Home » NewPages Blog » Page 202

NewPages Blog

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!

Brick Street Poetry Prize Winners

On February 12, 2011, Brick Street Poetry celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Preseident-Elect Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural train in Zionsville, Indiana. Winner Shari Wagner’s poem, “Lincoln Field,” appears in the Winter 2011 issue of Tipton Poetry Journal, along with poems of finalists John Cardwell, Jared Carter, Joseph Heithaus, Jennifer Lemming and James Murdock.

The issue also features Rita Dahl’s “Haukka leikkii kyyhkysellä” self-translated from Finnish to English as ”A hawk plays with a pigeon.”

A Public Space – 2011

A Public Space publishes lots of up and coming literary stars and this issue seems particularly packed. A swift survey of the bios gleans that only one of the contributing writers in this issue is sans book, while the others have a title or two in print or one forthcoming from a major house or a well-respected small press. With regards to A Public Space, amateurs need not apply. Continue reading “A Public Space – 2011”

Watershed – 2009

California State University’s student-edited journal Watershed is cohesive in its content and approachable in its length. This collection of poetry, prose and photography centers itself around recollections of childhood and of family, bringing the past and present together—illustrating through apt detail the way people live, work and connect with one another. While slim, only 66 pages, it shouldn’t be rushed. Continue reading “Watershed – 2009”

WomenArts Quarterly Journal – 2011

Women Arts Quarterly launches its slender first issue with poetry by Julia Gordon-Bramer and Kelli Allen, a novel excerpt by Jacinda Townsend, nonfiction by Beth McConaghy, an interview with violist Kim Kashkashian, artwork by Ellen Baird and Vanessa Woods, and a music review. The journal “aspires to nurture, provide support, and challenge women of all cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, and abilities in their role in the arts and seeks to heighten awareness and understanding of the achievements of women creators, providing audiences with historical and contemporary examples of the work of women writers, composers, and artists.” The inclusion of work about and by composers is unusual and does distinguish WAQ from other publications. Continue reading “WomenArts Quarterly Journal – 2011”

Assaracus – 2011

Editor Bryan Borland introduces readers to this new journal by announcing that Assaracus has “no formula” other than that all poems are authored by gay men, a “place for our poetry to dance with its own kind.” Poems are preceded by bios documenting writer’s credentials (poets who are both quite experienced and first-time in print are included in this premier issue), and the poems reflect much diversity in style, tone, and approach. Shane Allison contributes a spare “Dream” of bare single lines, “Used to / wonder / late at night // Boxers / or / Briefs”). Jay Burodny contributes a sense poem all in italics, “A Needy God.” Raymond Luczak contributes a prose poem, “Six Gallery, San Francisco: October 7, 1955.” Matthew Hittinger contributes a long poem of couplets, “A Bus Journeys West”: Continue reading “Assaracus – 2011”

Birmingham Poetry Review – Spring 2011

The work in this issue of the Birmingham Poetry Review is terribly moving, highly accomplished, and unexpectedly inspiring. How not to be simply undone by Deborah Ager’s “A Poem in Which My Father is Not the Villain,” which opens the issue? “I believe we commit errors we want no one to know about, / that we wish we could bathe and be healed and sip whisky and be clean.” Continue reading “Birmingham Poetry Review – Spring 2011”

Creative Nonfiction – Winter 2011

Issue 40 is a special theme issue on animals, the centerpiece of which are an excerpted essay and an interview with the talented, perplexing, and always-provocative Lauren Slater, who has a book forthcoming on animals, and who was first published many years ago by this journal. Essayist par excellence Phillip Lopate contributes “Show and Tell” about the human animal, “the ethics of writing about other people.” Well-known writer Susan Cheever describes her encounters with much maligned house mice in “Of Mice and Women,” and Jennifer Lunden, Kateri Kosek, Randy Fertel, Jeff Oaks, and Chester F. Phillips contribute strong essays on butterflies, starlings, grunions, zoos, dogs, and lions. Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction – Winter 2011”

Front Range – Spring 2010

I know that I’m not the ideal reader for journals that feature art. I usually don’t pay attention as I should, and consider the pieces selected as speed bumps. In this aspect, the art in Front Range isn’t exceptional, but it has been selected with an informed eye to complement the text. The journal’s words, however, are satisfying and, dare I say, practical. Continue reading “Front Range – Spring 2010”

