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!
The Spring 2023 issue of Bear Review (9.2) is live – and this is one bear you’ll want to run toward! This online issue offers readers poetry by Lisa Allen, Claressinka Anderson, Rebecca Baggett, Alyse Bensel, Sarah Carey, Robin Rosen Chang, Genevieve DeGuzman, Lawrence Di Stefano, Sean Thomas Dougherty, Loisa Fenichell, Jason Gray, Justin Groppuso-Cook, Brian Henry, Whitney Hudak, Skye Jackson, Padraig O’ Tuama, Jenny Maaketo, Martha McCullough, Peter Mason, Julia Anna Morrison, Mitchell Nobis, Meghan Sterling, and Liane Tyrrel.
Arkana, the graduate-run online literary journal of the University of Central Arkansas is staffed and edited by students in the Arkansas Writers’ MFA Program and accepts submissions from artists worldwide. The editors write, “As part of an overlooked and often misunderstood region of the US, we’re drawn to an inclusive literary tradition that extends beyond our rich southern landscape. We strive to create a space that brings together diverse voices and champions stories that embody our mission.” Issue 14 features interviews with Michael X. Wang and Matthew Salesses, as well as works by Sherri-Anne Forde, Nikki Ummel, Lucy Zhang, Sean Madden, Josephine Whittock, C. H. Weihmann, Sekhar Banerjee, Donna Steiner, Mario Duarte, Gregg Williard, and Debasish, Mishra.
Plums for Months: A Memoir of Nature and Neurodivergence by Zaji Cox Forest Avenue Press, May 2023
As a neurodivergent child in a hundred-year-old house, Zaji Cox collects grammar books, second-hand toys, and sightings of feral cats. She dances and cartwheels through self-discovery and doubt, guided by her big sister and their devoted single mother. Through short essays that evoke the abundant imagination of childhood, Plums for Months explores the challenges of growing up mixed race and low-income on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Happy 50th Anniversary to CutBank Literary Magazine, founded in 1973 by the Creative Writing Program at the University of Montana, and publishing new and emerging writers in its biannual print publication as well as unique online content: “We’re global in scope, but with a regional bias.” Issue 98 features poetry by Tyler Kline, James Henry Knippen, Melissa Kwasny, David Moolten, Pádraig Ó Tuama, and Mary Sesso; fiction by Michael Caleb Tasker; nonfiction by Rachel Attias, Charisse Baldoria, Rose McLarney, and Kathleen Walker; an author Interview with Pádraig Ó Tuama by Kalani Padilla & Erin O’Regan White; interior landscape photography by David Murphy, and cover art by Tino Rodríguez.
Deadline: June 18, 2023 Submit your fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction to Black Fox Literary Magazine’s Secrets Unraveled Writing Contest! Deadline: June 18, 2023! And be sure to check out our upcoming writing class with Catherine Adel West on June 25, 2023! View flyer and visit Submittable for more information!
Want early access to our eLitPak flyers? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter! You can also support NewPages with a paid subscription and get early access to the majority submission opportunities, upcoming events, and more before they are posted to our site.
Deadline: July 31, 2023 Hole In The Head Review has established the Charles Simic Poetry Prize to honor our late friend and mentor. First prize will receive $1,000 and publication in our November 1 issue. Winner will be announced at our October 26 poetry reading, on social media, and in our November 1 issue. Poet David Rivard, who taught with Charlie in The University of New Hampshire MFA program, will judge. View flyer for more information. Submissions accepted through July 31, 2023 through our submission portal.
Want early access to our eLitPak flyers? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter! You can also support NewPages with a paid subscription and get early access to the majority submission opportunities, upcoming events, and more before they are posted to our site.
Deadline: June 27, 2023 22nd Annual Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award for the best LGBTQ+ original poem in English, with a prize of $500.00. View flyer for more information and then submit here.
Want early access to our eLitPak flyers? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter! You can also support NewPages with a paid subscription and get early access to the majority submission opportunities, upcoming events, and more before they are posted to our site.
Founded in 2005, the mission of Broadsided Press was “putting literature and art on the streets” by publishing monthly visual-literary collaborations as free posters for anyone to download, print, and post. This grassroots distribution was thus managed by “Vectors” who share the broadsides in their neighborhoods. June 2023 will be their final monthly installment as they moved instead to biannual portfolios of work. In addition, Broadsided Press offers free lesson plans for using broadsides to teach visual arts, reviews, and summer workshops at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. We’ve always been great fans here of the work of Broadsided Press and hope you’ll take a moment to check out their site.
