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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 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.

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”

Cactus Heart – June 2015

Cactus Heart is one wicked lit mag. With a spiny cactus bursting out of a skeleton ribcage as their logo, don’t go searching these pages for the soft and sentimental. No box of Kleenex needed here. Instead, be ready to steel yourself against hard truths, take a moment’s pause to settle quietly brutal characters into your imagination, and shift world views subtly through the surreal and abruptly through the confessional. Continue reading “Cactus Heart – June 2015”

NANO Fiction – 2015

“Enamored” isn’t a word I have reason to use often, but it’s the only word that properly explains how the Fall 2015 issue of NANO Fiction left me feeling. From the cover, a digital collage by Andrea Trninic, the perfect shade and gory subject matter for October, to the Sehr Flash: Fiction Becomes Music feature, I am completely enamored. Continue reading “NANO Fiction – 2015”

The Fiddlehead – Summer 2015

The Fiddlehead has been publishing for 70 years. That is no small feat. The extreme quality of this summer fiction issue exudes wisdom, diversity, and a sophistication that younger publishers need to experience to fully apprehend. All too often, literary journals feel slap-dab, thrown together, off-the cuff—the antithesis of Fiddlehead. As Editor Mark Anthony Jarman modestly states in his foreword: “No one else in Canada can touch what we are doing now.” Although I am not a fan of braggarts, I have to agree. This selection of 14 short stories takes the reader around the world; from a pearl shop in Tahiti to a bar in Barcelona. Continue reading “The Fiddlehead – Summer 2015”

The Malahat Review – Summer 2015

The Malahat Review has published their $1000 Long Poem Contest winners, and boy are they long, and powerful. Gary Geddes’ 18-page persona poem “The Resumption of Play” gives a post-modern kaleidoscope view of a First Nations boy’s brutal kidnapping into one of the residential schools that blights a chapter of Canadian History with shame. With lines such as, “Kill the Indian in the child was Scott’s / ’final solution.’ Remove parents, culture, language, replace them with perverts, / sociopaths,” Geddes pulls no punches. Continue reading “The Malahat Review – Summer 2015”

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”

Poetry :: Comfort Food

COMFORT FOOD
by Jessica de Koninck

This noon I give thanks for fried fish
for macaroni and cheese
for dill rolls
for sweet potato pie
for this carbohydrate festival
the hair-netted ladies cooked
to get me through the afternoon
. . .

Read the rest on Apple Valley Review online journal of comtemporary literature.

Subprimal Poetry Music Accompaniment

issue4.coverSubprimal Poetry Art features audio components for many pieces in each online issue; audio that features the author reading with music accompaniment. Founding Editor Victor David Sandiego explains the basic process for this in his editor’s note, issue #4: “. . . we loop the author’s reading until a musical inspiration arrives. We work with the author’s cadence, pitch and rhythm to find the pitch and instruments to complement their delivery. The goal is to add the voices of various instruments to the author’s voice in order to bring another dimension to the words.” Simply adding “background music” can result in distraction rather than enhancement, but after listening to a number of these, I found each indeed unique and effectively sybmiotic. Sandiego himself is a musician who plays in music/poetry collaborations, bringing the form to a level of art.

Sing About Pain and Life

sukoon-05Sukoon is an Arab-themed, English language, online literary magazine reflecting the diversity and richness of the Arab world. In her editor’s note in the most recent issue, Rewa Zeinati writes:

Has anything changed in the Arab world since the last issue of Sukoon? Yes. Things have changed. They’ve become more horrific, more complicated. Mind numbing. More and more people from all faiths have been forced from their homes, displaced; more beheadings and destruction and ruin. A new war is switched on. And the most important one of all, shelved. Postponed. Forgotten.

