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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!

Interview with Jake Adam York

The current issue of Hayden’s Ferry Review contains a short interview with Jake Adam York, author of Persons Unknown which contributes “to the dialogue surrounding the development, and launch, of the Civil Rights Movement.” Jake Adler had interviewed in in November 2012 as part of a class assignment through email. And in his introduction to the interview, Adler states, “Dr. York commemorates, and pays homage to, the tragic lives which suffered at the hands of ignorance and oppression by highlighting the simple and preposterous cause for all of the hate and violence that has endured: race. It doesn’t matter who writes this poetry, I learned, but that they write it in the first place. . . Dr. York was one of those rare, champion poets who knew what his voice was, what it needed to say and how it needed [to] say it. . . He deserves the utmost recognition and marked celebration.” In five questions, the interview discusses York’s writings, his choices in writing, and his inspirations for beginning work on Persons Unknown.

RHINO Editors’ Prizes 2013

RHINO‘s 2013 issue features the winners of the Editors’ Prizes for 2013:

First Prize: Rodney Gomez – “Drag Racer”

Second Prize: Kristin Robertson – “Hyoid Bone”

Honorable Mention: Claudia Cortese – “Lucy tells the boy to suck”

The issue also features work from Anne Barngrover, Kathleen Boyle, Jeff Burt, Sean Howard, Liz Kay, Sophie Klahr, Gail Martin, Adam McGee, Matthew Murrey, Jeff Oaks, Rikki Santer, Sara Talpos, Sidney Thompson, Bill Yarrow, and many more. To see the full Table of Contents, please visit RHINO‘s website.

Fiddlehead Contest Winners

The Fiddlehead‘s Spring 2013 issue includes the winners and pieces of their 22nd Annual Contest:
 
Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize:
Kim Trainor, Cradle Song: Six Variations

Poetry Honourable Mention: Sue Chenette, Inscription
Poetry Honourable Mention: Samantha Bernstein, Eulogy for Finn

Short Ficiton First Prize:
Rhonda Collis, The Halter

Fiction Honourable Mention: Jennifer Manuel, Seilent E
Fiction Honourable Mention: Vin Fielding, All Bones Recovered

Famous Outlines

Flavorwire shares photos of Famous Authors’ Handwritten Oulines for Great Works of Literature: Joseph Heller for Catch-22, JK Rowling for Order of the Phoenix, James Salter for Light Years, Henry Miller for Tropic of Capricorn, William Faulkner for A Fable (written on his office walls), Sylvia Plath for The Bell Jar, Norman Mailer for Harlot’s Ghost, Jennifer Egan for “Black Box,” Gay Talese for “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.”

Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize Portfolio

In an introduction to a portfolio showcasing the poet Marie Ponsot who won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, Poetry Editor Christian Wiman starts, “Marie Ponsot wrote many of the poems for which she will be remembered while raising seven children all by herself.” He goes on to say that, “If that sentence alone doesn’t cause you to pause in awe for a moment, then I’d wager you haven’t experienced the demands and decibels of the little darlings. Ponsot herself knew all to well the cost . . . The wonder is that she knew . . . the wonder.”

Here is a sampling, the first stanza of Ponsot’s “A Visit”:

Come for duty’s sake (as girls do) we watch
The sly very old woman wile away from her pious
And stagger-blind friend, their daily split of gin.
She pours big drinks. We think of what
Has crumpled, folded, slumped her flesh in
And muddied her once tumbling blood that, young,
Sped her, threaded with brave power: a Tower,
Now Babel, then of ivory, of the Shulamite,
Collapsed to this keen dame moving among
Herself. She hums, she plays with used bright
Ghosts, makes real dolls, and drinking sings Come here
My child, and feel it, dear. A crooking finger
Shows how hot the oven is.

Read the full poem and portfolio in Poetry‘s May 2013 issue.

Interview: Dr. Vosk, Asylum Seekers Medical Examiner

From the Sampsonia Way online:

A volunteer for the Physicians for Human Rights Asylum Network, Dr. Vosk assists asylum seekers through medical evaluation. He remembers first getting involved with the program in 2009 when he saw a notice for an asylum examiners’ training course in Washington D.C. and decided to attend. Since then, he has been a volunteer for Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). Before seeing the notice, however, Dr. Vosk had been involved with political causes since the 1950s and practiced medicine since the 1970s—Physicians for Human Rights seemed like a great way to combine both of his passions. 

