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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!

Notre Dame Review – Winter/Spring 2014

“What’s Up?” is the title of this issue; on Robert Kareka’s cover, “Muddy Feet” are up, waving around in beachy air. But a lot more is up, too. Most of the time, the appeal of literature is its pointing beyond itself, like a Zen finger, to the “world under the world.” Language’s gaps and leaps, the cumulative sound and meaning of particular arrangements of words, lead us past mere materiality into the reality behind it, so that we close the pages transported and enlarged, though we couldn’t put our finger on the exact paragraph that did the trick. Continue reading “Notre Dame Review – Winter/Spring 2014”

Raleigh Review – 2014

The mission statement of Raleigh Review reads, “We believe fine art should challenge as well as entertain.” While many of the pieces in this issue fit the description of traditional poetry and prose, there are significant pieces of work that do indeed “challenge as well as entertain.” Throughout the journal, again and again we are presented with imagery in a modern style that drives the pace in bursts of short statements and thoughtful comments that ask to be revisited. Continue reading “Raleigh Review – 2014”

Redactions – 2013

Poetry takes many forms, and this issue of Redactions is a stark reminder for me that I just don’t “get” some of those forms. I did run across several bits of writing worth investigating with more depth, but for the most part I was left grasping for meaning. All 26 poets represented should be commended for the hard work which they have had accepted, but readers need to know that this issue is more challenging than casual perusal, and I found very few moments of slack-jawed inspiration. Much like some of the grueling pages I had to go through in my graduate program, I am left feeling a stronger reader for focusing my attentions on finishing this magazine. Continue reading “Redactions – 2013”

Rip Rap Literary Journal – May 2013

Readers with an interest in the visual arts and graphic design as well as in literature will appreciate this publication. Rip Rap Literary Journal—designed and produced by students in the MFA program at California State University at Long Beach—allots generous space to bold typography and 4-color endpapers as well as individual artworks appearing throughout the volume. Physically, the journal feels and looks substantial, justifying its identity as an annual. If you are familiar with Rip Rap, you will know how to read it—at a non-linear and leisurely pace, letting yourself be surprised by what the turn of a page reveals. Continue reading “Rip Rap Literary Journal – May 2013”

ABZ – 2013

With this issue, ABZ becomes a biennial journal rather than an annual. It’s a shame it will come out less often, because the poems here arise out of deep feeling, place, and lived experience. They are about things that matter. No wonder the volume is dedicated to the memory of Lucille Clifton “who always knew how to make poetry even when it hurt.” Continue reading “ABZ – 2013”

Saw Palm – Spring 2014

Physically built like a monograph from the City Lights Pocket Poet series, Saw Palm weighs approximately 5 oz., literally, with a figurative weight of so much peninsula, so much history that the Atlantic can deliver against the Florida shoreline. The book is preciously constructed, and the contents arresting, dedicated with precision to the literature and art of the state, its denizens and diaspora. Unlike other journals, where metaphor can wheel the reader away from the centrality of theme or place, this issue is a very strong representation of what perceptions and realities a writer might assign to place. It is a great work of editorial cohesion in that the work inside all relates to Florida—even in some unexpected ways. Continue reading “Saw Palm – Spring 2014”

apt – 2014

According to neuroscientists at the University of Florida, lobsters may be the key to bomb detection. In other words, reality is fast approaching the fantastic, so for the modern surrealist to distinguish herself, she must court the right sound in the right place with the right pitch and endless imagination. The right place just might be apt, a publication of Aforementioned Productions. Continue reading “apt – 2014”

Beloit Poetry Journal – Winter 2013/2014

This issue of Beloit Poetry Journal is chock-full of powerful poems with interesting word presentations. Eleven authors contributed fourteen individual pieces to a short, impactful magazine. Editor Lee Sharkey rounds out the volume with an interesting article in the Books in Review section titled “Poems in Conversation.” Of the many ways to write and present poetry, I agree with Sharkey that some of the best are mobile selections “spanning time and cultures in a spirit of reciprocity.” Snapshots of instances are often most celebrated as successful pieces of work in the literary world, but our current society is in constant motion and its best poetry should be appreciated for moving in that direction. Continue reading “Beloit Poetry Journal – Winter 2013/2014”

Alimentum YUM! Menu Poems

Alimentum: The Literature of Food online journal celebrate National Poetry Month each year with MENUPOEMS. This year, poets include Esther Cohen, Oded Halahmy, Dania Rajendra, Miriam Halahmy, Tony Fallon, Dean Lavin, Margaret Waldhelm, Lois Vendon, and Linda Larson.

