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!
If you don’t know about literary magazine The First Line, it is a quarterly print publication in which all pieces start with the same opening line. They also have The Last Line in which all pieces must end with the same line. You can learn more about them here.
They have announced their line-up of first and last lines for 2023. There is no fee to submit. Fiction and nonfiction only. You are not allowed to alter the first or last lines in any way.
Summer 2023 First Line
All the lawns on Mentone Avenue are mowed on Wednesdays.
Due date: May 1, 2023
Fall 2023 First Line
As soon as Harriet entered the building, she headed to the seventh floor.
Due date: August 1, 2023
Winter 2023 First Line
It was the farthest north they had ever been.
Due date: November 1, 2023
The Last Line for 2023
Samir was never one to back down from a challenge.
Eleanor Catton’s title, Birman Wood, should immediately make the reader think of Shakespeare’s Macbeth; however, Catton isn’t writing a contemporary retelling. That said, Catton’s characters have ambition and are willing to do what they need to do to achieve those ambitions, but the characters are more nuanced than in a typical tragedy. Mira has created Birnam Wood, a collective that legally (and not) plants crops in undeveloped areas, but is struggling to stay afloat and might suffer because of Mira’s ego. She meets Robert Lemoine—an American billionaire who has created the persona of a doomsday prepper to purchase land in New Zealand for which he has other, even-less-savory plans—and he agrees to help Mira fund a development on the land he has not quite purchased. Tony used to be a member of Birnam Wood, but he has been teaching overseas for the past several years and now wants a career in investigative journalism, so he sees a career-propelling story in Lemoine’s plans. Shelley has been working with Mira since Tony left, but she’s now considering leaving Birnam Wood, tired of Mira and of living on the margins. While the clearest tragedy in the novel is climate change—the moving of woods, in a different sense—there will be others, and, as in a Shakespearean drama, perhaps nobody is innocent.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, March 2023.
Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.
Rooted in the classical tradition of the Chinese “reversible” poem, 回 / Return is engaged in the act of looking back—toward an imagined homeland and a childhood of suburban longing, through migratory passages, departures, and etymologies, and into the various holes and voids that appear in the telling and retelling of history. The poems ask: What is feeling? What is melancholy? Can language translate either? A former Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Emily Lee Luan is the author of I Watch the Boughs, selected by Gabrielle Calvocoressi for a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. She lives in New York City.
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Down to the Bone: A Leukemia Story by Catherine Pioli, trans. J.T. Mahany graphic mundi, December 2022
When Catherine is diagnosed with acute leukemia, a deadly form of cancer that attacks the immune system, her life is turned upside down. Young and previously healthy, she now finds herself catapulted into the world of the seriously ill—constantly testing and waiting for results, undergoing endless medical treatments, learning to accept a changing body, communicating with a medical team, and relying on the support of her partner, family, and friends. A professional illustrator, Catherine decides to tell the story of her disease in this graphic novel, and she does so with great sincerity, humor, and rare lucidity. We accompany her through the waiting, the doubts, the fears, and the tears—but also the laughter, the love, and the strong will to live.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
In Springtime, Sarah Blake’s epic poem of survival, we follow a nameless main character lost in the woods. There, they discover the world anew, negotiating their place among the trees and the rain and the animals. Something brought them to the woods that nearly killed them, and they’re not sure they want to live through this experience either. But the world surprises them again and again with beauty and intrigue. They come to meet a pregnant horse, a curious mouse, and a dead bird, who is set on haunting them all. Blake examines what makes us human when removed from the human world, what identity means where it is a useless thing, and how loss shapes us. In a stunning setting and with ominous dreams, In Springtime will take you into a magical world without using any magic at all—just the strangeness of the woods. Includes an art portfolio by Nicky Arscott.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
The Mare by Seth Christian Martel graphic mundi, March 2023
Everyone else may be enjoying the summer, but Indigo’s life isn’t going so well. Her dad’s marriage just ended in a very public divorce, and now he’s drinking again. Indy barely graduated from high school, she just lost her job, and she doesn’t know what to do with her life. The stress is causing her nightmarish sleep paralysis—or so she thinks. Indy confides in her best friend, Kasia, who blames “The Mare” for her troubles—the spirit of someone wronged that saps its victim’s energy at night. It sounds crazy to Indy, but is it? Steeped in the nostalgia of lazy summers and mixtapes, concert tickets, and coffee, The Mare is a story about friends, family, and finding one’s way—with a touch of the supernatural and a powerful, surprising twist.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