Fugue – Summer-Fall 2010

Fugue is one of my favorite journals. There is always something exciting, inventive, original, and unexpected; something that reinforces my confidence in the state of American literature; something I am grateful to have encountered; something special in the best and truest sense of the word. In this issue, this includes prize-winning fiction from Colette Sartor and Paul Vidich; poetry from Margarita Delcheva, Bryan Narendorf, and Patty Crane, among others; fiction from Luther Magnussen and Heather Jacobs, among others; nonfiction from Sarah Fawn Montgomery, David Shields, and David McGlynn; and interview by Steve Heim with George Saunders; and an “Experiment” by Kevin Sampsell, “This is Between Us.” Continue reading “Fugue – Summer-Fall 2010”

Grist – 2011

There is a point in the conversation between poets Adam Clay and Timothy Donnelly in this issue of Grist where they are discussing truthfulness in poetry. Both poets agree that when reading a poem it doesn’t really matter to them whether what’s happening in the poem comes directly from the poet’s life or not, whether it is “true” to life outside the poem. But then Donnelly brings up the issue of what to do when you, as a poet, do want to “engage with realities outside the poem in a sincere way.” How do you communicate this to a reader? As Donnelly so pithily remarks, “it’s not like you can use a special font for sincerity.” Continue reading “Grist – 2011”

The Journal – Autumn/Winter 2010

This issue of The Journal flexes its tensile strength in both poetry and fiction. The first poem to shake me was Frannie Lindsay’s “To the Petermann Glacier,” which seems to portend an environmental holocaust (the glacier moving “down each torn strand of latitude”) while hinting at the post-disaster world to come, one where we find “the newly erected Cathedral of Zero / with its pulpit tangled in sumac.” Meanwhile, “the lost gulls float inland scavenging sticks // as you lay down the calm heat of listening before / the great barrier requiem.” Continue reading “The Journal – Autumn/Winter 2010”

New Ohio Review – Spring 2011

“Symposium: Poems Disliked, Poems Loved” is advertised on the cover, so it’s hard to pay attention to much else before turning immediately to the back of the magazine, where the special feature is located, to find out who is willing declare their dislike of certain poems or types of poetry in a public forum. The journal asked poets Wayne Miller, Helen Nelson, and David Rivard to present for discussion a “bad poem” (“weak or shallow or disappointing”) and a “good poem” (not defined!). The poets then “conversed” about these six poems via e-mail. Continue reading “New Ohio Review – Spring 2011”

Passages North -Winter/Spring 2011

The magazine’s 2010 fiction contest winners open the issue and they are, indeed, award-worthy. Tori Malcangio’s “A History of Heartbeats” is a smartly structured story that plays out the metaphors of heart rate, flight, and the body’s flight from its own heart (anorexia) in a heartbreaking story of substance (body) and soul (flight). Short-short fiction winner Darren Morris follows—in a stroke of editorial genius—with “The Weight of the World,” with its appealing and insightful narrator (“When you’re a kid the summer lasts forever, and that summer lasted two lifetimes.”). Short-shorts by honorable mention recipients Edith Pearlman, Jendi Reiter, and Thomas Yori are also terrific examples of the short-short genre. Their work is well matched by fiction from another 14 writers; nonfiction from 6 contributors; and 50 pages of poetry, including poems by the ubiquitous Bob Hicok, and 6 marvelous poems by Traci Brimhall. Continue reading “Passages North -Winter/Spring 2011”

Speech Acts

What do Ms. McCullough’s poems signify? How can speech act? How are actions inhabited/inhibited by speech? Who’s on first, noun or verb? Penis or vagina? Sex or love or both? Or an avocado that might taste like vanilla? Who’s Ms. McCullough in these pages? Continue reading “Speech Acts”

Dear Twitter

If you want spirit, attitude, and a slap of honesty, then #Dear Twitter is the sort of poetry that will be your best friend. Mahogany L. Browne has a way of rendering her poems both aesthetically pleasing and succinct. She can capture a ray of beauty in less than 140 characters and teach the reader a life lesson at the same time. This is a book of poetry that will appeal mostly to younger generations; readers who are avid users of Twitter will garner the most from this book, but everyone will benefit from its humor and wise words—for example, “dear bones: u will break. Dear spirit: u will shatter. Dear heart: u will bruise again & again, but u will be the hardest to fix…” Continue reading “Dear Twitter”

You Can Make Him Like You

At some point in your relationship with You Can Make Him Like You, you may want to familiarize yourself with the Hold Steady, a Brooklyn-based rock group with roots in Springsteen, Husker Du, and the Twin Cities. Author Ben Tanzer says the novel is “inspired by, and an homage to” the group: It’s from their discography that Tanzer borrows its title and section headings, and when protagonist Keith can’t handle the pressures of a thirtysomething Chicagoan, he spins Boys and Girls in America or Stay Positive, the group’s two break-out records. Continue reading “You Can Make Him Like You”

