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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!

American Antiwar Poetry Examined

“Resisting Imperial Jouissance: The Transideological Line in Recent American Antiwar Poetry” by Dean Brink has been published in Volume 43, Number 1 /2013 of Canadian Review of American Studies: “This essay critically examines various strategies taken in the most compelling contemporary American antiwar poetry written against the occupation of Iraq. It finds both limitations, as many poets have succumbed to a postmodern distance from events, and brilliance, in poets who have discerned ways of eliciting hope in the aims of such poetry. Linda Hutcheon’s term transideological irony is used to show how many poets are complicit, in their irony, with rubrics of the dominant discourse such as ‘a nation at war.’ In light of Žižek’s Lacanian-Marxist formulation of jouissance, the imperial jouissance manifest in much poetry presented as thematically ‘antiwar’ is examined in terms of both successes and shortcomings.” The essay is available for purchase online as a PDF download.

The Antigonish Review Contest Winners

The Winter 2013 issue of The Antigonish Review features the winners of the Great Blue Heron Poetry Contest and the Sheldon Currie Fiction Contest.

Great Blue Heron Poetry Contest
First Prize: Charles P. R. Tisdale
Second Prize: Kim Trainor
Third Prize: Laura Legge

Sheldon Currie Fiction Contest
First Prize: Veronica Ross
Second Prize: Fred Annesley
Third Prize: Joan M. Baril

The issue also includes work from Jocko Benoit, Dwayne Brenna, Jan Conn, Mark Corkery, Mike Donaldson, Aloys Fleischmann, Michelle Glennie, Sean Howard & Mark Silverberg, Kevin Irie, Edward Lemond, Lisa McLean, Jean McNeil, Mark Puhlman, and Reynold Stone.

Naugatuck River Review 2013 Contest

Naugatuck River Review‘s Winter 2013 issue features the winners of their fourth annual Narrative Poetry Contest, judged by Pamela Uschuk.

First Prize
Diane Lockward “Original Sin”

Second Prize
Doug Ramspeck “Idle Signs”

Third Prize
Bianca Diaz “The Light in the Dark”

Finalists
Lauren K. Alleyne “Dear Christopher”
John Victor Anderson “El Lagarto”
Lana Hechtman Ayers “In My Dreams I Draw Circles But None Of Their Edges Touch”
Wendy Burbank “Frederick”
Judith Waller Carroll “Pas de Deux”
Beth Copeland “Blue Honey”
Maureen Tollman Flannery “Selling the Ranch”
Veronica Golos “China Town Fish Market, New York, Circa Unknown”
Paul Hostovsky “Del Nelmezzo”
Brenna LeMieux “On Mending”
Mary Leonard “Tel Aviv Sonnet”
Taylor Mali “What the Whispering Means”
Thomas R. Moore “Pinus Strobus”
Roger Pfingston “Divorce”
Gail Thomas “Flame”
Lauren Wolk “Wolf Hollow, Pennsylvania”
Lisa Wujnovich “Cynthia”

To view a complete list of the semi-finalists, please click here.

Poetry Trading Cards @ AWP

In addition to their twice annual, large-format (8.5×11) literary journal, Fact-Simile is now in their fourth year of publishing Poetry Trading Cards. Each card features a full-color front with a photograph of the poet and the poem printed on the back using traditional trading card stock. Each card comes in an archival quality plastic sleeve and can be purchased for 99 cents each or $10 for the year (+s/h). You can still subscribe now and get the “back issues” as well as receive monthly delivery for the remainder of the year.

I was thrilled when I learned that a number of the Trading Card Poets would be signing cards at the Fact-Simile table at AWP Boston. I’ve been a subscriber from the start, so picked out the cards, printed the signing schedule, and for three days, I haunted the Fact-Simile staff regularly throughout each day! I was their most obsessed fan, I’m sure of it, and was tolerated with kindness and humor each time I ran back and forth (several times to catch Hoa Nguyen, who in addition to signing cards was giving tarot readings in the aisle way).

My diligence paid off as I was able to meet and have cards signed by Charles Bernstein, Marcella Durand, K. Silem Mohammad, Hoa Nguyen, Jena Osman, Vanessa Place, Elizabeth Robinson, and Lewis Warsh. Huge thanks to Fact-Simile for creating and keeping this series going. It’s a treat to get one of these in the mail each month. And thanks for the signing, for obsessed fans like me it was a great opportunity!