Write in a Community of Fellow Creatives in the Catskills
Registration Deadline: October 1, 2023 Our intimate retreat fosters creativity in a safe environment. We write and workshop by day and share readings in a wine & cheese literary salon every evening. Our guest this year is Elizabeth Brundage, author of several novels including The Vanishing Point, A Stranger Like You, and All Things Cease to Appear, which was the basis for the Netflix film “Things Heard and Seen.” View flyer for more information.
Want early access to our eLitPak flyers? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter! You can also support NewPages with a paid subscription and get early access to the majority submission opportunities, upcoming events, and more before they are posted to our site.
A rust belt city in decline retains the solace of romance, which often proves to be an empty promise or even a curse. In The Bridge on Beer River, a novel-in-stories set in Reagan-era Binghamton, New York, characters scramble for subsistence while hoping for love and a better life. View flyer and visit website for more information.
Want early access to our eLitPak flyers? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter! You can also support NewPages with a paid subscription and get early access to the majority submission opportunities, upcoming events, and more before they are posted to our site.
Deadline: August 21, 2023 Howling Bird Press awards $2,500 and book publication in fall 2024 to one single-author original (previously unpublished in book form) poetry manuscript. Using the online submission system, submit a manuscript of between 48 and 72 pages with a $25 entry fee by August 21, 2023. Howling Bird is part of Augsburg University’s MFA program. James Cihlar, publisher: [email protected]. Visit submissions manager.
Want early access to our eLitPak flyers? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter! You can also support NewPages with a paid subscription and get early access to the majority submission opportunities, upcoming events, and more before they are posted to our site.
Player’s Vendetta A Willie Cuesta Mystery by John Lantigua Arte Público Press, March 2023
Willie Cuesta, former Miami Police Department detective-turned-private investigator, is swinging in his hammock, estimating the number of mango daquiris he can squeeze from a ripe piece of fruit about to fall from his tree. He’s also waiting for a prospective client who refused to discuss her case over the phone. Ellie Hernandez hasn’t seen her fiancé, Roberto “Bobby” Player, in ten days, and she wants Willie to find him. Bobby has been obsessed with the suspicious death of his parents more than thirty-five years ago in Cuba, and he recently went to the island to find their killers. Only six years old when they were murdered, he was living in the United States, where they were supposed to join him. He was one of the “Peter Pan” kids smuggled out when Fidel Castro took over. Willie learns the Players controlled one of the most successful casinos on the island and a large sum of money—half a million dollars—disappeared with their deaths. His investigation reveals an assortment of suspicious characters who were in Havana when the Players were killed, including a former Cuban spy now living in Little Havana, Mafia gangsters involved in gambling institutions and even an undercover US intelligence agent.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Come to beautiful Taos, New Mexico to attend the 7th Annual Taos Writers Conference 7/7/23-7/9/23. Our keynote speaker Ramona Emersonwill be joined by twenty other faculty members offering workshops in every genre including poetry, fiction, memoir, and creative nonfiction. Noted faculty include Ariel Gore, Jamie Figueroa, and Valerie Martinez. FMI: visit website or call 575-758-0081.
Want early access to our eLitPak flyers? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter! You can also support NewPages with a paid subscription and get early access to the majority submission opportunities, upcoming events, and more before they are posted to our site.
Winning Writers will award a grand prize of $10,000 cash in its ninth annual North Street competition and $20,400 in all. See our flyer to learn why our contest is one of the very best for self-published and hybrid-published authors. Submit books published in any year and on any platform. $75 entry fee. Enter online or by mail by June 30. Learn more at our website.
Want early access to our eLitPak flyers? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter! You can also support NewPages with a paid subscription and get early access to the majority submission opportunities, upcoming events, and more before they are posted to our site.
The Fiddlehead No. 295 (Spring 2023) features poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and reviews written by some of the best new and established writers. Contributors include Moni Brar—winner of The Fiddlehead 32nd annual Ralph Gustafson Prize For Best Poem, Adrienne Gruber, Chelsea Peters, Lis Sanchez, Kwai Shen, Kathleen Winter, and many more. Visit The Fiddlehead website to see a full list of contributors, read excerpts from selected works, listen to Moni Brar read her award-winning poem, and order a copy of No. 295 or subscribe for home delivery. Cover art, Peonies, by Stephen May.