& there’s you still thrill hour of the world to love by Aby Kaupang Parlor Press, February 2023
Aby Kaupang’s & there’s you still thrill hour of the world to love invokes life’s relentless suffusion of “&,” forging a conjunctive body in which an inevitable landscape of contemporary crisis, suicide, disability, failed promises & the quotidian accrue. In the Sisyphean challenge of day after day, how does one helm stone? Through the page’s shattered frame, & in formally audacious exchanges, Kaupang risks recombinatory possibilities arising not as recovery, per se, but as endurance, awe, & possibly joy. Inflorescence is cyclic, turns towards fodder, feeds the day, recedes. The poems are beautifully complemented by images of James Sullivan’s sculptures, one of which adorns the book’s cover.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, Disequilibria: Meditations on Missingness is a hybrid memoir that recounts the 1982 disappearance of the author’s stepfather, James Edward Lewis, a pilot and Vietnam veteran. Recounting his family’s experiences in searching for answers, Lunday interrogates the broader cultural and conceptual responses to the phenomenon of missingness by connecting his stepfather’s case to other true-life disappearances as well as those portrayed in fiction, poetry, and film. In doing so Disequilibria explores the transience in modern life, considering the military-dependent experience, the corrosive effects of war, and the struggle to find closure and comfort as time goes by without answers.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Deadline: March 27, 2023 Until March 27, Sans. PRESS is looking for stories for our fifth anthology! Passageway is for stories that dare to experiment, that cross further than they have ever been before, and that encounter whatever may come with hope and open arms. All genres welcome, as long as they explore a story of crossing over to the unknown. Visit website and view flyer for more information.
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Exile Editions publishes literary and speculative fiction, indigenous fiction, nonfiction, poetry – and our annual fiction and poetry competitions have awarded over $125K the past decade. Visit website and view flyer to learn more about upcoming submission opportunities.
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Deadline: April 15, 2023 South 85 Journal is open for submissions of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction until April 15, 2023, for our summer issue. As the literary journal for the Converse University Low-Residency MFA program, we are entering our 11th year of publication. Our editorial staff is comprised of experienced readers, writers, and editors who carefully consider every work of writing they receive. Visit website and view flyer for more information.
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Minimalist Wisdom is the theme of the spring 2023 issue of Still Point Arts Quarterly, featuring art and photography, fiction and non-fiction, and poetry. Widely praised for its rich and valuable content and splendid presentation. Intended for artists, writers, nature lovers, seekers, and enthusiasts of all types.
CUTTHROAT, A JOURNAL OF THE ARTS announces a 357-page anthology of poetry and prose devoted to the climate crisis featuring work by Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, J. Drew Lanham, Linda Hogan, Luis Alberto Urrea, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Patricia Spears Jones, Lidia Yuknavich, Cynthia Hogue, Jesse Tsinijinnie Maloney, Alice Zheng, Richard Jackson and more. Purchase at our website. Profits donated to Endangered Species Preservation.
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Registration Deadline:May 7, 2023 NYWW Workshops (fiction, poetry, cnf, translation, travel), panels, readings, excursions in Mexico City with Kim Addonizio, Ravi Shankar, and Tim Tomlinson. Workshops M/W/F mornings, T/Th/S afternoons. Readings, panels, events on four evenings. In Vallodolid, four late afternoon gatherings for talks, panel discussions, consultations, readings. Other events include visits to cenotes and the Mayan Ek Balam ruin. ¡Danny Caron provides music! Visit website or view flyer to learn more.
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Deadline: April 1 Submit one humor poem to Winning Writers’ 2023 no-fee Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest to win $2,000 and online publication. Accepts published and unpublished work. Co-sponsored by Duotrope. Recommended by Reedsy. Judged by Jendi Reiter and Lauren Singer. Winners announced on August 15. View website.
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Our Lady of the Lake University’s 100% online Master of Arts-Master of Fine Arts (MA-MFA) and Master of Arts (MA) in Literature, Creative Writing, and Social Justice prepare critically engaged and socially aware scholars, writers, educators, and professionals. This nationally unique, virtual program combines creativity with practical skills and critical knowledge, while keeping in mind the pursuit of social justice. View flier or visit website to learn more.
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Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Feeling amazing about your latest work and want to find a home for it? Or do you want to try your hand at submitting to a writing contest? NewPages is here to help with our weekly roundup of submission opportunities.