While you’re there, check out this page of Recipe Poems, where, as a fan of pho, I discovered Kelly Morse’s poem “Phở bò Hà Nội” which she notes was inspired by a pho shop in Hanoi, Vietnam named Phở Thìn 13 Lò Đúc. Morse provides a narrative on her experience, and some great history on this culinary staple. You can’t help but salivate to read it:

Add a spoonful of tiny red chilis, and garlic,
fatly diced in their vinegars.
With spoon and chopsticks together give a heave

to the mass of white noodles and flip like an omelet,
dragging up from below the fresh herbs hidden in the inner curve.

YUM!

Guerrilla Poetry

Ah, spring has (almost) returned to Michigan. The NewPages CEO and second-in-command have enjoyed our first “porch beer” – albeit wearing layered sweatshirts. Still, the sun is shining, the spring rains and the hurricane winds are reduced to intermittent. Time to get back to postering poetry around the city. A staple gun and a backpack filled with a variety of poems, my dog as cover (just a lady out walking her dog…), I staple up poems to utility poles along my route.

Of course, poems can come from any source, but I try to keep them short enough to be read quickly, one page with large font, or if it’s longer, eye-catching helps (like the Broadsided Press monthly vector poems). I also try to maintain some sensibility for the fact that kids may be reading these, so try to make them “safe” as well as appealing. Can’t hit every audience, but when postering near the schools or parks, I tend more for those kid-friendly poems.

One year, on Memorial Day, I noticed youthful handwriting on a posting and saw that some neighborhood kids had written their own poems honoring local troops and tacked them up where I had been posting poems. Pretty darn cool. Guerrilla poetry works. Try it yourself! Staple gun. Poems. Go!

[Pictured: “The Second Fallacy.” Poem by C. Dale Young; Art by Amy Meissner; Design by Debbie Nadolney. Broadsided April 1, 2014.]

Buy This Man a Shirt! Please!

Our buddy M. Scott Douglass at Main Street Rag has an invitational for readers and Harley fans alike. He is a MAJOR collector of Harley-Davidson t-shirts. Apparently, THE t-shirt is a big deal among fans… So, buy Scott a Harley t-shirt from your local Harley shop (around $30), send it to him, and he’ll give you a two-year subscription to Main Street Rag (worth $45).

Specs from Scott: “Must be a short sleeve t-shirt, XL, color… I’m not a brown or pink kinda guy, black is always good, but I have a lot of those already as well as a lot of orange–one of Harley’s other colors. I don’t have any bright yellow or cream–lighter colors like baby blue or light green–but almost any color is cool. Here’s where I get prissy: I prefer only one or two colors on the back. Harley dealerships customize the backs to advertise themselves. A lot of them do a full color display of some unique image–often significant to the region. Full color means a lot of lay down of ink, vinyl screen printing ink, as many as five layers (if you are printing on black). I plan to wear every one of these shirts at some point. Do you know how heavy four layers vinyl color gets when riding in the hot Carolina sun? One color is cooler, easier to read, AND cheaper. And one more thing: My wife would frown on me wearing one with scantily clad women with big boobs, so please avoid those. I’m traditionalist. I like the variety of crests and logos Harley offers, wings and bars and even an occasional skull.”

There you have it: Buy Scott a Harley Davidson dealer t-shirt from your local HD dealership. Mail it to him at Main Street Rag, PO BOX 690100, Charlotte, NC 28227-7001 and earn a 2-year subscription worth $45.

Radio Silence :: New Digital Editions

Radio Silence, the somewhat new, print “magazine of literature and rock & roll” (which by the way also raises money to buy books and musical instruments for kids), has released a new monthly digital edition, which started in February. You can read the first issue for free here. And from there you can decide to subscribe for a yearly cost of $29.99 or purchase individual issues for $2.99 each. The issues are available to read on phones, tablets, and desktops.