In this interview Dr. Vosk discusses the role coincidence plays in keeping asylum seekers alive, his method of assessing trauma via an individual’s scars, and the difficulties people face when seeking refuge in the United States, where “fearfulness and rejection of immigrants have become an accepted part of national policy.”

Read the full interview here.

Jamaica Kincaid Interview

From Alyssa Loh’s interview on Salon.com:

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman. But all sorts of people write with strong feeling, the way I do. But if they’re white, they won’t say it. I used to just pretend I didn’t notice it, and now I just think I don’t care. 

There are all sorts of reasons not to like my writing. But that’s not one of them. Saying something is angry is not a criticism. It’s not valid. It’s not a valid observation in terms of criticism. You can list it as something that’s true. But it’s not critical. 

You may not like it because it makes you uneasy—and you can say that. But to damn it because it’s angry…. They always say that about black people: “those angry black people.” 

And why? You’re afraid that there might be some truth to their anger. It might be justified. 

I promise you, if I had blonde hair and blue eyes this wouldn’t be an issue. No one ever says, “That angry Judith Krantz…” or whatever.

CFP: Basic Writing and Community Engagement

For the Fall 2014 issue of Basic Writing, Community Engagement, and Interdisciplinarity (BWe), the editors seek articles that investigate the uses and effects of community engagement in basic writing coursework. Their concept of “community engagement” is conceived very broadly, and includes concepts covered by umbrella terms such as service-learning, community based learning, and community literacy. In addition, BWe is interested in interdisciplinary collaborations from any perspective. How has your basic writing course worked with the library, the writing center, or other disciplines? BWe welcomes submissions not only from basic writing faculty, but also faculty from other disciplines or from community partners who have collaborated with basic writing classes.

Article submissions will be accepted through December 28, 2013. BWe submissions will be responded to by March 1, 2014. If revision is requested, a final revision from a BWe author must be submitted by May 31, 2014.

BWe is a peer-reviewed online journal that welcomes both traditional and multi-modal texts. Submission guidelines for formatting print essays and webtexts appear on the BWe Web site.

CFP: Postgraduate Ecology Articles

Dandelion editors seek submissions on the theme of ecology for their next issue. Topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Ecocriticism
• Political ecology
• Eco-poetics and nature writing
• The pastoral
• Urban/rural space and/or wildness and civilization
• Ecology and interdisciplinarity
• Romantic ecology and its legacy
• Biotechnologies
• Cybernetics and ecology
• Art and eco-activism
• Ecology and the military-industrial complex
• Nuclear criticism
• Ecofeminism
• Ecology and modernity/postmodernity

This issue is inspired by Silent Spring: Chemical, Biological and Technological Visions of the Post-1945 Environment, a collaborative workshop series taking place at Birkbeck School of Arts and the Centre for Modern Studies at York University.* Rachel Carson’s classic polemic Silent Spring celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2012: it still stands as one of the most influential texts on the damage caused to the natural environment by chemicals and nuclear fallout in the twentieth century. In line with the workshop series, this issue takes the anniversary of Carson’s text as a starting point for exploring how biological, chemical and technological changes to the environment have shaped cultural explorations of nature and landscape across the humanities.

Dandelion welcomes both long (5000-8000 words) and short (under 5000 words) articles. The editors also encourage conference and event reports, blog posts, book, film and exhibition reviews, podcasts and artwork. They welcome submissions from doctoral students, early career researchers, established academics and independent practioners, working in all disciplines.

Deadline: 31 July 2013.

Dandelion is an online postgraduate journal and research network, supported by Roberts Funding and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It aims to bring together a diversity of works from researchers in the arts, to offer collaborative research and training possibilities, and to promote an independent, cross-institutional space for professional development.

Publication Identity Theft

Aurora Antonovic, Editor-in-Chief of Magnapoets was surprised to come back from a year-long hiatus to find that Magnapoets had been running in her absence by someone she had once trusted who had stolen her identity. Antonovic wants to set the record right in her May 7 post about the incident, assuring writers and readers that she maintains claim to Magnapoets, past and future. NewPages has updated all of our links and contacts to this publication and urge our readers who may have had prior contact to do the same.