51 Submission Opportunities including calls for submissions, writing contests, and book prizes.
It seems that June has just started and here we are and it is half over with. That means that our eLitPak Newsletter was emailed to our current newsletter subscribers. If you missed out, you can access it online here. There are some submission opportunities you don’t want to miss out on there, too. Plus, of course, enjoy our weekly roundup of submission opportunities below as well.
NewPages Newsletter subscribers with a paid subscription get early and first access to our submission opportunities and upcoming events, the majority before they go live on our site. Consider subscribing today.
The online triannual MockingHeart Review publishes twenty poems per issue as well as a featured poet. The editors look for works “that express the complexities of the human heart in clear, precise, lyrical language.” The publication also features up to ten pieces of art per issue, as well as an occasional featured artist, for all kinds of artwork. “Our taste is diverse and ever-expanding,” the editors say. Jo Taylor is the featured poet in this newest issue and is joined by contributions by Al Maginnes, Arvilla Fee, Barbara Brooks, Cecil Morris, Christian Ward, Christine Perry, Dianna MacKinnon Henning, Emily Eads, Jean Podralski, John Tustin, Ken Hines, Laurel Benjamin, Mark J. Mitchell, Mike Lewis-Beck, Rachel Dacus, Richard Dinges, Jr., Robert L. Dean, Jr., Steve Brisendine, and Suzanne E. Wiltz.
The Hungers of the World: New & Collected Later Poems by John Morgan Salmon Poetry, April 2023
The Hungers of the World: New & Collected Later Poems by John Morgan joins its companion volume, The Moving Out: Collected Early Poems, published in 2019, to provide a comprehensive gathering of this Alaskan poet’s work. Originally from New York, Morgan moved with his family to Fairbanks, Alaska in 1976 to direct the creative writing program at the University of Alaska. In 1982, he and his wife Nancy built a house overlooking the Tanana River with a long view south to the Alaska Range. Morgan has written a series of poems which feature that view as it changes month by month through the seasons. Morgan’s family features prominently in his work as well as larger topics that deal with history and the arts. The final section of The Hungers of the World contains two long poems: The Wedge and River of Light: A Conversation with Kabir. The latter takes the reader on an adventurous raft trip down the Copper River in Southcentral Alaska with the Indian mystic poet Kabir as Morgan’s imaginary companion and spiritual guide.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
NewPages receives many wonderful book titles each month to share with our readers. You can read more about some of these by clicking on “New Books” under the NewPages Blog or Books tab on the menu. If you are a publisher or author looking to be listed here or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us!
Poetry
Alone, J.R. Solonche, David Robert Books Bar of Rest, Sara Epstein, Kelsay Books Bridge at the End of the World, Scott T. Starbuck, Blue Light Press Broken Metronome, Connie Post, Glass Lyre Press The Death of Weinberg: Poems and Stories, Walter Weinschenk, Kelsay Books Dreaming in Cantera, Bonnie Wolkenstein, WordTech Editions The Dreams of Gods, J.R. Solonche, Kelsay Books EtC, Laura Mullen, Solid Objects excisions, Hilary Plum, Black Lawrence Press Expert Terrain, Diane Schenker, Word Poetry Fig Season, Joan E. Bauer, Turning Point Glass to Sand, John Van Dreal, Cherry Grove Collections gulp/gasp, Serena Piccoli, Moira Books Hearts, Joanne Corey, Kelsay Books
Each issue of Arc Poetry Magazine includes “How Poems Work,” which offers readers a “case-study appreciation” of a single poem. The poem is reprinted in the issue along with the analysis, focusing on style, subject matter, influences, context, and the use of poetic elements. The spring 2023 issue featured Bardia Sinaee’s appreciation for “Epiphany” by Sara Venart. The poem opens with a series of visualized situations from everyday life, starting with the prompt “Here I am…” and coursing over a selection of events and feelings and questioning ‘what ifs.’ The closing line was a dagger to my heart in the most loving way and left me sobbing. “That’s a good poem,” I could have been satisfied to say, but then I read Sinaee’s commentary, which helped make connections I would not have, and offered a more authoritative assessment in ways I might not have felt confident making, but which made complete sense, such as, “This poem addresses us urgently and intimately.” While I felt that in reading the poem, seeing it said helped ground my feeling in shared reason. It helped me make sense, not of the poem, but of the effect the words had on me. It offered me a conversation partner in an otherwise solitary experience. It’s a wonderful feature for those of us who enjoy education but lack access to teachers—something to look forward to in each issue.
