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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!

All the Whiskey in Heaven

In some fundamental ways, and at this far-flung point along the literary timeline, it's hard to believe that this is the first Charles Bernstein collection issued by a mainstream press. After all, here is a poet and essayist who has been publishing steadily for thirty-five years, yet not only that, an academic of some renown whose reputation has only become greater over those almost-four decades. What perhaps makes sense of this delay in making Bernstein's poetry available to a potentially wider audience is his foundational role within the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E school and his guilt-by-association with that movement's so-called “difficulty.” In fact, what All the Whiskey in Heaven makes abundantly clear is that Bernstein, anyway, is an immensely readable poet whose writing is varied, investigational, and quite often robustly hilarious. Continue reading “All the Whiskey in Heaven”

Bar Napkin Sonnets

It’s odd to start a collection of poems by politely turning down a pick up line, but Moira Egan just comes right out with it in the opening of the first of two dozen sonnets: “A glass of wine, a napkin, and a pen / are all I need.” But something – the cadence or the spitfire wit of the delivery, or maybe the way I imagine the speaker looking up and coyly drawing a strand of hair behind her ear as she flatly rejects her suitor – the way I, like a bully’s toady, am drawn to rejection – causes me to push past her declination and further into a formal introduction of the chapbook: Continue reading “Bar Napkin Sonnets”

Shahid Reads His Own Palm

Deconstruction of identity is a recurring motif in African-American literature. The exploration of the physical, emotional and spiritual devastation wrought by slavery continues to haunt its characters be it in literature, poetry or music. The most dangerous of slavery’s effects is its negative impact on the individual’s sense of self. Alienation underpins much of Black American writing. Slaves were told they were subhuman and were traded as commodities, whose worth could be expressed only in dollars. Consequently the much criticized “one theme” of African-American writing (slavery) cannot be escaped. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, for example, Paul D – a typical exponent – describes his heart as a “tin tobacco box.” After his traumatizing experiences at Sweet Home and, especially, at the prison camp in Alfred, Georgia, he locks away his feelings and memories in this “box,” which has, by the time Paul D arrives at 124, “rusted” over completely. By alienating himself from his emotions, Paul D hopes to preserve himself from further psychological damage. In order to secure this protection, however, Paul D sacrifices much of his humanity by foregoing feeling and gives up much of his selfhood by repressing his memories. Although Paul D is convinced that nothing can pry the lid of his box open, his strange, dreamlike sexual encounter with Beloved – perhaps a symbol of an encounter with his past – causes the box to burst and his heart once again to glow red. Continue reading “Shahid Reads His Own Palm”

Writers in Exile: Washington Square

Washington Square‘s “Borderlands Issue” (Summer/Fall 2010) features writing that, rather than being interspersed throughout the issue, is given a devoted section of the magazine. According to Editor Martin Rock, though it may seem strange that the work is “cordoned” off, the “decision comes from our desire to give voice to writers in exile, be it self-imposed or otherwise, and to provide them with a space, both metaphorical and literal, to put up their feet and stay a while.” Those guests (with most works appearing in translation)include Meena Alexander, Jean-Luc Raharimanana, Drajica Rajcic, Avrom Sutzkever, Aung Way, Patrice Nganang, Soheil Najm, Huan Xiang, Idris Bazorkin, and an interview with Austin Woerner.

Narrative Spring Contest Winners

Winners of the Narrative Magazine Spring Story Contest:

FIRST PRIZE
Scott Tucker I Would Be Happy to Leave This Asylum

SECOND PRIZE
Peter Grimes Victoria

THIRD PRIZE
Megan Mayhew Bergman Birds of a Lesser Paradise

FINALISTS
Elizabeth Benedict Death of a Deadbeat Dad
Mary Costello The Sewing Room
Marta Evans Intruder
Katherine Jaeger Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, Derision
Eli Lindert Tacos in Chicago
Alexander Maksik A Tobogganist
Jerry Mathes II Still Life
E. V. Slate The Ferry
Lynn Stegner The Anarchic Hand
Lori Tobias Going to the City

Upcoming Contests:

The Fall 2010 Story Contest, with $6,500 in prizes. Open to fiction and nonfiction. All entries will be considered for publication. Deadline: November 30, 2010.

