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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!

New Lit on the Block :: The Wax Paper

wax paperThe Wax Paper is a literary magazine “produced in a beautiful newsprint, broadsheet format (22″ x 27.75”) that still smells like ink when you open it up,” Publisher Nicholas Freeman boasts. But readers can also find The Wax Paper online on all digital formats with tech features not available in print, balancing the best of many worlds.

Freeman, founder and director of The Finch Gallery of Chicago, brought together resources from this and Hey Rat! Press of Los Angeles to publish all forms of moving words and still images in the print edition; the website posts images, texts, audio recordings, film, and animation selections in a full archive of contributor work.

Publishing four issues per year, Freeman tells me The Wax Paper name is derived from Studs Terkel’s first radio program, The Wax Museum. “We adopted Studs as our spirit animal while we were mapping out the aesthetics of The Wax Paper. It was only natural to honor him in the name of our project. Through The Wax Paper, we are devoted to continuing Studs’ sensibilities and charisma by publishing an eclectic range of work from artists skilled in their field and empathetic in the depiction of their characters.”

wax paper frontThe Wax Paper Editor Hans Hetrick has writing experience from poetry to technical manuals. As Freeman tells the story, the two “became acquainted 60 feet 6 inches away from each other as the famed battery in Chicago’s Mexican Baseball League. Post-game conversation found a common interest and belief that great art must possess a generosity of spirit, a genuine respect for its audience and its subjects, and a dedication to craft. We immediately began work publishing a chapbook, Fighting Love, filled with Hans’ poems and my illustrations. After the publication of Fighting Love, Hans started trying to sell me on founding a magazine. Eventually, I relented, and The Wax Paper was born.”

Freeman and Hetrick took their first cooperative publishing experience into their work on The Wax Paper as a publication open to all forms of written word, image, and any combination of the two. “The first priority of The Wax Paper,” Freeman explains, “is to expand our understanding of the people we share the world with, and in doing so, expand our understanding of ourselves. Works will be selected on their ability to illuminate the humanity and significance of the subjects that inhabit the work.”

Readers of The Wax Paper can expect to find well-crafted, lively work that explores the diverse range of the human condition. Contributors include poets, painters, playwrights, photographers, comedians, screenwriters, illustrators, essayists, fiction and nonfiction writers, translators, songwriters, muralists, storytellers, and anyone skilled in moving words and still images. The Wax Paper features unpublished and veteran artists like Richard Robbins, Thomas Maltman, Becky Fjelland Davis, Roger Hart, Karen Byers, Mike Lohre and Pulitzer Prize winning historian and author Garry Wills who honored the publication by writing their opening essay.

The Wax Paper accepts all forms of moving words and still images for their quarterly printed broadsheet. They are distributed nationally and all written work will be archived on their website. Current reading period is open until June 30th. All contributors are given a lifetime subscription.

The Moth – Autumn 2015

Most moths are thin, tiny, and fly towards illumination and pollinate. When the 25-page softback-pamphlet from County Cavan, Ireland landed in my mailbox in Albuquerque, I was intrigued at the journal’s similarity to its namesake. Upon first flip through The Moth, it’s clear they take their art seriously—a photo of gold fish bowl with a bullet hole by Robert C. Jackson entitled “Rotten Escape,” Pat Perry’s “In the Yard,” ink sketches, Diaz Alamá’s haunting portraits of stunning muses and Wen Wu’s cover art, “Wild Swan,” which captures the profile of serene femininity—prepare the reader for a look into the finer side of life. The detail, delicacy and craftsmanship of the selected art, supported by the power of the prose, make it clear from first glimpse, The Moth is not just another freebee-wannabe stacked-by-the-coffee-shop-door listings pile selling ad space and flavor-of-the-week. This tiny journal is flying towards the light. Continue reading “The Moth – Autumn 2015”

Bone Bouquet – Spring 2015

Bone Bouquet is a biannual print journal that features poetry by women writers. The Spring 2015 issue includes a varied range of voices and styles, and a satisfying selection of creative forms. The speakers throughout are strong, self-aware, and are unafraid to expose their flaws. This slim volume covers topics of grief, loss, and self-consciousness, while also displaying the beauty of language through several complex descriptions of the surrounding world. Continue reading “Bone Bouquet – Spring 2015”

CNF Tiny Tweets

creative nonfictionIf you like six-word memoirs, you’re going enjoy Creative Nonfiction’s Tiny Truths – tweets on a given topic, which until November 15 is Weather. CNF is looking for “True stories—personal, historical, reported—about fog, drought, flooding, tornado-chasing, blizzards, hurricanes, hail the size of golfballs, or whatever’s happening where you are… told within a single tweet. We’re looking for tiny truths that will change the way we see the world around us. Or, you know, simply blow our hair back a bit or make us sweat.” And because the tweet must include the tag #cnftweet, stories are actually limited to 130 characters.