2014 Dartmouth Poet in Residence

In March, The Frost Place (a nonprofit arts organization and museum established to honor the legacy of Robert Forst and encourage the creation and appreciate of poems) announced the 2014 Dartmouth Poet in Residence at the Frost Place: Rebecca Foust.

Here’s a description from the press release: “Every year, a poet is selected from a group of applicants based on the quality of her/his work to live and work in the historic house where Robert Frost lived from 1915 – 1920. In 2011, The Frost Place and Dartmouth College honored their shared connections with Robert Frost by renaming the residency program The Dartmouth Poet in Residence at The Frost Place.”

This from Rebecca Foust: “My goal is deep work, the kind a writer can do only in an atmosphere both free of distraction and full with inspiration and hope. The ability to spend such a substantial block of time immersed in reading and writing is, by itself, of great practical value. In the privacy, beauty and inspiration of this unique setting, I plan to re-read Frost’s poems and essays while writing new ones of my own. I also hope to make progress on my next book manuscript. Finally, I am happy for the chance to live, work, and do readings in New England.”

Read more about it here.

MFA at University of Massachusetts-Amherst Celebrates 50 Years :: Special Issue of MR

To celebrate the 50th year anniversary of the MFA program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, The Massachusetts Review released a special issue featuring some of the “remarkable writers who have graduated from the program,” which include Mira Bartok, Valerie Martin, Domenic Stansberry, Gillian Conoley, Matthew Zaprunder, James Haug, Ellen Dore Watson, and more.

In an introduction to the issue Editor John Emil Vincent writes, “We ourselves have attempted a little revisiting of our usual format—we actively sought and happily found longer poems, two lovelies from Gillian Conoley and Brian Baldi in particular—but also generally solicited works in clusters. The hope is to create a novel texture for our special issue, one up to exploring the pleasures and peculiarities of duration.

Youth & Poetry & Activism

Featured on the PBS NewsHour program The Poetry Series, three poets in Richmond, California teamed up with the Off/Page Project to bring a spotlight to deplorable public housing conditions in a video report “This is Home.” Off/Page Project combines efforts with The Center for Investigative Reporting and the literary non-profit Youth Speaks. Their collaborative work actively engages youth in civic issues through the use of a multi-media platform.

Other issues investigated by Off/Page Project include “Whispers from the Field,” about sexual abuse suffered by migrant women field laborers (written and performed by Monica Mendoza and available in English and Spanish); “Broken City Poets” focusing on Stockton, California – and what happens to the youth in a town declaring bankruptcy (“Poetry is a way to express myself without violence,” one young woman comments).

Glimmer Train January Very Short Fiction Winners :: 2014

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their January Very Short Fiction competition. This quarterly competition is open to all writers for stories with a word count not exceeding 3000. No theme restrictions. The next Very Short Fiction competition will take place in April. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Lee Montgomery [pictured], of Portland, OR, wins $1500 for “Window.” Her story will be published in Issue 93 of Glimmer Train Stories.

Second place: Calvin Haul, of Salt Lake City, UT, wins $500 for “The World Within Reach.”

Third place: Auguste Budhram, of Austin, TX, wins $300 for “My Father’s Vacation.”

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

What is Story?

Story magazine, like a story passed on over time, has evolved. It started in 1931, lasting until 1964, as “the most important literary short fiction publication, founding editors Martha Foley and Whit Burnett discovering and publishing … storytelling greats,” write Vito Grippi and Travis Kurowski. Then it was revived by Lois Rosenthal, running from 1989 to 2000. Now, it’s in the hands of Kurowski and Grippi: “As great as the original Story was, we don’t want to recreate that magazine; though short fiction holds a singular place in contemporary letters, our net is wider. We hope for a diversity of narrative mirroring our contemporary, transnational lives: memoirs, interviews, superhero poetry, sci-fi, case studies, maps, machines.”