Here in the Midwest weather is trying to act more like spring. Let’s hope warmer weather with a break in storms is finally on the way. Don’t forget NewPages is offering a 20% discount on annual subscriptions to our weekly newsletter. This makes it just $40. Consider subscribing today to get first access to submission opportunities and upcoming events, the majority before they go live on our site.
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Let’s dive into our weekly roundup of submission opportunities without further ado.
W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black Folk: A Graphic Interpretation by Paul Peart-Smith Rutgers University Press, April 2023
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” These were the prescient words of W. E. B. Du Bois’s influential 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk. The preeminent Black intellectual of his generation, Du Bois wrote about the trauma of seeing the Reconstruction era’s promise of racial equality cruelly dashed by the rise of white supremacist terror and Jim Crow laws. Yet he also argued for the value of African American cultural traditions and provided inspiration for countless civil rights leaders who followed him. Now artist Paul Peart-Smith offers the first graphic adaptation of Du Bois’s seminal work.
Peart-Smith’s graphic adaptation provides historical and cultural contexts that bring to life the world behind Du Bois’s words. Readers will get a deeper understanding of the cultural debates The Souls of Black Folk engaged in, with more background on figures like Booker T. Washington, the advocate of black economic uplift, and the Pan-Africanist minister Alexander Crummell. This new release vividly conveys the continuing legacy of The Souls of Black Folk, effectively updating it for the era of the 1619 Project and Black Lives Matter.
The March 2023 issue of Poetry features “How It Continues to Astonish: The Poetry of Ann Lauterbach” with an introduction by Richard Deming, as well as works by Kinsale Drake, Nam Le, Dorothea Lasky, Yahya Hassan, Jenny George, Laura Villareal, Jay Deshpande, Ari Wolff, Cathleen Calbert, Rodolfo Avelar, KB Brookins, Yuki Tanaka, and Yahya Hassan translated by Jordan Barger along with notes on the translation. The “Not Too Hard to Master” series of poets writing on forms and sharing a prompt features Terrance Hayes in this second installment.
Some Days the Bird by Heather Bourbeau (HB) and Anne Casey (AC) is an epistolary exchange written between Northern California and Sydney, Australia in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. As Bourbeau puts it in “The letting,” the poem-letters track the “conjunction” of how “People have become numbers, corridors are morgues” with “the tenacious need of green to grow.” In “Coastal descent,” Casey adds her “changing / tableau” from Australia’s “megafires” and “wreckage.” There’s the feeling from these pandemic dispatches, from their different continents and opposite seasons, that the description of each poet’s physical and natural surroundings offers solace, connection, and awareness; a saving formula, as Bourbeau writes in “This is not an inauguration poem” against “heat and fire and fear.” Throughout the exchange, the poets look more carefully, more completely at flowers, insects, and animals, at the “never before noticed” (“Equinox,” HB).
A high point in the exchange came via the corresponding poems “Our Prime Minister stands by” (AC) and “Pause” (HB), where the poets confront “gendered violence” (AC) and “value” (HB). In her poem, Casey takes on “this country // long at war with / its women”; while Bourbeau notes “Next week will mark my menopause.” I hoped for more of this direct engagement “with things we have been taught / are not worth savoring, / hold no value” (“Pause,” HB), but the poems relegated these gender concerns to subtlety and foregrounded lockdown, exile from family, daughters’ relationships to fathers, and Mother Nature: “this messy line between accustomed / and detached” (“Richter’s scale,” HB). Regardless of what I hoped for, Some Days the Bird is Heather Bourbeau’s and Anne Casey’s “song / of survival” (“Days of wild weather,” AC), “their song of freedom” (“Season’s greetings,” AC) across a “relentless distance” (“Solstice,” HB).
Some Days the Bird by Heather Bourbeau and Anne Casey. Beltway Editions, 2022.
Reviewer bio: Jami Macarty is the author of The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona, and three chapbooks, including Mind of Spring (Vallum, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Jami’s writing has been honored by financial support from Arizona Commission on the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and by editors at magazines such as The Capilano Review, Concision Poetry Journal, Interim, Redivider, Vallum, and Volt, where Jami’s poems appear. More at https://jamimacarty.com/
Young Writers and Artists 2023 from Cholla Needles is the eighth edition in this series. The editors write, “We deeply thank the students for taking their time to create and share the wonderful work you’ll find within these pages. And, of course, all of this would be meaningless without you, the reader. We are blessed to continue a great relationship with the Mojave Desert Land Trust to have these special youth issues appear twice a year. Mary Cook-Rhyne leads the educational arm of MDLT and has created curriculum and classroom units available to teachers of all grade levels that explain the uniqueness of the Mojave Desert with age-appropriate activities.”
