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!
Tin House has a new web design, including Submishmash for online submissions and eBook versions in both the ePub (iPad, Sony eReader, B&N Nook) and MobiPocket (Kindle) formats “wherever possible,” and, on the magazine side, featuring the full text of several stories, poems, essays, and interviews.
Australian poet Graham Nunn created the Ocean Hearted Flood Relief Project to raise funds for flood relief in QLD (Queensland, Australia). Here’s his plan:
From January 12 to January 26 Nunn will donate 100% of all sales of his book Ocean Hearted to flood relief and “to add to that, I will personally give an extra $5 for every book sold.” Copies of Ocean Hearted can be purchased for $15 (incl. postage) via paypal or check/money order.
Visit his blog for more details.
All monies will be given to the Premiers Disaster Relief Appeal, a Queensland Government established Distribution Committee that includes representatives from the Australian Red Cross to manage the disbursement of the donated funds.
Status Hat Productions is currently seeking guest editors for the SUMMER 2011 (3 issues) and FALL 2011 (3 issues) editions of their monthly artszine, STATUS HAT!
Editors will be responsible for 3 issues of STATUS HAT, for either the Summer or Fall quarter. SHP seeking editors with diverse backgrounds in the arts, as our editors do not work in one area, but select visual content, fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as seek out additional content or explorations of themes as necessary to create engaging issues of Status Hat.
Guest editors must be able to commit to reviewing and selecting submissions for their assigned issues over a 3 month period prior to the quarter (Summer or Fall, 2011) they are working on, and demonstrate excellent communication skills.
Contact editor-at-statushat.org with an inquiry by January 31, 2011. Please have “GUEST EDITOR INQUIRY” in the subject line of your email.
The Winter 2010 issue of The Georgia Review offers two special features: one on George Singleton and one on Gerald Weales.
The Singleton feature includes two stories, “Vaccination” and “Jayne Mansfield,” which, Editor Stephen Corey notes brings the total number of Singleton stories published by TGR to 11 – putting him “at the head of the quantity class for our fiction writers.” But, more importantly, Corey notes, these two selections “show one of America’s best seriocomic authors at the height of his varied strengths.” Also included in the Singleton feature is “A Holy Impropriety: the Stories of George Singleton” by William Giraldi.
The Weales feature includes “Being Out Front at American Theater: An Interview with Gerald Weales” by Stephen Corey and “American Theater Watch, 1977-2010” – excerpts from decades of Weales annual feature. Corey introduces these selections he made from over 400 pages of Weales’s contributions to the magazine.
AWP Conference: The Women’s Caucus, led by Lois Roma-Deeley, Patricia Smith, Cheryl Dumesnil, Anna George Meek, Amy King, and Katherine Arnoldi, is scheduled to meet for the first time on Saturday, February 5 from 10:30 AM to 11:45 AM in the hotel Mezzanine Le.
Lois Roma-Deeley sent the following description: “Where is the place for the women writer within AWP and within the greater literary community? The women’s caucus discusses this as well as continuing inequities in creative writing publication and literature. In addition, issues centering on cultural obstacles in the form of active oppression, stereotypes, lack of access to literary power structures, historical marginalization of women’s writing, issues and perspectives and the diverse voices of women will explored. Networking opportunities.”
The mission of the AWP Women’s Caucus is the following:
–to expand networking opportunities for women writers
–to recognize the contributions of women writers nationally and internationally
–to enhance understanding of the relationship between gender and creative writing
–to expand literary and cultural dialogue to encompass all genres of creative writing specific to women writers
–to encourage an open forum for dialogues about feminist literary perspectives
–to support education about the contributions of women writers
–to support women writers on local, national, and global levels
–to advocate for equity in creative writing for all
The Center for the Art of Translation is seeking an Outreach Manager to help place their Poetry Inside Out program in Bay Area, CA schools.
The PIO Outreach Manager works as part of a team to accomplish a number of goals and objectives for the Center. They include:
• Plan the growth and implementation of the program.
• Build relationships with school administrators, districts, teachers, professional organizations, and students and their families.
• Create new systems and revise existing ones for overall program efficiency and documentation.
• Promote opportunities for collaboration with other organizations.