But this issue is not about war, or shelves, or forgetfulness. This issue, like every issue is about finding the beauty and showing it. Finding the love and singing it. Which is why I decided a beautiful art piece by Palestinian artist Ali Shawwa, of Umm Kulthum, the world’s most famous Egyptian singer, works best as a cover page. To indicate and remind us of song, because how else do we survive, through wars and shelves and forgetfulness? To sing about love and loss, but to sing about love. To sing about pain and life, but to sing about life. To simply sing. And sing and sing, as poetry and story and art. Through slaying and insanity and devastation And to continue singing, long after the lights go out and the guns disappear.

WriteGirl Writing Guide & Anthology

writegirlLocated in Los Angeles, WriteGirl is a one-on-one mentoring and monthly creative writing workshop model for girls 13-18 years old. Started in 2001, WriteGirl has grown to become a recognized, and highly awarded, mentoring model for its efforts to promote creativity, critical thinking, and leadership skills to empower teen girls.

WriteGirl has published a dozen anthologies of writing from young girls and women of the WriteGirl project, as well as Pens On Fire: Creative Writing Guide for Teachers & Youth Leaders. Their most recent collection, Emotional Map of Los Angeles features the creative voices of 190 women and girls as well as writing tips, advice and inspirational prompts from the WriteGirl community.

For anyone who is interested in working with teens and writing, especially at-risk youth, WriteGirl provides a excellent model to follow and publications to inspire and guide.

Talking Writing Explores YA

gene-luen-yangThe newest issue of Talking Writing is themed “Why YA?” Online content is added throughout the magazines publishing cycle, and currently features the theme essays “A Golden Age for Young Adult Books” by Stephen Roxburgh and “How Hollywood Screws Up YA Books” by John Michael Bell, an interview with graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, and “The YA Conspiracy – And How I Grew Up: Or How I Became a Born-Again Reader,” a column by David Biddle.

Teachers! Print the Online Lit Mag & Chapbook

artcardLike most Englishy folk, I love to read in print. But I also love the ease and accessibility of reading online lit mags. The 2River View is a good example of how these two worlds can meet. They offer all content online, both their lit mag issues and their chapbooks, but they also have free press-ready PDF downloads of these. This is great for both personal use, but as a teacher, I’m always on the lookout for free resources to use with students. Here’s both a great free poetry lit mag and a full backlist of poetry chapbooks to use in the classroom. And then there’s the poetry/art cards (Kip Knott, 2009 pictured). Gorgeous. And did I mention the audio of poets reading their works? Really, if you teach and want to get students hooked on poetry, I can’t imagine a better resource.

Mitchell Thomashow on Environmental Learning

mitchell-thomashowFrom “Environmental Learning in the Anthropocene” by Robert Thomashow:

Forty-five years have passed since the first publication of the Whole Earth Catalog. How shall we conceive of environmental learning all these years later? And how can we build on some of the important concepts from the first phase of environmental studies—place-based learning, bioregionalism, wilderness conservation, ecological restoration, natural history education, environmental justice, ecological economics, global environmental governance—while we confront the Anthropocene reality?

I’ve been considering six dynamic challenges that must be incorporated, internalized, and activated to expand environmental learning:

The urban planet
A cosmopolitan culture
Ecological equity and social justice
The proliferation of information networks
Virtual natural history
Synthetic biology

These are by no means inclusive categories. There are countless ways to think about environmental learning in the Anthropocene. In my view, environmental studies is necessarily adaptive and the conditions that inform its structure are always in flux. Let’s launch the conversation.

Read the rest on Terrain.org.

National Day on Writing

national-day-on-writingTuesday, October 20, 2015 is the seventh annual National Council of Teachers of English National Day on Writing. The day has been organized annually since 2009 “to draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing Americans engage in and to help make writers from all walks of life aware of their craft.” The day was officially recognized by Senate resolution in 2009. Read, Write, Think offers a variety of resources for teachers to celebrate this day with students, noting “It’s important for everyone to share their knowledge about writing, organize participating groups in our schools and/or communities, and transform the public’s understanding of writing and the role it plays in society today.”

