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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!

12th Annual BrainStorm Poetry Contest for Mental Health Consumers and Survivors

The winners of the 12th Annual BrainStorm Poetry Contest have been announced and included in the Spring 2014 issue of Open Minds Quarterly. “The winning poems exhibit strength in imagery, attention to the sound of language, and left the readers with a sensation long after they were read.” The honorable mentions include “an echo” by Sophie Soil, “As She Gently Brushed My Hair” by Sandy Jeffs, “With a huge love shattering my heart” by Georgina Paul, and “Medicated” by Sandy Jeffs. Here are the winners along with a sample of their poetry:

First Place
“Quebec City” by Ashley Laframboise

Sitting in your warm apartment, with
snow falling outside frosty windows, you
are wearing purple leg warmers over blue jeans, and green
slippers that used to be your grandmother’s.
You are singing along to
French folk music I’ve never heard before, and lazily
sucking on an electronic cigarette that smells of
honey.

Second Place
“Airport, Heavy Water” by Tyler Gabrysh

Tiny moon shadows plop on my dash;
an orchestral pitter-patter
forming the dew we never see born

Maybe once this was enthralling;
now it’s a swirl of overtaxed night
and dilated mourning.

Third Place
“Waiting to be Found” by Aaron Simkin

The night the meaning dissolved, it was just for me the
heads turned in the cars as I ran from the neon green street signs
a doomed cipher roaming the barren Winnipeg winter night
a prisoner of the light,
bathing in a conspiracy of clues derived from the indelible public grain,
no movies on the marquee at Portage Place,
just question marks like silver lights clawing at the clouds,

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

While in other parts of the country Spring may have come earlier, in Michigan, our trees have only just started to bloom. So in honor of our first real week of Spring and warmer weather, here’s all the covers this week that are both striking and Spring-filled.

Concho River Review‘s Spring 2014 cover couldn’t be more inviting. The photograph is by Danny Meyer.

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The Aurorean‘s Spring/Summer 2014 issue features “Flowering Tree at Emily Dickinson’s House” by Cynthia Brackett-Vincent.

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So Exit 7‘s cover isn’t quite the aesthetic as the other two, but nothing sounds better now than a nice bike ride. The art is Simple by Jeff Cohen, and his piece Berlin with Bicycle is on the back cover.

Psychopomp’s Transparency

The two editors of Psychopomp literary magazine, Cole Bucciaglia and Sequoia Nagamtsu, posted a blog post revealing the whole submission process. They say that they both read every piece and try to get to it within 10 to 14 days, labeling each piece “no,” “yes,” or “maybe.”

“For me, language is very important,” writes Nagamatsu. “A close second is an awareness of form. A well-crafted submission that reads well (and sounds good) is going to be met with more sympathy on my end. Those stories, regardless of whether or not I’m interested in the subject matter, almost always get a closer read.”

And Bucciaglia confirms that they both have similar tastes. “I think one of the ways in which we different is that I tend to favor stories that are a little sparer with their language,” she writes. “We get a lot of very poetic and lyrical pieces, but I’m very wary of stories in which every line is painstakingly written to evoke heart-aching Beauty. I get more excited about fairy tale-esque stories that are economic with their language. I think shorter pieces tend to get away with sustained lyricism more, which is why we do take many short pieces.”

To read more about the process as well as about the magazine itself, click here.

Writing with At-Risk Youth: The Pongo Teen Writing Method

From Richard Gold, founder of Pongo Teen Writing Project, Writing with At-Risk Youth: The Pongo Teen Writing Method (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2014) is Pongo’s primary teaching tool, the basis of Pongo’s training and given to all workshop participants. It describes the context of trauma in the lives of youth, explains the particular role of poetry, provides the specifics of Pongo’s teaching methods, and tells how to design your own writing project.

The Pongo Teen Writing Project is an 18-year-old nonprofit in Seattle that provides therapeutic poetry programs to youth who’ve suffered childhood traumas, such as abuse and neglect. Pongo has worked with over 6,000 youth inside juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters, psychiatric hospitals, and other sites. The Pongo website features writing activities, poetry, and teacher resources.