• Oversee and promote PIO public events.
• Assist the PIO staff with defining the goals for and expanding the various PIO curriculum.
• And act as an ambassador of the program and the Center.
For a complete job description and instructions on how to apply, visit PIO’s Get Invovled page.
Feile and festa mean “festival” in Irish and Italian, and indeed there are many pieces in this journal from the Mediterranean Celtic Cultural Association worth celebrating. Much of the work explores the effects of Irish and Italian diaspora in the United States, particularly New York City. Continue reading “Feile-Festa – Spring 2010”
Bruce Weigl, Annie Finch, Steve and Stuart Friebert, David Young, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Carole Simmons Oles, and Stephen Tapscott contribute to “A Symposium” on poet Richard Wilbur, in anticipation of his 90th birthday, with essays responding to particular Wilbur poems, reprinted here. These thoughtful essays of close reading, and Wilbur’s “consistently brilliant” poetry (as aptly categorized in the editors’ introduction), are well accompanied by new work from David Dodd Lee, David Wagoner, Elton Glaser, Jon Loomis, Kimiko Hahn, and Sandra McPherson, among others. Continue reading “Field – Fall 2010”
Uljana Wolf’s work, translated by Susan Bernofsky, excerpts from DICTHionary. A German-English Dictionary of False Friends, True Cognates, and Other Cousins, is like the best of the work jubilat always gives us, inventive, unusual, confusing, smart, and full of itself—always in the best sense. Here, dictionary letters and their representative words are followed by prose poems that play out the letters in clever streams of connected and disconnected images and opinions. Continue reading “Jubilat – 2010”
Simply put, the collection of poems in Knockout Literary Magazine is breathtaking. This edition includes a wide variety of topics such as suicide, oppression against homosexuality, and love (straight and queer). In its third volume, the heavy-hitting journal presents forty astounding poets, who make their way to the page bringing dark imagery, fearless honesty, and fresh voices, including Jeff Mann, Robert Walker, Joseph Massey, Jim Tolan and Ronald H. Bayes. Knockout also features translations from Dag T. Straumsvag, Yannis Ritsos, Harry Martinson, Jesus Encinar, and Olav H. Hauge. Continue reading “Knockout Literary Magazine – Spring 2010”
The cover of Poet Lore is wondrous, a photograph of ice skaters posing for the camera on Mirror Lake in Yosemite in 1911. The Editor’s Page describes the photo as an appropriate introduction to the issue’s work with its—unanticipated—focus on winter as metaphor. The photo’s technical and artistic qualities are, to my mind, the finest metaphor for poetry, or, perhaps, an apt metaphor for fine poetry—making the real seem both more and less real than seemed possible, drawing what is far-off into close view and moving what is right in front of us into the background. The photo is clear in its misty-ness and misty in its clarity, like much of the poetry in this issue. Continue reading “Poet Lore – Fall/Winter 2010”
This issue is a beautifully composed collection of poetry and black-and-white photography commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of Slipstream Magazine. Elegant, hauntingly surreal images by David Thompson and Lauren Simonutti, interspersed among the poetry, compliment perfectly the magazine’s tone. Poems contributed by authors from walks of life ranging from the academic to the janitorial present a similarly diverse range of perspectives, yet the poems feel like they were meant to be published together. The collection flows seamlessly from beginning to end in a way that makes reading it in its entirety not only easy to do, but extraordinarily rewarding as well. Continue reading “Slipstream – 2010”
The Tusculum Review plunges into an odyssey of self-reflection, confession, and recollection. The review calls itself, “an annual venue for new voices,” and each voice within its pages is entirely unique from its counterparts. The sampling highlights a fusion of character voices within the short stories, drama, poetry, and illustrations; each piece retains a beautifully rendered resonance to its own statement. Continue reading “The Tusculum Review – 2010”
Every glorious issue of World Literature Today is an argument for print! There is simply no way to duplicate the experience as cyber reading. This is not to say that you might not want to try “Zinio,” the virtual magazine-reading option for WLT. But, for my money (and it’s only $4.95 on the newsstand!) there is no way it could duplicate the feel of the glossy paper, the vibrancy of the large and small format color and black and white photos, the clarity of the illustrations (maps), or the smartly designed pages. This issue’s special section is on India, and the gorgeous, beautifully reproduced full-color, full-bleed photograph that opens the section, “Girl in Red Slippers by the Blue Door,” the work of guest editor and poet Sudeep Sen of New Dehli, is hard to picture on a small screen.