“Not Your Mother’s Alice”

falling-for-aliceI just coulnd’t pass this one up!  “From ​the modern Alice dumped in the Aquarian ​Age of the late sixties, to the ​present day Alice, tormented by body image and emotional issues, to the Alice of the future, launched forward through time and space, FALLING FOR ALICE offers five fresh takes on ​Lewis​ Carroll’s classic tale. For 150 years, people all over the world have fallen under Alice in Wonderland’s spell. ​Now, follow five Young Adult authors (Dawn Dalton, Shari Green, Denise Jaden, Kitty Keswick, Cady Vance) down the rabbit hole to discover Alice like you’ve never seen her before. One thing is certain—this is not your mother’s Alice.” Vine Leave Press

Pam Brown “On Writing”

PB by A.J.CarruthersPam Brown: “I find in writing a poem that it’s ‘difficult’ to get it right – to have it look, sound & read as I intend. I can spend ages adjusting punctuation & spacing & lineation. Also on keeping things clear. Sometimes having my fragments connect to my meanings is really a challenge. I live in my own private metonymy. I guess, with indirectness, which is how some of my poetry can operate, that good old representation is a kind of solution. I’m not a formalist. I don’t work within particular poetic forms. I’ve tried various forms and they usually fail to conform. I do think that it’s difficult to have formal poems retain a procedure & avoid seeming contrived & tight. I like content to work easily without being obstructed by the form. I don’t want that kind of structural difficulty.” Read the rest: Ottawa Poetry Newsletter “On Writing #73.”

NOR Sci Fi Style

new-orleans-reviewScience Fiction is the theme of the newest issue of New Orleans Review. Editor Timothy Welsh opens the issue by asking “Why do we enjoy science fiction?” Then explores an answer: “Perhaps it is not the fantastic at all. Perhaps it is instead how science fiction is always in some way about the present. It is an exaggeration, a recontextualization, a defamiliarization. Science fiction takes some aspect of life in the present and blows it out to its logical extremes to see where things breakdown. The best science fiction gives us ways to think about our actual lived circumstances, unencumbered by material reality and with the perspective gained by getting a little bit of distance.”

Welsh considers, though, that in our age of exponential advancements in science and technology, it becomes more challenging to see any great “distance.” He then asks, “What distance is there to take as the stuff of science fiction rapidly becomes the stuff of our everyday?” That is the challenge faced by the contributors to this issue, and as Welsh notes, “though they take and use the tools of the genre, the alternative worlds they imagine do not seem so far off. . . . Perhaps we will find they are closer to home than we expect.”

Contributors to this special issue include Sara Batkie, C. Wade Bentley, Scott Brennan, Gerry Canavan, Sarah Crossland, Michael George, Taylor Gorman, Jeremy Allan Hawkins, Daryl Jones, Greg Keeler, Paige Lewis, Michael Marberry, James Maynard, Lincoln Michel, Danielle Mitchell, Lo Kwa Mei-En, Emil Ostrovski, Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers, John Paul Rollert, Bethany Schultz Hurst, Adrian Van Young, and Lesley Wheeler.

BOA Editions Celebrating 40 Years

boa-40-annivesrary-logoIn 2016, BOA Editions, Ltd. will celebrate their 40th anniversary. Founded in 1976 by A. Poulin, Jr., BOA has published more than 300 titles, releasing 10-12 new works each year. To celebrate their anniversary, the press will be introducing a newly designed website with a fully-integrated online bookstore and interactive author events page. The enhanced website will also include a year-long social media campaign using the hashtag #BOATurns40 for readers and writers to share their “ideal reading and/or writing experience,” with video content of BOA authors giving their answers. BOA has lots in store for AWP 2016 as well, from giveaways to an onsite reading.

With the help of the Lannan Foundation, BOA has kicked off a yearlong Major Gifts Campaign called “40 for 40” with a goal to raise a total of $80,000 for BOA’s celebration and future. To learn more about the 40 for 40 campaign, head over to the BOA blog.