Reviewer bio: Denise Hill is Editor of NewPages.com and reviews books she chooses based on her own personal interests.
Best Material for the Artist in the World – Albert Bierstadt: A Biography in Poems by Kenneth Chamlee Stephen F. Austin University Press, March 2023
This poetic biography tracks the life and career of landscape artist Albert Bierstadt, whose 19th-century representations of the American West earned him wealth and international acclaim. These narrative, lyric, and ekphrastic poems touch the momentum of the developing west, the devastation of native tribes and the great buffalo herds, as well as the resiliency of Bierstadt’s art in times of environmental awareness and expansionist reappraisal.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Utopia Science Fiction Magazine publishes a new issue on the 30th of every other month with a free story and poem released online every three weeks. Publishing quality science fiction short stories, science articles, and poetry, the most recent issue includes short stories by J.S. Johnston, Nadine Aurora Tabing, Ray Daley, Sam W. Pisciotta; poetry, Kim Whysall-Hammond, Greg Schwartz, Yuliia Vereta, Lauren McBride; science essays by Yuliia Vereta, Jean-Paul L. Garnier; and an interview with Joe Haldeman.
Embarrassed of the (W)Hole by Panoply Performance Laboratory Ugly Duckling Presse, March 2023
Embarrassed of the (W)Hole is an operating manual for an opera-of-operations. Oriented around formal and modal resistances to “wholism” as complex foil and the proposition to embarrass, the book includes scores-for-scores, theoretical frames, process notes, and a User Survey meant to be “operated” and “used” (specifically, rigorously) to stage and situate pertinent contexts, conditions, and embodiments of and for projected future operations.
Panoply Performance Laboratory is a thinktank, organizational entity, and flexible performance collective. Founded in 2006 by Esther Neff and co-directed with Brian McCorkle through 2018, PPL has also existed as a physical lab site (“institution as a verb”) in Brooklyn, hosting projects and performances by artists and thinkers from around the world.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Winner of the 2022 Prize Americana, the poems in HIGHER by Robert Stewart are at once direct and resonant, celebratory of the natural world and of spiritual aspirations. Rising from a working-class, blue-collar sensibility, these pieces range from a short work about using a sledgehammer on a street crew to a multi-part longer work about animals in changing nature. These lyric poems include subtle metrics and enough narrative to drive events, often with elegiac references to a military vet friend, a brother, a Sicilian grandmother, and literary heroes. Their focus ultimately returns to hope and care for children, often with no small amount of humor.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
The June 2023 issue of 805 Lit+Art (9.2) gets readers ready to plunge into summer with their vibrant water cover art “At the Beach” by Michael Noonan, then explore the depths of the color blue in Christine Vartoughian’s flash fiction, “The Color of Forgotten Dreams,” hunt for water in Nicholas Wright’s short story, “Millennial Elysium,” and feel the lapping waves in Melissa Fitzpatrick’s flash, “Beach People.” This issue also offers work by debut authors, including Samantha Joslin’s debut flash “Fantasy” and Lizzie Bellinger’s debut creative nonfiction “The Secret Stories of Shoes.” Visit 805 Lit+Art to access the full content online.
“Viewless Wings” is from the poem “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats: “Away! away! for I will fly to thee, // Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, // But on the viewless wings of Poesy” – and thus the inspiration for a unique platform that provides emerging poets the opportunity to publish their works online as well as have them included on the Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast.
Publishing in an open online and podcast format ten times per year, with interviews with poets published weekly-ish, Viewless Wings “was founded to celebrate the art of poetry through interviews with prestigious poets, opportunities for emerging poets to have their voices heard on submitted poetry episodes, and articles on the craft of poetry and publishing.”
Promoting poetry and poetics is first nature for Morehead, who is also Poet Laureate of Dublin, California, and author of canvas: poems; portraits of red and gray: memoir poems; and The Plague Doctor. Morehead is also the primary reader for Viewless Wings with volunteer readers enlisted as needed. “The contributions from followers of Viewless Wings and interviews with prestigious poets has been inspiring. I personally learn more about the art of poetry from each interview and submitted poem and am fulfilled by providing a platform for poets’ voices to be heard.”