Continue reading “World Literature Today – November-December 2010”
ABRAXAS describes itself as an “irregular, independent poetry magazine” from Wisconsin and introduces readers to contemporary writers of lyrical poetry. Continue reading “ABRAXAS – 2010”
As child I remember singing, “This land is your land, this land is my land. From California to the New York Island […] This land was made for you and me.” Like Woody Guthrie’s famous song, the Amerarcana brilliantly encompasses a broad spectrum of voices that represents the collective identity of American poets from coast to coast. The Amerarcana is a rich steaming stew of folklore, language, and cultural identity. Piping hot and savory too! Each poem is a tantalizing slice of western spirit. Continue reading “AMERARCANA – 2010”
From the unknown writer expecting a rejection letter, rather than a publication, to authors well-known to the New York Times—all meet together in Amoskeag. This collection of voices focuses on what Editor Michael J. Brien expresses as, “recollections and reconstructions of hazy, distant memories, and memories so fresh they scream to be captured before they begin to […] lose breath.” Continue reading “Amoskeag – Spring 2010”
After winning a year’s subscription during last year’s National Poetry Day, I discovered the joy of the Crab Creek Review. What had drawn me into past issues was the range of voices, both from experienced writers and fresh, emerging writers. There has always been a certain charm to the pieces selected, whether their tone leans towards the more serious or whimsical, and this issue is no exception. Continue reading “Crab Creek Review – 2010”
Issue #4 of the online lit mag Ekleksographia is a special issue: The Emerging Native American Voices, guest Curated by Ann Filemyr and Jamie Figueroa.
In the introduction, Ann Filemyr writes: “Twenty-first century Native American literature is vibrant and evolving. It invites us into the creative lives and ideas of writers whose cultures are demonstrating an incredible capacity for cultural survivance against all odds.”
Art, poetry, and prose contributors include: Ungelbah Daniel-Davila, Anna Nelson, Ruben Santos, Paige Buffington, Nathan Romero, Vernon Begay, Sara Marie Ortiz, Alice M. Azure, Ann Filemyr, Jamie Figueroa, Celeste Adame, Autumn Gomez, Evelina Zuni Lucero, and Marcia Smith.
Cover Image: “Timeless” by Marcia Smith
Fresco Fine Art Publications produces unique books and catalogs for artists, galleries and museums throughout the United States. Fresco was founded in response to the need in the Santa Fe art community for “beautifully designed art books and catalogs that could be produced at a cost that was affordable, and within a time frame that kept the project fresh and enjoyable.”
Recently featured publications include:
Tom Kirby Light Passage, with inspiration for his work drawn from extensive travels throughout Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and North Africa. “Tom’s work is distinctly modern yet deeply influenced by past masters, most importantly, Carravagio. His work is a synthesis of expressionistic and minimalist influences.”
Art alive! A Fresh Approach to Teaching the Basics: The Teaching Techniques of Sally Bartalot
With work by almost 100 artists, Visual Journeys: Art of the 21st Century edited by Nina Mihm and Mary Carroll Nelson is a publication of The Society of Layerists in Multi-Media, an international group of artists sharing a holistic world view. The thought that unites the society is, “We are all connected. There exists a oneness and unity to everything, everyone, and the whole.” This philosophical premise distinguishes it from other art societies that are based on a single medium.
Issue Number 3 of The Ne’er-Do-Well Literary Magazine focuses on Working-Class Stories, with new stories, essays, and comics from Willy Vlautin, Kevin Sampsell, Suzanne Burns, Gigi Little, Chris A. Bolton, Sheila Ashdown, Megan Zabel, Daniel Hall, Christina Mackin, Jill Holtz, and John Gifford.
