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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!

Man Booker Prize Finalists

“The Man Booker Prize 2008 shortlist was announced Tuesday September 9. Two first-time novelists, Aravind Adiga and Steve Toltz, survived the cull of the longlist from thirteen novels to just six. Pevious winners of the Booker Prize, John Berger and Salman Rushdie, failed to make this year’s shortlist and Sebastian Barry is the only novelist shortlisted for this year’s prize to have been previously shortlisted (in 2005).

“Linda Grant, winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2000 and longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002, is the only female author to make the shortlist of six. She is joined by Philip Hensher, longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002 and a Booker judge in 2001, and the widely-acclaimed Indian writer Amitav Ghosh.”

The Man Booker Prize 2008 shortlisted novels are:

Aravind Adiga The White Tiger (Atlantic)
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture (Faber and Faber)
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies (John Murray)
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs (Virago)
Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency (Fourth Estate)
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole (Hamish Hamilton)

The winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008 will be announced October 14.

Job :: Poetry Foundation Web Editor

Editor and Online Program Manager, Poetryfoundation.org
The deadline for applications is September 25, 2008.

Job Description
The role of editor of poetryfoundation.org includes the following responsibilities:

Provide editorial direction to staff editors, producers, and consultants in order to publish the site’s frequently updated content. This includes acquiring and approving all articles and other content such as feature articles, podcasts, and other audio and visual features.

Work with other Foundation program senior managers to publish online content and information from all program areas at the Foundation.

Develop marketing plans and campaigns to promote the website as needed.

Direct the process by which poems and other materials about poets and poetry are added to the site’s archive. This includes supervising the permissions process for all published content.

Collaborate with other editors at the Foundation on poetry issues and judging of awards as necessary.

The role of online program manager includes the following responsibilities:

Manage the technical staff and consultants who design and develop the site’s user interface to ensure the quality of the user experience.

Manage technical consultants, including developers, usability experts, and hosting providers, to ensure the security and performance of the underlying technical infrastructure.

Develop and execute plans to steadily increase traffic to the site, including managing the process for gathering and reporting web traffic data, search results, and web traffic marketing plans, and establishing partnerships with other websites important to the mission of the Foundation.

Qualifications

Extensive background and familiarity with contemporary poetry

Extensive experience with managing editorial processes, including web publishing processes.

Strong knowledge of web technology and web design

Substantial project management experience

B.A. degree or greater in English literature or computer-related studies

Digital Art Weeks

The DIGITAL ART WEEKS program is concerned with the application of digital technology in the arts. Consisting of symposium, workshops and performances, the Digital Art Weeks program offers insight into current research and innovations in art and technology as well as illustrating resulting synergies in a series of performances during the Digital Art Weeks Festival each year, making artists aware of impulses in technology and scientists aware of the possibilities of application of technology in the arts.

New Lit on the Block :: In the Mist

In the Mist is and online outdoor literary magazine for women and by women. The work is meant to “inspire you to seek adventure whether it is in your garden, on horseback, or while climbing glaciers”; or, as Thoreau put it: “Live the life you imagined.” Ange Tysdal is the editor (you may know her also from Marginalia), and Mark Todd the poetry editor.

The first issue includes fiction by Rachel Bell, Lucia Cockrell and Emma Larkins, non-fiction by Sarah Coury, Holly Marie Garrell, Andrea M. Jones, Olga Pavlinova Olenich, Jill Paris, Gabrielle Sierra, poetry by Kristin Berkey-Abbott, Laurie Wagner Buyer, Jenn Campbell, Melissa Carroll, Anne Hasenstab, Ginger Knowlton, Peggy Landsman, Arlene L. Mandell, Martha Meltzer, Caroline Misner, Sheila Nickerson, Mary Rohrer-Dann, Emma Sovich, Ann Walters, and photos/art by Diane Elayne Dees, Erica Lynn Johnson, Diane Parisella-Katris, Christel M. Ruddy, Donna Vorreyer.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!
In the Mist is seeking submissions from women who play, or write about playing, in the mist. Send poetry, fiction, nonfiction, photography, and artwork about being outside. Interested in anything from doing yoga in the park to walking your dog to bombing down the Anasazi Descent in Durango, Colorado or sailing from California to Hawaii in a kayak with outriggers. See website for more information.

From Page to Stage :: Writing Aloud

Writing Aloud

History
Founding program director David Sanders established Writing Aloud in 1999 to present diverse voices in contemporary fiction by the region’s best writers, read on stage by professional actors. Writing Aloud quickly established itself as the region’s premiere reading series and has attracted sold-out audiences, has been featured in special broadcasts on WHYY-FM public radio.