Icelight, Ranjit Hoskote’s eighth collection of poems, enacts the experience of standing at the edge—of a life, a landscape, a world assuming new contours or going up in flames. Yet, the protagonists of these poems also stand at the edge of epiphany. In the title poem, we meet the Neolithic cave-dweller who, dazzled by a shapeshifting nature, crafts the first icon. The ‘I’ of these poems is not a sovereign ‘I’. A questing, questioning voice, it locates itself in the web of life, in relation to the cosmos. In “Tacet,” the speaker asks: “What if I had / no skin / Of what / am I the barometer?” Long committed to the Japanese mono no aware aesthetic, Hoskote embraces talismans, premonitions, fossils: active residues from the previous lives of people and places. Icelight is a book about transitions and departures, eloquent in its acceptance of transience in the face of mortality.
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The Spring 2023 issue of Rattle (#79) features a Tribute to Irish Poets. From Yeats to Boland and Heaney, Ireland has a long tradition of producing great poets. Rattle editors take an opportunity with this issue to look at what’s going on there now. The theme includes seventeen poems by Irish poets and their always-interesting contributor notes, and a conversation with Frank Dullaghan, a poet who has lived an interesting life in both Ireland and abroad. The open section features twenty-one poets exploring their perspectives on life. Cover art by Joseph Lynch.
Publishing quarterly online, the San Francisco Youth Anthology offers middle-school, high-school, and college-aged writers and readers of any age a platform for all genres of creative writing. Based in San Francisco, the publication only accepts submissions from San Francisco and the surrounding areas, but they are open to readers from around the globe.
As Editor Ava Rosoff explains, “SFYA began with the desire to start a magazine and initiative for young writers to help them showcase their work in an anthology, captured in the ‘Youth Anthology’ part of the name.” She and her editor peers saw SFYA as “a way to foster a community of youth writers in the San Francisco Bay Area and encourage young writers to share their work with the greater community.”
Born and raised in El Paso, Texas, Ray Gonzalez returns to Texas and nearby New Mexico to meditate on love, literature, loss, and la línea in Suggest Paradise. The collection offers readers some of the richest and most complex poems that embody the Southwest and the borderlands, including a poignant look at the massacre at the El Paso Walmart. A unique voice of the Southwest, Gonzalez brings his intellect and his well-honed craft to this work and offers readers a nuanced and powerful perspective on poetry and the Border.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Our Beautiful Reward, ed. Catherine Rockwood Reckoning Press, March 2023
Our Beautiful Reward is a collection of works from Reckoning Press, a nonprofit, annual journal of creative writing on environmental justice. This special issue on bodily autonomy, edited by Catherine Rockwood, was anthologized on the occasion of the repeal of Roe v. Wade and features work by Mona Robles, Linda Cooper, Dana Vickerson, Leah Bobet, Laurel Nakanishi, Robert René Galván, Anna Orridge, Taylor Jones, Julian K. Jarboe, Dyani Sabin, Annabelle Cormack, Rimi B. Chatterjee, Taylor Jones, Amber Fox, Juliana Roth, Mari Ness, Riley Tao, Taylor Jones, M.C. Benner Dixon, and Marissa Lingen.
There will be a free virtual launch event for the publication featuring eight contributors. For more information and to RSVP, click here.
The Main Street Rag Winter 2023 features an interview with Jim Lundy involving the history of the Poetry Society of South Carolina. Also in this issue, readers can enjoy poetry by L. Ward Abel, Melissa Apperson, Susan Ayers, Carol Barrett, Maria Berardi, Mike Bove, Terri Drake, Sam Capps, Ricks Carson, Robert Cooperman, Steve Cushman, Barbara Daniels, Abigail Dembo, Patrick Dungan, Michael Flanagan, Tony Gloeggler, Earl Carlton Huband, Judith Janoo, Becky Nicole James, Mike James, Garret Keizer, Casey Killingsworth, Jennifer LeBlanc, Justin Lacour, Richard Levine, Mary Makofske, Ronald J. Pelias, Erik Rosen, Janet M. Rives, Bret Roth, Claire Scott, William Snyder, Jr., Shaheen Dil, Tom Whalen, James Washington, Jr., Frederick Wilbur; fiction by Chris Daly, Brett Dixon, Peter Fraser, Paul Juhasz, Eugene Radice, Beate Sigriddaughter, Karen Sleeth; images by Rebeccah Williams Connelly, Karen Pelosi, Michael Woodruff, Lynn Black, Jill L. Rausch; and a slew of book reviews.