For more on the craft of micro-essays, read The Square Root of Truth a virtual roundtable Q&A by “Fred,” a collective of regular #cnftweet contributors (and named after one of the group’s members), discussing “what a successful cnftweet looks like, how seriously to take this form, and whether it can survive transplantation out of the ephemeral medium in which it germinated.”

Don Quixote 400th Annivesary

don quixote restless booksThis year has brought a number of ways to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of Miguel De Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Restless Books has released a new edition of the novel introduced by leading Quixote scholar Ilan Stavans. This edition inaugurates Restless Classics: interactive encounters with great books and inspired teachers. Each Restless Classic is designed with original artwork, a new introduction for the trade audience, and a video teaching series and live online book club discussions led by experts. Each copy of the book comes with a set of instructions on how to access videos corresponding to specific aspects within the text.

The Hudson Review Autumn 2015 features the essay “Don Quixote or the Art of Becoming” by Antonio Muñoz Molina. The full text of the essay can be read on The Hudson Review website here.

Noy Holland on Punctuation

noy holland“There are standards, and we can be obedient to them. We can ask punctuation to be of service to meaning, in service of clarification, a hand to hold, a breeze at our backs. Standard punctuation is easy and safe and encouraged. It becomes almost invisible. ‘It was good enough for Shakespeare,’ a teacher once told me, ‘it’s good enough for you.’ Don’t be silly, I think he was saying. Don’t be a sophomore, or a sheep. Because he loved Bernhard and Beckett, too, their everlasting paragraphs induced by the substance and manner of what they had to say; there is nothing capricious about it. Nothing capricious about Merwin, whose unpunctuated, uncapitalized lines can look like leaves being blown from the page, light and dry and moving. Like wind in the fur of the foxes.” From Noy Holland’s Punctuation is When You Feel It, published in the Glimmer Train Bulletin #106.

Books :: Garrett Fiction Prize

get a grip kathy flannKathy Flann’s second collection of stories Get a Grip was released last month from Texas Review Press. Winner of the 20145 George Garrett Fiction Prize, Get a Grip, according to the publisher’s website: “depict[s] a range of imagined lives . . . . All of the characters work out their struggles in the Baltimore region, channeling, in turns, the area’s charm, its despair, its humor, its self-doubt, its compassion. Get a Grip is a book about who we are when the cameras are off and the phone has died.”

Digital and print copies are available on the Texas Review Press website.

First Lines for 2016

snoopy typingThe First Line literary magazine is built on the premise of jump-starting writers’ imaginations. The publication provides the first line for writers and accepts fiction and non-fiction submissions for each issue based on that unique first line. Since 1999, readers have been able to enjoy a wealth of creativity that stems from these common start points. Recently, the first line held a contest for – First Lines! They received over 1,000 entries and selected four to use as the first lines for 2016:

Spring: “Unfortunately, there is no mistake,” she said, closing the file. (Submitted by Julia Offen)
Summer: By the fifteenth month of the drought, the lake no longer held her secrets. (Submitted by Julie Thi Underhill)
Fall: Mrs. Morrison was too busy to die. (Submitted by Victoria Phelps)
Winter: In the six years I spent tracking David Addley, it never occurred to me that he didn’t exist. (Submitted by Aysha Akhtar)

“But wait,” says Editor David LaBounty, “there’s more. We felt several sentences that were submitted as first lines would have made great last lines, and since we needed a last line for the third issue of The Last Line, we decided to pick one more sentence. We chose the following to be the last line for the 2016 issue.”

Issue 3 of The Last Line: It was hard to accept that from now on everyone would look at her differently. (Submitted by Adele Gammon)

In case you weren’t sure, The Last Line annual lit mag is the same concept, only flipped: writers are provided with the last line as their prompt.

No excuses writers: you’ve been prompted!

Changes at Florida Review

jocelyn bartkeviciusThe Florida Review writes: “After seven years of distinguished leadership, Jocelyn Bartkevicius [pictured] is stepping down from the editorship to pursue her own writing projects.” Jocelyn will see issue 39.2 to press and has made selections to be included in 40.1, making a smooth transition to the new editor, Lisa Roney, writer, teacher, and author of the recently published Serious Darling: Creative Writing in Four Genres.

Nimrod 37th Awards Issue

nimrod 37The Fall/Winter 2015 issue of Nimrod International includes the following winners, honorable mentions, finalists and semi-finalists of the 37th Nimrod Literary Awards.