The 2007-2008 season featured writing by Carol F. Dixon, Vashti Bandy, JB Traino, Tally Brennan, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Jennifer Williamson, Harry Humes, Julia MacDonell, William Hoffman, Maggie Fay, R.A. Lopata, Jacob M. Appel, Randall Brown, Alix Ohlin, and many more.

Submissions
Produced by InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia, Writing Aloud is a reading series that presents contemporary short fiction read on stage by professional actors. Writers featured in the series are from Pennsylvania and the greater Philadelphia area, or have a strong Philadelphia connection. Selected stories are read before a live audience at InterAct Theatre.

Internships/Volunteer
InterAct offers a variety of internships both during the summer and during the academic year, covering all areas of production, development, and administration. All internships at InterAct have a modest component of general company work, including but not limited to helping with mailings, general office work, and phone answering. In addition, there are several ways to get involved with the company as a volunteer.

Digital Media Writing/Performance :: Interrupt 10.08

Interrupt
October 17-19, 2008
Rhode Island

Interrupt is a festival celebrating writing and performance in digital media, busting onto the scene in Providence, Rhode Island. Events are hosted by Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design. The festival is continuing in the tradition of Brown’s E-Fest, but is expanding/augmenting it, and also streamlining into Pixilerations.

Participating artists will share work that in some way addresses the theme of the festival: Interrupt. In computing, an interrupt is a command sent to the processor to get its attention, and indicates a need for change. We understand “interruption” as a useful metaphor for imagining the role of digital arts practices in contemporary society. The festival is being organized with the aim of showcasing arts practices hybridized not only by digital mediation, but by a spectrum of cultural practices including electronic poetry, information design, net art, video art, interactive music, and performance art.

A Publishing Primer

“Don’t know your French flaps from your headbands? Here’s a guide to the arcane terminology of the book world…[read it here]”

By Rachel Toor
The Chroncicle of Higher Education
August 11, 2008

William Carlos Williams Symposium 9.20

On September 17, 2005, several thousand people attended a day-long William Carlos Williams Symposium honoring Rutherford’s native son on the anniversary of his birth. Sponsored by the newly-formed William Carlos Williams Poetry Symposium (WCWPS), this was the first celebration of the Pulitzer Prize winning poet in his hometown in 22 years, and featured the premiere of a double-screen documentary on WCW and his family, an award-winning slide presentation and bus tour of historic WCW sites in Rutherford, and the first full-length performance of a Williams play in Rutherford. Since 2005, the non-profit WCWPS has held annual events honoring Williams. This year it will host a gala celebration of the poet’s 125th birthday on September 20 and 21, 2008, at the Williams Center, with related activities at the Rutherford Library and Meadowlands Museum.

Books :: Poets for Palestine

Poets For Palestine was published to unite a diverse range of poets, spoken word artists, and hip-hop artists who have used their words to elevate the consciousness of humanity. Sixty years after the dispossession of the Palestinian people, this anthology presents forty-eight poems alongside original works by Palestinian artists. All proceeds from the sale of this collection will go toward funding future cultural projects that highlight Arab artistry in the United States.

100 Words a Day? Every Day?

100 Words is an online writing project that began in January 2001, as an exercise between friends to write one hundred words a day for one hundred days. Now online, members (join for free) can write a hundred words a day for a month and be “featured” for having completed their “batch.” Don’t write every day that month, and you will not be featured. Currently, there are 43 writers featured for August. Jeff Koyen and “Uncle” Roy Batchelor are the masterminds behind 100 Words. Think it sounds easy? Give it a try.

Stanford Festival Seeks Sponsors

The organizers of the Frank Stanford Literay Festival – a three-day event in Fayetteville, Arkansas – are looking for help to honor a few central figures in Stanford’s creative career by supporting their travel to participate in the festival.

Sponsors will be acknowledged in promotional materials and in a commemorative, hand-sewn program designed by Cannibal Books. Sponsors will also receive a broadside of a poem from Stanford’s final book, You, designed and printed collaboratively between Lost Roads Publishers, Cannibal Books and Effing Press. Sponsors will also be verbally recognized at all events, which include a Small Press Reading, several Stanford readings, two panels, a screening or Irving Broughton’s legendary Stanford biopic It Wasn’t a Dream It Was a Flood, and a marathon reading of Stanford’s epic poem The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You.

Donations are tax deductible and payable to Lost Roads. For more information, query Matthew Henriksen at frankstanfordfes-at-gmail.com.