From the editors: “If the phrase ‘working class’ conjures vintage images of lumberjacks and Rosie the Riveter [R.I.P.], it’s time to reboot your brain for the twenty-first century. This issue of working-class stories casts a fresh light on the absurdity, banality, and redemption of contemporary wage-slavery. Join us for a shift at the circus, the Outback Steakhouse, a Minnesota dairy farm, a Plaid Pantry convenience store, and more.”
Profits from the sale of this issue will be donated to the strike fund of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
University of Arizona’s Sonora Review 58 is a limited edition, hand-bound by Spork Press using their signature letterpressed two-color raw board cover and letterpress pages within.
Zahir: A Journal of Speculative Fiction is trying out a creative approach to publishing. The magazine had appeared in print three times a year from 2000-2009, but in 2010, moved to publishing quarterly online. However, the full content of the four online issues is now available in print as an anthology and can be ordered through Creative Space and Amazon.
The anthology (at 302 pages) includes stories by Sarah Cornwell, Jefferson Burson, Trent Hergenrader, Kim Goldberg, Richard Wolkomir, Alexander Weinstein, Jennifer Griffin Graham, Vishwas R. Gaitonde, Susannah Mandel, Andrew Hook, John Brantingham, John Zackel, Thoraiya Dyer, William Alexander, Daniel Brugioni, Dallas Woodburn, Nick Jackson, Kevin Frazier, Joseph R. Quinlan, M.Lamaga de Sanchez, N.D. Segal, Lawrence Buentello, Jeffrey Greene, and Roderick B. Overaa as well each each of the four “cover” images by artists Alyson Lamanes, Dan Ruhmanty, Adam Yeater, and Yael Degany.
New Letters Editor Robert Stewart comments on the role of “slow” literature in our fast-paced world:
“From the audience recently, where I sat at the downtown public library in Kansas City, a man asked the visiting speaker, Joyce Carol Oates, how she managed to write her many books all in longhand,as she just had revealed. ‘My mind thinks faster than my hand can write,’ said the man. ‘I need a computer keyboard to keep up with my thoughts.’ A general assent seemed to puff across the audience.
“The question highlighted a feature — call it a value — of literary art, not always or easily acknowledged: Literature slows us down. Here was an author, Ms. Oates, emblematic in our culture for productivity, who had just baffled the crowd by her adherence to a human-scale, physical scratching out of one sentence after another, although she happens to do so, as she pointed out, hour after hour, day after day. Of her slow method, she made a joke, citing Shakespeare, who worked in longhand, of course, and, yes, it might be said that his mind was pretty quick.
“Shakespeare, let’s admit, might have worked by computer or Tweets if he could have, but the point has been made by the work, itself. It holds up. It rewards patience.”
The full Fall 2010 issue editorial is available online.
Descant Arts & Letters Foundation’s NOW HEAR THIS! literacy program sends professional writers into schools to conduct writing workshops with students. These workshops help develop literacy skills, cultivate talent and creativity, encourage self-expression and foster analytical skills and critical thought.
After a “smashingly successful” third year, Descant presents The BARRACUDA, their latest anthology of student-written stories, poems, and personal essays documenting the success of Toronto’s first-ever ongoing writers-in-schools program.
West Branch Wired is a distinct quarterly extension of the West Branch semiannual print magazine. Issues are released on the solstice or equinox in March, June, September, and December and feature poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that are exclusive to WBW. Book reviews and columns run in both WBW and the print magazine.
Guest edited by Deb Olin Unferth, the first issue, Fall 2010, includes an interview with Orlando Menes, poetry by Brian Barker and Doug Ramspeck, and fiction by Patrick Dacey. Also featured are reviews by Matthew Ladd, “To a Green Thought,” an annual column from Garth Greenwell, and Marginalia – recommendations from contributing and advisory editors.
Edited by Sarah Katharina Kay
In addition to its usual general content (poems, essays, and fiction) the Fall 2010 issue of Connecticut Review features a special section entitled “Veterans of War” guest edited by Lisa Siedlarz, who writes, “…the creative works of warriors are such an important part of our history. these poems, stories, and photographs preserves a significant part of our freedom, and make as real as possible to noncombantants the things that are not discussed,” and as contributor Horace Coleman notes about the subject of his photo: “The young soldier…is mourning a soldier from his outfit killed in a war that’s fought by few and ignored by most.” The section contains stories and poems by vets from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Vietnam and World War II.