Georgia Poets

Southern Poetry Review‘s new issue features Georgia Poets. In their original call for submissions, they were clear that they weren’t necessarily looking for work that addressed Georgia or the South, but instead should come from poets that were from Georgia or had a significant connection to it. “We wanted to see who was, so to speak, out there,” writes Co-Editor James Smith. “A few of the poems do, indeed, make passing reference to Georgia, and some of them, to a large extent, are “about” the South, but the reader must decide if the other poems carry any redolence of place. We decided not to arrange the issue, as we usually do, selecting a poem with which to lead off, one with which to end, and intimating connections along the way . . . but in an issue devoted to a particular group of poets, we wanted to be careful not to give the impression of ranking, so we chose the alphabetical approach and found nonetheless many interesting juxtapositions and groupings.”

So, in alphabetically order, the issue includes Rebecca Baggett, Coleman Barks, Beverly Burch, Kathryn Stripling Byer, George David Clark, Alfred Corn, Heather Cousins, Blanche Farley, Rupert Fike, Starkey Flythe Jr., Gregory Fraser, Alice Friman, Roberta George, Sarah Gordon, William Greenway, Linda Lee Harper, Gordon Johnston, Robert S. King, Nick McRae, Judson Mitcham, Eric Nelson, William L. Ramsey, Rosemary Royston, Anya Silver, Nancy Simpson, Charlie Smith, Matthew Buckley Smith, Ron Smith, R. T. Smith, A. E. Stallings, Memye Curtis Tucker, Austin Wilson, Edward Wilson, and William Wright.

Map Literary Print Issue

Map Literary, an online magazine, has just put out their second print issue, an anthology collection from the past year. Although it doesn’t include everything that was published online, it features the best of the best.

It features the work of Keith Newton, Nicholas Brown, Tina Brown Celona, Michelle Valois, Julia Cohen, Sam White, Joshua Ware, Dan Kaplan, Beth Couture, Paige Taggart, Craig Foltz, Patrick Swaney, Jim Daniels, Simon Perchik, Kirk Curnutt, Joe Lennon, and Joanna Clapps Herman.

American Literary Review Last Print Issue

If you love American Literary Review, you best get your hands on their current issue. It will be their last print issue. However, this doesn’t mean they are extinct! Starting with the Fall 2013 issue, the magazine will be featured exclusively online. “The necessity of change has taken us a little by surprise, although publications before us have taken to the ehter, due to economic circumstances and the attendant promise of a wider readership,” writes Editor Ann McCutchan. “And while we mourn the physical journal, we’re excited about the advantages of the new format.”

With the new format, the magazine can be offered for free—and who doesn’t love free—and will be able to fit in even more poems, stories, and essays, with a “substantially beefed-up book review section.”

McCutchan extends her gratitude to her editors and everyone that has worked with the magazine as well as to the readership. “Jim Lee imagined that if he built it, ‘they’ would come. Now after more than two decades, it’s fair to say that you’ve built it, with your writing and readership. Once more, thank you, and we’ll see you online.”

William Van Dyke Short Story Prize

Sponsored by The Van Dyke Family Charitable Foundation and judged by Mark Richard, the William Van Dyke Short Story Prize is featured in the newest issue from Ruminate. “It was a pleasure to read this year’s submissions,” writes Richard. “In one story, grief is made real in images of rain and through music. In another, a woman hopes to find healing from her childhood, trying to accept love from those who often fail her and from a God who never does. A person of faith begins to have doubts during the prolonged death of a loved one, the meaning of the suffering proving elusive. A man struggles to keep the contents of his mind from spilling out at the end of his life. Another person of faith desires to surrender unto death, but the will to survive is stronger.”

First Place
David Brendan Hopes: “Saturdays He Drove the Ford Pickup”

Second Place
Terrence Cheng: “In San Francisco”

Honorable Mention
Megan Malone: “Safekeeping”

Finalists
Daniel Casey: “RE: Sentencing”
Peter Court: “The Simple Art of Flight”
A.R. Gardner: “A Mother’s Legacy”
Lindsey Griffin: “Tenebrae”
Linda McCullough Moore: “What a Lifetime Is”
Alexandre Puttick: “The Fall”

Richards writes, “David Hopes’ ‘Saturdays He Drove the Ford Pickup’ spoke to me as a parable would, and I’m always inclined toward a parable. And on subsequent readings, it seemed a bit more layered than I originally thought. The things I first thought sentimental about the piece actually gave it ultimate poignancy.”

NYC Literary Festival

For all of you in  NYC in April, there will be a Downtown Literary Festival hosted by McNally Jackson and Housing Works Bookstore Cafe. “The festival will take place at both bookstores simultaneously on Sunday, April 14, 2013, followed by a happy hour mingle at Housing Work Bookstore and an after-party at Pravda, featuring Russian literature–themed cocktails. The goal of DLF is to showcase the literature and writers of New York City. We will aim to reflect the diversity and creativity that characterizes downtown NYC with a day of the non-traditional events for which McNally Jackson and Housing Works Bookstore have become known.”