The first issue under their reign is double-sided, with two different covers and two different sets of writing. Side A features work from Andrew Malan Milward, Mary Miller, K. Silem Mohammad, Tao Lin, and Marinaomi, and Side B’s cover boasts “Hand Models Run Amok!” and “Family Caught Hiding Dreamers!” and “New Gadgets to Hook up? Jim Shepard Tells All!” It’s hard to believe it’s only 8 bucks. And if you scan the QR code inside, you’ll be taken to a page where you can download a digital copy for free.

Switcheroo! Writing Wanted

Broadsided Press is asking writers to celebrate National Poetry Month with The Switcheroo! Usually, Broadsided has artists respond to poems to create their monthly posters. For The Switcheroo! writers are asked to respond to a visual piece with poetry or prose. This art is Maura Cunningham’s “Another Portal,” and winning entries (one for each piece of art for each time they run the event) will be published on May 1, 2014 as one of the many wonderful Broadsided collaborations. The deadline is April 15, so get switchin’ – er, I mean, writing!

Online Class :: Writing translation / translating writing

Chicago School of Poetics is offering a one-day online class with with Pierre Joris. “Writing translation / translating writing” inverts the traditional relationship of original text and translated copy and reinscribes the activity of translation as core process of the act of writing. Students will be simultaneously involved with writing and with translation from a language of their choice into English in a range of forms proposed by their own practice and culture. The class runs for three hours and will be held  online, in a video-conferenced classroom, so you can attend from your own home, from anywhere in the world. Class size is limited to 10 students.

Date: April 26th, 2014
Time: 1-4 p.m. Central Time
Tuition: $250

It’s Here! National Poetry Month!

“Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now held every April, when schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets throughout the United States band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.”

Visit POETS.ORG for posters, poems, ideas on how to celebrate, poem-a-day, and – my personal favorite – POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY! April 24 is Poem in Your Pocket Day – carry a poem with you, as you meet with friends, sit next to a stranger on the tram, hanging out in the grocery store line, simply pull the poem out and read it to others – Happy Poetry Month! (Seriously, I haven’t been arrested for it yet.) Poets.org provides a variety of pocket-sized poems to share.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

The Spring/Summer issue of Alaska Quarterly Review features an appropriate image for the weeks to come (at least I’m hoping for more rain and less snow): Yellow umbrellas, 2014 by Clark James Mishler.

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This cover of Room is a pastel on vellum by Cathy Daley. “Since the mid-1990s when I began the current body of work known as the dress series or dancing legs,” she writes, “my drawings have been untitled. Because I was so depicting the body and gestures of the body I wanted the work to speak through the body and a title seemed limiting. The postures and gestures in the work create meaning for the viewer through cultural associations and subjectivities.”

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The cover of Hunger Mountain‘s Winter 2013/2014 issue is by Lucinda Bliss with details from Atlas of American War Book 4: Hearts and Octopus with graphite and colored pencil on found paper.

Museum of Haiku Literature Award

The Museum of Haiku Literature Award is award to the best previously unpublished work appearing in the previous issue of Frogpond, selected by the HSA Executive Committee. In Volume 37 Number 1, Tom Tico from San Fransisco, CA is announced of the winner of the $100 for this haiku (originally published in Volume 36 Number 3):

her letter . . .
I’d forgotten
paper can cut

Poet-in-Residence Tim Bowling Contributes

In 2009, Arc Poetry Magazine started a poet-in-residence program in which the poet in question guides a number of poets through refining their craft. “This is a response to our mission to support Canadian poetry,” write Rhonda Douglas and Chris Jennings, “but also partly in response to the many submissions we receive each month that are so close, but just not yet quite ready for publication.” Tim Bowling was the poet-in-residence for 2012-2013, working with approximately 25 poets, and the latest issue of Arc (73) showcase some of Bowling’s work alongside a selection from eight of the poets he worked with: Vincent Colistro, Rod Pederson, Michelle Brown, Jordan Mounteer, Heather Davidson, Helen Marshall, Ann Graham Walker, and Jordan Tannahill.

As an introduction to the special section in the magazine, Russell Thornton writes, “Bowling’s poetry conjures a world. That world includes one of the grand rivers of Canada and the greatest salmon river on the plant, and the town of Ladner with its fishing community underlife… His rapt awareness of the concrete particulars of his actual place allows Bowling to execute poetry that is, at its most striking, complete in its interconnections, and visionary. His passion for his locale and its inhabitants lifts that locale onto the mythic level.”