Henry F. Tonn, a reviewer for NewPages, has a piece featured in this section in which he recounts the story of WWII veteran Richard Daughtry’s visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp after the US occupation. Tonn clearly and specifically details Daughtry’s harrowing encounter with “freed” prisoners whose bodies and minds were so ravaged by their ill-treatment that they would not live to enjoy their freedom.
Also included are works by Donald Anderson, Christopher Lee Miles, Terry P. Rizzuti, William Childress, Joseph Giannini, Rick Christman, David Abrams, Tim Skeen, Jason Poudrier, Dario BiBattista, Benjamin Simon, Allan Garry, H. Palmer Hall, Greg McBride, Jason Armagost, Adam King, John Balaban, Sonja Pasquantonio, Brian Turner, Benjamin Busch, Kevin Siedlarz, Troy Walker, Horace Coleman, and Pit Menousek Pinegar.
The cover image for the issue is most stunning: “Blood Trail” a digital photograph taken by Benjamin Bush in Ar Ramadi, Al Anbar Province, Iraq (2009). “This is an insurgent’s footprint on a sidewalk, left in blood, as he fled from a failed attack on a U.S. Marine position in Ar Ramadi. He died 27 steps from this one. The photographer took this photograph on the morning afterward.”
“Filmpoem is a project by artist Alastair Cook, dedicated to the filming of poetry. The combination of film and poetry is an attractive one. For the poet, perhaps a hope that the filmmaker will bring something to the poem: a new audience, a visual attraction, the laying of way markers; for the filmmaker, a fixed parameter to respond to, the power of a text sparking the imagination with visual connections and metaphor.” Cook’s collection includes poetry by Andrew Phillip, Mairi Sharratt, Juliet Wilson, G
The Sound of Poets Cooking edited by Richard Krawiec is a collection of poetry, poetry-recipes, recipe-poems, and just outright recipes. Five dozen poets are featured in the anthology, and the recipes range from spicy hard-boiled eggs to balsamic mangoes to Malaika’s crockpot Irish stew to Aunt Wilma’s coconut cake – 54 recipes in all. The impetus for the book – to feed readers as well as writers while doing a good turn for the community. Proceeds from the sale of the book will be used to pay writers a stipend to teach poetry workshops to underserved community groups. Included in the book is an application for writers interested in offering workshops – though published by Jacar Press in North Carolina, there’s no specifics on where the workshops will/must take place. For further information and/or to purchase a copy of the book, visit the Jacar Press website.
Volume 13.1 of Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment includes several poems from Hazel Lipa Chapbook finalist Corrie Williamson as part of the regular content, with winner Lois Marie Harrod’s Cosmology receiving the final pages of the magazine to feature her 28 poems in full chapbook form with cover image, table of contents, acknowledgments, author biography and author’s note.
Alright, now here’s a fun one. Off the Coast is having a “Times Are Tough; Talk is Cheap” Haiku Competition. The impetus: “At a recent poetry reading, a poet gave a five-minute introduction to a haiku. Absurdities not being lost on us, we began generating our own haiku responses.” Writers are asked to complete one of the following two haiku prompts: “Five minute intro” or “Times are tough, talk cheap.” The entry fee is 25
The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review Broadside Series offers a limited edition of artist-designed illustrations of poems which have been published in the Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review. Each broadside is numbered and signed by the author. Currently available is “The Persimmon Tree” by Maurice Manning, letterpress in two colors on handmade paper with deckle edge, 7×7 inches, signed and numbered edition of 50 ($15) and “Loved & Lost” by John Burnside, giclee on watercolor paper with deckle edge, 7×10 inches, signed and numbered edition of 50 ($15). Broadsides can be ordered directly from the Review.
The Neighborhood Writing Alliance (NWA) of Chicago, IL, is a small literary arts and community building organization with a large agenda. With three full-time staff members, and a handful of volunteers, NWA conducts ten weekly writing workshops with over 270 adult participants, publishes quarterly issues of the Journal of Ordinary Thought, and hosts or participates in 35 public events and readings each year.