Kites by Robert Gibb

American Life in Poetry: Column 416
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

This kite-flying poem caught me right up and sent me flying as soon as Robert Gibb described those dimestore kites furled tighter than umbrellas, a perfect image. Gibb lives in Pennsylvania.

Kites

Come March we’d find them
In the five-and-dimes,
Furled tighter than umbrellas
About their slats, the air

In an undertow above us
Like weather on the maps.
We’d play out lines
Of kite string, tugging against

The bucking sideways flights.
Readied for assembly,
I’d arc the tensed keel of balsa
Into place against the crosspiece,

Feeling the paper snap
Taughtly as a sheet, then lift
The almost weightless body
Up to where it hauled me

Trolling into the winds—
Knotted bows like vertebrae
Flashing among fields
Of light. Why ruin it

By recalling the aftermaths?
Kites gone down in tatters,
Kites fraying like flotsam
From the tops of the trees.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2012 by Robert Gibb from his most recent book of poems, Sheet Music, Autumn House Press, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Robert Gibb and Autumn House Press. Introduction copyright © 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Seattle Poetry Panels

Seattle Poetry Panels invites you to “The State of Seattle Poetry” at 7 p.m. on March 24. “Founded by Greg Bem and Amber Nelson, Seattle Poetry Panels is a naturally occurring online phenomenon. For each panel, a Seattle poet is designated captain, gathers forces, and leads the charge on tough, in-depth investigations on any given subject related to poetry, Seattle, or Seattle poetry. These panels will take place in google hangout so anyone can watch from the comfort of their sofas and snuggies.”

The discussion will also be saved on YouTube to view it in the future. To attend the Google Hangout, please view the Facebook event invitation. Or you can directly email Greg at gregbem[at]gmail[dot]com or Amber at ambydexterous[at]gmail[dot]com.

Chinese Literature

Two current news pieces on literature in China – present and future:

The World has yet to See the Best of Chinese Literature by Samantha Kuok Leese in The Spectator (UK): “…it’s early days for modern Chinese literature…the issue must be understood in the context of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. Mao Zedong’s atrocious campaigns all but shut down education, and left a frightening number of Chinese people illiterate. Writers in China are now suffering the aftereffects…”

The Future of the Novel in China published by the Guardian UK is an edited version of Li Er’s speech at the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference 2012-2013, Beijing, translated by Alice Xin Liu. “China’s mass media-connected society is more complicated than novelists in the west could ever have imagined, requiring new forms of storytelling to define our subjective experience.” Full versions of this and all the speeches are available on the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference website.

2012 Fiction Contest :: Passages North

Passages North’s newest issue (which I must say has a great cover) features the winners of their 2012 fiction contests.

Waasmode Fiction Prize, judged by Caitlin Horrocks
Winner
“We Are Here Because of a Horse” by Karin C. Davidson

Just Desserts Short-Short Fiction Prize, judged by Roxane Gay
Winner
“After the Flood the Captain of the Hamadryas Discovers a Madonna” by Traci Brimhall

Honorable Mentions
“Girl” by Nahal Jamir
“Dirty Girl” by Rochelle Hurt

The rest of the issue features features Kristin Abraham, John Azrak, Jenny Boully, Hans Burger, Christine Caulfield, Michelle Dove, Stefani Farris, Michael Filas, Toni Graham, Karen Hays, Rochelle Hurt, Brandon David Jennings, Hiram Larew, Sally Wen Mao, Roy Mash, Brenda Miller, Jill Osier, Elena Passarello, Emma Ramey, Susan Terris, Matthew Vollmer, Allen Woodman, and many more.

World Literature Today Photography Issue

The most recent, special double issue of World Literature Today features some amazing photography. “Why is World Literature Today, a literary magazine, publishing a photography issue?” writes Editor Daniel Simon. “For one thing, 2013 marks the centenary of popular 35mm still photography: the American Tourist Multiple camera was introduced in 1913, and Oskar Barnack began developing the prototype of the ur-Leica that same year. Moreover, 1913 stands out as a watershed modernist moment.” During that same year, Camera Work published a special issue featuring art photography and the movement known as pictorialism. Simon explains, “By juxtaposing photography with other works of modern art and literature, Stieglitz was hoping to promote ‘the camera’s role as the most apt metaphor for the modernist enterprise’ and to defend the use and aims of photography ‘as one of the defining tasks of modernism itself.'”