Nimrod Literary Awards: The Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry

FIRST PRIZE:
Heather Altfeld, CA, “Two Pockets” and other poems

SECOND PRIZE:
Leila Chatti, NC, “Momon Eats an Apple in Summer” and other poems

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Grant Gerald Miller, OR, “Skin” and other poems
Berwyn Moore, PA, “Interferon” and other poems
Emily Van Kley, WA, “Varsity Athletics” and other poems

Nimrod Literary Awards: The Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction

FIRST PRIZE:
J. Duncan Wiley, NE, “Inclusions”

SECOND PRIZE:
Emily Wortman-Wunder, CO, “Burning”

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Stephanie Carpenter, MI, “The Sweeper”
Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, VA, “The Heart of Things”

Driftwood Interviews Included

driftwood press 24Some lit mags are able to feature a writer or two by providing an interview with authors whose works appear in the issue. For Driftwood Press Literary Magazine, amazingly, this ‘feature’ is standard.

Every contributor has the opportunity to include answers to some questions: When did you write this piece? What inspired this piece? Are any of its themes inspired by your own life? What part of this piece was conceived of first? Is there anything unique about your personal writing process? Who are some of your favorite authors? Which authors influenced this piece? What drew you to Driftwood Press?

In addition to a number of stock questions, there are also some which are tailored to the author or to the selected work, showing good editorial/interviewer sensibilities in eliciting information of interest to readers.

This is a remarkable feature in any magazine, adding informative and educational content to the reading. For writers looking for insight into the craft of other writers, and for readers looking for insight into their analysis and interpretation, a magazine full of these interviews is a boon. This is a publication I would recommend highly to teachers looking for accessible (and FREE) resources for students both in writing and literature courses. Getting a full scope of contemporary literature in a single source doesn’t get much better than this.

Books :: Gold Line Press Poetry Chapbook Competition

dear girl drea brownDrea Brown’s dear girl: a reckoning was released last month. The 2014 poetry winner of the Gold Line Press Chapbook Competition revisits the biography of poet Phillis Wheatley, reimagining her journey through the Middle Passage to Boston.

2014 Judge Douglas Kearney says of his selection, “Feverishly urgent, vivid, and unironic, dear girl: a reckoning refuses passivity, amnesia, and despair, bringing the bones to our present to begin the work of healing.”

Brown’s recent work can also be found in Southern Indiana Review and Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander.

dear girl: a reckoning, a perfect-bound chapbook, is available for sale on the Gold Line Press website, along with the 2014 fiction winner, The White Swallow by Anna Kovatcheva.

Poetry :: Amanda Silberling

amanda silberlingExcepted from “Afterglow” by Amanda Silberling:

I built a home in the shadow of a body,
raised myself to learn why time never stops
moving so slowly. How only I can turn it
back. Waking up feels ten cents short.
I can slip down the drain like a fallen coin.

Read the whole poem and hear it read by the poet on decomP magazinE.

Books :: Gold Line Press Fiction Chapbook Competition

white swallow anna kovatchevaGold Line Press’s annual chapbook contest ended in September, and they released their 2014 fiction winner this past October. Along with publication of her perfect-bound chapbook The White Swallow, winner Anna Kovatcheva has received a $500 prize and contributor copies.

Selected by Aimee Bender, she says of her selection:

The White Swallow has so many things going for it—starkly memorable imagery, strangeness that feels natural to the story, the feeling that the story itself grew up from the earth like a tree, and an ending that defies moralization. It seems instead to reflect the same unpredictable and mysterious quality of the world that also lets birds go into girls and healing to occur and, for inside all that, love to blossom.

Diana Arterian has designed the book, creating a beautiful little package for Kovatcheva’s work. For more information about The White Swallow, check out the Gold Line Press website.

Books :: Colorado Prize for Poetry

business stephanie lenoxThe Colorado Prize for Poetry annually awards a $2000 honorarium and book publication to an author of a complete collection of poetry. This month, the 2015 winner will be published: The Business by Stephanie Lenox, chosen by Laura Kasischke.

From the publisher:

What does it meant to work in the age of the cubicle? The Business takes on the modern workplace with sharp-witted poems that sting like a paper cut. A former secretary, Stephanie Lenox positions herself as poetic note-taker of the mundane. . . . The collection transforms office politics and paper clips into a funny and critical emanation of the mortal rat race.

This is Lenox’s third collection of poetry, and her second prize winner (The Heart That Lies Outside the Body won the Slapering Hol Chapbook Competition in 2007). Copies of The Business are available for purchase at the website for The Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University.

The Lottery by Megan Taylor

apple valley reviewThis one made me smile out loud. Here’s an excerpt from Megan Taylor’s essay “The Lottery“:

And my grandmother says, “The lottery’s the highest it’s ever been. I asked my hairdresser to pick up an extra ticket for me. And I know just what I’ll do if we win.”

[. . . ]

Grandma has wanted to win the lottery for as long as I can remember.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“I’ll give you the money to run an ad with tire prices so low that the competition won’t know what to do! They’ll be scratching their heads, saying, ‘Where did she get tires at those prices? How can she sell them so low?’ And customers will be coming in left and right! You’ll have to beat them off with a stick. It’ll be such fun.”