The 30 Below Story Contest 2010, with $3,250 in prizes. All entries will be considered for publication. Open to all submissions from writers and artists age thirty and below. The contest runs from September 15 through October 29, 2010.

Brazil

My copy of Jesse Lee Kercheval’s Brazil smells like Froot Loops, and I don’t mind one bit. The candy-fruit aroma only enhances the sensory snack that this novella serves. More than a snack, really, Kercheval’s short novel delivers dinner and a movie in the same timeframe in which most novels are just passing the hors d’oeuvres. Continue reading “Brazil”

High Notes

Winner of the Samuel T. Coleridge Prize, Lois Roma-Deeley’s latest poetry collection High Notes tours the bleak, unforgiving world of jazz in the late 1950s with a cast of five dramatis personae who move through impoverished landscapes of bars, pawnshops, grimy hotels and police stations. Carrying burdens of regret and despair, death and rage, the figures who people High Notes pacify themselves with liquor and dope in the loneliest corners of Chicago, New York, Detroit, Kansas City, and Los Angeles, destroying themselves on the edge of hope. Continue reading “High Notes”

Gospel Earth

Jeffery Beam’s celebration of the “small poem” in his latest collection, Gospel Earth, diverts his reader from ambient noise, trims the excess from the natural world. His poems stand out because they whisper, infusing Gospel Earth with stillness and secrecy. Beam creates a quiet book in form and tone, filling the page with white space that emphasizes the solitude and fragility of his images. His aim is to observe the “wide silences that do not ache to be filled,” and he invites the reader to collude with his minimalist vision. His poems emerge like Continue reading “Gospel Earth”

Hold Tight

From the Morton Salt Girl to straight bois, the fever dream of Jeni Olin’s second full collection of poetry, Hold Tight: The Truck Darling Poems draws the reader into the solitary world of the personal: the private space where the ruminations and raw anxieties that dominate the human mind cavort. In this manner Olin explores identity and connection with an astute, pain-allied beauty in four sections of short poems. Continue reading “Hold Tight”

The Return

If you’re reading this review, on this website, you probably know who Roberto Bolaño is/was. You know he died at age 50, likely due to complications from drug and alcohol addictions. You know he was a poet who switched to fiction to support his family. You’ve probably read at least one of his two major works, The Savage Detectives and 2666, and probably a couple of the shorter works like Amulet, Antwerp or Last Evenings on Earth. Continue reading “The Return”

Diasporas in the New Media Age

Once upon a time, I could really get into this kind of writing. The title intrigued me. The topic was captivating. The whole idea of merging the concepts of new media and diaspora was fascinating. And then, I read the book. While the compilation spans a great breadth of “diaspora,” and as such is an inclusive and interesting mix of authors and definitions, the mix also falls flat as the connections between the various communities and medias the contributors talk about are hard to hold on to. For example, looking at the Digital Diaspora of India as seen in the growing emergence of Bollywood caricatures and Indian-ness in Second Life (“3D Indian (Digital) Diasporas” by Radhika Gajjala), juxtaposed with the use of social networking and Orkut in the outlanders of Brazil (“Tidelike Diasporas in Brazil: From Slavery to Orkut” by Javier Bustamante). The overarching understanding tacit in most of the contributors’ writing was that societal bonds, while already tenuous in splintered or diasporic communities, may be further impacted by the use and creation of “virtual” communities that reify or overblow particular essences of the original community (especially in “Maintaining Transnational Identity: A Content Analysis of Web Pages Constructed by Second-Generation Caribbeans” by Dwaine Plaza). Continue reading “Diasporas in the New Media Age”

New Lit on the Block :: Vinyl Poetry

Editors Gregory Sherl (poet and author of The Oregon Trail Is the Oregon Trail, a novella in verse forthcoming from Mud Luscious Press in 2012) and KMA Sullivan (MFA candidate in poetry at Virginia Tech) are the energy behind newly launched Vinyl Poetry online.