He goes on to say that “one hundred years later—and in a similar spirit—WLT presents a special double issue devoted to the language of photography and, by extension, literature . . . By the conventional measure, the seventy-plus pictures included in this issue must be worth more than seventy thousand words. And while photographers often prefer to let the images they create stand on their won, without comment, in this instance we’re fortunate to have their words alongside their photos.”

The featured photographers include Yousef Khanfar, David Goldblatt & Nadine Gordimer, Lois Greenfield, Jacko Vassilev, Lisa Kristine, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Lalla A. Essaydi, Kenro Izu, Joyce Tenneson, Misha Gordin, Ken Duncan, Ami Vitale, David Doubilet, Candida Höfer & Umberto Eco, Tim Mantoani, Angela Bacon-Kidwell, Phil Borges, Graciela Iturbide, Jay Dusard, Camille Seaman, and Shahidul Alam.

The issue also contains essays by Kamila Shamsie, Adnan Mahmutović, and Mark Budman, as well as poetry by André Naffis-Sahely.

Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia Needs Contributors, Editors, Volunteers

From Marju Broder:

The Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia is a project with a very far reaching vision which needs energy, resources and time to develop. The key function of CBE is the combination of IT& computers, digitized Buddhist materials and software and providing everyone with access to Internet the opportunity to use those applications and materials. The author and main organizer of Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia is Vello Vaartnou. The CBE project was officially started in December, 2012, when Vaartnou presented the idea of the CBE at the ECAI conference in University of California, Berkeley.

We are looking for volunteer editors for the Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia project. CBE needs a lot of data research and editing. Usually every editor has their own Buddhism related topic(s) (English and Chinese speakers) on which he/she would gather as much material as possible.

We welcome everyone who could contribute their valuable time by editing and adding materials from different sources all over the internet.

There is much work to do so anyone who would like to give their contribution for the Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia project are most WELCOME to do so.

Please visit Chinese Buddhist Encyclopedia for more information.

New Lit on the Block :: Spry Literary Journal

Check out Spry Literary Journal, a brand new online, biannual publication that features creative nonfiction, fiction, flash prose, and poetry that is brief, “works that rely on each word to be agile, lithe, to carry its own weight—to be spry.” Editors Erin A. Corriveau and Linsey Jayne said that inside the issues, readers will find “works that will move them to tears, works that will make them laugh, and works that will challenge them to see the world through new and imaginative lenses. . . . They will find their reflections in magical realism and the art of the real. Readers can expect to find creative nonfiction, poetry and fiction from seasoned authors and first time published writers as well. Their work is risky, vulnerable, historical, and honest.”

Linsey said that as her and Erin came to the end of their MFA program and their work with Mason’s Road journal, they realized that the next step would be to make a literary journal of their own. “During our time in the MFA program, we had each worked on a critical thesis that lent itself to the study and creation of concise literature.”

Eager to branch out, Linsey said that they hope to eventually become a triannual publication, introduce audio/visual elements to the journal, and explore opportunities for other formats beyond the online model. “We are looking forward to planning our first launch party, building up our site, hosting contests, and much, much more,” she said. “We’re more eager than anything, though, to see each new submission that comes through our manager, and to determining which pieces will make future issues come to life.”

Each of Spry’s issues features a five-question interview with an established writer. Linsey is pleased to announce that the first issue features Porochista Khakpour and encourages readers to read the interview and leave comments. “We’re excited for the future,” she said, “we have some exciting interviewees lined up and more great submissions coming through every day.” She expressed that they are always open to new ideas and to contact her at any time.

The first issue also features creative nonfiction by Elizabeth Hilts, Jenni Nance, Alan Shaw, Amy Sibley, and Barbara Wanamaker; fiction by Kate Alexander-Kirk, Jeni McFarland, Wei He, Paul Pekin, and Ben Sneyd; flash by Allie Marini Batts, Lucas Burris, Adrien Creger, Christine Hale, Matt Lucas, Saeide Mirzaei, Bill Riley, Michael Dwayne Smith, Alexandra Todak, and Janna Vought; and poetry by Sheila Black, Conor Bracken, Jeremy Byars, Elizabeth Cooley, B.D. Fischer, Erin Hoover, Leigh Anne Hornfeldt, Paul Hostovsky, Kevin Miller, and Michael Sarnowski.

Submissions of short creative nonfiction, short fiction, flash (in any genre), and poetry are being accepted now through March 31 for the second issue. Linsey notes that for the flash category, they accept “fiction and nonfiction, as well as anything experimental in that genre.” Spry has a blind submission policy and accepts submissions via Submittable. For more submission guidelines, please view their website.