Orlowsy Interview Online

The Cervena Barva Press online newsletter for September includes and interview of Ukrainian poet Dzvinia Orlowsky by Alexander J. Motyl. In it, she comments on the state of reading in America, her influences for writing poetry, why she writes so much about Ohio, what makes a good poem, and translating others’ works. A truly full-breadth interview that provides both a great introduction as well as an inside look at this Pushcart Prize winning poet.

Dzvinia Orlowsky is the author of four poetry collections, the most recent of which is <em>Convertible Night, Flurry of Stones. Her first collection, A Handful of Bees, was reprinted as a Carnegie Mellon University Contemporary Classic in 2008. She is a founding editor of Four Way Books and teaches at a low-res MFA program at Pine Manor College.

ZYZZYVA Seeks a New Editor

In the Editor’s Note of the most recent ZYZZYVA, Howard Junker announces his intent to retire from the magazine, which is now seeking his successor, someone who “will have to be different, will have to take a new direction, because the times have changed.” The informal job description Junker gives draws upon a response he once gave to a Paris Review Questionnaire about “the key ingredients needed to keep a literary magazine afloat.” Junker writes: “Taking its editor George Plimpton as my model, I declared: An independent income is the basic flotation device. Having the office in the editor’s basement reduces rent and the editor’s commute. Also helpful because, even if the budget remains modest, attracting money is key: good looks, charm, guts, a thick skin, a sense of humor, a good work ethic, luck, and the ability to spot and nurture talent.” Sound like anybody you know? If so, Junker closes his editorial: “If you have someone in mind, please let me know.”

Job :: Distinguished Visiting Prof

The English Department at Western Kentucky University seeks applicants for the following position: Distinguished Visiting Professor in Creative Writing (Poetry), Summer 2009

Duties: Teach a four-week intensive three-credit undergraduate/graduate workshop sometime during Summer 2009. Give a public reading.

Renumeration: $10,000 + housing

Requirements: Significant teaching experience, at least one published book

Review of applications begins October 31, 2008, and will continue until position is filled. Each applicant must submit a letter of interest, a vita, a copy of one of his/her books, and two letters addressing his/her teaching expertise, to:

Dr. Tom C. Hunley
Department of English Chair
Distinguished Visiting Creative Writing Professor Search Committee
Western Kentucky University
1906 College Heights Blvd. #11086
Bowling Green, KY 42101-1086

Antioch Fiction Issue :: Difficult Choices

The all-fiction issue of The Antioch Review is out. Editor Robert Fogarty comments on the subtitle “Difficult Choices” – about the range of difficult choices faced by the submissions (aka slush) readers. Their choice, which often involves “the dreaded ‘r’ word” becomes what Fogarty refers to as the Key Question: “Should we publish this story or should we encourage to writer to send on another, better story?” Better than saying the story is rejected, I like Fogarty’s perspective of encouragement, which promotes the concept a writers community – a reason why so many people got into publishing lit mags in the first place.

Being responsive to their writers, Fogarty says they must make a “firm and quick judgement about a story” – but there is no doubt they are also good at what they do, with a number of their fiction writers having received awards and placement in “best of” collections. “I expect,” Fogarty writes, “that several of the writers included in this issue will in the future make a ‘best’ list.” That kind of comment makes it no difficult choice at all to pick up this mag and give it a look see!

CFS :: Two Unique Calls for Librarians

1. Seeking Submissions from Practicing Librarians (U.S. and Canada) for The Published Librarian: Successful Professional and Personal Writing (publisher: American Library Association)

Foreword: Bob Blanchard, Adult Services Librarian, Des Plaines Public Library. Contributor to Illinois Library Association Reporter; Thinking Outside the Book: Essays for Innovative Librarians (McFarland, 2008)

Introductory Note: Wayne Jones, Head of Central Technical Services, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Ed., Ontario Library Association, Access; Ed., E-Journals Access and Management (Routledge, 2008)

Contributors need significant publication credits in order to write practical, concise, how-to articles to help the reader. No previously published, simultaneously submitted, co-authored material. Two articles sharing the range of your publishing experiences: 1900-2100 words total; for example, one article could be 1000 words, another 900-1100 words on another topic. Librarians with ethnic backgrounds serving diverse cultures are encouraged. Contributor’s sign an ALA Writer Agreement before publication. Compensation: a complimentary copy, discount on additional copies

Possible topics: marketing, online publishing, where to send reviews, research skills for historical novels, diversity in publication, ideas from students for YA books, using tools like BIP to locate publishers for your books, storytellers turned picture book authors, interviewing, networking, using a technology edge, promoting your books at conferences. Using issues librarians face such as censorship in poetry, essays, memoir, short stories, columns.