Drinkable Book Provides Clean Water

WATERisLIFE has created the first-ever manual that teaches safe water tips and serves as a tool to kill deadly waterborne diseases, The Drinkable Book. Created by Chemist Dr. Thersea Dankovich, the text of the book is been printed with food-grade inks that teach safe water habits and are printed on technologically advance filter paper capable of killing water-born diseases. Each page can provide someone with up to 30 days of clean water, and each book with up to 4 years of clean water.

2013 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize Winners

The Spring 2014 issue of The Missouri Review features the winners of the 2013 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize:

Fiction
Melissa Yancy: “Consider this Case”

Essay
Dave Zoby: “Cafe Misfit”

Poetry
Kai Carlson-Wee: 5 poems

“Kai Carlson-Wee, focuses on the gritty, visceral details of growing up on the West Coast as two brothers scavenge grocery store Dumpsters, dead rats rot in an alley and a severed head is found in a playground,” writes Speer Morgan in the foreword. “Carlson-Wee expands moments of growing up into a larger contemplation of the human condition, including our desire for transcendence despite our physical limitations and time’s inevitable passing.”

Nano Fiction Celebrates Short Story Month

The editors of NANO Fiction ask you to join in celebrating National Short Story Month by getting your  flash on! Visit the NANO Fiction website each day for a new writing prompt, some of which will be linked to a selection of editors’ favorites published in NANO Fiction. At the close of the month, NANO will re-release the prompts along with their linked stories with a dozen never-before-seen new prompts in an anthology. The anthology can be pre-ordered – free to educators with an .edu email address (e-mail your request to them) and only $10 to others.

Redneck Noir Literature :: A Movement?

In the latest issue of The Chattahoochee Review, Ron Cooper hosts a conversation with Paul Ruffin and Eric Miles Williamson about a possible movement called “‘redneck noir,’ composed of writers strewn across the country—from the Bible Belt to the Rust Belt, from the Appalachians to the Sierra Nevada—who are from poor backgrounds and proud to write about them.” Cooper asks Williamson if he considers it a movement:

“It’s never been a movement. This has nothing to do with a bunch of–what do you want to call us?—rednecks, white trash, working poor… None of us likes any of these terms.” He explains how it has to do with the availability of higher education. At the end of WWII, people could afford to go to school under the GI Bill. “This is now ending, however,” he says. “With the defunding of state colleges and universities, tuition is no longer affordable for working-class kids. If I were eighteen today, I’d have to stay a construction worker. … The era, about fifty years, of the working-class novel, the working-class writer or artist of any sort, will be over when my generation dies.”

It’s an insightful and interesting interview, well worth the read whether you are into the genre (? movement?) or not.

Also in this issue are contest winners Jeremy Collins (nonfiction) and Alexander Weinsten (fiction) as well as work from Stephanie Powell Watts, Tori Malcangio, Michael Noll, Bipin Aurora, Jessica Piazza, Okla Elliot, and more.

May is National Short Story Month

Inspired by April’s National Poetry Month and thanks to the StoryADay in May writing challenge, May has started to become identified with the short story. This is now the second year of an organized International Short Story Month. Visit Short Story Month website for ideas on how to celebrate this month as a writer, publisher, teacher, librarian, bookseller; resources for finding short stories to read; listing your own story sources. You can also find follow the #ShortReads hashtag on Twitter (started by publisher AAKnopf) and sign up for the mailing list to receive all the news about International Short Story Month. “And most of all, read a great story today.”

American Life in Poetry :: Jeanie Greensfelder

American Life in Poetry: Column 477
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

When a poem has a strong story to tell, the simplest and most direct language is often the best choice because the poet may not want literary effects to get in the way of the message. Here’s a good example of straightforward language used to maximum effectiveness by Jeanie Greensfelder, who lives in California.

Sixth Grade

We didn’t like each other,
but Lynn’s mother had died,
and my father had died.

Lynn’s father didn’t know how to talk to her,
my mother didn’t know how to talk to me,
and Lynn and I didn’t know how to talk either.

A secret game drew us close:
we took turns being the prisoner,
who stood, hands held behind her back,

while the captor, using an imaginary bow,
shot arrow after arrow after arrow
into the prisoner’s heart.

