from finishing the Poetry Marathon was very similar. I felt a huge sense of accomplishment, and at the same time, a bit of sadness that it was over. I had posted poems, offered feedback to others, received comments on mine – just like cheering each other on in a foot race. It was sad to be a part of such an intense, similarly driven community of writers, and then, just be done with them. It’s what makes a person want to come back and do it again!
The Poetry Marathon website has an FAQ that answers the burning questions, like: How do I prepare for the Marathon? What if I can’t be at a computer all day? What happens to the poems once I post them? and more. The site also features blog posts from previous participants who offer commentary on their marathon experience. If you’re not sure about the commitment, just try it for a day on your own. See what it takes to get to the computer once an hour and write a poem (or at least write a poem per hour, because you are allowed to “catch up” at the computer if you can’t get to one every hour).
This year, like last year, the organizers plan to publish a Poetry Marathon Anthology of poems written during the marathon. Some writers included in the first anthology: Sheila Sondik, Teri Harroun, Marie Moser, Raven Kingsley, Joan Leotta, J.I. Klienberg, Liam Strong, Will Jackson, Anne McMaster, Ebony Larijani, and Seema Ka.
I simply can’t resist this chicken on Issue 9 of True Story, Creative Nonfiction‘s monthly, pocket-size publication of longform nonfiction narrative.This month’s story is “Resurrection” by Rebeca Dunn-Krahn. I have no idea yet what a chicken has to do with it, but I plan to find out!
This Thema cover photo by Eleanor Leonne Bennett made me smile, but then as I read the theme for this issue, it made me laugh out loud: “Second Thoughts.” Yup. That’s the look.
Danny Ochoa’s artwork is featured on the summer 2017 cover of Writing Disorder, an online literary journal. More of his illustrations and comics are included in this issue as well.
The eleventh annual August Poetry Postcard Festival is open for 2017 registration – closing July 18.
For you newbies, the August PoPo Fest goes like this: You sign up. You get a list of 31 names/addresses of other people who signed up. Starting late July, you write a poem a day on a postcard and mail it off to the next person on the list, so by the end of the month, you will have (hopefully) written and sent 31 poems and (hopefully) received 31 poems.
The poems are not supposed to be pre-written or something you’ve been working on for months. This is an exercise is the spontaneous, the demanding, the gut-driven, the postcard inspired – whatever it is that gets you to write once a day, each day, and send it off into the world.
Last year, poems from contributors were selected for publication in the 1st Poetry Postcard Fest Anthology, 56 Days of August, Poetry Postcards, to be published October 2017.
I’ve done this event since it began! I don’t always keep to a poem a day; sometimes I get ahead one day, or catch up another, with several poems in one day. But I try my best. The event gets me thinking of poetry in my every day, when I rarely have time for it, and writing it down – something I have time for even more rarely.
I’ve received poems from across the state, the country and around the globe. I’ve gotten postcards made from cereal boxes, some with gorgeous original artwork, and lots of the lovely tacky tourist cards from travel destinations. I have cards from “famous” poets, and some who have since become more famous, and some never signed, so I’ll never know, and it hardly matters. I’ve gotten poetry. Sent to me directly. From strangers. Lovely, strange, absurd, and funny. Poetry.
It’s an amazing event, and I hope you will take the challenge and join in this year. There is a nominal fee for the event ($10). I can only imagine the amount of work it is to run this (with 300+ people participating), and keeping up virtual space to promote it. I’m not dissuaded by the fee, knowing the extraordinary event that it is, and knowing I’ve spent 100 times that on conferences from which I’ve gotten a great deal less inspiration…anyone else?
So, please writers, wanna-bes and needs-a-kick-in-the-arsers, poetry lovers, postcard lovers – this event is for you. Join us! Registration ends July 18!