Poems included from Bowling are “Christmas Near Vancouver,” “Dread,” On the Morning of New Life,” High Summer,” “High Water,” and more.

Wilkes University New Playwriting and Screenwriting MFA Degree

Wilkes University has launched a new option for an MFA program, in screenwriting and playwriting, located in Meza, Arizona. It will be a hybrid program involving both online classes and weekend classes, and the first program starts in August 2014.

“We believe there is sufficient interest in these two areas to open this new way of delivering the program on the ground in Arizona,” says Bonnie Culver, co-founder and director of the Wilkes graduate creative writing program. “We have several Los Angeles-based faculty and producers who are eager to work with us to deliver these degrees in Mesa.”

Read more about the program and upcoming workshops here.

2013 Flash Fiction Open Results

In 2013, Unstuck magazine held a Flash Fiction Open Contest, judged by Amelia Gray. The winning results are featured in issue 4 (2014) of the magazine: Emily Kiernan’s “Palinopsia” and Dennis James Sweeney’s “When He Comes Home from the War.”

Gray writes this about Kiernan’s piece: “There are a few tricks here that might grow dull employed with a bigger word count … but which sparkle nicely in a piece of this length. This is bold and surprising short work, it is arresting, and proves to me that our subject can be well known, even a little quaintly known as a piece of culture … and fine work prevails to create a thing which is wholly new. Here also lies the first footnote I’ve liked outside of Infinite Jest, which frankly deserves its own sub-prize.”

And about Sweeney’s piece, she writes, “This is a lovely, efficient piece and perfectly presents outright danger in the post-trauma mundane. This is a story that I could spend hours going through with students were I not legally barred from interacting with young people.”

High School Lit Mag Awards

The 2013 results are in for the Program to Recognize Excellence in Student Literary Magazines through the National Council of Teachers of English. Organized by state, you can see the awards of these high school literary magazines. There were a total of 373 entries with 26 Highest Award recipients.

New Lit on the Block :: The Austin Review

The Austin Review, a neatly-bound, fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand journal, is now being produced in Austin, Texas, three times a year. Editor-in-Chief Michael Barrett says that Austin “is home to an incredibly talented group of writers and publishers, and we thought the city deserved a journal bearing its name.” Publishing four short stories, four pieces of flash nonfiction, and on essay or work by a notable author in each issue, The Austin Review is also available as a Kindle version.

But with so many literary magazines already out there, the question is always, why start another? Well, along with the common mission to discover new work from emerging authors, Barrett, to some extent, wants to “highlight the talented authors coming from Austin and help expand the literary community in the city.”

As the magazines grows, Barrett—along with Managing Editor Tatiana Ryckman and Associate Editor Wendy Walker—plans to keep to the nine works per issue but to eventually share a limited number of additional works on their website. “We also intend to expand our nonprofit and outreach efforts and help promote the love of literature in our community,” he states.

The first issue features short stories by John Jodzio, T Kira Madden, Derrick Brown, and Boomer Pinches; flash nonfiction by David Olimpio, Lisa Wells, Caitlyn Paley, and Patrick Madden; and an essay by Sheila Heti. “Readers can expect to find contemporary works of the highest quality, curated with great care and attention to detail,” says Barrett.

The magazine accepts submissions year-round through Submittable, and you can purchase a print copy from their website or a digital version from Amazon.

Mend & Hone

The voices of four women poets are gathered in one place in the beautifully designed collection Mend & Hone. The title’s pungent phrase, suggesting the acts of both repairing and sharpening, intrigued me, as did a question asked on the back cover by the poet D. Nurkse: “How do we make ourselves at home on a stone falling through space?” All four writers in this book seem engaged in the work of finding and making a place for their lives, both within experiences of the physical/natural world and the world of human interactions. Continue reading “Mend & Hone”

The Beauty of Ordinary Things

The Beauty of Ordinary Things, Harriet Scott Chessman’s fifth title, charts the day-to-day battles faced by Benny Finn, having returned from serving in Vietnam, and Sister Clare, a young woman learning the trials and joys of committing her life to a convent. Isabel Howell, Benny’s brother’s gal and Sister Clare’s childhood friend, link the two of them, creating a friendship between Benny and Sister Clare that brings about a sort of healing and acceptance for them both. The beauty in this novel, as the title somewhat alludes to, is in the little things—in this case, elegantly crafted lines from Chessman. Continue reading “The Beauty of Ordinary Things”