South Loop Review – 2012

The editors of South Loop Review invite “essays and memoir, lyric and experimental forms, non-linear narratives, blended genre, photography and art . . . personal essays and memoir with fresh voices and new takes on presentation and form.” I reprint the description for emphasis. The magazine is not feigning interest in the experimental. Rather, essays appear (in Micah McCrary’s case) as meditations on color through a list format, toy with a redline feature as a method of managing conflicting emotions (as in Adriana Páramo’s case), and explore what one might term the “meta-essay” through the careful tides of stating and redacting comments about what illness can signify (see Vicki Weiqi Yang’s essay). Continue reading “South Loop Review – 2012”

Cactus Heart – Winter 2013

In her editor’s note, Sara Rauch hopes that this issue will “bring the bright and wild and unusual into your spirit this winter.” Certainly, there are images such as these throughout the issue that bring a little warmth to my room: “there lies me and you sitting on the floor / with a bucket of strawberries, whipped cream . . .” (Shannon Shuster’s “alright  .”); “standing at the water’s edge / leaning against the night breeze / taut as harp strings for balance” (Ned Randle’s “Lake Song”); “When I was younger I would wait / for the first bloom of the blackberry / thickets and collect berries in a mason jar” (Matthew Wimberley’s “Indian Summer, Reading Lorca”); and “The heat pins my shirt to my skin like a silver star” (Arah McManamna’s “Cactus Flower”). Continue reading “Cactus Heart – Winter 2013”

Danse Macabre – March 2013

For something truly original and definitely a break from the normal online journal, take a look at Danse Macabre. Not only is the writing a break from the straight literary, but the images and the layout are as well. The style, as described by Editor Adam Henry Carrière, is “noir coloratura.” Enter this issue, “Terra,” and be greeted by a skeleton who is about to cut down a tree with an ax, be greeted with a type of march song played on the organ. Continue reading “Danse Macabre – March 2013”

AGNI – Number 76

You know you should have bought a subscription to a magazine when you learn, one issue too late, that the editors were going to host a retrospective on Robert Lowell (AGNI 75). Or when, casually perusing the issue at hand, you discover apparitions of Ray Bradbury (see David Huddle’s piece), Cynthia Ozick (see Tamas Dobozy channel Harper’s The Bloodline of the Alkanas), and Allegra Goodman (see Wendy Rawlings’s ending channeling La Vita Nuova). The perceptible echo from these influences emerges from talented writers in their own right. And that’s just the fiction. Continue reading “AGNI – Number 76”

Creative Nonfiction – Winter 2013

“Don’t write like a girl. Don’t write like a boy. Write like a mother#^@%*&,” the Rumpus columnist “Sugar” advised young writer Elissa Bassist in 2010. Bassist took the advice to heart, making it into an “anthem and a lifestyle” that is about “quitting your bitching, getting out of your own ego, and getting to work.” Three years later, she and “Sugar”—now revealed as Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things, extend the discussion in an email conversation that appropriately kicks off this powerful collection of work by women writers. Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction – Winter 2013”

Four and Twenty – January 2013

I’ve always loved flash fiction for its brevity, its ability to, as they say, “pack a punch” in such a short space. Each sentence bears weight. Well the poems in this magazine close that circle a little tighter; here, each word, nay, each syllable bears tremendous weight. Each poem must be four lines or fewer and cannot contain more than twenty words. Similar to the idea of the six-word story, these poems must convey imagery, idea, insight within a small space. For the most part, all of these pieces accomplish that goal. Continue reading “Four and Twenty – January 2013”

Event – Fall 2012

Event is a Canadian literary journal associated with Douglas College in British Columbia. While they primarily publish poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and reviews from Canadian writers, they do accept submissions from all over. Their aesthetic seems broad ranging, with an inclination for stories that have a hint of the mysterious or unconventional. Continue reading “Event – Fall 2012”

Freefall – Winter 2013

Freefall bills itself as “Canada’s Magazine of Exquisite Writing.” Their mission statement commits to publishing 85% Canadian content, ranging from new and emerging to experienced writers. The editor’s opening statement, written by Micheline Maylor, describes an opposition to demolishing Al Purdy’s A-frame house, asking: “If muscle has the ability to remember, then why not a wall, a house, a landscape?” Her preamble continues, “For what is this life without a little magic?” and sets the tone for the creative work that follows. Continue reading “Freefall – Winter 2013”