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 © 2012 by Jeanie Greensfelder from her most recent book of poems, Biting the Apple, published by Penciled In, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Jeanie Greensfelder and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 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. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Poetry Northwest – Fall/Winter 2013/2014

If you read only one issue of a literary magazine this year, let it be this issue of Poetry Northwest, if only to read Stanley Plumly’s gorgeous essay “The End of Keats.” Plumly writes with gentle reverence of the poet who famously died too young, in poverty and failure. Plumly’s writing kept me reading to the end of Keats’ life, and I learned so much. At the end of the piece, Plumly shares his view of Keats’s short life and painful death and writes that the tragedy “lies in the not knowing; or worse, knowing the wrong thing.” He goes on to say that “that is true for most of us: we never know, we never really know the long consequences.” This theme runs through the essay and through many of the poems in the magazine that also deal with truth and the experience of dying and how the living deal with it all. In many of the poems in this issue narrators speak to lost loved ones in sadness and in hindsight at what might have been missed in lives ended too soon. Plumly’s essay is a perfect ending to this issue that deals with endings. Continue reading “Poetry Northwest – Fall/Winter 2013/2014”

Cave Wall – Fall 2013

The editor’s note in the latest issue of Cave Wall focuses heavily on the idea of time. The way it shifts all around us in an amorphous cloud, it seems that all we really have to hang onto is the moment right in front of us, to the beauty or pain of each experience as it happens. Memory, growth, and understanding come into play throughout, making for a quick read that’s both relatable and stirring. Continue reading “Cave Wall – Fall 2013”

Southern Humanities Review – Fall 2013

The Southern Humanities Review, published at Auburn University and affiliated with the Southern Humanities Council, is a humanities journal with a Southern flavor, not a review of the humanities in the South. This means it publishes fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews that may or may not be anchored in Southern culture. For example, the lead piece, an essay by James Braziel titled “The Ballad of JD,” is set in Georgia and Alabama and is rich in down-home, colloquial language and detail. “I’ve seen him drinking Thunderbird before, what we call hog liquor back home because it smells like a pig farm and gasoline and faintly of overripe oranges,” he reports of a man who has nearly burned himself up in an apartment fire. JD, the title character, works at the pulpwood yard and sometimes at loading watermelons badly, a nobody whose anonymous, hard life makes him, paradoxically, memorable. To tell his story, Braziel takes the long way around, making the side trips as important as the destination, the way Southerners do. So the essay is both set in the South and is Southern in its delivery. Continue reading “Southern Humanities Review – Fall 2013”

Columbia Poetry Review – 2013

When you read the 2013 issue of Columbia Poetry Review, sink into a comfortable chair without distraction and be willing to spend time with imagery that stimulates and verse that reconsiders how we define poetry and its evolution. If you are like me, you’ll want to read this issue a number of times to return to images that intrigue, disturb, or entice in poems structured and unstructured, evocative of surrealism in its almost purest form. Continue reading “Columbia Poetry Review – 2013”

Story – 2014

The inaugural issue of this stellar new litmag “devoted to stories of all kinds, focusing on a single theme each issue” is a double steal. To access Side B from Side A, readers have to turn the volume (the same size and shape as The Believer and Creative Nonfiction, two similarly innovative mags) over and upside-down. In either side, said reader will find herself “innovated” and turned more than a bit upside down, on purpose and with undeniable, delighted affirmation. I can imagine a cadre of new readers sitting around a table drinking wine and rehashing this issue with high gratification deep into the night. Continue reading “Story – 2014”

Court Green – 2014

Journals published annually like Columbia College of Chicago’s Court Green find themselves in the unenviable position of trying to capture and sustain a reader’s good will and attention during the long wait between issues. Court Green makes all this look easy, staying fresh in mind on the strength of its lively, unpretentious poetry and the unique artifact its editors create with each issue’s “dossier” on a special theme or topic. This year’s “dossier” on New York School poet James Schuyler, which takes up roughly half of the issue, truly harnesses the unique potential of the format, drawing together poetic homage, letters, photographs, flyers, the reflections of associates and admirers, as well as a small selection of Schuyler’s uncollected poems. This enigmatic bundle paired with over one hundred pages of new poems by an array of established and idiosyncratic poets is sure to demand prime coffee table real estate in perpetuity. Continue reading “Court Green – 2014”