Coleman Barks Interview

Assistant to The Georgia Review editors C. J. Bartunek had the opportunity to talk with Coleman Barks in his home in Athens in January 2013. The Georgia Review offers Bartunek’s comments on the experience as well as two audio recordings – one of the interview and one of Barks reading from his own  work as well as Christopher Smart’s Jubilate Agno, lines from which Barks included in his long poem “The VOICE inside WATER.” Bartunek notes that this reading is a rare opportunity for listeners “because in one of the poem’s copious footnotes [Barks] writes that ‘Most likely. . . I will never bring this poem and its notes to a reading. Too long, too willful in its wandering.'”

The interview begins with Barks: “I’ve never tried to think systematically about these long poems that I write or to justify them with any kind of poetic or rationale. Steve keeps trying to make me think more consciously about what I’m doing, but I don’t like that. I resist that. I just finished this poem and felt that it was a whole thing, somehow, and I felt good about it. But now I’ve been rereading it and justify it, and see what questions you might ask, and I wrote down nine purposes that I have in this poem, if I were going to teach it, I guess.”

Feminist Bookstores in America

Los Angeles Review of Books writer Lisa L. Moore examines the rise and influence of feminist bookstores in her column The Dream of a Common Bookstore:

In my last column, I made the case that writing by poets formed a foundation of feminist theory and the academic discipline of women’s studies, partly because of the special status of poets in the women’s movement. As Zee put it, “the poets who would come from out of town [to do readings at Smedley’s] were like rock stars. It wasn’t a poetry-being-shunted-off kind of thing. And especially Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde. The poetry was very elevated.” In today’s column, I want to explore the idea that feminist bookstores have made a distinctive contribution to American poetry because of this elevation. Feminist bookstores created an audience and market for poetry, a meeting place for poets and readers, and a public sphere in which poetry had an important bardic function. Feminist bookstores brought a new public to poetry both as readers and writers, a life-giving function that, little-understood and therefore little-noticed, continues to shape both mainstream and feminist poetry worlds today.

Writers on Writing

The Glimmer Train Bulletin (available free) features craft and commentary essays by writers whose works have recently been published in Glimmer Train Stories. The most recent monthly issue (#76) includes Ella Mei Yon [pictured], Finding a Way In; Benjamin Percy, Method Writing; Michelle Richmond, On the Joys of Not Finishing What You Started; Daniel Wallace, Notes Toward Future Works; and Lance Weller, Gut. Or, Never Knowing the Next Word.

Fjords Review – 2013

The experience of a minute occurs differently on a train, in sixty parts, rather than the measurable clattering of east coast winter hellos, vowels in mini-seconds through the incisors. Traveling by rail has been the essential inorganic character of thousands of recollections of the Western canon. Like the prospects of vaudeville and print journalism, it was meant to last forever. And thanks to a moving, technically masterful essay by Barbara Hass in the current issue of Fjords, it does. Her essay, “This Wilderness We Can’t Contain,” is imaginative without losing the tight management of its political and philosophical themes, without unraveling the travel narrative in the irresistible surrealism of the setting. In unpacking the 2011 flood of the Missouri River, she captures an essential rail experience—with the expert and shifting lens of the other elements that contribute to environmental disaster. Continue reading “Fjords Review – 2013”

Kaleidoscope – Winter/Spring 2013

“Accept the changes, Celebrate the advantages, Find Purposes.” This quote from Mike Shirk, a disabled artist featured in Kaleidoscope, exemplifies the humanity, humility, and honesty you’ll find in the issue. A magazine dedicated to discussing disabilities through art, fiction, poetry, and personal essays, Kaleidoscope is inspiring. This “Significant Relationship” issue (the last print issue before they transition to a digital model) offers comfort to caregivers, understanding to outsiders, and hope to the disabled. Kaleidoscope is different than almost every other literary magazine I’ve read; it is art with a purpose—with a humanitarian agenda and a palpable sense of community. Continue reading “Kaleidoscope – Winter/Spring 2013”

The Long Story – 2013

Reading a long short story is a special process somewhere between starting up slow and circling around for the long haul, as you do for a novel, and nabbing on the fly the conflict and character quirks thrown out by the early paragraphs of a short story which are swiftly brought to some end. So I respect and admire the unique mission of The Long Story: to publish stories of eight to twenty thousand words (most between eight and twelve thousand) and let the reader develop a relationship with the ideas and people unfolding between the first and twenty-thousandth words. Continue reading “The Long Story – 2013”