“It’s rewarding hearing poetry read by the poet,” Morehead says, and visitors to Viewless Wings can likewise share in this experience. “Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast listeners (and readers of the accompanying articles on the website) can expect to be inspired and educated about the craft of poetry. We welcome diverse voices and love providing a platform for poets.” The Viewless Wings Poetry Podcast has included interviews with Safia Elhillo, Olivia Gatwood, A.E. Stallings, Dana Gioia, Yanyi, and many more, in addition to poems submitted (and read by) emerging poets.
Morehead advises, “For those considering starting a literary magazine or podcast, focus on publishing quality content and be patient. It takes time to build an audience.” And for contributors, while they can expect that Morehead will read their work, due to the number of submissions received, personalized feedback is not possible; turnaround time is 1-3 months.
Viewless Wings has a future already in the works with plans to expand into more livestream events as part of the Viewless Wings Live series, and participate in community events, having successfully attended the Bay Area Book Festival for the first time in 2023.
Tierra, Tierrita / Earth, Little Earth by Jorgue Tetl Argueta Illustrations by Felipe Ugalde Alcantara Piñata Books, May 2023
“My name is Earth / but people call me Little Earth.” In the fourth installment of their award-winning Madre Tierra / Mother Earth series of trilingual picture books about the natural world, Jorge Argueta and Felipe Ugalde Alcántara collaborate again to introduce Mother Earth, who is “full of all the colors / and all the flavors.” A Junior Library Guild selection, this book about Mother Earth reflects Argueta’s indigenous roots and his appreciation for the natural world. Containing the English and Spanish text on each page, the entire poem appears at the end in Nahuat, the language of Argueta’s Pipil-Nahua ancestors. This is an excellent choice to encourage children to write their own poems about nature and to begin conversations about the interconnected web of life.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
How to Shoot a Tourist (With a Bow & Arrow) In a Hot-Air Balloon by Joseph D. Reich Sagging Meniscus Press, April 2023
Joseph D. Reich’s 300-page, lyrical epic poem How to Shoot a Tourist (With a Bow & Arrow) in a Hot-Air Balloon contains surreal, confessional, stream-of-consciousness stanzas that run up and down the page in a desperate, fantastical rage. They are hypnotically interrupted by a recurring refrain from which they emerge and depart on wildly varied journeys: probing the nature, origins and psychological derivation of surrealism. Reich looks at persistent pain within and damage and devastation without in richly “ridiculous” images that are not only surreal but satirical and questioning, while also the best answer to the idiosyncratic machinations of authority. How to Shoot a Tourist is an exhaustive mythic encyclopedia of America and of Reich’s teeming inner world.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Each issue of THEMA Literary Journal is based on a different theme, often derived from unique thoughts. It is meant to inspire imagination. The editors depend on the creativity of the writers to interpret the themes. The Crumpled Yellow Paper, our current issue (35:2, Spring 2023), was born when one editor opened an envelope and pulled out a crumpled piece of yellow paper containing an author’s scrawled inquiry. It made us wonder what stories and poems might evolve from such a piece of crumpled paper. The writings that emerged are diverse, ranging from humorous to magical to harrowing. The cover photograph by Lynda Fox, featuring yellow origami horses, is especially prized for its humor. What were some of the various “crumpled yellow papers” and where were they found in these stories and poems? To name just a few, consider a yellow candy wrapper blowing in the wind, drifting yellow leaves, a mysterious paper found on a walk in the park, notes discarded either accidentally or on purpose, an enigmatic message inscribed on a crumpled yellow paper. Was it really a piece of paper, or something else?
A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate by Will McLean Greeley recounts Senator George P. McLean’s crowning achievement: overseeing passage of one of the country’s first and most important wildlife conservation laws, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. The MBTA, which is still in effect today, has saved billions of birds from senseless killing and likely prevented the extinction of entire bird species. A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington puts McLean’s victory for birds in the context of his distinguished forty-five-year career marked by many acts of reform during a time of widespread corruption and political instability. Author Will McLean Greeley traces McLean’s rise from obscurity as a Connecticut farm boy to national prominence when he advised five US presidents and helped lead change and shape events as a US senator from 1911 to 1929.
Will McLean Greeley grew up in western Michigan with a passion for American history, politics, and birds. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan and then a master’s degree from Michigan in archives administration. After retiring from a thirty-five-year career in government and corporate market research, he embarked upon a three-year research and writing journey to learn about his great-great-uncle George P. McLean and his legacy.