The inaugural issue of Vinyl features works by JoAnn Balingit, Kristy Bowen, Melissa Broder, Andrea Cohen, Sasha Fletcher, Matt Hart, Thomas Patrick Levy, Rob MacDonald, Adrian Matejka, Ben Mirov, Sam Pink, Anne Marie Rooney, Nate Slawson, Joseph Young, and Franz Wright.

An additional feature titled Grocery Lists is the result of asking three writers for a handwritten grocery list. What Vinyl got: “One [Julianna Baggott] offers a personal essay. One [Jeff Mann] puts together an end-of-life fantasy to do list. One [Bob Hicok] sends in a handwritten list with some items that are hard to locate – like a better serve for his tennis game.”

Vinyl currently publishes works by solicitation only. According to the editors: “We’re constantly trolling the online mags for poets we’re excited about. We’re interested in fostering the already thriving online community of poets and writers. But since we are writers ourselves, we just don’t have time to go through a mass of submissions.”

Still, if you are a published poet, they encourage you to send an email with links to your poetry online. They’ll take a look, and if your work makes them “tingle,” they’ll ask you for some new stuff.

Glimmer Train June Fiction Open Winners :: 2010

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their June Fiction Open competition. This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers for stories with a word count range between 2000 – 20,000. The next Fiction Open will take place in September. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Nona Caspers, of San Francisco, CA, wins $2000 for “Ants.” Her story will be published in the Fall 2011 issue of Glimmer Train Stories. [Photo credit: Arlene Diehl]

Second place: James F. Sidel, also of San Francisco, CA, wins $1000 for “Insurance.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

Third place: S. Ruth Joffre, of Falls Church, VA, wins $600 for “Grateful, Somewhere.”

A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.

Deadline soon approaching for the Short Story Award for New Writers: August 31

This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5000. No theme restrictions. Word count should not exceed 12,000. (All shorter lengths welcome.) Click here for complete guidelines.

CFS Southern Poetry Anthology – Louisiana

Editors Paul Ruffin and William Wright now seek submissions for the fourth volume in their series of THE SOUTHERN POETRY ANTHOLOGY, featuring Louisiana poets. The anthology will be published by Texas Review Press in 2011. CFS for a Georgia anthology is forthcoming.

If you are a Louisiana native, or if you have lived in Louisiana for more than one year at any time, please feel free to send up to five poems for consideration. This anthology is not limited to those who have published before; the editors invite first-time submitters as well as those who have had full-length poetry books published by national presses. The only rules: Poems must be original and of high quality.

The editors consider formal poems and free verse. Poems about Louisiana are not necessarily championed over other motifs and themes, as they wish for the “sense of place” to manifest in different ways, with different voices.

Please note that the success of this anthology depends a great deal on word of mouth. Notify your poetry students, poetry-writing friends, and gifted nemeses of this opportunity.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Please submit your poems to the Series Editor and Volume Editor, William Wright, at vercimber-at-hotmail-dot-com. Please type “Louisiana Poetry Submission” in your subject heading, then include your first and last names in parentheses. For example: Louisiana Poetry Submission (William Wright). Unfortunately, snail-mail submissions are not possible given the nature of the editing process.

Please include a short cover letter within the text of the e-mail, as well as names of the poems submitted. Submit a maximum of five poems, and ensure that the poems are sent in .rtf (Rich Text Format), .doc (World 97-03), or .docx (Word 2007) format. Please include all submitted poems in only one attachment (this is important).

All submissions should include a bio (up to 150 words) after the poems and on a separate page. Please italicize names of publications.

The editors welcome both new and previously published work. However, if poems have been previously published, submitters must hold rights to them and provide full publication data (journal and/or book publisher, title of book/journal if applicable, date of publication). Finally, please make sure that each submission includes a preferred e-mail address and street mailing address within the text of the e-mail and on at least one page of the attached submission.

Submission Deadline: September 30 (Early submissions encouraged!)