I’m excited then, too, thinking of pissing off the competition. Getting even. It’s not the high road, but it makes me smile just the same.

Read the rest and more from Taylor and others in the fall 2015 issue of Apple Valley Review online.

New Lit on the Block :: Headland

Bringing literary frontiers and emerging voices to readers around the globe, New Zealand based Headland is a quarterly publication of literary short fiction and creative non-fiction available on Kindle.

JillianFounding Editors Liesl Nunns & Laura McNeur comment on their motivation for starting up a literary magazine, “We wanted to create a journal that gives voice to aspiring writers alongside established authors, offering a platform for first-time publication. New Zealand is home to remarkable literary talent, and Headland is a springboard for writers to explore and develop their potential, and showcase their early-career works.”

To support this focus on new writers, the editors offer this encouraging insight on their submissions page: “If we are umm-ing and aah-ing over whether to select your piece, it may just tip the balance in its favour if we know that we have the opportunity to introduce a new voice and, hopefully, make someone’s day.”

Choosing the name Headland, the editors meld both their local and global interests, “We wanted a name that invoked a very New Zealand sense of place and also looked outward to the rest of the world. For us, Headland not only does this, it touches on the limb writers go out on when they submit, on the experience readers have when lost in a good story, compelled to finish, and the place where the story lingers long after the last word is read.”

Readers who come to the publication can already find great variety among the three issues of published authors. “We’re very upfront about the fact that we publish what we love,” say the editors. “Readers can expect to find stories that they’ll remember. Stories that take them places, and works that strike a chord in some way.”

Some featured authors include Alex Reece Abbott, Michelle Elvy, Nod Ghosh, Heather McQuillan, Sian Robyns, Trish Harris, Rupa Maitra, Patrick Pink, Bonnie Etherington, Becca Joyce, Ignacio Bayardo Peña, and Jillian Sullivan [pictured]. The editors will soon be announcing their Best Story, and Best Story by an Unpublished Author for 2015. Headland will also feature a few contributors on their blog for each issue, exploring a different aspect of writing.

Headland accepts short literary fiction and creative non-fiction pieces between 2000-5000 words. The next deadline is Friday 11 December 2015. The editors plan to run another special issue featuring flash fiction alongside their regular content. Submissions are accepted by e-mail.

Glimmer Train August Short Story for New Writers Award Winners

campbellGlimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their August Short Story Award for New Writers. This competition is held three times a year and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. The next Short Story Award competition will take place in January/February. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to A. Campbell of New Haven, CT [pictured], who wins $1500 for “On Fleek/Fleek On.” This story will be published in Issue 98 of Glimmer Train Stories. This will be the author’s first fiction publication.

2nd place goes to Mary Kate Varnau of Carbondale, IL for “Supernova.” This story will also appear in a future issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing her prize from $500 to $700.

3rd place goes to René Houtrides of Jackson Heights, NY. She wins $300 for “Senior Spring.”

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

My Multiverse

Kathleen Halme’s My Multiverse opens with a marvelous set-piece, a multi-part cycle (that comprises the entirety of the first section of the six-sectioned book) titled “City of Roses” that begins with that tender invitational, “Dear,” and from there pans its camera over the big and small, visiting with different characters and embracing the ambience of different scenes all within the same city, Halme’s own Portland, Oregon. It’s a gesture in line with the great urban works, like Ulysses, which endeavor to sketch the cultural, emotional, and physical anatomy of a city: “Blocks and blocks of ornate iron-front buildings. / Shanghai traps and tunnels. / Iron horse rings to which someone / has hitched tiny plastic palominos.” Continue reading “My Multiverse”

Tells of the Crackling

I have always found Hoa Nguyen’s poems surprisingly comfortable to inhabit, considering the challenges they can offer, and Tells of the Crackling, a lovely little hand-stitched chapbook from Ugly Duckling Presse, is no different. Spare, elliptical—not exactly breezy, but roomy—these poems are a bit like walking over a brick path gone uneven from the undergrowth, fresh and tentative vegetal shoots sending trajectories of thought this way and that. Indeed, there is a dual “crackling” of both spring and autumn that characterize the poems, a light and almost sickly feel, a mind not quite right, the sound of tea being made in the background. Continue reading “Tells of the Crackling”

Tells of the Crackling

I have always found Hoa Nguyen’s poems surprisingly comfortable to inhabit, considering the challenges they can offer, and Tells of the Crackling, a lovely little hand-stitched chapbook from Ugly Duckling Presse, is no different. Spare, elliptical—not exactly breezy, but roomy—these poems are a bit like walking over a brick path gone uneven from the undergrowth, fresh and tentative vegetal shoots sending trajectories of thought this way and that. Indeed, there is a dual “crackling” of both spring and autumn that characterize the poems, a light and almost sickly feel, a mind not quite right, the sound of tea being made in the background. Continue reading “Tells of the Crackling”