Beauport

Kate Colby’s Beauport is both a book-length poem and a collection of poems; it is a semi-narrative, part-memoir, part-lyric essay, part-historical exploration, part-imagined conversation work which wraps history with history. “History is spreading,” Colby states, toward the beginning of the collection. But whose history? Beauport is about layering histories: the story of Henry Davis Sleeper, the American antiquarian and decorator, whose house is named Beauport, the harbor along with an exploration of Colby’s own connections to Massachusetts and Gloucester, and the history of Beauport, the house itself. Continue reading “Beauport”

The New Tourism

The New Tourism is a collection of new poems by Harry Mathews, the avant-garde writer with associations to both Oulipo and the New York School. The book is divided into three sections, each quite different from one another. The first section consists of a single poem, written in six parts, called “Butter and Eggs: a didactic poem.” Using language more often found in a cookbook than in a collection of poetry, the poem may remind readers of Mathews’s short story “Country Coking from Central France: Roast Boned Rolled Stuffed Shoulder of Lamb (Farce Double),” with its rich writing about food and deadpan use of humor. Continue reading “The New Tourism”

Honeycomb

In “Pretty to think of the mind at its end,” Carol Frost describes the mind of an Alzheimer’s patient as “a metaphysician beekeeping / after the leaves have fallen at autumn’s end.” In “I remember the psychiatrist’s exam—”, it is “a papery hive sliced / open, herself furious.” In “Two anthills and a late summer hive,” she writes: Continue reading “Honeycomb”

Illinois, My Apologies

Justin Hamm’s first chapbook of poems, Illinois, My Apologies, is a wonderful sampling of Midwest-soaked poems, dripping in fathers and broken down factories. As a Midwesterner, I not only identify with these poems, but feel they express the frustrations of the region with the utmost accuracy, accompanied by some light humor and beautiful language. The beginning of “At Sixteen” showcases this best: Continue reading “Illinois, My Apologies”

The Bee-Loud Glade

The Bee-Loud Glade will make you fall in love with the simplicity of nature. It is a story about returning and integrating one’s self into nature—true Walden style. The ability of Steve Himmer to create a longing for nature via the words and storyline in this story is phenomenal. I, personally, have never felt a calling or inclination towards nature. After reading this novel, I feel like becoming a hermit and simply reveling in the beauty of nature would be an amazing life. Continue reading “The Bee-Loud Glade”

Under Glass

For the uninitiated reader, greenhouses offer an organic simplicity in which glass filters sunlight and soil keeps different plants in calm synchronicity. But the trained, dedicated eye of Jen Hirt in her debut memoir Under Glass yields more. For Hirt, the scion of an Ohio greenhouse dynasty founded by her great-grandfather in the 19th century, these glass panels, and everything within, signal a family’s and family business’ demise. Continue reading “Under Glass”

The White Museum

The White Museum is written in the casual, chatty style similar to that of Billy Collins. Bilgere has a dry sense of humor that simultaneously pokes fun and is hyper-aware of his standing as a white, middle-aged man. Like Collins, his humor often takes a turn into the dirty-old-man realm, referring to “the girls” “trying out their newfangled breasts” in “Solstice,” and his “star[ing] at the breasts / of that sixteen-year-old girl / in the sky-colored bikini. Touching them / would mean the electric chair, / but still…” in “Americana.” Continue reading “The White Museum”

Where the Road Turns

Where the Road Turns is a rich and textured collection of poems interested in gender roles, issues of cultural identity, and migration. The book opens with the poem “Cheede, My Bride: A Grebo Man Laments—1985,” a narrative poem from the perspective of a Grebo man who contemplates the role of his wife in society: “in Monrovia, women wear pants and a man / may walk around, twisting like a woman” and “they say women fell trees and men walk / upon them like bridges.” The first section of the book contains similar poems that are from the perspectives of tribal men and women, often directly addressing their lovers in a love song or lament. In “Love Song When Musu Answers Her Lover,” the plain diction and repetition of “Let us not make babies, Kono, my lover / Let us collect these timbers, scattered” authenticates the voice of the poem, allowing the reader to enter into a character that they may not be altogether familiar with. Continue reading “Where the Road Turns”