[Via William Wright and Paul Ruffin, Editors]

Kitty Snacks – 2010

In this issue of Kitty Snacks, the introduction belongs to Deb Olin Unferth. Her “Limited Observations” is not so much a story in its traditional form, but an amusing list of things the ubiquitous ‘she’ has observed. This style lends itself well to the itemized life that ‘she’ lives. For example, two delightful items in this list are “Committees” and “Deletion.” For the first, Unferth writes, Continue reading “Kitty Snacks – 2010”

Southern Humanities Review – Spring 2010

My recent reading just happens to have included a great deal of poetry by women whose work in the first half of the last century is now largely forgotten or ignored, so I was surprised, pleased, and curious to discover Mina Loy’s name in a poem by Priscilla Atkins in this issue’s TOC. I had to start there, though I was tempted to begin with a poem by Michael Andrews, “Lykambes Has Promised Neobulé,” because it has the most unusual title in the issue; or Terry W. Thompson’s “Spencer Rex: The Oedipus Myth in Henry James’s ‘The Jolly Corner,’” because I am fond of academic essays, and as editor Chantel Acevedo notes in her Comment, few journals publish them. Continue reading “Southern Humanities Review – Spring 2010”

Spoon River Poetry Review – Winter/Spring 2010

This 35th anniversary issue is editor Bruce Guernsey’s last after four years. He will be succeeded by Kristin Hotelling Zona, associate professor of English at Illinois State, where the journal is published. This issue’s Illinois Poet (an interview and a dozen poems) introduces the work of Cathy Bobb; the Poets on Teaching column presents Wesley McNair’s exercises for introducing students to free verse; translations include work from Brazil, Spain; and poems by 20 poets. Continue reading “Spoon River Poetry Review – Winter/Spring 2010”

The Yale Review – July 2010

A very Yale-Review-like issue of the Yale Review, which is to say that this is a journal for the serious-minded reader who appreciates scholarly essays of thoughtful analysis alongside her poetry, fiction, and personal essays. And if you’re looking for writers with an established track record and name recognition, Yale Review is always a good choice (Louis Auchincloss on Henry James; Arthur Kirsch on Auden; poems by Charles Wright, Carl Phillips, Daryl Hine, David Wagoner, Cynthia Zarin; fiction by Alice Hoffman…Alice Hoffman! [that was actually something of a surprise]), this is the journal for you. Continue reading “The Yale Review – July 2010”

Gargoyle – 2010

Gargoyle came into being in 1976. It was started to put light on “unknown poets and writers, and the overlooked.” It bravely began as a monthly, with not much more than a handful of poems, short stories and nonfiction and “graphics”; but it began with quality. For example, its first issue boasted a poem from the then-unknown budding young poet named Jim Daniels. It slowly grew larger over time until it became the huge beast of a literary magazine it is today. It has continued to have quality poets and writers. Continue reading “Gargoyle – 2010”

Green Mountains Review – Spring/Summer 2010

This issue opens with terrific translations of the work of Syrian poet Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said Esber) from Khaled Mattawa, from the book Al-Mutabaqat wal-al-Awa’il (Similarities and Beginnings), published in 1980. These poems are, according to an introductory essay by Mattawa, a departure from the poet’s earlier interest in longer forms, and they demonstrate his skill with the short lyric. They are tightly, and expertly, constructed, with lush imagery, despite their taut shape. Here is “The Beginning of Death” in its entirety: Continue reading “Green Mountains Review – Spring/Summer 2010”

Antioch Review :: Fiction Will Survive

“Many writers and editors hope that literary magazines will carry writers through these difficult economic times by providing outlets. There is the usual hysteria about the ‘death of fiction’ but we have seen little of that here as young, middle-aged and older writers keep emerging, keep sharpening their pencils and trying to ouwit and outfence their readers. It’s not like the heyday of the late sixties when George Hitchcock published Kayak, when Gordon Lish shepherded and drove Raymond Carver to reach beyond himself and the bottle to produce a new order of writing that was distinctive, driven by aesthetic concerns rather than merely commercial ones.

“It certainly was an imperfect golden age, but short stories (very good ones) are still being produced and there are, as Salman Rushdie noted, lots of terrific magazines that continue to nourish the hears of readers and writers.”