The Neighborhood Writing Alliance has launched a search for a new Program Director/Associate Editor of the Journal of Ordinary Thought. Applications will be accepted through January 17, 2011 for an experienced and enthusiastic candidate with a strong commitment to community-based writing and publishing.
NewPages works to keep its links fresh! The following are new listings in our guides – while some you may be looking for have been removed. Listings are removed when magazines don’t update their websites, don’t appear to have kept up with their publishing cycle, and don’t respond to inquiry e-mails from us about what is going on with their magazine. If we can’t recommend the publication – which includes all of the above and more – we won’t list it. If you know something we don’t about a listing for any of our guides – be it new or no longer in existence or a bad link – please drop us a line and let us know: denisehill-at-newpages.com
Lit Mags
Jellyfish Magazine – poetry
Tapestry – poetry
Raft – spoken-word poetry, fiction, essays, and book reviews
Barely South Review – poetry, fiction, nonfiction
Thysia – poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, art
Psychic Meatloaf – poetry
The Susquehanna Review – undergraduate poetry, fiction, nonfiction
Polari Journal – LGBTIQ short stories, poetry, essays, one act plays/scripts, reviews
Soundzine – poetry, fiction, music, art, photography, readings
Otis – poetry, prose, music, visual art, video
Under the Sun – national print nonfiction mag based out of Tennessee Tech
The New Guard – new print lit mag
Another Chicago Magazine – poetry, fiction, nonfiction
North American Review – poetry, fiction, nonfiction
Independent Publishers & University Presses
Argos Books – poetry, translations, hybrid, collaborations
Magic Helicopter Press
Spooky Girlfriend Press
Mindmade Books – poetry chapbooks
ExquisiteDisarray – mainly poetry from North Western (particularly WA) writers
Writing Conferences, Workshops, Retreats, Centers, Residencies & Book & Literary Festivals
Susquehanna University’s Undergraduate Literature & Creative Writing Conference
Summer Advanced Writers Workshops – Sponsored by Susquehanna University’s Writers Instituted and it is for High School students in grades 11 & 12
Podcasts, Video, Audio
Center for the Art of Translation – Audio
“You know who’s got a brand new book in the bookstores right now? Snooki. Snooki is a published author. I’m blaming Sarah Palin; she lowered the bar.” David Letterman
And from Sarah Crow: Read Excerpts From Snooki’s Book, Prepare to Have Mind Blown
“Faulkner, Hemingway and Fitzgerald may be widely acknowledged as America’s preeminent literary talents, but none of them have gotten down with The Situation in a hot tub. This is where Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi enters the equation.
“The Jersey Shore star’s first novel, A Shore Thing, is scheduled for release this week and early buzz has contenders for the National Book Award shaking in their boots.”
And then Crow goes on to compare lines from Polizzi’s book with writing by Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Didion, and Faulkner.
At least it’s been worth the laugh.
“The View From Here” is a occasional feature in the Poetry Foundation’s Poetry in which people from various fields comment on their experience of poetry. The January 2011 issue features the eighth installment of the series and includes comments from Daniel Handler, Madeleine Avirov, Helen Fisher, Jolie Holland, Stephen T. Ziliak, and Tracey Johnstone.
The 2010 annual issue of The Susquehanna Review of undergraduate writing features the winners of the Gary Finke Creative Writing Prize: Caitlin Moran, winner in prose for “All Her Numbered Bones” and Sky Shirley, winner in poetry for “The Paper Called them Black-Fish.” Both winners were selected by Gary Finke for the prize in his name which was established this year in his hone. Finke has directed the Susquehann University Writers Institute since he founded it in 1993. Through the contest, TSR hopes to pay tribute to extraordinary student writers outside the Susquehanna community in both poetry and prose.
WomenArts Quarterly Journal (WAQ), an initiative of Women in the Arts, “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 the 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.”
With some content available online, this inaugural print issue includes a review of Isabelle O’Connell’s new album Resevoir, a conversation with violist Kim Kaskashian, poetry by Julia Gordon-Bramer and Kelli Allen, an excerpt from the novel Saint Monkey by Jacinda Townsend, silk screen prints on paper (reproduced in full color) by Ellen Baird, non-fiction by Beth McConaghy, and B&W photograms by Vanessa Woods.