Bright Dead Things

Ada Limón’s fourth collection of poems, Bright Dead Things, faces discontentment, nostalgia, and longing in the face of a changing environment. The speaker examines her place in a varied world littered with its fried pickles, wide expanse of blue skies, fields full of fireflies and the stars they mirror. Limón brings us a world we recognize. Where the death of a loved one comes flooding back over margaritas at a Mexican restaurant, where animals suffer, where we leave small pleasures in old cities, and where life goes on despite all of it. Continue reading “Bright Dead Things”

Compulsion

Meyer Levin (1905-1981) wrote novels, plays, and the Israel Haggadah for Passover still in use and in print for over 40 years. Fig Tree Books, a publisher specializing in titles relating to the American Jewish experience, recently re-issued Levin’s Compulsion, his 1956 bestseller fictionalizing the names (including his own as a reporter for The Chicago Daily News) but not the facts of the Leopold and Loeb murder trial. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1959) and Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song (1979) followed the same author-in-the-nonfiction/novelization crime formula, producing some of their best writing. After subsequent “Crimes of the Century” involving celebrities and troubled young men both rich and poor that the media treats like celebrities, Compulsion is a reflective experience. Continue reading “Compulsion”

A Turn Around the Mansion Grounds

A Turn Around the Mansion Grounds: Poems in Conversation & a Conversation is the third chapbook in a series that pairs two female poets, one well-known and the other a rising talent. Molly Peacock is widely anthologized and published in leading literary magazines in addition to her six volumes of poetry. She also helped create New York’s Poetry in Motion program. A decade ago, Peacock mentored Amy M. Clark. Meanwhile Clark’s poetry book won the 2009 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry.

Continue reading “A Turn Around the Mansion Grounds”

City Of Ladies

Perhaps I should start by saying that City of Ladies is the second book in Sarah Kennedy’s “The Cross and the Crown” series, and I have shamefully not read the first. I started this book believing I might do its review a disservice by not reading the first installment of the series, but by chapter three or four it was clear that City of Ladies can stand on its own. The book follows recently reformed ex-nun, Catherine Havens Overton, and her life with husband William Overton. At her new estate, she has employed her former sisters and cares for them, who have nowhere else to go. When one is found dead, she fears for the safety of the rest of her ladies. But another murder and an investigation will not deter husband William from his plans to gain a place in King Henry VII’s court, in which Catherine plays a key role. With his assurance that the murderer will be found, Catherine reluctantly agrees to leave Overton House to serve Princesses Mary and Elizabeth Tudor. Continue reading “City Of Ladies”

The Crossing

The poems in Jonathan Fink’s debut book The Crossing were a decade in the making, and it shows with well-crafted language and imagery that broadens expectations of modern poetic narrative, while still carrying a torch for more formal styles of verse. An artist takes his whole life to construct a debut work, and Fink himself has stated that the main struggle in a first outing is to know when to stop fiddling with the pieces and release them from the nest. But Fink’s patience has paid off and he has made all the right moves here, even garnering an introduction from former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Tretheway. Continue reading “The Crossing”

Touché

I’ve become more accustomed to seeing flarf poems performed via YouTube. I was beginning to believe that it was a medium designed for the internet purely, a meta commentary on how commentary works in this day. In Touché, Rod Smith weaves the internet generation together with Robert Creeley and William Carlos Williams. The old Yeat’s nugget, “Poetry makes nothing happen” is contorted and refracted through all of Smith’s lines to discuss how the great nothing is happening all around us. Continue reading “Touché”

The Pope’s Daughter

Dario Fo, the 1997 Italian Nobel Laureate for Literature—known for being an actor, playwright, comedian, director, songwriter and political campaigner—has now written his first novel, The Pope’s Daughter, about one of the most infamous ladies in history, Lucrezia Borgia. This novel, which claims to be the real truth, gives another side of Borgia. She will appeal to contemporary women as a real survivor in her turbulent times, but everyone should be able to enjoy the sardonic Greek chorus comments on the machinations of the early popes and dukes ruling Italy during the Renaissance, behavior which has parallels in today’s national and international politics. Continue reading “The Pope’s Daughter”

Famous Baby

The story of Famous Baby focuses on Ruth Sternberg, the “First Mother of Mommy Blogging,” and her daughter/blog subject, Abbie. Resentful of her mother’s appropriation of her life for blog material, eighteen-year-old Abbie has kidnapped her dying grandmother to live with her in an effort to prevent Ruth from recording and blogging her death. Ruth is understandably panicked by the disappearance of her mother and daughter, not least of all because without either of them, she is at a loss for subject matter. The plot is further complicated by the appearance of Eric, a sweet, young, aspiring filmmaker whose interest in making a film about Abbie reminds her of her mother a little more than she’d like. She seems to find his interest flattering and off-putting by turns. Continue reading “Famous Baby”

Pretend I’m Dead

Loneliness: it’s the one thing, above all things, that twenty-three-year-old Mona knows all about. That, and the proper way to clean house. In the first chapter of Jen Beagin’s Pretend I’m Dead, “Hole,” Mona is hard at work in Lowell, Massachusetts, splitting her lonesome hours between work as a self-employed housekeeper and a volunteer who provides clean needles to drug addicts. She’s particularly fond of one junkie, whom she dubs “Mr. Disgusting,” eventually falling headlong for his hopelessly fatalistic charm. Continue reading “Pretend I’m Dead”

Poem :: Claudia Serea

The Paper Children
by Claudia Serea

claudia-sereaI sit on the floor
and decorate the room
with paper cutouts.