Excerpt from Robert S. Fogarty’s Editorial “The Short Story Today” from The Antioch Review’s Annual All Fiction Issue

Calyx Celebrates 34 Years

After a year of seeing so many long-standing publications shut down, it sure is good to recognize the 34th anniversary of Calyx, and especially considering the work that Calyx has done over the these year to “provide a forum for women’s creative work — including work by women of color, lesbian and bisexual women, young women, old women.” Happy Anniversary Calyx!

VQR Writers from Iran

The Summer 2010 issue of Virginia Quarterly Review includes A Special Symposium of Writers from Iran in response to recent events, including the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, who’s death during protests in central Tehran was captured on video and quickly went viral. VQR recounts the events that lead up to this tragedy, and introduces readers to the personal life of Neda, including her love for photographer Caspian Makan, who was jailed following Neda’s death and has since been released and fled his home country.

“To tell this side of life in Iran—the personal side, the side of longing and heartbreak—we asked Iranian-born writers Laleh Khadivi and Erika Abrahamian to assemble a special portfolio of work by writers from Iran. They have gathered intimate portraits of love curbed by Sharia law and separation imposed by political imprisonment; this work illustrates both the untenable strictures that give rise to protest and the unendurable consequences of opposing the government’s mandates. They also provide the backdrop and context for the other places in the world where people find themselves caught between impossible choices.”

Read more on VQR, including some articles in their entirety.

Writers Not on Writing

The New Quarterly #115 includes The Extra New Quarterly 40+ page supplement trade-format magazine “In Which Writers Writing on Everything But Writing.” Guest edited and introduced by Katia Grubisic, it includes watercolors by Jon Claytor and the following sections and authors:

CONFESSIONS
AMY JONES Confessions of a Roller Coaster Addict
ANNE FLEMING Confessions of a Ukulele Devotee
PATRICIA YOUNG Confessions from the End of the World
RICHARD CUMYN Confessions of a Sourdough Nerd
CARRIE SNYDER Confessions of an Unsettled Woman
HEATHER BIRRELL Confessions of a High School (Student) Survivor

COLLECTIONS
TERRY GRIGGS Rockface
JEANETTE LYNES Enlightening Fetish
SKY GILBERT Bank Ladies

OBSESSIONS
PASHA MALLA A Night at the Theatre
KATHRYN KUITENBROUWER Wide Open
MICHAEL REDHILL The Root of Consciousness
LEESA DEAN Cycle

REFLECTIONS
ALBERTO MANGUEL Stubborn Continuity
ANNE SIMPSON The Great Saskatoon Scavenger Hunt
ISABEL HUGGAN Reflecting on Mirrors
GORAN SIMIC Anatomy of Escape
RONNA BLOOM To Be With Strangers
ANDREW TIBBETTS The Taste of Pins

Shenandoah Update

A letter sent out by Editor R.T. Smith to Shenandoah subscribers:

I am writing to inform you that Shenandoah is approaching a crossroads which to some degree reflects the broader evolution in the world of publishing. You may have already read on our website that the magazine will cease publishing as a print journal and will expand its presence on-line. By the end of 2011 our website will be the sole location of the journal, where it will be available to all on a non-fee basis, though we hope to incorporate additional features available only to those with unexpired subscriptions. All physical issues going back 15 years and continuing into this winter will still be available for purchase.

Though this evolution will involve significant changes in format, the features which I believe to be Shenandoah’s essence will remain: artful and memorable poems, stories, essays and reviews from all comers of the literary community; a pleasing and stimulating design, provocative inquiry into the on-going chorus that is contemporary writing and our signature brand of serious mischief. As editor, I will continue to seek accomplished and fresh work to maintain our balance between the traditional and the experimental. We’ve already altered our web page to offer a hint of the future, and in 2011 we’ll feature a blog called “Snopes.”

Our fall/winter issue will be a standard perfect-bound magazine, and in the spring of 2011 we will release a limited edition anthology of Shenandoah poetry from 1995 to 2010. This anthology will be sent to all whose subscriptions extend to spring of 2011, and additional copies will be available. I hope that subsequent anthologies will eventually become feasible.