subTerrain – Spring 2014

subterrain-n66-.jpg

Subterrain

Volume 7 Number 66

Spring 2014

Review by Sherra Wong

subTerrain has a youthful feel. But rather than the ages of the characters or speakers themselves, the feeling is borne more of a sense of dislocation and disorientation. Even when they are seen in an adult habitat—job, relationship, a rhythm that most of the over-25 set settle into—the bleakness, the weirdness, and the whimsy in these pieces recall an eighteen or twenty-two-year-old’s fantasy of what life may turn out to be like down the road, if they remain on the edge of convention either internally or in society and haven’t become more content than they are now. Perhaps the fantastic and the rootlessness are a product of the issue’s theme, “This Carnival Life,” which throws up and tears down an entire mesmerizing world in the space of a few days. And true to the chaos in a carnival, subTerrain isn’t interested in tidy structures. The stories end abruptly, the poems demand considerable powers of association from the reader, the commentary can take leaps of logic, and the book reviews sometimes grope unsuccessfully for the right word. Yet the talent of these writers is evident; the skill they have for creating worlds is a promise for greater things to come.

Continue reading “subTerrain – Spring 2014”

Creative Nonfiction – Spring 2014

Writers for this issue were asked to tackle the subject of “Human Face of Sustainability.” It was a widely interpreted phrase, as proven by the included interview and ten essays. Individual subjects range from cancer-causing carcinogens and their effects on both children and our ecosystem (“Acts of Courage” by Mary Heather Noble), to a bicyclist’s perspective on individual activism (“Trapped” by Sarah Gilbert), to how one of the poorest cities in America is working on changing for the better (“Iyabo is Yoruba for ‘The Mother Has Returned’” by Amy Hassinger). Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction – Spring 2014”

1966 – Spring 2014

If Miya Pleines’s “These Orbits, Crossing” is the first thing you read from 1966 (it’s the first piece in this issue), I promise you’ll continue on. Mixing research about flying and falling, alongside memories of her grandfather, Pleines crafts an essay that isn’t just a memoir; it connects to all of us: Continue reading “1966 – Spring 2014”

Denver Quarterly – 2014

Unlike most literary journals, which separate their content into specific genres, the Denver Quarterly has a much simpler table of contents. The writing in this journal is lumped into two categories: “Work” and “Conversation.” The content of the “Work” section is creative work, e.g. prose and poetry, while the “Conversation” section consists of interviews, critical passages, and the like. Continue reading “Denver Quarterly – 2014”

The Fiddlehead – Winter 2014

The Winter 2014 issue of Fiddlehead turns on moments of awareness of awareness, capturing the instants we catch ourselves catching ourselves, revelations of self to self, to the reader, and to other characters. It’s charming, this subtle focus moving from piece to piece, from poem to prose to poem to poem, and the sequence suggests this international journal from the University of New Brunswick is edited with precision. Continue reading “The Fiddlehead – Winter 2014”

Glass – January 2014

It is with sad hearts that the editors announce that this will be the last issue of Glass: “We love Glass but we must acknowledge the amount of work it takes to keep it going,” they write. It’s always sad to see magazines fold, but I’m glad that they are making the effort to keep all the past issues accessible: “we want to make our commitment to our poets clear: we will make sure your work stays published and stays available for your readers.” Continue reading “Glass – January 2014”

Green Blotter – 2013

The slim, 8×8 format of Green Blotter was what first attracted me to this publication. It is some kind of revival publication of the Green Blotter Literacy Society of Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania. I wish I knew more about its history, but despite nearly four pages of separate editorial commentary from two co-editors-in-chief, readers outside of the community will be equally at a loss. I consider myself a connoisseur of editorials (as one editor to another), but these four pages could have been better devoted to a combined effort of a page, personal thanks on a dedication page, and some more solid information for readers about what this is as a publication with some history. Given the fact that this takes up 10%+ of the writing space in the publication, it deserves comment. Continue reading “Green Blotter – 2013”

Hunger Mountain – Winter 2013/2014

Hunger Mountain announces itself quietly. The cover looks like a mixture of a chess piece and a road map. Reading the issue’s first poem, Annie Lighthart’s “White Barn”, prepares me for pieces featuring a home on the range, or of lives lived under a guise of simple lives and simple times. There are no flashy mechanics to the journal itself—the art is in black and white, the poetry and fiction well-worded and sometimes blunt, and the creative nonfiction as well as the young adult offerings all carry voices frank and honest. Fiction editor Barry Wightman even states it in his foreword letter: “You may ask yourself, ‘what’s this all about?’ . . . Horses. Horses. Horses. Horses.” I was prepared for horses. But what I received was much more than that. Continue reading “Hunger Mountain – Winter 2013/2014”