Shadowbox – Spring 2013

Enter Shadowbox’s site and you’ll see a shadowbox filled will several objects. Clicking on the image of the flowers will bring up this issue’s featured writing. It brings up a spice rack, each bottle containing a spice of life, if you will. Dedicated entirely to all forms of creative nonfiction, Shadowbox presents a collection worth reading. Some pieces are in the traditional essay form, while others stray quite a bit, opening up new ways to see creative nonfiction. Continue reading “Shadowbox – Spring 2013”

The Healing Muse – Fall 2012

Illness, arguably the direct or indirect source of human suffering, prostrates us all. Accordingly, theories of illness and healthcare form an uneasy truce for such icons as Karl Marx, Pope John Paul II, and Ayn Rand even though their philosophies would diverge on many other topics. Moreover, one might argue that the management of limited medical resources has become the preoccupation of our age. But when you are sick, philosophies fail; you seek mercy, and sometimes the voice of that mercy comes from literature. The Healing Muse, a journal produced by The Center for Bioethics and Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University, offers a platform for such voice. As editor Deirdre Neilen notes in her introduction to the journal, “The land ahead may be unfamiliar territory, but the same humor, resilience and desire propel our poets and essayists and their characters to chance the unknown and to chart the journey for us.” Continue reading “The Healing Muse – Fall 2012”

Temenos – Winter 2013

Temenos, the journal of Central Michigan University, is a Greek word that “refers both to the ancient Greek concept of sacred space and the Jungian ‘safe spot’ where one may bring the unconscious into the light of consciousness.” The editors say that their mission is to “bring to light works that are engaging, memorable, and fearless.” Continue reading “Temenos – Winter 2013”

The Hollins Critic – December 2012

Spare, elegant, and graceful, The Hollins Critic descends like a belle of the upper South on bibliophiles starved for beauty. Fittingly, this publication emanates from the first women’s college in Virginia, an institution with a proud tradition dedicated to creativity and “effective self-expression.” The accomplished artist Susan Avishai, after decades devoted to the international study and practice of art, entered Hollins University in 2001 to pursue a degree in creative writing. Between writing seminars, she painted in Hollins’s studios, and since 2004 has contributed a striking pen-and-ink cover portrait to each issue of The Hollins Critic. Avishai’s art perfectly launches the reader into the fierce economy of its unique format, its passion for literature, and its flair. Continue reading “The Hollins Critic – December 2012”

Iron Horse Literary Review – 2012

Strong fiction does not have an expiration date. You can leave it on a shelf for centuries, but it will never lose its potency or the sense of joy it instills in new readers. The 2012 thematic issue from Iron Horse Literary Review celebrates the strong fiction of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne by showcasing three of his most popular stories: “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “The Gentle Boy.” The issue celebrates his fiction, but it also reexamines his work through the eyes of three prominent women authors. There is a heavy dose of irony here because Hawthorne dismissed women writers of his time as “scribblers” of market fiction. The result is a terrific issue juxtaposition of Hawthorne’s voice and voices of contemporary women writers. Continue reading “Iron Horse Literary Review – 2012”

The Literary Review – Fall 2012

The 2012 Late Fall issue of The Literary Review is out of control. No, really, the issue is dedicated to loss of control. “Control is an abstraction and a grail,” says Editor Minna Proctor. “Humans are driven to maddening distraction, dangerous and untenable lengths, in pursuit of control. We don’t ever get control, yet we hunt it.” The writers in this issue contribute a great selection of fiction and poetry that examines this hunt and shows how easy it is to lose control. Continue reading “The Literary Review – Fall 2012”

Paterson Literary Review – 2012/2013

The Paterson Literary Review only arrives once a year, but leaves a lasting impression. This Passaic County Community College-based journal boasts 400 pages of poems, stories and essays and could easily keep you occupied during several intercontinental flights. In her editor’s note, Maria Mazziotti Gillan declares one of her primary motivations for selecting work from the 10,000 submissions the PLR receives each year: “I attempt to be inclusive of the work of writers from many races and ethnicities, choosing what I believe to be the best works.” She certainly achieved her goal; the journal balances the experimental and the traditional, the personal and the universal. Continue reading “Paterson Literary Review – 2012/2013”

St. Petersburg Review – 2010/2011

The body of great literature being created outside of the English-speaking world is vast; St. Petersburg Review is taking great strides to bridge the gap between cultures and languages that sometimes keep writers and readers apart. The thick volume is jam-packed with fiction, poetry, plays, and creative nonfiction plucked from everywhere in the world. A great deal of the work has been reflected through the prism of translation: a double-edged sword. Reading work in translation is, in some ways, like seeing a great painting through a pair of cracked eyeglasses. You can see the whole of the work and take it to heart, but there will always be some measure of intellectual distance between you and the artist. On the other hand, translations such as these are wonderful because you get a taste of the different music made by phrases that emerge from minds trained to think in unfamiliar languages. Continue reading “St. Petersburg Review – 2010/2011”

We’re Back!