While many of us harbor divided minds about the dwindling of the physical print medium, I’m enthusiastic about the possibilities -from audio presentations to ease of access and extended audience and more frequent updates -presented by this brave new world of the Internet. The increased involvement of Washington and Lee students will be an asset in this changing environment, and we intend to launch our new identity with a fall 2010 on-campus panel of editors discussing the changing landscape of literary publishing. Our first digital issue will publish the proceedings of that conversation.

There is further good news. Shenandoah will continue to give honoraria and awards to its writers, and national prize anthologies have now begun to recognize the work in on-line journals. Publication on-line now counts as a legitimate credential towards qualifying for N.E.A. fellowships, so the territory we are entering is not hostile to serious literature. I believe it is becoming quite hospitable and that accomplished writers have already begun to recognize this. I thank you for your loyalty in the past, invite you to join us in this new adventure built on our sixty-year history and urge you to visit our Face book page beginning in October as we prepare to move into a new era.

Call for Fellowship Applications

Movement, Somatics and Writing: A Practice-Based Research Symposium February 18th/19th, Duderstadt Video Performance Studio, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Conference Team:
Amy Sara Carroll, Assistant Professor of English and American Culture (Latina/o Studies), UM Thom Donovan, poet and essayist, co-editor of ON: Contemporary Practice and the weblog Wild Horses Of Fire Kate Elswit, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow (Drama/Dance), Stanford University Bhanu Kapil, Assistant Professor, Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Naropa University (Cross-Genre Narrative and Poetics) Jina Kim, PhD student, English/Women?s Studies, UM (Visual Culture) Petra Kuppers, Associate Professor of English, UM (Performance Studies) Eleni Stecopoulos, poet, writer, educator, curator of the Poetics of Healing project at the Poetry Center, San Francisco State University

In our forth arts-based inquiry symposium (after Anarcha: African American culture/Disability Culture/Medical Ethics; Touching Time:
Bodies/Writing/Histories; Eco-Performance) we want to build on the
inter- or transdisciplinary methods explored so far, and invite scholars and artists to engage in experimental writing and art practice at the sites/cites of the moving, living body and the moving, living text.

We invite up to ten fellows (graduate students, faculty, independent artists and writers) to come together for two days, to workshop, to use performances and presentations as provocations, and to plumb methods of merging art practice and critical writing. The specific topics we will address are yet to be determined by applicants’ interests. But, to date, this symposium’s foci include or relate to innovative methodologies, writing-as-practice, somatics/embodiment, breath poetics, prosodic magic, language limit zones, conceptual -isms, skin and membranes, mixed media and metaphors, the ethics of touch and movement, enjambed spacetime, transitions and becoming ______ . We will be in praxis together: this is not a conference to share the results of previous research or practice. Thus, we are not looking for papers, performances, portfolios, or readings; we plan to experiment. Come and share the excitement of your creative and critical research, present a workshop based on your passions, and find out what could happen.

Each invitee will have transport and accommodation costs reimbursed up to $200 dollars. The conference hotel offers rooms for about sixty dollars a night, and we will assist people who want to be hosted by graduate students.

Application Process: please send a short CV, a sample of your writing (creative, experimental, performative or critical), and a brief statement about why you would like to participate, to petra-at-umich.edu.

You can also send URLs or a DVD or CD with performance or visual arts material.

Query first about snail mail address by emailing the symposium director: Petra Kuppers, petra-at-umich.edu.

Deadline: October 1, 2010 Notification: October 20, 2010

—

Petra Kuppers
Associate Professor
English, Theatre and Dance, Women’s Studies University of Michigan
435 S. State Street
3187 Angell Hall
Ann Arbor
MI 48109-1003
mobile: 734-239-2634
email: petra-at-umich.edu
Artistic Director of The Olimpias
homepage: www.olimpias.org

ClassicsTurned Poster Art

Based in Ontario, PosterText offers classic text turned poster art. Novels like Peter Pan, Moby Dick, Wizard of Oz, and Alice in Wonderland are fashioned onto readable, poster-sized paper. In some cases, the full text is used, while in others, only a portion (the first 26 chapters of Moby Dick). There’s also a poster of the US Constitution and the source code of the Linux Kernel with more novels planned.