Manoa – Winter 2012

In the United States, the word freedom is talismanic, introduced from kindergarten as the American creation myth and held up by politicians and news commentators, rightly or not, as the premier American export. We own the idea—so the subtext goes—and the rest of the world struggles to become like us. So when I hold in my hand the Winter 2012 issue of Mānoa, called On Freedom: Spirit, Art, and State, I wonder how each piece and photograph defines freedom: does the definition conform or aspire to the American definition, and is it first and foremost political? Continue reading “Manoa – Winter 2012”

Poetry – April 2013

If any magazine could create a mythology in one edition it would be Poetry. To accomplish this in one issue is next to miraculous, but this is what they have done in the April 2013 issue. Christian Winman and a small cast of editors make their work look effortless, the selections of work by established poets speaking for a larger humanity. Continue reading “Poetry – April 2013”

REAL – Fall/Winter 2012

In REAL: Regarding Arts & Letters, Billy Longino interviews Stewart O’Nan and extracts the following prescription: “I found that in a lot of the plotted fiction the plot was getting in the way of what I thought the novel does best: create depth and use time to illuminate character.” The interview explores O’Nan’s literary theory in compelling insight. Hearing the analysis also informs a reading of the rest of the journal, in which writers succeed in illuminating character. Continue reading “REAL – Fall/Winter 2012”

The Drum – 2013

If I can say one thing about The Drum it’s this: don’t read it. No, you read that correctly. It’s just a corny joke to say that you can’t read this literary magazine; you listen to it. Your resource for “Literature out Loud,” The Drum publishes fiction, essays, novel excerpts, and interviews in audio form, often in the author’s own voice. Even if you don’t think you’d enjoy audio literature, go to the website, at least to check it out. Continue reading “The Drum – 2013”

Windhover – Spring 2013

Take note of the subtitle of Windhover. If you’re not a Christian, or if you don’t entertain at least a little curiosity about the claims of the Christian world regarding the salvific message and death-into-life of what Brian Doyle calls “that gaunt rabbi from Jerusalem two thousand years ago,” this may not be the journal for you. Every poem (there are thirty), prose piece (three, and two reviews) and work of art (several color reproductions by each of two impressive visual artists) requires at least some familiarity with the Biblical and cultural roots of Christian thought. Allusions to the life and teachings of Christ and to the tension inherent in faithful living abound in this issue. If you grok these allusions, this journal is an absolute treasure. If you don’t, you might be confused—or you might become a seeker, wandering a step or two toward conversion. Continue reading “Windhover – Spring 2013”

Fiddleblack – April 2013

Fiddleblack, an online magazine now on its tenth issue, seeks to find and publish pieces that “eloquently capture what it means to know the finite bounds of self and place.” The editors go on to say that they are “interested in works of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction that make purposeful commitments to figuring out whom one is meant to be, and how it is that one should exist in the space enclosed around him.” And certainly the characters included in this issue are searching through these problems. Continue reading “Fiddleblack – April 2013”

Absinthe – 2012

Published out of Farmington Hills, Michigan, Absinthe identifies its contributors with the help of more than 40 editorial advisors, including Aleksandar Hemon, Adam J. Sorkin, and Sonja Lehner. These advisors, themselves writers and translators, along with Absinthe’s editors, have selected for this issue a preponderance of Eastern European works, including contributions from Romania, Moldova, the Czech Republic, and Croatia, as well as Spain, France, and Scandinavia. Continue reading “Absinthe – 2012”

Arc Poetry Magazine – 2013

The seventieth issue of Arc, an annual journal published in Ottawa, Canada, features an email interview with poet Elizabeth Bachinsky, in which she writes: “We really are living in hybrid times.” A fitting remark both for the “cultural capital” writers find themselves living with and for this intelligently edited gathering, which takes as its theme “Reuse and Recycle: Finding Poetry in Canada.” Poetry editor Shane Rhodes contributes the titular essay, considering reuse and recycling in the context of found poetry: its background in Canada, its shifting motivations, and its internet-driven permutations. With few exceptions, however, most of the work in Arc considers reuse obliquely and explores material subjects through honed language rather than through the repurposing of archival or computer-generated texts. Continue reading “Arc Poetry Magazine – 2013”