Some of us from NewPages spent last week at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Boston, MA. It was fantastic, and we want to say a huge thanks to everyone who stopped by our bookfair tables to say hello. We spend 99.9% of our work time here at the computer, so being able to meet people face-to-face is a great opportunity for us. We appreciated hearing your comments about the site – what you like and how we can make it better. Ten years ago, when NewPages attended our first AWP, we spent hours walking the bookfair floor, introducing ourselves, explaining our site, our concept, our vision. Now, people recognize our name and shout out: “I love NewPages!” and “You guys do great work!” Thanks to all of you who shouted, stopped, said hello, and chatted it up with us. We do love meeting you and hearing from you. Please excuse our absence from the blog while we caught our breath, but get ready, because we’ve got tons of great stuff to share from AWP and will be spilling that out over the next few weeks.

[That blue book you see on our table is The NewPages Lit Pak for AWP Boston 2013 and is available for free on our site here.]

Snowflakes Fall: Tribute to Sandy Hook

Newbery Medalist Patricia MacLachlan and acclaimed picture book creator Steven Kellogg will collaborate to create the children’s book Snowflakes Fall as a tribute to the community of Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The book is slated for release this November from Random House and can be pre-ordered directly from their website. The publisher notes: “Random House Children’s Books together with Random House, Inc. will make a significant monetary donation to child-focused organizations that will be chosen by the collaborators.”

Matthew Quick Keynote Speech

“When you say you want to write a novel when you’re 17, people think it’s cute,” Mr. Quick said. “When you’re 32 years old and you’re living with your in-laws, especially if you are a man in America and you’re not making any money, people make you feel like you’re committing a crime.” Matthew Quick, author of The Silver Linings Playbook, from his keynote speech at the 23rd Annual Betty Curtis Worcester County Young Writers’ Conference on Saturday at St. John’s High School. Read the rest on Telegram.com.

The Weekly Reader Welcomes New Hosts

Started in 2010, the KMSU Weekly Reader is an author interview radio program currently hosted by newcomers Kyle Jaeger, Alec Cizak, and Beth Mouw. It airs on KMSU 89.7 FM in Mankato Minnesota, and is available as a podcast through iTunes. The Weekly Reader airs in-depth discussions with authors from all around the country. Authors, publishers, and agents are welcome to contact the hosts and send books to the hosts.

A sample of archived archived programs:

Adams, S. J., Sparks
Bugan, Carmen, Burying the Typewriter
Cohen, Joshua, Four New Messages
D’Souza, Tony, Mule
Fell, Adam, I Am Not A Pioneer
Gabbert, Elisa, The French Exit
Hagy, Alyson, Boleto
Karrow, David and Joseph Butts, The Alpha League
LeBoutillier, Nate, Horse Camp
Memmer, Philip, The Storehouses of the Snow
Nau, Dennis, The Year God Forgot Us
Pinda, Jon, Sleep In Me
Ryan, Matt, Read This Or You’re Dead To Me
Sanders, Ted, No Animals We Could Name
Terrill, Richard, Music and poetry, China twenty years later
Vizenor, Gerald, Chair of Tears
Wells, Will, Unsettled Accounts

To Copyright or Not To Copyright

If you’re not already reading Writer Beware! (“the public face of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Committee on Writing Scams”) on a regular basis, then now the time to start. A recent post by regular blogger and published writer Victoria Strauss examines why and when writers should copyright their work. The post calls out the practice of vanity publishers trolling copyright registration lists for fresh meat new customers.

Poster Your Own Broadsided

Edited by Elizabeth Bradfield, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Sean Hill, Alexandra Teague, and Mark Temelko, Broadsided has been putting literature in the streets since 2005. Each month, a new broadside is posted both on the website and around the nation.

Writing is chosen through submissions sent to Broadsided. Artists allied with Broadsided are emailed the selected writing. They then “dibs” on what resonates for them and respond visually – sometimes more than one artist will respond offering a selection of broadsides.

The resulting letter-sized pdf is designed to be downloaded and printed by anyone with a computer and printer. The goal is to create something both gorgeous and cheap, to put words and art on the streets.

The site contains a gallery of past broadsides, a map of cities/state/countries that have been broadsided (and where you can add yours), and links to other broadside sites.

