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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!

Jobs

Park University has a position open for a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in English. Cherie Smith, Human Resource Services. March 1

Wayne State University tenure track Instructor/Assistant Professor, Creative Writing (tenure track) Department of Language and Literature.

Lecturer in Creative Writing (Fiction) for the Department of English & Philosophy at Murray State University. Full-time, non-tenure track position to begin August 2010. March 5

Brandeis University English Department seeks a poet with a distinguished publication record and teaching experience for a half-time appointment (2 workshops per year, 1 per semester) as Ziskind Poet in Residence in the Creative Writing Major of the English Department to begin Fall 2010. First consideration Feb 5.

Pending budgetary approval, Creighton University’s English department seeks to fill a tenure-track, entry-level Assistant Professor position in Creative Writing (area open).

Taunton Press of Newton, CT currently has several openings:

Assistant Editor – Books
Associate Editor – Fine Cooking
Customer Sales/Service Representative
Director of Creative Marketing Services
Director, Product Development & Market Innovation
Senior Acquisitions Editor – Books

Got Legos to Share?

River Rock School in Montpelier, Vermont, is looking for LEGOs: “We are in need of many, many LEGOs for our summer LEGO camp. Check out our website to learn more about us. No LEGO collection is too big or too small. A small bag of 50 or 100 LEGOs would be greatly appreciated. Please call 802-223-4700 for details (or email [email protected]), or to arrange pick up of your donation (locally). Or mail them to River Rock School, 252 N. Main St., Montpelier, VT 05602. Many thanks!”

Celebrity Houses, Celebrity Politics – Antioch Review

The newest edition of Antioch Review couldn’t be more timely, with its focus on “Celebrity Houses.” The issue opens with an essay by Daniel Harris, who takes readers into the newest realm of “celebrityhood – politicians as celebrity.” The issue includes a several essay on France “all of which praise it, its citizens, an the French way of life,” and includes a look at their celebrities and politicians in turn.

Norman Mailer Writers Colony Fellowships

The Norman Mailer Writers Colony is accepting applications for the Second Annual Norman Mailer Writers Colony Fellowships at Provincetown, MA.

Fiction and non-fiction writers can apply for a 28-day residency in Provincetown, Massachusetts, near Mailer’s home beginning July 5, 2010. Seven Fellows will be selected. In addition, as many as 66 applicants will be offered scholarships to one week writing workshops in Provincetown during May, June, August and September, 2010.

Applications must be received by March 13, 2009.

Outrage – In Theatres May 8th

Academy Award nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) delivers a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of closeted politicians who actively campaign against the LGBT community they covertly belong to. Outrage boldly reveals the hidden lives of some of our nation’s most powerful policymakers, details the harm they’ve inflicted on millions of Americans, and examines the media’s complicity in keeping their secrets.

American Indian Youth Services Literature Awards

The 2010 American Indian Youth Services Literature Awards, presented by the American Library Association, have selected the following recipients:

Best Picture Book – A Coyote Solstice Tale, written by Thomas King and illustrated by Gary Clement, published by Groundwood Books, 2009.

Best Middle School Book – Meet Christopher: An Osage Indian Boy from Oklahoma by Genevieve Simermeyer, with photographs by Katherine Fogden, published by the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution in association with Council Oak Books, 2008.

Best Young Adult Book – Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me: A Novel by Lurline Wailana McGregor and published by Kamehameha Publishing, 2008.

Book :: Kamchatka

Kamchatka: Wilderness at the Edge: “Astoundingly beautiful book on one of the most special wilderness and cultural areas on the planet – Kamchatka. This peninsula hangs into the Bering Sea and Pacific Ocean off the very eastern end of Russia. It is home to the world’s highest diversity of salmon with huge runs up wild rivers; large populations of brown bear; traditional reindeer-herding cultures; Krontosky Nature Reserve and its Valley of Geysers (a World Heritage Area); and much more.” Available exclusively from Wild Foundation; proceeds from the book to benefit the foundation.