Aufgabe – 2012

Aufgabe is a tome. It weighs 1.5 pounds on my bathroom scale, and that’s a paperback without any glossy pages. The journal publishes once a year, and the 2012 issue contains American poetry, a section of poems by poets from El Salvador in the original and in translation edited by Christian Nagler, other poems in translation, essays, reviews, and “notes.” Continue reading “Aufgabe – 2012”

Big Muddy – 2013

The Mississippi River holds a special place in American literature. Mark Twain wrote extensively about it in his memoir, “Life on the Mississippi”: “The Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable.” Big Muddy, a literary journal published by the Southeast Missouri State University Press, is as remarkable as the mighty river it is named after. This journal delivers stories, poems, and essays related to the Mississippi River Basin and its bordering ten-state area, but you don’t have to live in this area of the United States to enjoy the writings collected in this issue. Continue reading “Big Muddy – 2013”

Virtual Author Event: Shirley Reva Vernick & J.L. Powers

Monday May 13 at 6:00 pm EDT, Cinco Puntos Press presents two virtual discussions via Shindig: Remember Dippy: Middle Grade Fiction, Representing Autism with Shirley Reva Vernick and That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone, Talking Children and War with J.L. Powers.

Remember Dippy: Middle Grade Fiction, Representing Autism by Shirley Reva Vernick

Johnny’s summer plans fly out the window when he learns he has to help out with his autistic older cousin, Remember. His premonitions of disaster appear at first to come to cringeworthy fruition, but when the two boys save a bully from drowning, salvage the pizzeria guy’s romance and share girl troubles, Johnny ends up having the summer of his life.

Come join us for Cinco Puntos’ debut Author Talk series with award-winning author Shirley Reva Vernick, who will talk about her second novel for young people where laughter and serious issues mix in a lightly humorous novel.

That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone, Talking Children and War by J.L. Powers

In this 2013 Notable Book for a Global Society, seventeen writers from around the world contribute essays about coming of age during a time of war: fighting, dying, surviving. Powers will talk about war, violence, and childhood, and what these writers taught her about exile and belonging after their worlds were destroyed.

Happy Mother’s Day!

To My Mother
by Christina Rossetti

To-day’s your natal day;
Sweet flowers I bring:
Mother, accept, I pray
My offering.

And may you happy live,
And long us bless;
Receiving as you give
Great happiness.

Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize Winners

Winners of the 78th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards are:

• Laird Hunt, Kind One, Fiction
• Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds, Fiction
• Eugene Gloria, My Favorite Warlord, Poetry
• Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree, Nonfiction
• Wole Soyinka, Lifetime Achievement

Past winners include five writers who went on to win Nobel prizes – Nadine Gordimer, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott.

The Anisfield-Wolf winners will be honored in Cleveland Sept. 12 at a ceremony at the Ohio Theatre hosted by the Cleveland Foundation and emceed by Jury Chair Henry Louis Gates Jr. Poet Rita Dove, novelist Joyce Carol Oates, psychologist Steven Pinker, and historian Simon Schama also deliberate on the jury. The Cleveland Foundation has administered the book awards since 1963. They remain the only juried American literary competition devoted to recognizing books that have made an important contribution to society’s understanding of racism and the diversity of cultures. For additional information, including a complete list of winners, visit www.Anisfield-Wolf.org.

Haikus in Space

Looking for a wider audience for your work? Consider the stars. NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission is launching late in 2013, and NASA is running a contest for messages, in haiku form, to be sent onboard the craft. The contest is open to “everyone on planet Earth,” though participants must be 18 to sign up for an account and login (minors are encouraged to have a parent or teacher assist them).

Entries are accepted from May 1 to July 1, and from July 15-29, the public will vote to choose the top three messages. The names of all entrants will be written to a DVD that will be sent on the craft as well.

The goal of the MAVEN mission is to understand Mars’s upper atmosphere. The team also promotes education and outreach about science and space with students and the public.