Silhouettes of children,
snipped from a folded newspaper,
fall from my hands.

They float around the room dancing,
playing, pretending
they aren’t gone.

. . . 

Read the rest in the October 2015 issue of The Lake.

Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet, translator, editor, and designer who immigrated to the U.S. in 1995. She is co-founder of National Translation Month which celebrates translation throughout the month of September.

What Allegro Looks For

allegro headerKnowing what an editor is looking for in submisisons can also help readers understand what they will encounter on the pages (print or electronic) of a literary publication.

UK-based Allegro Poetry Magazine publishes online by founding editor and British poet, Sally Long, who explains to writers what she is looking for in submissions. “I aim to publish the best poetry in Allegro and so I have no preference for any particular form of poetry.” That said, she did offer some qualities she looks for in a good “fit” for Allegro: poems that evoke place or time; strong characterizations of people-focused works; striking images; well-used language; well-crafted formal poetry – which Long notes she sees too little of and would welcome more; and poems that skillfully use rhyme and half-rhyme – also a form she would welcome more of.

Allegro publishes two themed issues per year, the latest from September is themed “Japanese,” while the remainder of the issues during the year are open to general submissions.

Books :: G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction

king-of-the-gypsies-lenore-mykaBkMk Press annually holds their G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction (currently open with a deadline in January), and this year’s winning title was just released at the end of September. King of the Gypsies by Lenore Myka was chosen by Lorraine M. López who writes of her selection, “Myka’s characters release uncountable fibers, connecting them to one another in the linked narratives, binding them to the harshly beguiling Romania they inhabit and that inhabits them.”

This is Myka’s first collection, though her work can be found in Massachusetts Review, Iowa Review, and New England Review, amongst others. To find out more information about King of the Gypsies, head over to the BkMk Press website.

The Sound of Poetry

poet lore 110Poet Lore Fall/Winter 2015 Editors’ Page addresses the idea of sound in poetry and the poetic voice. “Becuase how a poet sounds matters so much to us at Poet Lore, we read the poems we’re considering aloud to one another at each editorial meeting – a decisive exercise. Too often, stanzas that looked promising on the page fall flat in the air. . . It’s hard to describe but easy to recognize the cadences of poetry. As Robert Frost wrote in a letter to his former student John Bartlett a century ago: ‘The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader . . . . I wouldn’t be writing all this if I didn’t think it was the most important thing I know.'”

Also included in this issue is the essay “Say the Word” by Mark Sullivan, which “explores the threshold between hearing and interpreting word-sounds.”

Jewish Fiction.net Celebrates 5 Years

nora-goldJewish Fiction.net celebrates five years as “the only English-language journal in the world (in print or online) devoted exclusively to publishing Jewish fiction.” Fiction.net was formed to showcase the finest contemporary writing on Jewish themes (either written in, or translated into, English), and to provide an online community for writers and readers of Jewish fiction from around the world. Editor Dr. Nora Gold writes, “I see this journal as a means to bring together in one place first-rate Jewish fiction from many different countries, thus allowing us all to experience simultaneously the rich diversity that exists within Jewish culture and the core elements that unite us. . . Jewish fiction is important not just for its literary value, but because it tells the stories of our people, a legacy for generations to come.”

The most recent issue features 24 authors, among them: Ayelet Shamir, Rivkie Fried, György Spiró, Grigory Kanovich, María Gabriela Mizraje, Robert Sachs, Susan Breall, Frederick Nenner, Stephanie Friedman, Scott Nadelson, Yona Zeldis, and Elizabeth Edelglass.