In Gay Poems for Red States, Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr. counters the injustice of a persistent anti-LGBTQ+ movement by asserting that a life full of beauty and pride is possible for everyone. More than a collection of poetry, Carver’s earnest and heartfelt verses are for those wishing to discover and understand the vastness of Appalachia, and for the LGBTQ+ Appalachians who long for a future—for a home—in an often unwelcoming place.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
The Summer 2023 issue of The Kenyon Review includes a Women’s Health-themed folio, with poetry by Lynne Thompson, Felicia Zamora, and Cindy Juyoung Ok; fiction by Emma Binder and Kabi Hartman; nonfiction by Susannah Nevison and Sophie Strohmeier; and much more. The annual Nature’s Nature feature, edited by David Baker, showcases poems by Victoria Chang, Terrance Hayes, Joanna Klink, Joyelle McSweeney, Arthur Sze, and Brian Teare, who each also introduce emerging poets. The cover art is by Tawny Chatmon.
As with any disaster, 1/6: The Graphic Novel is emotionally difficult to read, but nearly impossible to look away from. Volume 1: Remember This Day Forever takes readers into the surreal (for now) world of ‘what if’ the insurrection had been successful. Propaganda messaging drones patrol the streets, news stations are taken by force and resistant newscasters killed on the spot (the Second Amendment ‘trumps’ the First), and Trump supporters rally on the National Mall for the unveiling of an “Independence Day January 6, 2021” statue with state militia (Georgia and Arizona specifically) recognized for their efforts. A MAGA father whose son was killed in the event comes to honor him, only to be distraught by the messaging scapegoating Antifa and BLM. The hero (so far) is a journalist who joins a group of ‘freedom fighters’ working to reinstate democracy, and the cliffhanger ending reveals they’ve got a volatile treasure critical to their success. While the authors note “This is a work of speculative fiction grounded in real events,” it will be all too real a match to what many have feared might have and might still happen in our lifetimes. This will be a four-issue series with free copies available to non-profits and advocacy groups as well as wholesale pricing.
In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind by Marjorie Maddox and Anna Lee Hafer Shanti Arts, May 2023
In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind is a collaboration of poetry by Marjorie Maddox and art by her daughter Anna Lee Hafer, inspirited by a rainy-day excursion when Maddox and Hafer visit the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. As never before, they realized how their passions for art and poetry intersect. With this exhibit and Hafer’s own surreal paintings as inspiring backdrop, they exchanged their responses to joy and trauma more deeply—artist to artist, mother to daughter. These connections between poet and visual artist constitute the core of this ekphrastic collection. In addition, Maddox includes nine poems based on work she saw that day by Antar Mikosz, Greg Mort, Margaret Munz-Losch, Ingo Swann, and Christian Twamley, as well as several later collaborations with Karen Elias.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Mis días con Papá / Spending Time With Dad by Elías David Illustrations by Claudia Delgadillo Piñata Books, May 2023
Mis días con Papá / Spending Time With Dad follows a boy and his stay-at-home dad, who takes care of him while his mom goes to work at the port, “where huge cargo ships come and go every day.” She oversees the containers that go around the world! In this brightly illustrated bilingual picture book, young children will relate to the family and its daily routines while immigrants will see themselves as they adjust to life far away from relatives. And children will see that the roles of men and women are fluid; dads can be loving fathers in charge of their kids’ well-being and moms can go to the office every day—or vice versa.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Sivan Piatigorsky-Roth’s Diana: My Graphic Obsession made me realize that Diana holds a fairly firm place in my life experience. Having practically grown up with her, at least in news stories, I was surprised to have so many of Roth’s graphic renditions of famous photographs strike one memory chord after another. Most surprising is to see her life anew, through Roth’s insightful yet somewhat melancholy commentary, like the fact that Diana was only 16 years old when she first met Charles, who was then 29. Roth comments, “He was the very embodiment of charm. Standing next to him, Diana was just a child. His attention was overwhelming.”
Dan Kaplan’s 2.4.18 is an erasure of the February 4, 2018 issue of The New York Times, a book that wades through distorted fact, eroded context, and what may (not) be newsworthy. Kaplan is the editor of Burnside Review Press, and 2.4.18 is his third book of poetry.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Proximal Morocco is a collection of poems by Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine originally published in 1975. It was written in fits and starts during a span of ten years (1964-1974), during the fever pitch of his political exile from his homeland of Morocco which he fled, partly for fear of political persecution and partly to pursue a literary career in Paris, France. Laced with the same politically-inflected Surrealistic fervor as Aimé Césaire, the book is at once a powerful outcry to fellow artists for international solidarity of the colonized and outcast and a documentation of the pain and struggle of exile.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Blink-Ink is the definition of “small but mighty” – at 5 1/2 X 4 1/4 print format, each issue is packed with stories of “approximately” 50 words. The newest issue features 26 stories on the theme “Waiting on a Friend.” Each issue is themed, and the editors provide guidelines and deadlines on their website. Subscribers receive four issues per year, and it’s a real delight to see these arrive in the mail. Easy to carry along anywhere, a subscription is the perfect gift idea for those readers and writers in your life (including yourself!).