Academy of Arts and Science New Members

Newly elected for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the Humanities and Arts class are novelist Martin Amis; novelist and essayist Wendell Berry; philosopher David Chalmers; director and actor Robert De Niro; Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Annie Dillard and U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey; actor Sally Field; Michael Fishbane, a scholar of Jewish studies; operatic soprano Renée Fleming; jazz musician Herbie Hancock; documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles; French history scholar Sarah Maza; linguist David Perlmutter; artist Judy Pfaff; Stuart Schwartz, a leading historian of colonial slavery; artist Yoshiaki Shimizu; and singer-songwriters Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen.

One of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, the Academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to Academy publications and studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, and the humanities, arts, and education.

“Election to the Academy honors individual accomplishment and calls upon members to serve the public good,” said Academy President Leslie C. Berlowitz. “We look forward to drawing on the knowledge and expertise of these distinguished men and women to advance solutions to the pressing policy challenges of the day.”

LGBT Writers in Schools Program

Lambda Literary’s LGBT WRITERS IN SCHOOLS connects authors with classrooms via free Skype or in-class visits to discuss the author’s work and LGBT issues. Designed for teachers of high school classes, universities and colleges, and student organizations, the LGBT Writers in Schools program is an opportunity for writers to discuss their work openly with students and to encourage diversity not only in the students’ reading and writing lives, but also in society at large. This initiative will broaden the foundation of experience for students of Literature, Creative Writing, English, and Secondary Education.

GOALS
–To bring LGBT writers into high schools, colleges and universities to share their knowledge and experience in order to promote diversity and encourage understanding of the LGBT community.
–To enrich the high school, college and university English curriculum by incorporating and teaching LGBT texts in the classroom which will acknowledge LGBT writers’ contributions to literature.
–To foster an open environment to discuss LGBT issues and their impact on society and the individual through LGBT texts in a vibrant and moderated classroom atmosphere.
–Giving a voice to those who have long been silenced.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
The teacher will state which type of author she would like in one of four genres: Adult Fiction, YA Fiction, Poetry and Nonfiction/Memoir. Once the information is gathered from the teacher,  LGBT Writers in Schools will contact an author who would be a good fit. If they request a specific author, LGBT Writers in Schools will try to contact that author.

WHAT HAPPENS ONCE AN AUTHOR IS CHOSEN FOR THE TEACHER’S CLASS?
Once the author has agreed to do the visit, then an introduction is made between the author and the teacher via LGBT Writers in Schools. After the introduction is made, it is the responsibility of the teacher to work out the specifics of the visit (ie: date of visit, length of visit, in person or via Skype, etc).

WHAT HAPPENS DURING THE VISIT?
Teachers would assign the work of the author and once the class has read it, the author would do a twenty minute (or longer) Skype session with the class. Depending upon what the teacher and author discussed, the session can be as general or as specific as each would like. It is supposed to be fun, lively and educational.

WHY SHOULD I PARTICIPATE?
This is a really exciting venture for Lambda Literary Foundation and for the Gay Straight Educators Alliance. LGBT literature should be represented as one voice among the many in any contemporary curriculum. The way to help counter prejudice and bullying is through educating others and it is vital to support any efforts that would help achieve this goal. Opening up channels of communication definitely begins with understanding and what better way to understand the LGBT community than through literature.

HOW DO I SIGN UP?
Contact Monica Carter, Program Coordinator, LGBT Writers in Schools Program: mcarter[at]lambdaliterary[dot]org

WHAT STUDENTS ARE SAYING
“The lessons learned in the class are universal; they can easily be applied to any setting. The theme of communal acceptance affects everybody.”
“This is a great program. It is beneficial to students.”
“I learned empathy towards LGBT issues and the author exceeded my expectations.”

SOME OF OUR AUTHORS
Nancy Garden, author of Annie on My Mind
Charles Rice-Gonzalez, author of Chulito
Julie Anne Peters, author of several Young Adult books including Luna and By the Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead
Nina Revoyr, author of four novels including Necessary Hunger and The Age of Dreaming
Nick Burd, author of Vast Fields of the Ordinary
Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay It Forward (novel for the basis of movie of same title), Let Me Go, Jumpstart the World, and many other young adult novels
Noel Alumit, author of Talk to the Moon and Letters to Montgomery Cliff

Major Jackson Guest Edits

The Spring 2013 issue is guest edited by Major Jackson who said work with the collection was “restorative and personally nurturing.” The issue features work from Martín Espada, Tony Hoagland, Sharon Olds, Carl Phillips, Tracy K. Smith, Laura Kasischke, and many more.”