Stay tuned for additional BOA annivesary events and activities to be announced in 2016.

Addressing Mental Health through Literature

open-minds-quarterlyI love Open Minds Quarterly magazine. Subtitled, “The poetry and literature of mental health recovery,” I once used this publication in a composition course I taught themed “Understanding Disability.” Not surprisingly, I was met with a great deal of ‘unknowing’ in that class as well as resistance (both reasons for teaching it). Students who used the word “crazy” soon stopped themselves and others from doing so, exploring what the word means in our society. Students who felt that people with depression should “just get over it” came to a more empathetic understanding of the complexities of this mental health issue. Open Minds Quarterly was one of the publications assigned in that class to help students learn, understand, and connect.

Editor Dinah Laprairie’s Welcome in the most recent issue brought back those teaching memories. She writes about attending several festivals where she staffed tables to promote the publication, noting the responses from people who stopped by. “What is memorable,” she writes of these encounters, “is the people who, unexpectedly, in picking up the magazine, get turned inside out by what they see.

Some go quiet and we see their breathing change, deepen. Something they read resonates, and we see something moving beneath their skin that yearns to come out. They read the magazine silently, and avoid eye contact with us.

Others are curious, pick up a copy, but once they glance at the content they drop it like it’s hot, and quickly make their escape with straight backs and pursed lips, like they don’t want to acknowledge they are eing chased by something.

Women will often return to the table supported by a friend, to look more closely. They whisper to each other.

And then there are those who are so relieved to find a magazine such as this that they make the confession they have been hiding, sometimes for years.

‘My brother, he’s bipolar.’

‘My friend, she’s had difficulties.’

‘My son –‘

or

‘Me, too.’

It is an honour to witness these admissions. Something in what we do, in what our contributors have shared, has made it okay for someone to speak up about an unspeakable subject. Yes, the stigma of mental illness is slowly diminishing, but people are still afraid to broach the subject, to shine light on the dark places we’d rather leave dark.”

Open Minds Quarterly definitely does not leave places dark, this newest issue featuring writing of a woman who meets her birth father for the first time – finding him homeless with signs of schizophrenia, another piece by a mother who undergoes electro-shock therapy, and poems wth titles like, “Aunt Dementia” (Jacqualine A. Hart), “Pain Scale” (E.V. Noechel), “Insomnia” (Maureen Comerford), “My On and Off Schizophrenic Friend” (Cecilia Tolley), “Suicide” (Maranda Russell), and “Freedom is not in the DSM” (Samantha Burton).

“More and more people are speaking up,” writes Laprairie. “It takes a multitude of small efforts to open the conversation, but at some point the doors – the formal front doors and the everyday back doors – will be flung wide open.”

Open Minds Quarterly opens those doors and invites both writers and readers to enter and exit freely.

Ghazals for James Foley

foleyAmerican journalist and poet James Foley disappeared in November 2012 in Syria. He was beheaded in 2014, an act captured on a video released by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). He was the first American citizen known to be killed by ISIL.

Hinchas Press (the publishing arm of Hinchas de Poesia online literary magazine) is publishing a tribute to Robert Foley in Ghazals for Foley, a collection curated by Argentine-American poet Yago S. Cura, a personal friend of Foley.

Sliver of Stone online literary magazine has published a selection of these ghazals here.

New Letters on the Air

navaAdding to their print publication of outstanding writing, New Letters on the Air 30-minute literary program was started in 1977 by David Ray and his wife Judy. Touted as “the longest continuously-running broadcase of a national literary radio series,” the 1,200+ programs that make up the archives feature some of the most globally prominent writers reading from and talking about their work. Changing hands to Rebekah Presson for a period of time, Angela Elam has been hosting the program now since 1996. Some most recent programs feature Michael Nava [pictured], Marjorie Agosín, Junot Díaz, Nikki Giovanni, Dave Smith, and Martha Serpas.