New Orleans Review – 2014

Do dimensions matter? Most literary journals are considerably taller than they are wide, often in the 6 by 9-inch range. The New Orleans Review is a compact 5-3/4 by 6-3/4 inches. For this reader, the size has a focusing effect that magnifies the significance of the words, for better or worse. Also as a result of size there are only seven offerings therein, perhaps a budgetary decision, but in any case one that channels attention towards the text. Two short stories, conventional in structure but not in their degree of excellence, contend with five pieces that variously blur the lines between poetry, prose poems, fiction, and essay. Continue reading “New Orleans Review – 2014”

Alaska Quarterly Review – Spring/Summer 2014

Good grief, literally. Don’t let the vibrancy of those yellow umbrellas on the cover lull you into a state of blissful aesthetic appreciation; a hard rain’s gonna fall. The short stories, nonfiction, and poetry in the Alaska Quarterly Review’s (AQR) latest issue are soaked with serious consequence, with writers delving into the subjects of madness, financial distress, war, disease, alcoholism, and plain old existential funk. Only the writers’ leavening of such heavy subject matter with great humor, insight, and tart individuality kept me from developing a low-grade Zoloft habit while making my way through the 300-plus pages of this literary squall. Continue reading “Alaska Quarterly Review – Spring/Summer 2014”

Off the Coast – Winter 2014

This issue of Off the Coast carries a cover theme of “Ice Fishing,” but I am under the firm belief that was somebody’s joke to play on an outdoorsman like myself. Luckily, I really enjoy poetry, and this issue contains 41 poetic offerings for readers to peruse. None of them deal with the directive of “Ice Fishing,” but for a bad pun laced with reality, I will say that the issue felt to be casting about a bit. Continue reading “Off the Coast – Winter 2014”

The American Poetry Review- March/April 2014

The name Donald Sterling underlines an un-sterling moment in ‘post-racial’ America, delivered in sound bites that, in many ways, reveal sensibilities lurking beneath the ‘post’ in post-racial. Sterling’s girlfriend or personal assistant, V. Stiviano, was the messenger, thanks to mobile devices that heighten our desire to spy on intimate conversations. Indeed, Stiviano had the ball; and then came the slam-dunk that catapulted the message to first-class scandal. Soon, race as topic of discussions and conversations in living rooms and social media is on center stage once again, quietly intrusive, at times, to a point where it taints the spirit of any material you’re reading in the context of race. Continue reading “The American Poetry Review- March/April 2014”

Flood-Dispersed Books Become Art

Photos from artist Micah Bloom’s Codex project (“involves film, photography, and installation”) is included in Ruminate‘s Spring 2014 issue. I encourage you to take a look as his artwork will hit the souls of any writer or reader. ” In an artist’s note he writes about how growing up, his family instilled in him a certain respect for books: “In our home, books were elevated in the hierarchy of objects; in their nature, deemed closer to humans than furniture, knickknacks, or clothing. Under these impressions I was forced into this relatinship with displaced books.” His work uses the books that were “strewn in streets, across roadways, along railroad tracks” after the Souris River ravaged Minot, North Dakota in June of 2011. “These books were vessels—surrogates of human soul, these shelters—housing our heritage—displaced, now driven over by boomtown commuters and shredded by oil tankers on their way from the Bakken oil fields. It was this surreal situation that stirred me to alter the fate of these books.”

And although I truly wish more information about the actual art rendering was including, it’s a pleasure just to flip through the pages. You can find a little more information by watching their (already funded) kickstart video.

The Briar Cliff Review Awards

The 2014 issue of The Briar Cliff Review marks another year for its contest winners. Here are the first prize winners with a short quote from their work (which can be found inside the issue):

Fiction Contest Winner
Leslie Kirk Campbell: “Thunder in Illinois”
   
   “He’s not a gambler but he’s made his own secret bet. If he wins, he won’t need to go back to Bangkok. If he loses, well, his bag is still packed.
     ‘What did you say, Lenny?’
     ‘I said I can die as soon as I get more points that you, dear. And I’m a hair’s breadth away from that moment.'”