Daring Publishing

“One might argue that it’s easy enough to criticize from outside the world of profit margins. But I think that even in this climate – maybe especially in the climate – publishers would benefit from a more daring and honest mode of decision making, one in which the virtues of the thing itself were allowed to outweigh hypothetical projections of its marketability. What if the primary question were not Will it sell? but Is it good? . . . I realize, of course, that ‘good’ is not some kind of simple universal category . . . We need diversity of informed, sophisticated opinion in publishing, just as we need it in every sphere of life. What we don’t need is a relentless march toward the middle, a huddling together in the safest spot. We don’t need publishing decisions driven by some algorithmic notion of what the greatest number of people might be most likely to buy.” Christina Thompson, Harvard Review #38

New Lit on the Block :: Pig in a Poke

Editors Harry Calhoun, the publisher of the ’80s underground magazine Pig in a Poke, and Trina Allen, have resurrected Pig in a Poke, “The New Porker,” now available online.

In it’s former life (dare I say hay-day?) “The Pig” featured work by Charles Bukowski, Jim Daniels, Louis McKee, Lyn Lifshin, Judson Crews and many more. And now hopes to find “writers with passion — poets, storytellers, essayists and others.” Calhoun will oversee the poems and literary essays, while Allen will select the fiction.

The re-inagural issue features Poetry by Jim Daniels, Louis McKee, Lyn Lifshin, Howie Good, Christopher Cunningham, William Doreski, David Barker, Carol Lynn Grellas, Robin Stratton, Alan Catlin, Karla Huston, Corey Mesler, Donal Mahoney, Shirley Allard; Fiction by Sharmagne Leland-St. John, Daniel Davis, Anne Woodman, Burgess Needle, Marjorie Petesch, Ginny Swart, James Neenan; and Essays by Anne Woodman and Heller Levenson.

A second issue went live in July, and Pig and a Poke is accepting submissions for an October issue, deadline September 15. Submissions are open year-round for upcoming issues.

Dacha Life

The latest issue of Chtenia Journalis themed “Dacha Life” – second home, rural living for city dwellers (something southern Michigan city dwellers refer to as “going up north” or “to the cabin” – usually near water). Editor Tamara Eidelman writes in her introduction, “Autonomy, Solitude and Peace”:

“Of supreme importance at the dacha is that life there be absolutely unlike life in the city. For a landowner in the second half of the nineteenth century, it meant there was no need to follow the conventions of high society. For a city person, it meant resting from the burdens of one’s labors, breathing fresh air free of the smoke and soot of a large city, and socializing with friends without any excessive formality . . . For over a century, Russian city dwellers have bee attracted to dacha life for the autonomy, solitude and peace it has to offer. So it is no accident that so many works of Russian literature take place in dachas – this is where people feel freer, where they open up more quickly.”

And this issue of Chtenia continues this tradition with contemporary authors prose and poetry in English (Alexei Bayer, Irina Borisova, Marina Arsenievna Tarkovskaya) as well as translations of past Russian writers: Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev, Alexander Blok, Aton Chekhov, Bavrila Romanovich Derzhavin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Cultural Pride and Shame

Now in its second issue, Elder Mountain: A Journal of Ozarks Studies editor C. D. Albin addresses the fine line, or “enduring tension between shame and pride” that is part of the “cultural complexity” of the Ozark region: ” –shame at a supposed backwardness or lack of sophistication, pride in foregoing conformity and in maintaining connections to the wisdom and folkways of past generations. The upshot is that Ozarkers, who tend to be reticent about their feelings, rarely discuss shame or pride. After all, pride itself tends to make shame a dirty word, and pride fuels resentment at a larger culture Ozarkers perceive as turning shallow notions of ‘hillbillies’ into a default joke, always good for a programmed laugh when genuine cleverness roves too taxing. Yet complaining about such portrayal can hint that one might feel ashamed or bothered by them, so little is said at all.” Except between the pages of Elder Mountain, where writers express and explore this very tension and complexity.