54 Submission Opportunities including calls for submissions, writing contests, and book prizes.
The first full week of June is officially behind us. If the wildfire haze is strongly present in your area like it is in ours, keep indoors and keep on writing and editing. NewPages has your back to help you with your submission goals with our Where to Submit Roundup for June 9, 2023.
Alert: June 15 is next week and there are several opportunities with that date as the deadline. Don’t miss out!
NewPages Newsletter subscribers with a paid subscription get early and first access to our submission opportunities and upcoming events, the majority before they go live on our site. Consider subscribing today.
Going to The Lake sounds like the perfect way to spend a summer’s day, and the June 2023 issue of this online poetry magazine is now available featuring Philip Dunkerley, Gerry Grubbs, Jenny Hockey, Sharon Kennedy-Nolle, Michael Lauchlan, Patrick Lodge, DS Maolalai, Paul McDonald, Shamiksa Ransom, Sam Szanto, Hannah Jane Weber. Dig into reviews of Magdalena Ball’s Bobish and Baron Wormser’s The History Hotel, and get a sampling from recently published collections with “One Poem Reviews” featuring LindaAnn LoSchiavo and Elizabeth McCarthy.
Bone Wishing by Tara Flint Taylor is the 2022 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest Winner. This contest is open until mid-June to all writers (who are not current students at HVWC) who have not yet published (including self-published) a collection of poems in book or chapbook form.
Taylor’s work has appeared in Poet Lore, River Styx, Poetry Quarterly, North American Review, Nimrod, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Inkwell Journal, and elsewhere. Her awards include second place in the 2011 River Styx International Poetry Contest as well as finalist in the 2011 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry and 2018 James Hearst Poetry Prize. She is a graduate of Le Moyne College where she earned her BA, and of North Carolina State University, where she earned her MFA. She is the recipient of the John LaHey Award in Writing, the Newhouse Writing Award, and the Brenda Smart Poetry Prize. Originally from Syracuse, New York, she lives in Portland, Oregon with her spouse, painter Joshua Flint (chapbook cover artist).
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Translated by Jennifer Croft, The Woman From Uruguay by Pedro Mairal follows Lucas Pereyra’s day trip from Buenos Aires to Montevideo, which is fuelled by two motives: to exchange a 15,000 dollar advance for his last book, and to spend some time with a young girl from a literary conference he is trying to bed.
The unpredictability of the Argentinian economy means that if Lucas were to take his advance in Buenos Aires, he would receive less than half of what he would get in Uruguay. Transporting money that way is illegal, though he really is between a rock and a hard place; dealing with Argentinian pesos is like “being paid in ice in the middle of the summer, and freezers are illegal.”
Anxiety abounds here, anxieties which are further fostered by an ambivalence towards his young son, and suspicions about his wife’s adultery. The story is dejected and hopeless, full of self-doubt and hatred. Hints of ambition filter through though, even if these are buried under familial and professional obligations.
An anti-hero in the truest sense, we are still somewhat drawn to Lucas due to his playful, vivid style, his biting social criticism, and most importantly the strength of his writerly ambitions, which unfortunately butt heads with the bleak reality of literary production, As one of his colleagues puts it, “books have to be written… then you decide how much they’re worth… you polish them like diamonds, and then you sell them like a string of sausages.”
Mairal’s protagonist is far from likable, but it would be unjust to make him so. This man, whose obligations towards his family and his career are at odds with his fundamental desire, holding him back from it; how can we expect him to come up smiling?
The Woman From Uruguay by Pedro Mairal; translated by Jennifer Croft. Bloomsbury Publishing, October 2022.
Reviewer bio: Colm McKenna is a second-hand bookseller based in Paris. He has published and self-published an array of short stories and articles, hoping to eventually release a collection of stories. He is mainly interested in the works of John Cowper Powys, Claude Houghton, and a range of Latin American writers.