Nonfiction Contest Winner
JLSchneider: “Call Me T

Fiction Issue :: The Southampton Review

The newest issue of The Southampton Review is a special fiction issue. To conclude the editor’s note, Lou Ann Walker writes, “This fiction issue, edited by Susan Scarf Merrell, is devoted to the obsessive myopic passion of all artists, and particularly novelists and short story writers. ‘…because,’ as Luthi notes, ‘a writing life can help it all make sense.” And Merrell writes in her note that “As you page through this fiction issue of TSR, you will find a wide variety of storytelling styles . . . Famous writers and young students appear here, grappling with the questions that most interest and concern them . . . Funny, sad, painful; experimental, traditional, flash—no matter what form the stories here take, or what tales the authors choose to tell, each one has truth at the core of its created world.”

The issue starts its fiction with Edwidge Danticat and “Je Voudrais Etre Riche: A Trickster Tale.” Here’s how it begins so that you can get a taste: “It was too good not to be true. Two women. One black. One white. One old. One young. The young black one, pregnant, with a slightly shrieking wailing voice. The old white one hunched over under a red, ankle-length coat, and a fog of white hair creep out under a crocheted mauve beret.

Rhino Contest Winners

The new Rhino announces and publishes the winners of their 2014 contests.

2014 Founders’ Prize
Winner
Jose Antonio Rodriguez – “Poem in honor of the one-year anniversary of my sister Aleida’s death, which is five days away”

Runners-up
MaryJo Thompson – “Body Breakers”
Adam Scheffler – “Americas”

2014 Editors’ Prizes
First Prize
Brandon Krieg – “Comedy of Mirrors”

Second Prize
P. Scott Cunningham – “Planet Earth”

Honorable Mentions
C. Ann Kodra – “Dowsing”
Octavio Quintanilla – “Tell Them Love is Found”

2014 Switcheroo Winner

The Broadside Press annual Switcheroo poetry winner is “Disappear” by Philip Schaefer, whose work has been matched with the artwork “Another Portal” by Maura Cunningham. The broadside is available for free, full-color download from the Broadsided website. Public posting encouraged! Finalist “Before Man” by Lauren Wolk is also available for reading on the website.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

The artwork on the latest issue of Phoebe is by Jaime Bennati, an artist who “makes the viewer question our relationship to things we keep and discard daily” by using materials often overlooked. The center of the issue features more of her work as well as a self-written how-to guide so you can try a piece of your own. Her included collection comes from using bus tickets that were discarded. “On average about 200,000 were discarded per day.” As a person who makes jewelry out of discarded materials, I’m intensely interested in her work.

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The Fall 2013 issue of Kestrel features artwork by Julie Anne Struck titled A Story which is photo transfer, ink, collage, and colored pencil on panel. It’s great to look at up close. Struck “has always touched upon and explored anything that illustrates her interest in dissolving boundaries and celebrating connections between fine art, design, writing, and other creative disciplines.” More of her work is featured in full color inside the issue.

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Not only are the colors and the actual skill of this cover art for Ruminate fascinating, but Sarah Megan Jenkins’s Jean Lafitte Swamp (acrylic and mixed media) feels like today in Michigan. The trees are gloomy, the world looks sad after a harsh, long winter, but the sun is coming up and there’s hope on the horizon.

Poetastic Wants Your Poetry Video Recording

Poetastic is a new poetry website curating “transformative video recordings of poetry readings.” The video submissions are of reciters reading and recording themselves reciting other people’s poetry, transforming meaning for the listener/viewer.

Poetastic is a project created by Harrod J Suarez, Assistant Professor of English at Oberlin College, but in terms of this project, it “is best understood as a category comprised of a legion of collaborators, contributors, and co-conspirators.” Submissions are accepted on a rolling deadline.

Poetastic provides guidelines for recording as well as resources for finding poems to read and record. Participants must be at least 18 years old.