Programs can be heard live for those in the Kansas City area, broadcast on KCUR 89.3 FM on Sunday mornings from 6:00 to 6:30. Broadcasts are then available for online streaming in the New Letters on the Air audio archives. Thanks to a Save America’s Treasures grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service, all past programs – going all the way back to 1977 – are available on the website. Individual programs can be purchased as CDs or in MP3 format.

Books :: Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize

translation-matthew-minicucciMatthew Minicucci’s Translation was published in August 2015, winner of the 2014 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize from Kent State University Press. The Poetry Prize is awarded to a poet who has not previously published a full-length collection of poems.

Translation is the 21st book to be released through the Wick Poetry First Book Series and was chosen by Jane Hirschfield who calls Minicucci’s poems “accurate and deftly navigable vessels of inner life.”

More information about Translation can be found on the Kent State University website.

Copper Nickel Launches New Prize

copper-nickelBeginning with issue 20, Copper Nickel is now offering two $500 Editors’ Prizes – one in poetry, one in prose – for the “most exciting work in each issue, as determined by a vote of [their] editorial staff.” You have to love the guidelines, which I find refreshing in this day and age of data, rubrics, and assessment. It’s nice to know that the abstract, subjective, and aesthetic have not been completely snuffed out when it comes to artistic appreciation of intelligent literary craft. Issue 21 announces the first winners (from #20) were Michelle Okaes for her poems “Bionics” and “How to Live” and Donovan Ortega for his essay “In a Large Coastal City.” Speaking of aesthetic appreciation, can we talk about that cover? (By Mark Mothersbaugh – “Untitled,” ink on paper, 2013)

The Story of the Lost Child

This reviewer knows she might be addressing two possible readers of Elena Ferrante’s four-part series of novels: the ones who are already committed and want to read through the last book, The Story of the Lost Child, and the other, curious newcomer to the series. For the first reader, I will say that this last book does have a very good, real ending and of course is well-worth the effort. The Story of the Lost Child has a new emphasis on politics with characters we’ve grown to know, a glimpse of the effects of feminism on children, the motivations in maintaining success in writing, and as the epilogue called “Restitution” suggests, a final view of the female friendship and disturbing revelations of Elena Greco, our narrator. Continue reading “The Story of the Lost Child”

Anatomies

If bodies are temples, Susan McCarty is an expert demolitionist. In Anatomies, McCarty breaks these temples down, rips through drywall and flesh, tears sexuality and humanity from their hinges, and leaves behind the barebones, the nervous system, the warm, buzzing electrical impulses buried beneath the exteriors of the temples housing her characters. Continue reading “Anatomies”

Science Poetry

rattleA great connection with STEM, the Fall 2015 issue of Rattle (#49) called for submission from poets working in the sciences. The editors wanted to explore the relationship between science and poetry through poetry. How does rigorous investigation influence the poetry? Is verse an escape from, or an extension of, the day job? The editors received over 1,000 submissions and from that selected poetry from twenty scientist to answer their questions. Also included is a conversation with Alaskan fisheries scientist Peter Munro and 19 poets from non-scientific backgrounds in the open section.

Bastards of the Reagan Era

Reginald Dwayne Betts rose from criminal obscurity to a current man of letters with an award-winning memoir and debut poetry collection, a Pushcart Prize, and now his second book of poetry, Bastards of the Reagan Era. The title conjures the time period of much of the work—Betts’s childhood in the 1980s—when he participated in a carjacking that put him in prison for the better part of a decade. Charged as an adult, sixteen year-old Betts spent ten days in solitary confinement while waiting for trial, where he discovered poetry after coming across an anthology of black poets being passed around. Soon after, he began writing heavily, and this dedication appears in his vivid imagery that often bites at the core of longstanding societal issues for urban youth. Continue reading “Bastards of the Reagan Era”