Our Share of the Night, Mariana Enriquez’s second novel, is a welcome addition to the emerging genre of Literary Horror. Well-defined lines have been drawn to distinguish “literary” fiction from horror, sci-fi, fantasy etc. Enriquez is becoming a name that is defying the pretensions of such categorization.
Our Share of the Night is a family history, primarily following Gaspar throughout his childhood and adolescence. His father, Juan – a medium for a Satanic cult – strives to help Gaspar avoid his fate of also becoming a medium. The story spans 37 years and has the backdrop of Videla’s military dictatorship, a theme common amongst contemporary Latin American writers.
Like with Hereditary and other recent Art House Horror films, a big part of the novel’s success can be attributed to its commitment to allegory, rather than simply using horror tropes for their shock value. The otherworldly forces, with their power to make people disappear, hold clear parallels with the military dictatorship in Argentina.
Enriquez is keen to explore the psychological effects of the narrative on her characters. A great deal of time is given to exploring the damage done to Gaspar through his involvement with the Occult. Gaspar also suffers real-world problems that are at times more psychologically devastating than the Occult horrors that fill the story.
These real-life problems are not sidelined; as it is put following a Satanic ritual, “we get hungry and we eat. . . we need to meet with the accountants. . . what happens is real, but so is life.”
Our Share of the Night by Mariana Enriquez; Illustrated by Pablo Gerardo Camacho; Translated by Megan McDowell. Hogarth Press, October 2022.
Reviewer bio: Colm McKenna is a second-hand bookseller based in Paris. He has published and self-published an array of short stories and articles, hoping to eventually release a collection of stories. He is mainly interested in the works of John Cowper Powys, Claude Houghton and a range of Latin American writers.
NewPages receives many wonderful book titles each month to share with our readers. You can read more about some of these by clicking on “New Books” under the NewPages Blog or Books tab on the menu. If you are a publisher or author looking to be listed here or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us!
Poetry adjacent islands, Nicole Cecilia Delgado, Ugly Duckling Presse & there’s you still thrill hour of the world to love, Aby Kaupang, Parlor Press Before After, Owen McLeod, Saturnalia Books Between Twilight, Connie Post, NYQ Books The Book of John, Lindsey Royce, Press 53 Boy, Tracy Youngblom, CavanKerry Press Crisis Inquiry, Tony Iantosca, Ugly Duckling Presse The Day Every Day Is, Lee Upton, Saturnalia Books Dreamer: Poems in Culture, Alan Botsford, Cyberwit.net Ephemera, Sierra DeMulder, Button Poetry Exceeds Us, Leah Poole Osowski, Saturnalia Books The Exhausted Dream, Joshua Edwards, Marfa Book Company Exilium, Maria Negroni, Ugly Duckling Presse Failures of the Poet, Anthony Robinson, Canarium Books Far from New York State, Matthew Johnson, NYQ Books The Fight Journal, John W. Evans, Rattle Poetry
In the summer of 1962, a group of young Native American puppeteers travel in a converted school bus from the White Earth Reservation to the Century 21 Exposition, World’s Fair in Seattle, Washington. The five Natives, three young men and two young women, have endured abandonment, abuse, poverty, and find solace, humor, and courage with a mute puppeteer—a Native woman in her seventies who writes original dream songs, and creates hand puppets and ironic parleys that mock the ghosts of authority. Dummy Trout, the mute puppeteer, also figured in Vizenor’s previous books, Native Tributes and Satie on the Seine. The troupe attends a performance of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and they create a puppet parley for Wovoka, the inspiration of the Native American Ghost Dance Religion.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder has a girl, and cold case, and a killer on the loose. All this in the small town of Fairview, where Pippa “Pip” Fitz Amobi lives. Years ago, Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, whose guilt drove him to suicide. But Pip doesn’t believe that’s the real story. This thrilling mystery is full of red herrings and revealed secrets, and no one is innocent. Jackson both sympathizes with and implicates characters, and takes advantage of readers’ assumptions to lead them away from the truth. Readers who love murder mysteries and strong female characters will be compelled to keep reading until every curiosity is satisfied.
Reviewer bio: Indigo Stephens is a violinist and a book lover. She enjoys reading books with strong female characters, especially sci-fi, murder mysteries, and Dystopian YA. Veronica Roth is one of her favorite authors, and one of her favorite series is A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.