Pickled Dreams Naked

Pickled Dreams Naked, the latest book of poetry from New York poet Norman Stock, puts you, the reader, in a curious place. See, Stock’s poetry is filled with the bizarre and the surreal, showing his penchant for the mesmerizing and often unsettling image. “Give Us This Day” finds Stock painting himself as “the cold cut hanging in the delicatessen of the starving,” a sandwich “barely held together in your hungry hands.” Latinas on subways sucking lollipops, transplanted kidneys, and oh so many chickens carve out perches in the pantheon of Stock’s poetry. Continue reading “Pickled Dreams Naked”

Digital Habitus

Habitus: A Diaspora Journal has created its first digital publication — a collection of some of the best writing from their first six print issues. Readers can purchase a copy as a DRM-free ePub, readable on the device of your choice supporting that format, or visit Amazon to get a copy formatted for Kindles. An iPad edition should be available soon in the iBookstore.

Podcasts :: Reading the World

Reading the World is an ongoing series of podcast discussions about the world of international literature, hosted by Chad W. Post (director of Open Letter Books) and Erica Mena (Spanish translator and poet). The programs include interview translators, publishers and writers and cover a range of translation-related issues. The first eight episodes feature Mark Schafer, Fady Joudah, Forrest Gander, Bill Johnston, Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, Susan Harris, and Lawrence Venuti.

Writers: Name Your Own Mentors

The Stories of Others is a blog post by Townsend Walker of Our Stories in which he shares stories he has collected over the years with a note about a particular technique he thought the author had accomplished (such as: “Steve Almond – ‘Pornography’ – Perfect flash, punch end”). He refers back to this resource when working on his own writing. By no means his complete list, it provides a helpful model for other writers.

New Lit on the Block :: Temporary Infinity

Edited by Andrew Fortier, Z.T. Burian, and Erin Jones, Temporary Infinity is a new online magazine of any and all forms that “Fill the White,” including short stories, flash fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, artwork, comics, plays, photographs.

The second issue went live March 1, and submissions are open for the June 1 quarterly installment. Future plans for the publication include print issues, if start-up funds can be raised, and the addition of film and reviews of books, poetry chapbooks and more.

Contributors to the first two issues include Robert Louis Henry, Elizabeth Dunphey, Omar Bakry, Damian Lanahan-Kalish, A.D. Wiegert, Ingrid Cruz, Colin James, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Thomas Sullivan, Jude Coulter-Pultz, Katie McLaurin, Bobbi Sinha-MoreyKat Urice, Michael Bourdaghs, Ariel Glasman, Alan Britt, Stacey Bryan, Subhakar Das, and Marika von Zellen.

Our Stories Contest Winners

Winners of the Our Stories 2011 Richard Bausch Short Story Prize appear in the Winter 2011 issue, now available full-text online. The winner is Richard Hartshorn, “Sorry Dani”; Second Prize Anne Earney, “Lifelike”; and Runners Up Charles Hashem, “A Fine December Day,” Alyssa Capo, “The River,” and Alexis E. Santi, “It Only Takes One Mistake.”

Bellevue Literary Review Honors Jill Caputo & Prize Winners

The latest issue of Bellevue Literary Review (v11 n1) features the winners of the 2011 BLR Prize. Jill Caputo, whose fiction received an honorable mention, died in August of 2010. In the foreword, Editor-in-Chief Danielle Ofri recounts the prize selection process and discovery of the sad news; BLR‘s decision came five weeks after Caputo’s death, and they had no way to know until attempting to contact her to congratulate her. Jill Caputo’s family gave permission for the publication of her story, and BLR has dedicated this issue in her memory.

Marica and Jan Vilcek Prize for Poetry, judged by Marie Ponsot
Winner: “Sinkhole” by Janet Tracy Landman
Honorable Mention: “Climacteric” by Cynthia Neely

Goldenberg Prize for Fiction, judged by Andre Dubus III
Winner: “But Now Am Found” by Patti Horvath
Honorable Mention: “Winston Speaks” by Jill Caputo*

Burns Archive Prize for Nonfiction, judged by Jerome Groopman, MD
Winner: “The Tag” by Elizabeth Crowell

The annual BLR Prizes award outstanding writing related to themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body. The contest is open each year from February 1 – July 1.

nanomajority & ART364B

nanomajority is interested in the various ways in which artists, writers, and critics intersect (or don’t), inviting “residents” to work on a project on the site for an extended period of time. In this way, nanomajority hopes to provide a flexible, unique space for projects to develop.

nanomajority has been featuring the women of ART364B in separate monthly installments. Current projects include works by Melissa Potter, Kate Clark, Jennifer Musawwir, Miriam Schaer, Marietta Davis, and Adriana Corona.