Count the Waves

Poetry forces its reader to think and think deeply—this is the principle reason I prefer it to other literary forms. Not that other forms fail to inspire deep thought, but that poetry requires its reader to examine, explore, and even research the metaphors and references embedded in the text if said reader wants to harvest the poem for everything its worth. I was so intrigued by Sandra Beasley’s Count the Waves, that I contacted the author herself hoping she would aid me in my exploration, satisfy my questions such as Why is this a “Traveler’s Vade Mecum”? Where is the speaker traveling? How does Elizabeth Barrett Browning influence the work? Am I right to see an inclination toward proverb in the poetry? To my intellectual relief, she answered. . . . Continue reading “Count the Waves”

Watershed Days

I love essays, especially the ones that don’t claim anything amazing about themselves, that stick to the quotidian and spend less time exploring stories than thoughts on lives being lived. But there is a danger in reading these sort of quiet, contemplative collections of essays: by the end you feel like you are best friends with the authors. You seem to know all their fears, cares, secret pleasures, weaknesses. You put down the book thinking you could probably buy them the perfect birthday present. But, of course, you don’t really know them and they don’t know you. Continue reading “Watershed Days”

You’re Not Edith

Allison Gruber’s You’re Not Edith is one of the better books I’ve read this year. Her “autobiographical essays” are funny without being comic, personal without being egotistical, crude (because she describes teenage life and dog vomit) without stepping into vulgarity, showing a narrator who is lonely but not melodramatic, tender without becoming sentimental. I read the whole book in one short, luxurious morning, and found that the end came too soon. That the last essay tells the story of a fan who flirts with her after a reading is totally understandable: to read Allison Gruber is to want to read more and to get to know her better. Continue reading “You’re Not Edith”

The Arranged Marriage

According to my 1971 two-volume compact Oxford English Dictionary, trauma refers to “a wound, or external bodily injury in general; also the condition caused by this.” This imprecise definition, however, has been narrowed over time and refers more specifically to the emotional shock that follows a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. This shock may last indefinitely and can feel like a reoccurring visitation of the event that caused it in the first place. Jehanne Dubrow’s collection of prose poems titled The Arranged Marriage not only addresses the emotional complexities of arranged marriages, as well as the more specific situation of that marriage including Jewish tradition and life in Central America, but also trauma by its more modern definition. Continue reading “The Arranged Marriage”

Miracles and Conundrums of the Secondary Planets

The eight stories in Jacob M. Appel’s Miracles and Conundrums of the Secondary Planets are engaging, surprising, and often deeply affecting. They sometimes feature bizarre, fantastic details—a man grapples with the real possibility of his mistresses’ impending resurrection, a global cold snap rattles our understanding of global warming—but these features never distract from the human stories at the center of every tale. Continue reading “Miracles and Conundrums of the Secondary Planets”

Crude Sketches Done in Quick Succession

Andrew Brininstool’s stories in Crude Sketches Done in Quick Succession are not crude. They’re skillfully told, though some of the happenings within are crude, as in rough or harsh. For example, lots of males get into fistfights, lots of people get drunk, and liaisons don’t go smoothly. Brininstool, an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Stephen F. Austin State University, populates his stories with lively characters, some more likable than others. Continue reading “Crude Sketches Done in Quick Succession”

Books :: Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry

underdays-martin-ottThe Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry is sponsored by the Creative Writing Program at University of Notre Dame in conjunction with The University of Notre Dame Press. Awarded to authors who have published at least one volume of poetry, winners receive publication and a prize of $1000 dollars.

The 2015 winner was published last month: Underdays by Martin Ott.

From the publisher’s website: “Underdays is a dialogue of opposing forces: life/death, love/war, the personal/the political. Ott combines global concerns with personal ones, in conversation between poems or within them, to find meaning in his search for what drives us to love and hate each other.”

Ott’s work can be found in The Antioch Review, The Café Review, and Epoch, just to name a few.

To learn more about Underdays, check out the University of Notre Dame Press’s website.