BPJ Seeks Two Editorial Board Members

From Editor Lee Sharkey:

The Beloit Poetry Journal is looking to bring two new people onto its editorial board. The ideal person for the positions will be deeply grounded in poetry, particularly poetry whose quickened language and formal inventiveness expand our sense of poetic possibilities and our vision of the world. He or she will be eager to devote time over the long term to the work of editing.

That work will consist of online screening of manuscripts that have already passed through primary and secondary screenings—about 80 per quarter—and participating in weekend-long quarterly editorial board sessions in Farmington, Maine, where poems are read aloud, thoroughly discussed, and an issue chosen. The rewards? As a small, independent journal, we have always run entirely on volunteer labor, but we offer good talk, good food, a poetry family, and the opportunity to contribute to a publication that has had a hand in defining contemporary literature for six decades and counting.

If you are interested, send a letter describing your background and what attracts you to the position to bpj-at-bpj.org by October 15. Please note that you must be able to commit yourself to attending editorial board sessions. And do spread the word to your friends in the poetry community.

New Lit on the Block :: Literary Laundry

Literary Laundry is a biannual online/annual print literary journal of poetry, prose, drama and editorial reviews. Literary Laundry was established “to promote the literature we crave: masterful writing that can hold discourse with great literary and intellectual traditions while still engaging the complexities of our world today. Literary Laundry recognizes the obscure (and at times glib) character of much currently published creative writing. Many potential readers approach the world of contemporary fiction only to abandon it, overwhelmed and discouraged. We regard this trend as a problem and have created Literary Laundry in order to fix it.”

Seeing to this mission are Executive Editors Jonathan Canel (poetry and drama), Samuel Chiu (poetry), Corey Tazzara (prose fiction,; Justin Brooke (prose fiction and drama), Giulio Gratta (webmaster); and Associate Editors Alyssa Martin (prose fiction), David Chang (poetry), Molly Pam (drama), Craig Harbick (prose fiction), Lydia Lindenberg (prose fiction), Grzegorz Robak (prose fiction), Dean Schaffer (prose fiction), Ben Seitelman (prose fiction).

Each issue of Literary Laundry is also accompanied by a writing competition. All pieces submitted for review will be entered into consideration for Awards of Distinction and cash awards.

The inaugural issue includes poetry by Lydia Lindenberg, Dana Isokawa (undergraduate award), Amanda Auerbach, Jessica Lynn Wickman, Hannah Dow, D. Gilson, Wendy Xu, Edward Church, Matt Wimberley, and Tej Patel, and fiction by Kelly Swope (undergraduate award), Sydney Langway, Len Kuntz, Matt Popkin, and Samantha Toh, and drama by Erin E. McGuff and Carly Augenstein (undergraduate award).

Submissions are now open for the next issue – deadline December 1.

Literary Classics on DVD

This September Twentieth Century Fox and MGM Home Entertainment will be releasing 15 Literary Classics in a new DVD collection: Much Ado About Nothing, Moby Dick, Of Mice and Men, Jane Eyre, Lord of the Flies, The Lion In Winter, Inherit the Wind, Les Miserables, Anna Karenina, How Green Was My Valley, Journey To the Center of the Earth, Henry V, The Grapes of Wrath, Richard III and The Children’s Hour. Each DVD in the collection includes a removable bookmark that incorporates artwork and a quote from the respective film.

Read more here.

NewPages Updates :: August 19, 2010

Newly added to the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines:

Willows Wept Review – poetry, fiction, nonfiction
Storychord – fiction, artwork, music
Devil’s Lake – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, reviews, interviews
Rick Magazine – poetry, fiction
Anamesa – poetry, fiction, essays, translations, visual art
Abraxas – poetry, translation, essays, criticism, reviews
Pear Noir! – poetry, fiction, nonfiction
Wild Apples – poetry, prose, visual art, photography
Red Fez Publications – poetry, fiction, comics, illustrated work
Fiction Fix – fiction, nonfiction, artwork
Anemone Sidecar – poetry, short prose
High Chair – Filipino/English, poetry, essays, interviews, book reviews
Lies With Occasional Truth – fiction
Grey Sparrow Journal – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual art, photography

Newly added to the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines:
The Good Men Project Magazine