Danahy Fiction Prize Winner

Heather Sappenfield of Vail, Colorado, has been selected as winner of the fifth annual Danahy Fiction Prize by the editors of Tampa Review. She will receive a cash award of $1,000 and her winning short story, “Indian Prayer,” will be published in Tampa Review 42, forthcoming in summer 2011.

The Danahy Fiction Prize is open to both new and widely published writers, with an annual postmark deadline of November 1. The $15 entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Tampa Review, and all entries submitted are considered for publication.

Michigan Quarterly Review 2010 Literary Prizes

Michigan Quarterly Review has announced the winners of its 2010 literary awards:

Lawrence Foundation Prize

Shimon Tanaka has been awarded the Lawrence Foundation Prize for 2010. The prize is awarded annually by the Editorial Board of MQR to the author of the best short story published that year in the journal. Tanaka’s story, “Destruction Bay,” appeared in the Fall 2010 issue. The prize carries a cash award of $1000.

Laurence Goldstein Poetry Prize

Albert Goldbarth is the recipient of the 2010 Laurence Goldstein Poetry Prize, which is awarded annually to the author of the best poem appearing that year in the Michigan Quarterly Review. His poem “Our Argument, like the Thunderstorm” appeared as part of a sequence of poems in the Winter 2010 issue.

Page Davidson Clayton Prize for Emerging Poets

Eric Lee is the second recipient of the new Page Davidson Clayton Prize for Emerging Poets, which is awarded annually to the best poet appearing in MQR who has not yet published a book. The award, which is determined by the MQR editors, is in the amount of $500. Eric Lee’s poems “Getting Kicked out of Steamers Restaurant in Fairhope, Alabama” and “Kangaroo or Lion?” were published in the Summer 2010.

Celebrate National Poetry Month with 32 Poems

32 Poems will feature five book recommendations (or an interview with a poet) for each day in April. Their goal is to share favorite poetry books with people and to promote the work of the recommending poet. Below is the month’s schedule thus far:

April 1: John Poch
April 2: Jonterri Gadson
April 3: Eric Weinstein
April 4: M.E. Silverman
April 5: Arielle Greenberg
April 6: Lucy Biederman
April 7: Eric Pankey
April 8: Deborah Ager
April 9: Collin Kelley
April 10: Jennifer Atkinson
April 11: Luke Johnson
April 11: Interview with Terri Witek
April 12: Holly Karapetkova
April 13: TBD
April 15: Carolina Ebeid
April 16: M. Scott Douglass
April 17: Adam Vines
April 18: Elizabeth J. Coleman
April 19: Bernadette Geyer
April 20: Sally Molini
April 21: Interview with Jeffery L. Bahr
April 21: Kelli Russell Agodon
April 22: Jeannine Hall Gailey
April 23: George David Clark
April 24: Rachel Zucker
April 25: Lisa Russ Spaar
April 26-on TBD

2010 Walker Percy Fiction Contest Winners

New Orleans Review has announced the 2010 Walker Percy Fiction Contest winner, runner-up, honorable mentions, and finalists. The final judge was Nancy Lemann. The winning story and the runner-up will be published in the next print issue of the New Orleans Review.

Winner: “Prisoners of the Multiverse,” Jacob Appel

Runner-up: “War Story,” Austin Wilson

Honorable Mention: “The Junior Embalmer,” Jane Stark; “Goat Pharmacy,” Robert Glick; “What We Do,” Cassie Condrey

See website for full list of finalists.

Audio Podcast: The Bat Segundo Show

Newly added to the NewPages Guide to Literary Podcasts, Video, Audio:

Edward Champion’s The Bat Segundo Show is a cultural and literary podcast that involves very thorough long-form interviews with contemporary authors and other assorted artists. Standard questions that have been asked of guests over and over are avoided, whenever possible. The show is updated (ideally) every week and sometimes every two weeks. There are at least five podcasts unveiled to the listening public every month and, more often than not, considerably more. Currently, there are nearly 400 shows available, with a full index of guests.

Intern at Habitus

Habitus is offering two internship opportunities for organized, independent, globally minded individuals. As a small, independent publication with growing visibility and acclaim, we are able to offer highly personalized internships that will provide substantive experience, diverse responsibilities, and direct contact with our esteemed contributors around the globe. Both internships require a minimum commitment of two full days a week for a minimum of three months. These positions are unpaid.” See website for more information and application process.