In his introduction, Jackson writes, “The authors in this issue entertain, bring the news, and elegantly sing the underlying complexities of our existence. However, maybe even more notably, as Spicer suggests: against all that alienates us from each other, these authors, with their counterpunching visions and imaginative uses of language, render us more a community—flawed beyond belief, yet whose humanity is all the more striking because of our joyous nature to find redemption, to grasp and render all that is sublime, beautiful, and truthful.”

For the rest of the introduction and to see and read snippets from the issue, visit www.pshares.org.

2012 Alice Hoffman Prize Winner

Ploughshares has announced Karl Taro Greenfeld as the recipient of the first annual Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction for his short story, “Strawberries,” which appeared in the Winter 2012 issue of Ploughshares, guest edited by Ladette Randolph and John Skoyles. The $1,000 award, given by acclaimed writer and Ploughshares advisory editor Alice Hoffman, honors the best piece of fiction published in the journal during the previous year.

New Lit on the Block :: A NARROW FELLOW

A NARROW FELLOW is a new biannual, print, poetry magazine that takes its name from an Emily Dickinson poem, later named by publishers “The Snake.” This poem is about “…a narrow fellow in the grass…” After coming up with a list of 40 possible names, Editors Mark Lee Webb and Molly McCormack (husband and wife) sat down to make a final decision: “The name we settled on at the end of the candle and the bottom of the bottle of wine (a Pinot Noir) was A NARROW FELLOW,” says Webb.

“We wanted to connect more with ‘The Tribe,’ make contacts with established voices,” he says. “We also recognized the difficulty new voices have getting published . . . It’s often a very closed clique . . .” Knowing this frustration, they wanted to make a place for these new voices to shine.

The magazine features mostly poems that fit on one page and that “tell engaging stories, that use vivid images, and that sing melodies that beg you to come back for more.” Web says that they don’t publish experiment, but they also don’t publish traditional forms with measured meter and end-rhymes. “We publish innovators (which is different than experimenters, to a degree). Webb really knows the kinds of poetry they want, and the kind they don’t want: “We publish lots of metaphor. We publish poems that tell a unique story in a unique way. We don’t publish poems about writing poetry. We don’t publish poems about the meaning of the universe. We publish mysterious poems that are not confusing. They don’t tie a bow around their endings, and they make the reader work a bit. But they are not un-solvable puzzles.”

Each author that they feature has at least two poems, “so the reader can get a better sense of their voice.” Webb says that they event rejected some excellent poets because they only sent one poem, or only one remarkable poem in the set.

The first issue features well-known poets Jeffrey Skinner, Mark Brazaitis, Fred Smock, James Harms, and Lynnell Edwards. The issue also includes Karen Schubert, who recently won an Ohio Arts Council grant and teaches at Youngstown State. Webb says, “Her poem ‘Toby Tyler’ is remarkable.” Webb says they are excited to be one of the first magazines to publish the work of Jerriod Avant, an MFA student “that you’ll be hearing a lot about in the next few years.” The issue also features the work of emerging voice such as Caitlin Thomson and Valentina Cano. Webb says that the next issue will feature double the amount of poets that were published in the inaugural issue, which was seventeen.

In the future, A NARROW FELLOW plans to publish a theme issue that will pair pieces of artwork with poems written about the art. Webb says that in addition to publishing the issue, they will hang the art and poems for a show at a gallery.

For information on submitting or subscribing to the magazine, please visit their website.

Beard of Bees Offers Chandler Lewis Chapbook

Beard of Bees offers a free download of their newest publication Pixel’s Minutiae by Chandler Lewis.

Beard of Bees is an independent, free press based in Oak Park, Illinois and Paris, France, that makes all of its publications available for free download and free redistribution, “since the alleged ownership of language and thought is a revolting legal fiction.”

Beard of Bees is “committed to publishing quality chapbooks by liberated poets from Anywhere.” They “do not discriminate against non-human or post-human artists,” and feature works of Gnoetry: “an on-going experiment in human/computer collaborative poetry composition.”

Blood Lotus Seeks Editors

Blood Lotus online magazine is looking to fill a couple of volunteer editor positions in both poetry and fiction. Time commitment would be 5-10 hours per quarterly reading period. For more details and to find out how to apply, visit their website.