The Last Banquet

Jonathan Grimwood’s debut novel, The Last Banquet, takes us to France during the mid-1700s, when the gap between the haves and have-nots widened and set the stage for revolution. The landscape is surreal, with bands of roaming citizens scouring the countryside for food—it’s almost an 18th century version of Road Warrior, minus the gas-powered vehicles and villains in strange get-ups. Continue reading “The Last Banquet”

The Pat Boone Fan Club

This essay collection is by noted memoirist Sue William Silverman, who was one of my mentors at the Vermont College of Fine Arts low-residency MFA program. While normally such ties between reviewer and author are discouraged in NewPages’s reviews, the exception was made for two reasons, one being the import of the subject matter of the essays: Silverman explores her extended spiritual identity crisis from growing up Jewish in a Christian world and includes a continuation of focus from her two previous memoirs, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You and Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction, in which Silverman recounts being sexually abused by her father throughout her childhood and her resultant sexual addiction and recovery. While tremendously important social issues to be brought into the public dialogue, it’s much harder for such books to be given much, if any, review consideration. The second reason for the exception is precisely that my relationship to Silverman affords me the ability to comment on her craft, as she taught it, and assess her own ability to “walk her talk.” Continue reading “The Pat Boone Fan Club”

Starting Over

Ninety-two-year-old Elizabeth Spencer, with fifteen works published over the course of seven decades, is known as the “Grand Dame” of Southern literature—yet she addresses contemporary family problems as sharply as any younger author. Her best-known work is the 1960 novella Light in the Piazza, as it was made into a Broadway show. It’s been more than a decade since her last book, and her new short story collection, Starting Over, is worth the wait. Continue reading “Starting Over”

Mammoth

It comes as no surprise to the reader that Rachel McKibbens is one of American’s most accomplished spoken-word poets, having served nine times on the National Poetry Slam team and winning two spoken word championships. The strength of her poems lies in their strong, consistent voice—one that speaks with authority and uses the cadences and expressions of natural speech to create a natural tension that moves through each poem and the collection as a whole. Continue reading “Mammoth”

A Brighter Word Than Bright

“Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.” Mark Twain’s observation about biography reminds us that life-writing is nothing if not a tricky genre—where the clothes and buttons of a person’s life are cut, tailored, and assembled into a specific narrative. How a biographer weaves together the threads of the clothes heavily influences how an audience internalizes a person and his/her life. Continue reading “A Brighter Word Than Bright”

Hamilton Arts & Letters First Chapbook

The online Hamilton Arts & Letters magazine has just started a new chapbook series in which over the next two years they hope to publish one chapbook a year, expanding to more after that. Just released is their first chapbook: Nelson Ball’s A Rattle of Spring Frogs.

Here’s the description from HA&L: “Noted for poems described as ‘compressed meditations,’ Nelson is also admired here as a leader in the small press revolution that took place during the 1960s.” Accompanied with the chapbook is a contextualized essay and a reading. See more and read here.

Black Warrior Review Annual Contest Winners

Congrats to the winners of the Ninth Annual Contest for Black Warrior Review, which are featured in the latest issue:

Fiction
Mari Christmas: “Baby”

Nonfiction
Meredith Clark: “Lyrebird”

Poetry
Hannah Aizenman: “History, or Umbilicus”

Finalists
Chad Brandon Anderson
Diana Arterian
Colin Bassett
Kelly Connor
Matthew Fee
Yanara Friedland
Maggie Glover and Isaac Pressnell
Lauren Hilger
Kristen Iskandrian
Sara Jaffe
Dong Li
Jacqueline Lyons
Cate Lycurgus
Emily Moore
Bruno Nelson
Leah Poole Osowski
Anne Ray
Allie Rowbottom
Jayme Russell
Brittney Scott
T.D. Storm
Shawn Wen

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

I picked this cover of Witness not after having looked at it but after having read about it: “One of thousands of copper canisters preserving the cremated remains of patients who died at a state-run psychiatric hospital in Salem, Oregon, between the 1880s and the 1970s and whose ashes remain unclaimed by their families.”