Broadsided Seeks Syrian Submissions

JaniceRedman-BuoyancySeriesThe editors at Broadsided Press continually act on their belief that art and literature belong in our daily lives and that they inspire and demonstrate the vitality and depth of our connection with the world. Their latest effort is no exception to this. They write, “We have watched the news and images of people fleeing, in a large part, war in Syria (the Syrian Civil War)—nearly four million individuals—and the complicated reception of those refugees globally.”

Acting on this event, the editors hope to help writers and artists collaborate to create action outreach. “Five Broadsided Press artists have provided images they’ve created that, for them, speak to the Syrian refugees in a wide sense. We also reached out to artists abroad, and the Syrian artist Moustafa Jacoub offered one of his pieces. We now ask you to respond with words.” [Pictured: Janice Redman, “Buoyancy Study”]

If your piece is chosen, the editors will have a short question or two to ask you about your process and will ask for a photo of your collaboration up in your community. The broadsides will also be available for others to download and post in their communities as well.

The images and specific guidelines for submission can be found on the Broadsided website here. Deadline for submission is October 25, 2015.

Pittsburgh Poetry Houses

sarah-jeff-boyleIt was only a matter of time before the Little Library idea got hijacked and starting showing up as other cool community Little House outreach. Three Pittsburgh poets, Sarah B. and Jeffrey Boyle [pictured] of Flashbang! Writing Studio and Tess Wilson, received funding from Awesome Pittsburgh to get the Pittsburgh Poetry Houses started.

The concept is simple: tiny wooden houses will be placed around town; inside will be four poems, each on its own postcard – poem on one side, artwork on the other. The poems will feature one local and one national student poet and one local and one national adult poet. Every two weeks, a new set of four poem postcards will be placed in the Poetry Houses. An archive of poems will be housed on the PPH website, and print collections (bound by a big rubberband) will be available for purchase as Summer and Winter volumes.

The current editors are also looking for readers to join their team, actively searching for “readers who are not: cis, straight, white.” Readers don’t have to live in Pittsburgh, and they should be willing to volunteer about an hour a week to the effort.

Submissions for poetry are currently being accepted, with previously published works considered. See the PPH website for full details.

This seems like another great way to share the love of poetry and reading that I hope will be as equally inspriational as the free libraries!

Ramifications of War

bellevue-literary-reviewBellevue Literary Review “a journal of humanity and human experience” published by the NYU Longone Medical Center takes on challenging issues with each publication, some specifically themed, as is the most recent issue: “Embattled: The Ramifications of War.”

Fiction Editor Suzanne McConnell writes in the Foreword: “War stories are not only the stories of soldiers and combat, although these are plentiful. Our intention with this issue of the Bellevue Literary Review is to encompass work about a broad spectrum of people affected by war in a myriad of ways, in many places and times. Together, we hope they afford some sense of overview and invite thoughtful considerations of war, and especially – as the title of our theme suggests – its ramifications. … The history of war may be largely written by the victors, but the ramifications of war know no such bounds.”

Read more about the authors and works included here.

Glimmer Train 2015 Very Short Fiction Award Winners

PoissantGlimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their Very Short Fiction Award. This competition is held annually and is open to all writers for stories with a word count under 3000. The next Very Short Fiction competition will take place in July. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: David James Poissant [pictured], of Oviedo, FL, wins $1500 for “Tornado.” His story will be published in Issue 98 of Glimmer Train Stories.

Second place: Adam O’Fallon Price, of Iowa City, IA, wins $500 for “Our Celebrity.”

Third place: Mary Kuryla, of Topanga, CA, wins $300 for “Not in Nottingham.”

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

Deadline coming up! Family Matters: September 30
Glimmer Train hosts this competition twice a year. It’s open to all writers for stories about families of any configuration. Most submissions to this category run 1200-5000 words, but can go up to 12,000. Click here for complete guidelines.

American Life in Poetry :: Michael McFee

American Life in Poetry: Column 548
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

This may be the only poem ever written in which a person claps the mud from a pair of shoes! Michael McFee’s poetry is just that original, in all of his books. His most recent is That Was Oasis (Carnegie Mellon Univ. Press, 2012), and he lives in North Carolina.