Submissions are open for fiction, personal essay, poetry, visual art, and reviews (books, articles, biographies, catalogues, profiles, DVDs, CDs) with full guidelines available on the WAQ website.
[Pictured: The Blessed Imelda silk screen prints on paper by Ellen Baird]
“Assaracus (say it with me: Ass-UH-rack-us),” writes editor Bryan Borland in his inaugural issue introduction, “came about after a drunken m
Reversing the print-to-online trend in literary magazines, biannual online lit mag Able Muse has come out with its inaugural print issue of poetry, prose and art with its Winter 2010 publication (different from its print ‘best of’ anthology). Some online content from the issue is open (including some audio), the majority of it is accessible to subscribers only.
Celebrating 40 years in print (1970 – 2010), the fall 2010 issue of The Antigonish Review features works by the winner of the ‘TAR 40’ open-genre contest, Jennifer Kirkpatrick Brown, and honorable mentions Steve Lautermilch and Royston Tester. Also included in this issue are winners of the Great Blue Heron Poetry Contest: First Prize Moez Surani, Second Prize Margaret Slavin Dyment, and Third Prize Patricia Young; and winners of the Sheldon Currie Fiction Contest: First Prize Amber Hayward, Second Prize Ben Hart, and Third Prize Peter S. Lee.
Volume 12.1: Winter 2011 of Beltway Poetry Quarterly is a Langston Hughes Tribute Issue co-edited by Katy Richey and Kim Roberts. The publication contains 34 poems inspired by Hughes’s legacy, commemorating his residence in DC in the early days of his career. Featured authors include Luis Alberto Ambroggio, Holly Bass, Remica L. Bingham, Derrick Weston Brown, Sarah Browning, Regie Cabico, Kyle Dargan, Hayes Davis, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Brian Gilmore, Reginald Harris, Randall Horton, E. Ethelbert Miller, Gregory Pardlo, Joseph Ross, Dan Vera, and many others. This issue also includes an essay by Kim Roberts on the places in Washington, DC where Hughes lived and worked, with a map by Emery Pajer.
The fall/winter print issue of Colorado Review features the winner of the 2010 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction: Katherine Hill, “Waste Management.” Hill’s story is also available full-text online. The prize was established in memory of Liza Nelligan – a classmate, student, teacher, colleague, and friend of many in the English Department at Colorado State. This year’s final judge for the prize was Andrea Barrett.
The 2011 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction is now open March 11, 2011 (postmark)
The 2010 annual issue of PMS poemmemoirstory features Masha Hamilton and her authors from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project. Editor Carry Madden writes: “Hamilton traveled to Afghanistan several times to listen to the stories of Afghan women. It was from these trips and meeting the women of Afghanistan that she came to establish the ‘Afghan Women’s Writing Project,’ giving Afghan women a place to tell their stories, publishing only under their first names for reasons of safety. From Seeta’s ‘Under Burqa’ to Shogofa’s ‘Kill Silence’ to Meena’s ‘My First Namaz,’ we catch a glimpse of what it means to grow up in a world where women’s silence is not only mandatory, it is celebrated. But Hamilton’s own determination to ‘kill silence’ has sparked and underground movement of change. She not only found teachers and established secure on-line classrooms for Afghan women to study and write, she conceived perhaps the rarest freedome of all in Afghanistan – a place for women to unlock their words to share with the world.”
In addition to its regular content, issue 10 of PMS features the work of Hamilton and six of the Afghan women – Roya, Seeta, Shogofa, Meena Y, Freshta, and Tabasom.
The Village Pariah, a bi-annual literary journal sponsored by the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, launched its inaugural issue in Spring/Summer 2010. TVP is interested in publishing poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction inspired by the writings and life of Mark Twain, his hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, the Mississippi River, the Midwest, and small town or rural life in America.
Each issue will also include an introductory essay by an established author, poet, artist, songwriter, etc. who speaks of Twain’s influence on his or her art or life.
The magazine is available as PDF download as well as in print.