Rooted in the Midwest but at home anywhere, Glenna Luschei has spent over fifty years writing and supporting other writers in the midst of adventures that have taken her around the globe. Now in her late eighties and as vibrant as ever, Luschei has crafted a collection that comprises a retrospective of her life: her youth during World War II; her adventures in New Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, and elsewhere; and her ongoing love affair with the arts. Luschei relives highs and lows through these poems and reminds readers to live life to the fullest as we never know if tomorrow will be our last day.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
Another week and more storms. Mother Nature is sure giving us a great reason to stay inside to write, edit, and submit, isn’t she? In good news, NewPages is offering a 20% discount on annual subscriptions to our weekly newsletter. This makes it just $40. Consider subscribing today to get first access to submission opportunities and upcoming events, the majority before they go live on our site.
Let’s dive into our weekly roundup of submission opportunities without further ado.
The newest issue of Chinese Literature and Thought Today (vol. 53, no. 3–4, 2022) examines Chinese literature and culture in the time of contagion, and offers part two of a special section “Re-Aestheticizing Labor.” The featured scholar is Deng Xiaomang, an important philosopher and public intellectual. Moving to a mostly digital format, this full issue is available to read through Taylor & Francis Online. More developments are in the works for this already outstanding publication of intellectual literary culture – stay tuned!
After spending five years in LA working successfully as a screenwriter, the protagonist of this novel decides it’s time to return to his hometown, Santa Luz, New Mexico, to pen the novel he has always needed to write about the strained relationship with his father. He reconnects with old friends and meets new ones, and the parade of quirky characters—self-proclaimed artists, wealthy retirees, corrupt lawyers—distracts him from his project. There’s Helen, who hooks up with an unsavory character and winds up in jail—for murder. Sheryl can’t take her philandering husband anymore and drives her car off a mountaintop, killing herself and her children. And there’s Paul, who lives a double life as a happy family man, but who has a serious drug addiction. Against the backdrop of mystical mornings and beautiful mountains, the writer soon realizes things aren’t always what they seem in Santa Luz. The writer’s sympathies are with the working class, and his satirical gaze embraces the people who live in the shadows, those considered “misfits.” Jimmy Santiago Baca writes compellingly about artists and their responsibility to society.
The March 2023 issue of The Lake online poetry magazine is now available for reading and features works by Jean Atkin, Jimmy R. Coleman, Sandra Hosking, Beth McDonough, Bruce McRea, Jeff Mock, Leah Mueller, Wren Tuatha, and Susan Waters.
In Issue 3.4 of Cutleaf online, Craig Holt barely survives, and may have learned his lesson, in “Drinking the Ocean: Notes on Travel and Drowning.” A young man negotiates family expectations and his relationship with a widow in Maya Kanwal’s “A Shade for the Window.” And Carolyn Oliver says “In another life, I am…” in four poems that expand on the possibilities of what we all are or might be, beginning with the poem “Deep Learning.” This issue features stills from John Frankenheimer’s film “Seconds” (1966).
Notes from the Passenger by Gillian Conoley is a collection written over the course of the last few years, as the author sought for ways to make room for joy amongst an upturned and unsteady quotidian. Written in response to climatic and societal catastrophe, war, increasing gun violence, plague, and the global spread of white supremacy and patriarchy, the sonically vivid and cinematic poems in Notes from the Passenger arrive like missives from a journey between the living and the dead. Gillian’s use of play, music, and humor offers us pleasure when we need it most, reminding us to turn our heads toward the light. Gillian Conoley is the author of nine collections. A long-time resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, she is currently Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence at Sonoma State University where she edits VOLT.
A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention: A Memoir of Coming Home to My Neurodivergent Mind by Rebecca Schiller explores the several-year period when she untangled the threads of her health diagnoses and the background of the land she and her family recently purchased. Compared to my memoir intake, my nature reading is slim, but Schiller’s sumptuous sensorial descriptors of her small farm in the UK enmesh the reader in the landscape of its mucky, weather-beaten, seasonal wonders. Interwoven with this ecological narrative is the history of former owners of their two-acre property, including interpretive retellings of their experiences supported by primary documentation and literary device.
Schiller’s mental health is addressed through the first two-thirds of the book via her interactions with her children and spouse, foggy memory, clumsiness, and heightened anxiety and depression since moving to their farm. Her diagnosis, and understanding of her neurodivergence, encompass only the latter third of the book and thus feel rushed.
Part of the joy, and potential conundrum, of A Thousand Ways to Pay Attention is the sheer amount of content all wrapped in a book that contains too many gifts: first years on a small family farm, obtaining a health diagnosis, and researching and reinterpreting the history of the land around her.