By Igor Shpilenok and Patricio Robles Gil
Edited by nature writer Laura Williams
Full color, 121 pages, 7.5″ square, hard cover, in hard-case gift box.
ISBN 978-1-56373-187-0

February 2010 Book Reviews

Check out the NewPages February Book Reviews (Ed. Gina Myers):

Easter Rabbit, Fiction by Joseph Young
Review by John Madera

Shot, Poetry by Christine Hume
Review by Marthe Reed

The River Flows North, Novel by Graciela Limon
Review by Christina Hall

Tsim Tsum, Poetry by Sabrina Orah Mark
Review by Roy Wang

Catch Light, Poetry by Sarah O’Brien
Review by Gina Myers

The Bigness of the World, Fiction by Lori Ostlund
Review by Laura Pryor

Dangerous Places, Fiction by Perry Glasser
Review by Alex Myers

Death at Solstice: A Gloria Damasco Mystery, Novel by Lucha Corpi
Review by Elizabeth Townsend

Closings :: The Open Book, SC

The Open Book in Greenville, SC, will be closing its doors next month after 40 years in business. The economy and changes in the book business – big box stores and digital readers – are what owner Duff Bruce cites in his reasons. “I’ve loved books, loved putting books in people’s hands over the years,” Bruce said.

Thumbs Down Agency List

Writers Beware has updated its Thumbs Down Agency List: “a list of the currently active literary agencies about which Writer Beware has received the largest number of complaints over the years, or which, based on documentation we’ve collected, we consider to pose the most significant hazard for writers.” Writers Bewared outlines “abusive practices” which guides the selection of those listed.

CFS :: Lit Mag Editors

From Seth Horton Co-editor Best of the West: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri, an annual anthology of short fiction that is set in the West. “We are currently considering work published between fall 2009-fall 2010. If you are an editor of a literary journal and would like us to consider any of the stories that you (will) have published during this time, please send a complimentary subscription to Best of the West, 824 W. 28th Street, Richmond, VA 23225. Feel free to contact the editor with any questions that you may have at bestofthewesteditor_at_hotmail_dot_com.”

New Lit on the Block :: Buzzard Picnic

In her Editor’s Note, Abby Holcomb writes: “Technological advances have certainly expanded our worldviews, yet they have also managed to diminish our attention spans and cheapen our appreciation of art. Much like Marx described the alienation of the worker from the fruits of his labor, James might identify the disconnect that certain technologies have created between an artist and his art and that art and its audience. This debut issue of Buzzard Picnic will deal thematically with the matter of alienation in all its manifestations.”

Featured in this inaugural issue is an interview with Hannah Tinti, “Bibliophilia,” an essay by Lauren Avirom, a review of E.L. Doctorow’s Homer and Langley by Shelley Huntington, fiction by Ingrid Wenzler, Dominic Preziosi, and Steve Duno, and poetry by Mather Schneider and Gary Leising.

Edited by Abby Holcomb and Lauren Avirom, with web designer Jason Thompson, Buzzard Picnic is open for submissions of short fiction, memoir, essay, criticism, book and story reviews, and author interviews; relevant comic strips, art and/or design will be considered for publication.

Easter Rabbit

With their directness and precision, their attention to what Ezra Pound would call “luminous details,” Joseph Young’s microfictions might be mistaken for Imagist poems, but with their shift away from showing “things” as “things” toward “things” as something else, or, rather, toward portraying both the “thingness” of the thing and of some different “thing,” his miniatures suggest something altogether different. But where they fit is less important than what they do, how they make you feel. In Easter Rabbit’s miniatures, its sharp sentences focused on often mundane details, Young offers epics. Seemingly channeling William Blake, he offers further “auguries of innocence,” further testaments to worlds in granules, heavens in flowers, and – well, suffice to say, these are sentences to linger over. Continue reading “Easter Rabbit”

Shot

Christine Hume’s language, “alive and lying,” takes us – shot or shunted – down into night, the imaginal-space of gestation. Mina Loy’s daughter-poet, Hume composes a Baedeker of the body pregnant, mapping a haunted landscape with a language she makes strange, dream wording a dream world: “I hear myself coming from your thoughts . . . Skull pockets that burn without warnings.” Continue reading “Shot”

The River Flows North

The beauty of Graciela Limon’s writing lies in her unadorned, tell-it-like-it-is style. While you’re reading, you don’t get tripped up and mesmerized by crafty phrases and descriptions so original that you have to stop and think in order to actually see them. All you see in The River Flows North is character. People. Their painful pasts, difficult voyages, and hopeful futures. Continue reading “The River Flows North”

Tsim Tsum

Tsim Tsum derives its title from an idea in Kabbalah that a being cannot truly exist unless the creator departs from his creation. This must refer to the fact that the two main characters, Walter B. and Beatrice, seem like abandoned children left to find their way through a fairy-tale landscape of allegorical friends and props. Rather, the spirit must have left them and their world midway through creation, as both characters have just enough intelligence to be confused. This is the central dilemma of Tsim Tsum. Continue reading “Tsim Tsum”