The first issue includes an opening essay by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Powers. Other contributors include: Alec Binyon, Salita S. Bryant, Rachelle L. Escamilla, Richard Garey, Judy Lee Green, Cindy Lovell, Marsha Mentzer, Rosanna Osborne, Dawn Potter, Karen Schubert, Julia Meylor Simpson, Patty Somlo, A.D. Wiegert, Earl J. Wilcox, Melissa Scholes Young, Elizabeth Schumacher, and Dusty Zima.
To start our new year with a strong literary framework, I offer an excerpt of Nathan Perry’s comments from his Editor’s Note to the Winter 2010 issue of The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review:
“We so easily doubt the things we love. While it is often those who don’t read poetry who distrust its motives or dismiss any notion of its utility, many writers and serious readers of poems . . . also wonder what good poems can really amount to, if they really can be enough. Poets are accused of not being political enough. Poets are accused of being too political and not timeless enough. Poets are accused of hiding in their stanzas and not being civic enough. Poems are accused of being too plain and poems are accused of being too cloudy and unclear, of deliberately hiding their meanings. I’d argue that all such fussing at least belies that we acknowledge some underlying importance, and thus usefulness, in poetry. Others agree: Hayden Carruth chides, ‘Why speak of the use of poetry? Poetry is what uses us,’ and Frost famously has it that any ‘little form’ (and we can read here, poetry) should be ‘considered for how much more it is than nothing.’
“But still, why should we care about a poem about an owl, or the drift of pollen, or chickens in the street, or ageing drywall, or tinnitus? Well, for the same reasons we care about a poem about the recent oil spill, or a poem about perfidy in Washington DC, or a poem about war and the television’s witness. William Carlos Williams asserted, in his oft-repeated maxim, that we come to poems not for the usual news, but for something less tangible, with mortal stakes. I think what he did not say is that we come to poems for the world itself, not just the human headlines, and that ignoring the world around us always has mortal stakes.”
The full text of Perry’s editorial is only available in print.
Volume 12 Issue 4 of Iron Horse Literary Review (published six times a year) is “The Facebook Issue” (which, by the way, you can “like” on their website). Editor Leslie Jill Patterson writes: “When we opened our call for submissions to the Iron Horse Facebook issue, most of the manuscripts we received focused upon the ironies of Facebook – a social networking Web site that so many writers both love and hate. One of the reasons I like FB is that it somehow encourages all of my friends, not just the writers I know, to tell stories and pay attention to language. I like the way we narrate on FB, the way our words surprise and entertain, as if we’re at a huge dinner party and each of us is vying to be the most interesting guest.”
Patterson goes on with comments such as “Do ‘friends’ honestly care…” and “But maybe we’re not supposed to stay in touch with our pasts.” and “But the truth is, no one is honest on FB. Not that we lie outright.” and discusses the contributions to this collection that explore each of these and more issues related to this form of hyper-social networking.
Contributors include (poetry) Robert Fanning, Laura McCullough, Juliana Gray, Steve Langan, Tamiko Beyer, Jennifer A. Luebbers, Randall BrowN; (fiction) Mike Land AND Shane Castle; (nonfiction) Mike Hampton, Katie Schneider, and Dinty W. Moore.
Still using paper planners? Then Small Beer Press has something you writers might be interested in for yourself or a writer you know – A Working Writer’s Daily Planner includes “information writers need to organize their work schedules, track upcoming deadlines, and learn about grant opportunities, contests, and workshop programs….You’ll also find information on How to Find a Writing Group – Or Start Your Own, writing conferences, advice on formatting manuscripts, suggested readings, and the dos and don’ts of submitting your work to journals, magazines, and literary agents.”
Full table of contents and an excerpt link available on the Small Beer Press website, with a discount offered for multiple copies.
“The movie industry has a long history of raiding literature, great or otherwise, for inspiration and then discarding whatever parts of the original don’t fit into a preestablished mold; readers of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz would be hard-pressed to recognize large chunks of the 1939 film. But in the case of Gulliver’s Travels, the gulf between page and screen is vast, yawning — abysmal, even.” Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and Disney’s Tangled do not escape being made further example of in How Hollywood Guts Children’s Classics by Sam Adams on Salon.com.