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The photograph on the cover of Big Muddy‘s latest issue makes you wonder why this kid has abandoned his (her?) bike, and where exactly is that ladder leading to? Bradley Phillips is the photographer.

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It was like love at first site with this cover of The Georgia Review. From the staff of music at the top, to the illustrations, to the text, measurements, and symbols sketched throughout, this design by MF Cardamone (Elvis with Sweetgum, 2010) is capturing. More work from this artist is inside, too.

Naugatuck River Review Contest Issue

Naugatuck River Review‘s Winter 2014 issue features the winners of the 5th Annual Narrative Poetry Contest, judged by Susan Deer Cloud.

First Prize ($1000):
“Woodland Refuge” Margaret Bobalek King

Second Prize ($250):
“Christmas Eve 2011 After Taking Yu Troung to Radiation, Christmas Eve 2012 After Learning He Passed”
Lindsay Wilson

Third Prize ($100):
BLISS IN CAPETOWN, 1921 M.J. Oliver

Finalists
“Married but Separated: Prayer” Catherine Arra
“Digging Grave” Jerry Brunoe
“Last Chorus” Joanne Clarkson
“What Fernando Saw” Ben Gunsberg
“Fisherman’s Knot” Ross Howerton
“The Journey” Hayley Hughes
“Another Episode in the Annals of Shame” Lynne Knight
“Blue Balls” Raul Palma
“June First Matt Pasca
“Beets” Linda Neal Reising
“Hoarder” Val Dering Rojas
“Heartbroken Gorilla” Scott Ruescher
“Two Approaches to Gardening” David Sloan
“Bones” Dina Stander
“Uncle” Will Stockton
“UC Berkeley, Sproul Plaza, May 1969″ Joanna White
“In the Checkout Line at the Health Food Market” Claire Zoghb

To see a list of semi-finalists, click here.

NewPages Mailing Lists Sale

In case you haven’t heard, NewPages is having a sale on our digital bookstore mailing lists and library mailing lists–save 50%. This is a one-time fee, with up-to-date lists and a delivery guarantee to postal addresses. Learn more and purchase here.

Sylvan Dell Publishing Changes to Arbordale

Educational children’s publisher Sylvan Dell Publishing has officially changed its name to Arbordale Publishing.

Arbordale, based in South Carolina, produces nature, science, geography, and Spanish-language picture books for children. Its titles support the Common Core science and math standards, and factual content is vetted by experts. The company also offers a subscription e-reader application for children to use, and additional educational material is included at the end of each book.

The publisher has 99 books in its catalog.

Kenyon Review New Podcast

The Kenyon Review has just released a new podcast series with new content every couple of weeks. You can listen on the website, download the files, or use the free SoundCloud app (Apple users). “Looking for something to listen to at the gym?” the site reads. “Need a 20-30 minute fix of literature in the car on the way to work? You’ve found the right place!”

2013 Pinch Literary Award Winners

Sponsored by the Hohenberg Foundation, the 2013 Pinch Literary Award Winners are featured in the Spring 2014 issue of The Pinch. Fiction was judged by Roxane Gay, poetry by Mark Jarman, and literary nonfiction by Abigal Thomas.

Winner in Literary Nonfiction
Molly Beer: “The Lifecycle of Butterflies”

Winner in Fiction
John Haggerty: “A Slight Chance of War”

Winner in Poetry
Ann Vermel: “Ripening”

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

Cover art for this issue of Salt Hill comes from Martin Klimas: Untitled (Miles Davis, “Pharaoh’s Dance”). What can I say? The bright colors capture my attention.

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Alongside the QR code on this cover of North Dakota Quarterly is a quote from Marshall McLuhan: “We shape our tools and aftewards our tools shape us.” This is the cover for the special issue “What is Digital Art?” guest edited by Timothy J. Pasch and Sharon Carson.

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There isn’t a single part of this cover of The Stinging Fly that I don’t love. The colors, the shapes, the photograph in the back. It’s designed by Fergal Condon.