Catch Light

Selected by David Shapiro for the National Poetry Series, Sarah O’Brien’s debut book of poetry appears at first glance to be an extended meditation on photography. The collection is divided into seven sections, with each one made up of lyric poems investigating what it means to see something – to capture a moment, even if it’s blurred. Continue reading “Catch Light”

The Bignessof the World

It seems fitting that this debut short story collection by Lori Ostlund won the Flannery O’Connor award for short fiction, because Ostlund’s writing has a classic, timeless feel to it that would not have been out of place in O’Connor’s time. The title story, the first story in the book, could have been written last week or fifty years ago. Ostlund creates an eccentric nanny, Ilsa Maria Lumpkin, charming enough to rival Mary Poppins, though life for her two charges, Veronica and Martin, is no fairy tale. Ostlund writes with great sensitivity about children, and the inability of adults to understand their point of view. In addition to the title story, “The Day You Were Born” and “All Boy” both deal with a child’s view of their parents’ crises; in the former, a young girl copes with her father’s mental illness and the resulting disintegration of her parents’ marriage, and in the latter, an effeminate eleven year old boy copes with the stigma of being different, at the same time that his father admits that he is gay and moves out of the house. Continue reading “The Bignessof the World”

Dangerous Places

This volume, which won the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize, features six pieces that bring the realities of human nature into focus. It is the realities, not the dramatics, that Glasser writes about. His stories have familiar surroundings, familiar people, and are written in prose that is a flowing, melodious tune – one you could hum. Continue reading “Dangerous Places”

Death at Solstice

I can honestly say Death at Solstice by Lucha Copri has taught me something. I like mystery novels. I’ve avoided reading them if I could for most of my life because I thought I didn’t like them. Now, this is not the first mystery I’ve read, but it did confirm that I enjoy the genre, something I’d been wondering about recently. It’s likely that having started reading this thinking that I didn’t like the mystery genre may have led me to being more critical of this story than I normally would have been towards a novel. Having said that, there were a great many things about this novel that I did enjoy. Continue reading “Death at Solstice”

The best thing for poetry…

“The best thing that could happen to poetry is to drive it out of the universities with burning pitch forks. Starve the lavish grants. Strangle them all in a barrel of water. Cast them out. The current culture, in which poetry is written for and supported by poets has created a kind of state-sanctioned poetry that resists innovation. When and if poetry is ever made to answer to the broader public, then we may begin to see some great poetry again – the greatness that is the collaboration between audience and artist.” – Patrick Gillespie at PoemShape.

New Lit on the Block :: Sleet Magazine

Edited by Susan Solomon, Nate Thomas, Kathleen McEathron and “Sleet Lady,” Sleet publishes poetry, fiction, and flash fiction, with a new submission category for “irregular”: “a genre-crossing bit of writing – something that overflows borders or maybe never had any. It could be an impression, a vignette, a one-line flash. An irregular must be able to stand on its own. We are still in the process of defining this little mutant, but for now the guidelines are minimal. Send us literary-only work that is between 1 line and 500 words. It may be comprised of a single piece or a combination of work.”

Published online with number one accessible in the archives, number two includes:

Poetry by Jamie Lynn Buehner, Sara Dailey, Alan Elyshevitz, Howie Good, Jim Heynen, Bradley Hoge, Jenny McDougal, Patricia McGoldrick, John N. Miller, M.V. Montgomery, Katherine D. Perry, Floareau Tutuianu, Danny Sklar, and Scott Whitaker.

Flash Fiction by A.T. Cross, John Dutterer, Justin Ekstedt, Michael Onofrey, Michelle Reale, Paul Rogalus, and Brad Rose.

Fiction by Joshua James Wilson Mattern, and an interview with writer Jim Heynen.

Open Letter to New Publishers

Once again, Writer Beware Blogs!, specifically Richard White, has stolen my heart with this latest post, which begins:

Dear New Publisher:

You may have noticed people discussing your company on various web sites. Normally, this would be a good thing, I mean, free publicity, right? But, when you go to these sites, they may be discussing your company in unflattering terms and asking all kinds of questions about your ability to get books into bookstores.

“But, wait. They can’t say that about my baby.”

Actually, yes they can.

Read the rest, including a comprehensive list of questions that ANYONE thinking about starting up a new press should be able to answer FIRST if they really expect a serious venture to result (and anyone thinking of publishing with a “publisher” should ask of them as well!).