No One Is on the Line: The Poetry of Mohsen Mohamed Translated from the Arabic by Sherine Elbanhawy Laertes Press, September 2023
These poems in No One is on the Line arose from the depths of incarceration, from the throat and intellect of Egyptian poetry Mohsen Mohamed who had been sentenced to five years of harsh imprisonment after a campus protest. The writing went on to win Egypt’s two most significant literary prizes. These poems speak of dislocation and the wrenching of the heart, of a found and forged community, of the bare lineaments of humanity disclosed in the throes of suffering. They are works of provocative witness and searching tenderness.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Prayershreds: Poems by Bruce Beasley Orison Books, May 2023
Suppose the shreds of our prayers and of our faiths could themselves become a radical new form of devotion. Bruce Beasley confronts the apocalyptic zeitgeist of our time (political turmoil, societal division and isolation, spiritual despair, environmental catastrophe) and the crisis of faith in the human future. These poems make of the vocabulary of doubt a strange kind of sermon, summoning into chorus Heraclitus, Zeno, the Buddha, Roget’s Thesaurus, ancient prayers and hymns and scriptures, and an AI chatbot. In these fractured and ecstatic psalms, Beasley makes his ruptured way toward a faith that relies not on dogmas and creeds, but on a broken utterance for a torn and living faith.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Issue 33 of Posit online journal of literature and art features new poetry and prose by Carrie Bennett, Zoe Darsee, Jasper Glen, Kylie Hough, Kevin McLellan, David James Miller, Pat Nolan, Elizabeth Robinson, Grace Smith, Jeneva Burroughs Stone, and Myles Taylor; text + image by Nam Hoang Tran; and painting, collage, and ceramic sculpture by Jane Kent, Jeanne Silverthorne, and David Storey.
Stone Breaker: The Poet James Percival and the Beginning of Geology in New England by Kathleen L. Housely Wesleyan University Press, January 2023
Stone Breaker by Kathleen L. Housely is an in-depth, accessible biography of a true American polymath, James Gates Percival. A poet, linguist, and unstable savant, Percival was also a brilliant geologist who walked thousands of miles crisscrossing first Connecticut and then Wisconsin to lay the foundation for the work of generations of Earth scientists. Exploring the confluences of literature, art, and geology, Housley reveals how one of most famous poets of the 1820s became a renowned geologist with his groundbreaking 1843 work Report on the Geology of the State of Connecticut. The book includes historic photographs and paintings of the Connecticut landscape.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Thurber Prize winner Harrison Scott Key’s third memoir How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told is a heartbreakingly honest, and often hilarious, account of marital infidelity and the resultant fallout from what he calls “an absurdist nightmare.” Hyperbole aside – this isn’t the world’s most insane love story – the book lays bare the complex and fragile ties that bind. How they fray, sometimes without us noticing the unraveling, is clearly presented. What’s more, Key delineates the many pressures, from demanding jobs to demanding kids, that can stymie communication and lead to spousal dissatisfaction. Key’s astute analysis digs into the psychological wiring that initially drew him and his wife together and, later, caused them to separate. But this is not a self-help treatise. Instead, it’s a very particular story about a very particular marriage and Key takes pains to avoid oversimplification.
That said, the book emphasizes that Key got through this period thanks to good friends and Christian faith. And while he concedes that religion is not always a source of comfort, in conjunction with therapy and a deeply-felt appraisal of his missteps, it provided the foundation for him and his wife to reconcile. For them, shared values, shared time, and shared laughter proved potent. Whether they’re enough, however, remain open questions.
Reviewer bio: Eleanor J. Bader is a Brooklyn, NY-based journalist who writes about books and domestic social issues for Truthout, Rain Taxi, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Indypendent.
Issue 78 of Cholla Needles is edited by Juan Delgado. Thomas McGovern photographed the cover and is featured throughout the issue. The twelve writers who appear in this issue are Dana Burton, Paul Marion, Craig Svonkin, Ellsworth Scott, Danny Romero, André Katkov, Micah Tasaka, Christopher Buckley, Ernesto Trejo, Shawn Levy, C. Mikal Oness, and Gina Hanson. Juan Delgado joins a distinguished group of guest editors who are helping to keep Cholla Needles vital and fresh: David Chorlton, Cynthia Anderson, John Brantingham, and Gabriel Hart. Juan Delgado and Thomas McGovern previously collaborated on the beautiful poetry/photography collection entitled Vital Signs.