Celebrating William Stafford at 100

Guest Editor Israel Wasserstein puts forth North Dakota Quarterly‘s newest issue that celebrates William Stafford at 100. “Stafford’s poems stayed with me in their quiet resolve, and their commitment to his values, to the elegance of plain speech, and to finding that which is holy in one’s experience,” writes Wasserstein. “All of which to say, when the opportunity arose to edit he William Stafford Celebration issue . . . I was thrilled.” As a closing note, he writes, “I hope that you will find in these pages proof of the continuing relevance of Stafford’s words and life, and of the powerful, moving, and diverse work being done by those whom he has influenced. I hope that you will find these remarkable works celebratory, even when they face tragedy and loss, even when they are at their most serious.”

The issue itself features work from Paulann Petersen, Regina and Tim Gort, Jeff Gundy, Philip Metres, Fred Whitehead, Richard Levine, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Mark Dudley, Abayomi Animashaun, Linda Whittenberg, Karin L. Frank, Meg Hutchinson, and so many more.

New Traveling Midwestern Podcast Series

Founded in 2012 by Grant Garland, Middle Literate is a traveling reading series, in the form of a podcast, which features literary work that stays true to the Midwestern state-of-mind and effectively represents the intricacies of the people who call the Great Plains home. The recording quality is good with occasional music which adds a nice transitional touch without being overbearing. Garland has a relaxed, friendly approach, and overall, the recordings are something that could be listened to at the desk or on the road.

Inspired by radio shows and podcasts, like This American Life, Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me, and You Wrote The Book, Middle Literate Middle Literate episodes thus far include:

Episode 1 “Happiness” features “A Girl Named Mercedes,” a story about the elusive “happy ending” by John Rubins, an award winning instructor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I started by listening to this one, just to try out the sound quality, but Rubins premise for his story hooked me and kept me listening (yes, with a smile on my face).

Episode 2 “Nothing is Extinct”: Middle Literate travels to Monmouth, IL to visit with writer Chad Simpson in his hometown, reading stories from his award winning collection Tell Everyone I Said Hi.

Episode 3 “Rule of Three”: In Bloomington, Indiana, Middle Literate hears poetry from Scott Fenton, Brianna Low, and Paul Asta, three MFA students at Indiana University.

Most notably, Middle Literate was the spearhead for the “They Hardly Knew Us” reading series, a series dedicated to showcasing the work of prospective MFA students from the University of Illinois. Readers included David Ethan Chambers, Emily Penn, Dan Klen, Paul Asta, Ethan Madarieta, and Bryan Bachman.

Middle Lieterate reading period is December 1 to September 1. Work from writers at any point in their literary careers is welcomed. ML accepts simultaneous submissions, as well as previously published work.

2014 Shortlist of The International Prize for Arabic Fiction

The latest issue of Banipal features excerpts from the novels of the 2014 shortlist for The International Prize for Arabic Fiction:

Inaam Kachachi – Tashari
Abdelrahim Lahbibi – The Journeys of ’Abdi, known as Son of Al-Hamriyah
Khaled Khalifa – No Knives in this City’s Kitchens
Youssef Fadel – A Rare Blue Bird that Flies with Me
Ahmed Saadawi – Frankenstein in Baghdad
Ahmed Mourad – The Blue Elephant

Read more about the authors and the issue itself here.

The Masters Review 2014 Shortlist

Congratulations to all writers that have made The Masters Review 2014 Shortlist which honors the top 2% of all stories reviewed. “At this time our guest judge, Lev Grossman, is reviewing stories and will select the top ten to be published in our anthology,” write the editors of The Masters Review. The final announcement will be made no later than May 15.

“Fisherman’s Band-Aid” – Alexander Papoulias
“Lynx” – Alice Otto
“Bury Me” – Allegra Hyde
“Braids” – Amanda Pauley
“Finders Keepers” – Andrew Cothren
“The Turk” – Andrew MacDonald
“Picketers” – Blake Kimzey
“Cleaning Lessons” – Cannon Roberts
“Every Thing You Never Said” – Courtney Kersten
“Someone Else” – Diana Xin
“The Behemoth” – Drew Ciccolo
“Go Down, Diller” – Eric Howerton
“Whit Vickers, The Pitcher Who Lost His Stuff” – Ezra Carlsen
“Objects in Transit” – Heather Dundas
“We Welcome All Sorts” – Heather Lefebvre
“Moonshot, 2003” – Jake Wolff
“Magicicada” – Jeffrey Otte
“County Maps” – Joe Worthen
“Tiny Little Teeth” – Justine McNulty
“dissolving newspaper, fermenting leaves” – Kiik AK
“Parade” – Laura Willwerth
“Lullwater” – Lena Valencia
“Strange Trajectories” – Lindsay D’Andrea
“Rivers” – Liz Knight
“Contrition” – Mallory McMahon
“Custody” – Maya Perez
“Electronic Heads” – Meng Jin
“Birmingham Goddam” – Scott Latta
“OpFor (Oppositional Force)” – Shane Collins
“Allure of The Sea” – Tatyana Kagamas