Cutthroat Mentoring

Cutthroat Literary Magazine offers month-long and six-week-long one-on-one mentorships in a number of genres. “This is much cheaper than a writers conference or a writing program,” the magazine touts, with a refundable fee if the mentor fails to fulfill his/her contract. The mentorships include submitting work, getting close read feedback (“extensive written critical comments and suggestions”), and being able to interact via e-mail within each week of the mentorship to ask questions and submit new works or resubmit revised works. Visit the Cutthroat website to read more specifics, inlcluding fees. The writing mentors include:

POETRY: Patricia Smith, Richard Jackson, Joy Harjo, Pam Uschuk, Doug Anderson, Marilyn Kallet, Annie Finch, William Pitt Root

 

SHORT STORY: Donley Watt, Lorian Hemingway, Darlin’ Neal, William Luvaas, Melissa Pritchard, Beth Alvarado

MEMOIR: Joy Harjo, Doug Anderson, Beth Alvarado

MIXED GENRE: Sean Thomas Dougherty

ESSAYS: Linda Hogan

NOVEL: Donley Watt

SCREENPLAY: Steve Barancik

New Lit on the Block :: Thread

Ellen Blum BarishWith the tag line: An exploration of human experience through essay and image, it’s hard to pass up Thread, a new literary magazine of short-form, personal narrative writing (100 to 1800 words).

Editor Ellen Blum Barish [pictured] has taught writing in Chicago-area universities, including Northwestern, where she draws her motivation to create this new publication: “The beautiful work of some of my writing students sparked my desire to publish emerging writers and build a community with established ones.”

The title comes from Barish’s attraction to the word thread: “for its multiple meanings, as a term we use to talk about what writing is about, the material that connects pieces together as well as the act of connecting them, and as a string of human conversation.”

But she also sees the publication as creating something even more rich for the readers to experience. The publication will offer readers, “Stories from life turned into art, accompanied by photographs that deepen and enrich those stories.”

Some past contributors include Robert Root, Lee Reilly, Randy Osborne, and Ona Gritz, and the upcoming issue will feature Roberto Loiederman, Annette Gendler, and Tom McGoehy.

Barish looks forward to the continuation of the publication, noting “I’m thinking about adding a flash nonfiction category and possibly a theme issue.”

Thread accepts submissions every day of the year by email, though Barish advises potential contributors, “To get a good sense of the publication, I urge writers to read at least two issues before submitting a piece of work to Thread.” See the website for full submission details.

American Life in Poetry :: Ochester

American Life in Poetry: Column 552
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Many of the poems that have survived for hundreds if not thousands of years perfectly capture a single vivid moment. There’s an entire season packed into this very short poem by Ed Ochester, from his recent book, Sugar Run Road. Ed Ochester lives in Pennsylvania.

Fall

Crows, crows, crows, crows
then the slow flapaway over the hill
and the dead oak is naked

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2015 by Ed Ochester, “Fall,” from Sugar Run Road, (Autumn House Press, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Ed Ochester and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Brilliant?

Brilliant. That’s a high complement. But as an adjective? A tall order. Brillant Flash Fiction delivers in 1,000 or less. First lines capture me, or lose me. I was hooked on these:

brilliant-flash-fictionShe was drowning, and doing everything she knew she shouldn’t.
She opened her mouth and tried to swallow the sea.
from “The Sea in Her Ear” by Opal Palmer Adisa

He was never going to be so much the centre of attention as he was on that Saturday morning.
from “On La Concha Beach” by Maurice Cashell

The phone rang. Mama picked it up. Three minutes after ‘hello’ she was still listening.
from “Caníbales” by Linda Musita

Really, how can you not want to read the rest? You can. Here.

Stephanie Dickinson

bitter-oleanderStephanie Dickison is featured in the Autumn 2015 issue of The Bitter Oleander, including an interview and twenty pages of her poetry and prose. From the interview:

I am inspired by lists of flora and fauna, by descriptions of antique furniture, by art techniques such as ironing in centuries past, or by the evocative power of faces to speak through the sepia of 19th century photography. I’m not a writer of compression or irony or overarching structures of thought and don’t consider myself a writer of the first water or second etc. but I love words and sentences. I love reading and my world has been made glad by the wonderful books I’ve read. I do not know what happens when the writing connection starts, when the interweaving and tightening begin, when I slip into the other and am no longer wholly my more limited self. I travel on my ear as well, but that is more on a subconscious level.

TBO’s website includes an excerpt from the interview as well as one of the pieces from the publication, “Emily and the Black Dog.”

China’s Internet Literature

chinese-literature-todayChina’s Internet Literature: From “Live-Scene” Poetry to Million-Character Narratives is the special feature in the newest issue of Chinese Literature Today. Editor Jonathan Stalling writes: “While the Internet has radically changed communication in the modern world, one could argue that China’s 289 million online readers are making China the epicenter of the global literary transformation. CLT now delves into this rapidly expanding literary space through the work of leading scholars in the field. Heather Inwood explores how the democratization of publishing poetry online – challenging, or even passing the traditional gatekeepers – has affected, and in some cases, improved the overall quality of poetry in China. Haiqing Yu reveals how short Internet spoof videos called e’gao parody a variety of cultural subjects, from blockbuster films to pop stars, to more serious public figures, leading many to assert that e’gao videos have become an important new form of social engagement. Angie Chau offers readers a front-row seat at the intersection of public intellectual discourse and Internet fame in the case of Internet literature phenomenon Han Han.”