Staple guns and duct tape to the ready – time to get your city on the map!

[Pictured: Broadsided March 1, 2013: “Landing Under Water I See Roots” Poem by Annie Finch; Art by Jennifer Moses]

Craft Essays: Glimmertrain Bulletin :: March 2013

The March issue of Glimmer Train’s eBulletin features craft essays by writers whose works have recently appeared in Glimmer Train Stories:

In “Literary Fabric,” Vi Khi Nao begins, “Writing should be a cinematic moment. The function of a writer is to convert word in such a fashion that its etymological beauty moves from frame to frame. In this state, anything is possible. Including the possibility of levitating, descending, dancing—a cinematic place filled with balletic gestures of human pain, sorrow, and bliss.”

William Luvaas in “ON REVISION / REVISION” writes: “Revision can be tedious. Can seem like pathological nit-picking. It can feel like we are endlessly redigesting our own words. But, incredibly, rather than making a story seem labored and lifeless—as intuition suggests it would—revision liberates it and makes it appear effortless.”

“Being Open to Opportunities” for Matthew Salesses is two-sided, “Whenever I am asked to do anything, in the literary world, I agree if at all possible. I hate to turn down anyone genuinely interested in me or my work. How rare and amazing that attention is. This kind of philosophy can backfire, of course.”

Joyce Thomson learned, as she expresses in “The Fan Letter”: “I had wanted to be able to make readers laugh, cry, and think. Now I amended my wish list: I want to make people identify beyond the furthest outposts of their prejudices.”

The bulletin is a free, monthly publication.

Court Green Gets Steamy

Court Green, published in association with Columbia College Chicago, publishes a new dossier of poems each year. This year, the theme is sex.

Poems include titles such as “Where the Mood Struck Me” (Jeffery Conway), “Quiet, I come Alive” (Phillip B. Williams), “The Fury of Cocks” (Anne Sexton), “Blowjobs” (Sarah Crossland), “How Did Dinosaurs Have Sex?” (Lois Marie Harrod), “A Psalm Praising the Hair of a Man’s Body” (Denise Levertov), “Fertility” (Christopher Davis), and many more.

Other poets in this issue include Jan Beatty, Anselm Berrigan, Denise Duhamel, Kimiko Hahn, George Kalamaras, Ron Koertge, R. Zamora Linmark, Gillian McCain, Karyna McGlynn, Randall Mann, Gordon Massman, Richard Meier, Harryette Mullen, Kathleen Ossip, Mary Ruefle, Jerome Sala, Jason Schneiderman, Maureen Seaton, Terence Winch, and many more.

Call for Undergrad/Grad Comparative Lit Papers

The Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia is launching a new journal of comparative literature, Xenophile. This journal will feature the works of undergraduate and graduate students from around the world. They are currently seeking submissions for the premiere issue. This is a perfect opportunity for undergraduate students seeking their first (or second, or third) scholarly publication, as well as for graduate students hoping to reach a new audience.

Papers will be evaluated on a rolling basis, but the final deadline is March 15th, 2013. The editors seek literary scholarship with a global scope, keeping in mind the comparative aspect that distinguishes the literary discipline from others. For more information, please refer to the publication website.

Literary Audio for Your Road Trip

Be sure to check out the NewPages Literary Multimedia Guide – podcasts, videos, and audio programs of interest from literary magazines, book publishers, alternative magazines, universities and bloggers. Includes poetry readings, lectures, author interviews, academic forums and news casts. Great for downloading and listening during the upcoming winter months – while traveling, walking, shoveling the sidewalks – you name it. If you have a site you’d like us to consider for listing, send a link with a description and contact information to  denisehill at newpages dot com. Good reading starts here! (And listening, too!)

The McGinnis Ritchie Award

Southwest Review announces the winners of The McGinnis Ritchie Award for 2012. Robert F. Ritchie was a huge supporter of the magazine. After he died in 1997, the magazine was able to give an award each year to the best works of fiction and nonfiction published in that year. Each award is worth $500.

J. F. Glubka
2012 McGinnis-Ritchie Award for Fiction
“Heat Lightning”
(Volume 97, number 4)

Jacob Newberry
2012 McGinnis-Ritchie Award for Fiction
“The Long Bright World”
(Volume 97, number 4)

Gorman Beauchamp
2012 McGinnis-Ritchie Award for Nonfiction, Essay
“‘But Tiepolo is My Painter’: Twain on Art in A Tramp Abroad”
(Volume 97, number 4)

Ann Peters
2012 McGinnis-Ritchie Award for Nonfiction, Essay
“The House on the Ledge”
(Volume 97, number 1)