Film :: Wide Screen Journal

“Wide Screen is a peer-reviewed, open access journal. It is devoted to the critical study of cinema from historical, theoretical, political, and aesthetic perspectives. With radical changes in the modes of production, distribution, and exhibition, the journal aims to combine the best of academic and journalistic critique of cinema to inform readers about the various critical vantage points from which to understand cinema in this dynamic environment.”

Currently accepting papers on Cinemas of the Arab World.

2010 Best European Authors

Best European Fiction 2010 is the inaugural installment from Dalkey Archive Press of what will become an annual anthology of stories from across Europe. This year’s edition is edited by acclaimed Bosnian novelist and MacArthur “Genius-Award” winner Aleksandar Hemon. The authors featured include: Ornela Vorpsi, Antonio Fian, Peter Terrin, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Igor Štiks, Georgi Gospodinov, Neven Ušumović, Naja Marie Aidt, Elo Viiding, Juhani Brander, Christine Montalbetti, George Konrád, Steinar Bragi, Julian Gough, Orna Ní Choileáin, Giulio Mozzi (AKA Carlo Dalcielo), Inga Abele, Mathias Ospelt, Giedra Radvilavičiūtė, Goce Smilevski, Stephan Enter, Jon Fosse, Michal Witkowski, Valter Hugo Mãe, Cosmin Manolache, Victor Pelevin, David Albahari, Peter Krištúfek, Andrej Blatnik, Julián Ríos, Josep M. Fonalleras, Peter Stamm, Deborah Levy, Alasdair Gray, and Penny Simpson.

Had Enough Twilight Yet?

Hachette Book Group‘s Yen Press has announced a March 16 publication date for their 350,000-copy run for their first installment of the graphic novel version of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. The book will be divided into two volumes, common for longer works, and will be black-and-white with color interspersed.

Graduate Poet Readers Wanted

For SAMLA’s conference in 2010, four graduate students in poetry will have the opportunity to read at the Graduate Student Poetry Circle. Since the focus of the 2010 SAMLA Convention is “The Interplay of Text and Image,” poets will read from their work that embraces this sense of interplay. Poets selected will read for fifteen minutes and will also speak for approximately five minutes on how their work or another contemporary poet’s work plays with text and image. The conference will take place in Atlanta, Georgia from November 5th-7th.

Please send a bio, a sample of three poems, and a brief paragraph that describes how your work or how a contemporary poet’s work merges text and image by February 15th to Charlotte Pence: cpence1-AT-utk-DOT-edu). Travel funds are available on a competitive basis through SAMLA.

Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers :: January 2010

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their November Short Story Award for New Writers competition. This competition is held quarterly and is open to any writers whose fiction hasn’t appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. No theme restrictions. Word count should not exceed 12,000. (All shorter lengths welcome.) The next Short Story Award for New Writers competition will be held in February. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: D.M. Gordon of Leeds, MA, wins $1200 for “The Work of Hunters Is Another Thing.” Her story will be published in the Spring 2011 issue of Glimmer Train Stories, out in February 2011. [Photo credit: Ellen Augarten.]

Second place: Amanda Korman of Williamstown, MA, wins $500 for “From the Needle of Gwen.”

Third place: Tara Stillions of La Mesa, CA, wins $300 for “General, After the Tornado.”

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

Also: Very Short Fiction competition (deadline soon approaching! January 31)

Glimmer Train hosts this competition twice a year, and first place is $1200 plus publication in the journal. It’s open to all writers, no theme restrictions, and the word count must not exceed 3000. Click here for complete guidelines.

Jobs & Fellowships

The Brown International Writers Project is currently seeking nominations and applications for its one-year fellowship with residency. Deadline: Feb 15

The English Department at Quinnipiac University accepting applications for Assistant Professor beginning in Fall 2010. Feb 28

St. Lawrence University invites Fiction or creative non-fiction writers with significant publications and teaching experience to apply for the position of Viebranz Visiting Professor of Creative Writing for the academic year 2010-2011. Dr. Sidney Sondergard, English

Monmouth University Assistant Professor, Creative Writing (Fiction) and Literature. Feb 28

New Lit on the Block :: Bananafish

Bananafish Magazine is “an online venue for exceptional, short-form literature with a focus on wit, originality, and innovation,” with Founding Editor Daniel McDermott and Assistant Editor Elaine Strome.

The inaugural issue, January 2010, features works by Teri Carter, Nathan Leslie, Kenneth Pobo, Anne Wagener, William Farrant, Eirik Gumeny, Nick Chambers, and Lindsay Champion.

Bananafish is open for submissions of fiction and memoir.