Ovation

He stood on his stoop
and clapped her sneakers together
hard, a sharp report,
smacking right sole against left,
trying to shock the mud
from each complicated tread,
spanking those expensive footprints
until clay flakes and plugs
ticked onto the boxwood’s leaves
like a light filthy sleet
from the rubber craters and crannies
where they stuck weeks ago,
until her shoes were banged clean
though that didn’t stop
his stiff-armed slow-motion applause
with her feet’s emptied gloves,
slapping mate against mate
without missing a beat,
half-wishing that hollow sound
echoing off their neighbors’ houses
could call her back.

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 ©2010 by Michael McFee, “Ovation,” (River Styx 83, 2010). Poem reprinted by permission of Michael McFee 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.

Books :: Philip Levine Prize in Poetry

rough-knowledge-christine-porebaLook forward to Christine Poreba’s Rough Knowledge, winner of the 2014 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry, currently scheduled to be published by Anhinga Press at the beginning of 2016. Rough Knowledge is Poreba’s first book and was chosen from nearly 700 manuscripts by Peter Everwine.

Everwine says of his selection:

[Poreba] has an eye for exact particulars and doesn’t stray from them, but her poems are so transparent, so quiet and intimate with the daily ambiguities and revelations of experience, that if you listen carefully you can almost believe the movement within her poems is like breathing: inward-containment, outward-space. I want such poetry close at hand.

To learn more about Rough Knowledge, check out Fresno State University’s website.

The MacGuffin Poetry Prize Winners

macguffin-v31-n3-summer-2015The MacGuffin has announced the winners of their Poetry Prize, which was sponsored at the Detroit Working Writer’s Conference this spring.

1st place goes to Kim Geralds for “Each In Her Own Time”

2nd place goes to Melissa “Liza” Young for “’Dreamt’ is the only English word that ends in ‘mt”

3rd place goes to Linda Nemec Foster for “Blue”

Foster’s poetry can be found in the Summer 2015 issue of The MacGuffin. To read the winning pieces, stay tuned for the Winter 2016 edition.

The Kenyon Review :: Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers

kenyon-review-v37-n5-september-october-2015In the September/October issue of The Kenyon Review, find the winners of the 2015 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers.

The Poetry Prize is in its 12th year and “recognizes an outstanding single poem by a high school sophomore or junior.”

1st place goes to Caitlin Chan for her poem “Tlingit Farewell: Glacier Bay, 1966.”

The two runners-up are Gavin Murtha for his poem “I Spent a Lot of Time in There” and Emily Zhang for her poem “Story for the Salt.”

These three pieces, as well as past winners, can be read in full on The Kenyon Review website. The contest opens again at the beginning of November 2015.

A New Look for Still Point Arts Quarterly

still-point-arts-quarterly-i19-fall-2015Still Point Arts Quarterly has released its first issue since it absorbed Stone Voices. With the new publication comes a new look (a brighter, more eye-catching cover), and plans to focus on “art, nature, and spirit” while connecting these themes to make a cohesive, enjoyable read. Regular readers will be comforted to know that columnists Peter Azrak, Vincent Louis Carrella, and Leslie Ihde, will continue to write for this version of the Quarterly.

This issue includes samples from Still Point Art Gallery’s current exhibition Rectangles, Triangles, Circles: The Shape of Life and includes more art than ever.

Grab a print copy or a digital subscription at the Still Point website.

Twitter Poetics

francesco levatoLast month, Francesco Levato, a new media artist, poet, and director of The Chicago School of Poetics, started #pxc001 to create a collaborative, long-form poem using Twitter as the interactive platform for writers. Although Levato started the work and appears occassionaly throughout thusfar, the poem is driven by its participants, with some using previous entries to build continuing lines. The Poem Twitter Wrote by Emiko Jazuka on VICE Motherboard explains the project.