Reviewer bio: Amanda Weir-Gertzog is a writer, gerontologist, and eater of too much milk chocolate. A caregiver and community volunteer, she also authors book reviews to compensate for her prodigious reading habits. Amanda lives in Durham, North Carolina with her partner, pets, and overflowing bookcases.
The newest issue of Cholla Needles (74) features inspiring artwork by Nancy Brizendine and life-affirming words by Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, Domonique, Zary Fakete, Miriam Sagan, Roger G. Singer, Ruth Ann Dandrea, Kent Wilson, Jeffrey Alfier, Peter Nash, and Jonathan Ferrini.
Latina Leadership Lessons: Fifty Latinas Speak edited by Delia García Arte Público Press, November 2022
The recipient of numerous awards and accolades, García gathers “Top Ten Leadership Lessons” from 50 high-achieving women. This “who’s who” of movers-and-shakers contains representatives from government, corporate and non-profit worlds. While each woman’s unique experiences and heritage are reflected in her advice, there are several recommendations that made many of the lists, such as the importance of believing in oneself, the need to mentor and be mentored, remembering one’s roots, embracing change and taking care of one’s physical and emotional needs.
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Publishing twice year, Action, Spectacle is a new open-access online magazine of just about everything you could want: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, plays, graphic literature, comics, interviews, reviews, and still and video art. A spectacle of options indeed, but actually, the publication draws its name from Marxist theorist, Guy Debord’s well-known book, The Society of the Spectacle, in which he suggests, “All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.” However, ‘mere’ is not the word that comes to mind when viewing contributions to Action, Spectacle.
The publication was begun by Adam Day, as he says, for “the sheer joy of getting to see what’s out there, getting to feature new voices, getting to feature work we love.” Joining him behind the scenes are Prose Editors Kate Tough, novelist and story writer, and Sarah Rose Cadorette, Creative Writing MFA and a Travel and Social Advocacy BA, both from Emerson College. “We also have several guest editors per issue,” Day adds, “Usually up to ten.”
Day himself brings some credentials as author of Left-Handed Wolf (LSU Press), and Model of a City in Civil War (Sarabande Books), and the recipient of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha, and of a PEN America Literary Award.
For writers looking to submit works, Day explains that “all general submissions are read by the editors. We do not have screeners. There is also work published from creators solicited by our guest editors. We do not provide feedback, and our response time is usually a month.”
A well-run publication with experienced writers and editors on the team, Day comments that “it’s been super rewarding starting and publishing Action, Spectacle. Thankfully we have yet to run into any major challenges in keeping the publication going, other than some glitches with our old website.”
For readers, Action, Spetacle has much to offer. Day says, “The magazine exists at the intersection of the socio-political, the cultural, and the arts. We put a spectrum of voices online, seeking both debut and established writers and thinkers creating intriguing and original work, whether relatively conventional or extremely experimental, and we don’t shy away from the idea of a text that might be ‘difficult.’ We employ the broadest possible aesthetic when considering submissions, including translations and hybrid and collaborative work.”
Some recent contributors include Anne Carson, Douglas Kearney, Ron Padgett, Shelley Wong, Rodrigo Toscano, Denise Duhamel, Lidija Dimkovska, and Anna Badkhen.
The future for Action, Spectacle includes “building readership and continuing to publish fresh and exciting work,” as well as an annual chapbook contest judged by Dara Wier. A good look forward for both readers and writers.
The Falling Crystal Palace by Carl Fuerst Planet Bizarro, February 2023
The residents of Sterling, Indiana don’t know who they are. They can’t recognize voices on the telephone. They can’t recognize faces in the mirror. When their name is called, they don’t respond. When they flip through family photo albums, it’s like looking at strangers. Sixty-one-year-old Tory Stebbins runs a one-person Identity Verification agency that can help. But, as the town implodes, so does her business. She has fewer clients, stiffer competition, and her methods have become mysteriously ineffective. Tory is broke, lonely, and—most alarmingly—she’s now suffering from the same problems she’s helped her clients with over the length of her career. Just when her situation seems beyond hope, Tory receives a cryptic message from Hoppy Bashford, her best friend who disappeared forty years earlier. Tory’s quest to rescue Hoppy leads her through the strange, shifting landscapes. With the help of her odd intern, her bitter business rival, and her astrophysicist ex-wife, Tory ultimately follows Hoppy’s trail to the Crystal Palace Resort. To locate her lost friend, escape from the resort, and find a cure for the identity-scrambling, reality-bending condition from which everyone in her world suffers, Tory must come to terms with who she is.