New Lit on the Block :: Eclectic Flash

Eclectic Flash editors Brad Nelson, Sheila Smith, Grandpa Fitz, Jason Smith, and Deborah Dalcin, have released the first issue, available online as PDF and also in print format. EF is pen to all styles and genre of poetry, prose, fiction, nonfiction, short script, essay, experimental, literary, horror, sci fi, etc. – as long as it’s fewer than 1000 words. The first issue is packed with works from fifty writers, and submissions are being accepted for the next issue.

Eclectic Flash is currently running a flash fiction and poetry contest. To enter, write a FF story or poem based on some element in a video posted on their site (and make a $1 donation).

[Re-posted with corrections.]

New Lit on the Block :: Atonal Poetry Review

“There is new voice for avant-garde and experimental poetry that can now be heard. An electronic journal that showcases unconventional writers and subject matter far from the main stream featuring beat, postmodern, jazz, and free verse poetry from all over the world.” Published by J.P. Farrell and edited by Michelle Garvey, Dominick Montalto, Atonal Poetry Review has launched its inaugural issue.

Contributors come from Canada, Ireland, The United States, India, Norway, England and Germany. Featuring poet Dr. Lorne Foster, other authors include Ben Velazquez, J.R. Slonche, Joe Wetteroth, Rebecca Singh, Jason Joyce, Daniel Klawitter, Devika Menon, Catherine Frazer – and many more for a total of 30 poets.

Atonal Poetry Review is currently accepting submissions of poetry and certain essays, reviews and interviews – see their website for specific information.

eBooks Required by Law

A new state law, effective January 1, 2020, will require that all textbooks used in public and private postsecondary institutions be made available in electronic form “to the extent practicable” either “in whole or in part.” Senate Bill 48 states that “the electronic version of any textbook shall contain the same content as the printed version and may be copy-protected.” [The Chronicle of Higher Ed]

New Lit on the Block :: Fractions

Founded in Wichita, KS in the summer of 2009, Fractions is are a bimonthly independent arts publication that features visual artists, writers, musicians, film makers, craftspeople, culinary artists and other individuals engaging in creative pursuits. It presents work from individuals, local to international, amateur to professional. Fractions is available via Issu on their website as well as in print. It is supported by contributions from the community.

New Lit on the Block :: 5×5

5×5 is radio terminology used to signify that the signal has excellent strength and perfect clarity. And 5×5 is also a “nascent, printed literary magazine” publishing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, comics & visual arts in a palm-sized (5″x5″), saddle-stiched format. The most recent issue includes works by James Hannibal, Jory M. Mickelson, Ian Denning, Jonathan W. Sodt, Ryler Dustin, R.M. Hanson, Nathan Burgoine, and Jenni B. Baker. Each issue is themed, but as the editors point out, “themes are meant to be suggestions only…play with our themes…tell us your leaps of imagination and wordplay…we don’t want to box you in.”

Submission are open to high school and beyond, with free subscriptions offered to high school students.

TMR William Peden Prize

Each fall, The Missouri Review selects the best fiction published in TMR during the previous volume year as the William Peden Prize in fiction. This year, James A. McLaughlin was named for his story, “Bearskin,” which appeared in volume 31 number 2. This year’s judge was Greg Michalson, co-publisher of Unbridled Books.

New Lit on the Block :: Leveler

Edited by Jennifer H. Fortin, P.J. Gallo, Evan Glasson, and Yotam Hadass, Leveler offers a new approach to publishing poetry online. Each week, the editors publish one poem, alongside which they offer their comments about the work: “To assure our readers we are being responsible editors and to increase the transparency of our editorial process as a whole, each poem published by LEVELER will be accompanied by a brief note on our selection entitled ‘levelheaded.’ Here we will look at what a poem conveys and how. In no way do we claim ‘levelheaded’ is a final, authoritative take on any corresponding poem. Instead, we hope to provide readers with another way into the poem, thereby encouraging closer readings, and ultimately, challenges to our findings.”

The editors also offer their readers an opportunity to respond to each poem as well: “we encourage thoughtful responses to individual poems and challenges to our own observations and interpretations.”

While Leveler has the next month of poems planned, they are open for submissions.

Currently published or waiting in the wings are poems by Priyadarshi Patnaik, Karen Neuberg, Gerald Yelle, Nate Pritts, Jay Snodgrass, Mark Jackley, Heather McNaugher, Stephen Danos, Ron Green, Chris Caldemeyer, Nancy Devine, Tom McCauley, and Rob Schlegel.