Babies Need Words Every Day

Play2The Association for Library Services to Children has launched the new campaign Babies Need Words Every Day: Talk, Read, Sing, Play as an effort to bridge what is now being called the 30 Million Word Gap. A study conducted by Stanford University Researchers found that by age 3, there is a 30 million word gap between children from the poorest families compared to children from the wealthiest families.

The ALSC campaign has created downloadable resources that provide ways adults can help build children’s literacy skills. There are eight posters available for free download, in English and in Spanish. Print and share with parents of infant children, post in areas where parents gather or spend time – provide copies for your family doctor, local clinic, school – or just post around your neighborhood!

New Lit on the Block :: The Wild Ones

wild-onesMorgan Laidlaw and Zan Giese are the editorial force behind the newly launched biannual PDF The Wild Ones: A Queer Literary Magazine. Publishing stories, essays, and poetry written by LGBTQ+ writers, for LGBTQ+ writers, that “depict life and the world as we see and experience it,” The Wild Ones means to create a space for queer authors.

“There are so many outlets that reinforce hetero-normative culture,” Morgan tells NewPages, “and we need more works and publications that cater to us as queers. Most people can name at least one gay magazine or one queer author who has been published in a major magazine. But magazines like ours? Where they are just queer magazines? Space is what we are all looking for. Space to fit in. Space to exist and space to create. There are gaps where queer people don’t quite fit into mainstream expectations and some queers who still don’t fit at all. It’s not that what’s already out there isn’t good enough, it’s that there isn’t enough. Period.”

Morgan and Zan combined this motivation with inspiration to create the magazine’s title. “The name is a hat-tip to Oscar Wilde,” Morgan explains, “but also to Where the Wild Things Are and Maurice Sendak and Thorton Wilder. It’s also a reference to the kinds of stories we’re looking for: wild stories that don’t conform to stereotype or convention.”

Their first issue is a reflection of this mission, featuring an amazing science fiction short story from B.R. Sanders and hard-hitting poetry from contributors like Mark Ward, Sea Sharp, and Alaina Symanovich. “Right now,” Morgan says, “we’re trying to establish ourselves as a source for high-quality literary work through our journal and cultural criticism through our website. In the future, we’d love to publish quarterly, and move into other publishing venues as well.”

The Wild Ones accepts submissions via their online form and welcomes pitches sent e-mail. The editors are also looking to grow their writing staff. If anyone is interested in writing for The Wild Ones website, send an email with a writing sample.

Fourteen Hills – 2015

“Scottie as The Captain covers her head with her dress, flips the table over, jumps in and rows desperately.” You’ve just read stage directions for “Excerpt from Scottie Doesn’t Play,” a one-act play by Da’Shay Portis in the literary magazine Fourteen Hills – proof that this thick volume is packed with diverse experimental, progressive and cross-genre writings and images. Continue reading “Fourteen Hills – 2015”

Creative Nonfiction – Summer 2015

Pinning down a comprehensive definition of the term creative nonfiction appears to be an imprecise, ongoing pursuit. Creative Nonfiction’s section editor Dinty W. Moore tackles the subject with “A Genre by Any Other Name?” Noting that Creative Nonfiction Editor Lee Gutkind did not invent the term, Moore brings in quotes from essayist Phillip Lopate and author Philip Gerard who pooh-pooh the term, then he picks up more positive opinions of the classification, calling on various other writers, editors, and critics. Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction – Summer 2015”

Eminence Domains

straddler-fall-2015Eminent domain is the theme of the fall 2015 online issue of The Straddler – or rather “Eminence Domains,” as the editor’s note reads, opening the interpretation of the legal definition to the more creative. Content includes some truly intriguing articles and interviews:

“City with Walls: Another Look at Manhattan’s Luxury Towers” by Elizabeth Murphy, with photographs by James Wrona

“The Cost of Landscape: Looking Back at Some of Southern California’s Lawns” by Alison Kozberg

“For Whom and For What? The Birth of the Republican Party and the Makings of Modern America” in conversation with Heather Cox Richardson

“Gentrification of the Queer Bedroom” by Mathew Rodriguez

“Notes on the New Suburbs and the New City” in conversation with Kazys Varnelis

“Obstructing Innovation: The Case Against Patents and Copyrights” in conversation with Dean Baker

“Money over Everything: Charting Hip-Hop’s Cash Flow” by Marty Brown

Fox Cry Review – 2015

If there’s one thing I appreciate, it’s a thin journal. Lightweight, no long-term commitment intimidation, something us not-so-fast-readers can truly read in one sitting. Add to that over a dozen names on the table of contents, and there’s no doubt the variety will add some interesting diversity as a return on the short-term time investment. This is an apt descriptor to introduce Fox Cry Review published out of University of Wisconsin – Fox Valley. Continue reading “Fox Cry Review – 2015”