In addition to featuring winners of the 2022 Perkoff Prize, The Missouri Review Winter 2022 is themed “The Body” and includes new fiction from Dina Guidubaldi, Shala Erlich, Malerie Willens, Peter Grimes, and Robynne Graffam; new poetry from Bridget O’Bernstein, Anna V. Q. Ross, and Jeff Whitney; and new essays from Faith Shearin, Adam Boggon, and Joshua Doležal. Also included are features on dressing Greta Garbo and the influence of anime on contemporary art, and an omnibus review of contemporary memoirs about coming to terms with illness and affliction.
Fertility: 40 Years of Change by Maureen McTeer Delve Books, May 2022
In Fertility: 40 Years of Change, lawyer and author Maureen McTeer explores key medical, research, and legal developments in assisted human reproduction since the birth of the first IVF baby in 1978. With keen insight, she analyses how Canada has responded to the many legal and societal opportunities this foundational reproductive technology has created, such as new types of human relationships; the treatment of infertility; human embryo research; and the revolutionary possibilities for society raised by the combination of reproductive and genetic technologies, as we create, manipulate, and alter human life in the laboratory.
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Marry Me a Little by Rob Kirby Graphic Mundi, February 2023
In Marry Me a Little, Rob Kirby recounts his experience of marrying his longtime partner, John, just after same-sex marriage was legalized in Minnesota in 2013, and two years before the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges made same-sex marriage the law of the land. This is a personal story—about Rob’s ambivalence (if not antipathy) toward the institution of marriage, his loving relationship with John, and the life that they share together—set against the historical and political backdrop of shifting attitudes toward LGBTQ+ rights and marriage. With humor, candor, and a near-whimsical drawing style, Rob relates how he and John navigated this changing landscape, how they planned and celebrated their wedding, and how the LGBTQ+ community is now facing the very real possibility of setbacks to marriage equality.
To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!
In her collection of essays, Bright Unbearable Reality, Anna Badkhen—a former war correspondent, now essayist—forces us to examine the reality of migration despite the desire to look away. As her title implies, she compels readers to see the true causes of the massive amounts of people—one in seven worldwide, she says—who relocate due to climate change or suffering related to new weather patterns and natural disasters. I had planned to write that those people are forced to relocate, but that would be a false passive, a sentence construction Badkhen points out that ignores the true action and actor in order to make ideas more palatable. Badkhen doesn’t allow the reader this comfort, as she continually highlights the systemic problems that those in the wealthier countries cause, while at the same time, those countries deny entry to those whom they have displaced. In her essay, “Ways of Seeing,” she points out that there is the surface reality that most of us who have the privilege of reading her book know and the reality of those whose lives enable us to have that privilege; the difference, to use one of her images, between the restaurants and hotels that line Waikiki and the hotel workers striking for a living wage.
Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.
The Sins of Mortality by Marilyn Fox and Nancye McCrary EastOver Press, February 2023
The Sins of Sweet Mortality is a collection of poems by Marilyn Fox and illuminative paintings by Nancye McCrary. In this unique collaborative project with full-color images throughout, Fox and McCrary combine poetry with painting — juxtaposing voice and image, wonder and sensation — to create literary and visual work that is impassioned, thought-provoking, disturbing, and healing. Endlessly suggestive, consistently evocative, this work entices the reader into a deep dive to discover what’s beyond the surface.
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Exilium by María Negroni Translated by Michelle Gil-Montero Ugly Duckling Presse, December 2022
As Juan Gelman once wrote, “exile has no form but leaves a trace.” In Exilium, Argentine poet María Negroni sketches precisely such a trace, in a poetic form that approaches opposite extremes of material immediacy and evanescence. On an imaginative terrain that sweeps the Greco-Roman, the “long night” of Argentina’s last dictatorship, and the crisis of displaced migrants today, Negroni locates the exile within poetry itself. In this poetics of exile, the poem shines in its utopian desire to write the “unwritten words,” revealing language at its most estranged, most wanting.
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Happy March…or is it? Seems like the weather wants to really dive into March Madness this year. While the month has come in like a lamb, it’s going to be roaring soon here with yet another winter snowstorm coming in this afternoon and a rain/snowstorm possibly coming in on Monday. If mother nature is being very fickle in your neck of the woods, too, spend time indoors writing, editing, and submitting. NewPages is here to help with our weekly roundup of submission opportunities.
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