To see this list and the honorable mentions, please click here.

Graphic Journalism :: Women’s International Labor

In August of 2013, the independent news publication Truthout‘s graphic journalism column Ladydrawers began a yearlong investigation into women’s international labor, primarily through the global garment and sex trades. It began with fashion (“Fast Fashion”) as “one of the largest employer of women worldwide as well as one of most significant ways through which sexuality is expressed, in the US and around the world. Fast fashion, in particular: cheap, cute, disposable threads on which we spend about $1,700 per year.”

Other columns in this series include: “Thin Line Between Garment and Sex ‘Trades'” (Anne Elizabeth Moore, Ellen Lindner and Melissa Gira Grant); “It’s the Money, Honey” (Anne Elizabeth Moore and Ellen Lindner); “A Very Small Satisfaction”: An interview with Oscar-Nominated Rithy Panh on Cambodia’s Missing Pictures (Anne Elizabeth Moore); “The Business of Thrift” (Anne Elizabeth Moore and Julia Gfr

The FiddleHead’s 23rd Annual Literary Contest

The new (Spring 2014) issue of The Fiddlehead features the winners of its 23rd Annual Literary Contest:

Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize:
Kayla Czaga, “That Great Burgundy-Upholstered Beacon of Dependability”

Poetry Honourable Mentions:
Kyeren Regehr, “Dorm Room 214”
Maureen Hynes, “Stone Sonnet”

Short Ficiton First Prize:
Myler Wilkinson, “The Blood of Slaves”

Fiction Honourable Mention:
Jill Widner, “When Stars Fell Like Salt Before the Revolution”
Wayde Compton, “The Front: A Selected Reverse-Chronological Annotated Bibliography of the Vancouver Art Movement Known as ‘Rentalism,’ 2011-1984”

Editor Wanted for TETYC

NCTE is seeking a new editor of Teaching English in the Two-Year College. In May 2016, the term of the present editor, Jeff Sommers, will end. Interested persons should send a letter of application to be received no later than December 15, 2014. Letters should include the applicant’s vision for the journal and be accompanied by the applicant’s vita, one sample of published writing (article or chapter), and two letters specifying financial support from appropriate administrators at the applicant’s institution. Applicants are urged to explore with their administrators the feasibility of assuming the responsibilities of a journal editorship.

Glimmer Train Short Story Award Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their February Short Story Award for New Writers. This competition is held quarterly 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 May. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to Melanie Lefkowitz of Ithaca, NY. [Photo credit: Chelsea Fausel.] She wins $1500 for “The Mango” and her story will be published in Issue 94 of Glimmer Train Stories. This is Melanie’s first fiction publication.

2nd place goes to Kathleen Boyle of San Francisco, CA. She wins $500 for “Burial Rites of Northern Italians.”

3rd place goes to Olivia Postelli of Ann Arbor, MI. She wins $300 for “In the Glow.”

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

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

The overall style of Santa Monica Review isn’t particularly striking, but the image they selected for this Spring 2014 issue is. There’s something about the young girl’s eyes and the way the black lamb just gently rests in her arms, not trying to get away, that makes it hard to look away. The piece is by Deborah Davidson titled Leaving Home.

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The cover of the latest North Dakota Quarterly is James Bassler’s Rib Shield, painted silk wrap, woven, cut, and sewn. “In the 1980s his work underwent a dramatic change after his exposure to the Navajo wedge weaving process and the art of John Cage.” You really have to see it up close to appreciate it as you should—I’d love to see it in person!

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The image on Poetry‘s May 2014 issue takes over the cover. It’s titled “Torch” and is done by Kate McQuillen as part of her collection called Body Scans. See more here.