The deadline for current cycle of submissions is October 30, 2008.

Please submit 3-4 topic proposals with a 65-70 word bio beginning with your library of employment, highlighting your publications. Place LIBRARIANS/your name on the subject line to: [email protected]

2. Seeking Submissions from Practicing Librarians (U.S.) for Librarians as Community Partners: An Outreach Handbook (publisher: American Library Association)

Foreword: Kathy Barco, READiscover New Mexico: A Tri-Lingual Adventure in Literacy (Sunstone Press, 2007); children’s librarian, Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Public Library

Afterword: Edith Campbell, Media Director, Arlington High School, Indianapolis. Indiana Libraries, Viewpoints; http://campbele.wordpress.com

Articles by practicing academic, public, school, special librarians sharing their experiences on how U.S. librarians are not tied to computers inside libraries: how librarians partner, outreach, and market libraries in their communities. Librarians with ethnic backgrounds serving diverse cultures are encouraged.

One article, 1900-2100 words; no co-authors. Practical, concise, how-to contributions are needed.

Possible topics: workshops at senior centers, story hours at community swimming pools, innovative literacy outreach, partnering with artists and writers, creative youth participation, effective advocacy with elected officials, working with the media.

The deadline for current cycle of submissions is October 30, 2008.
Contributor’s sign an ALA Writer Agreement before publication. Compensation: a complimentary copy, discount on additional copies,

Please submit 3 topic proposals (each 3-4 sentences) in descending order of choice–hopefully your first will not have been already taken. Please also send a 65-70 word bio beginning with your library of employment, title, highlights of your community library outreach activities, awards, and related professional contributions. Place PARTNERS/your name on the subject line to: [email protected]

*****

Editor Carol Smallwood, MLS, has written, co-authored, edited 19 books such as Educators as Writers and Thinking Outside the Book: Essays for Innovative Librarians. Her work has appeared in English Journal, Clackamas Literary Review, The Detroit News, and several others including anthologies. Pudding House Publications published her 2008 chapbook.

Cheers! Beer! Bowling – ?

Speaking of beer – many thanks to the NewPages supporters who have been contributing to the blog beer fund! Now that school has started up again and I’m back in the classroom, your support means all the more (and goes much faster…). Add to that: I’ve joined a bowling league. I only did so under the promise that it was really a drinking league using bowling as the guise. Our team name? We’re still working on it, but here’s one I liked: We Make Obama Look Good.

Drinking and Writing Brewery

I’ve found a new support group: The Drinking and Writing Brewery.

“Through a radio show, productions on stage and in bars, a website, and on the page, The Drinking & Writing Brewery exists to preserve the spirit and devotion of the hard drinking writer and to uphold the rituals of creativity through their passion for the written word. We strive to attract others who share these principles.”

The radio show is one hour long and each show explores the connection between creativity under the influence and includes interviews and reports on a featured writer, a featured bar/brewery, music, and original writing by artists from Chicago and everywhere else. The Drinking & Writing Brewery Radio Show on WLUW, 88.7FM is aired the first Sunday of every month at 6PM and is available via download on the website after the air date.

Also included on the roster of events, the Beerfly Alleyfight, in which contestants must match homebrew, homemade food, and an art interpretation of both in an “asskicking alleyfight.” And then there’s the Drinking & Writing Festival which requires a two-drink minimum of all participants – images of this year’s winners are on the site.

The masterminds behind this? Pete Crowley, Steve Mosqueda and Sean Benjamin – with plenty of nods to Bukowski.

What’s New at the Pew

“The Pew Internet Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Internet explores the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. The Project is nonpartisan and takes no position on policy issues.”

Recent reports/memos include (visit the site for complete data):

Podcast Downloading 2008
Mary Madden Sydney Jones
8/28/2008
As gadgets with digital audio capability proliferate, podcast downloading continues to increase. Currently, 19% of all internet users say they have downloaded a podcast so they could listen to it or view it later. This most recent percentage is up from 12% of internet users who reported downloading podcasts in our August 2006 survey and 7% in our February-April 2006 survey. Still, podcasting has yet to become a fixture in the everyday lives of internet users, as very few internet users download podcasts on a typical day.

Search Engine Use
Deborah Fallows
8/6/2008
The percentage of internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one-half (49%). With this increase, the number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60% of internet users who use email, arguably the internet’s all-time killer app, on a typical day.

Home Broadband 2008
John Horrigan
7/2/2008
Some 55% of all adult Americans now have a high-speed internet connection at home. The percentage of Americans with broadband at home has grown from 47% in early 2007. Poorer Americans saw no growth in broadband adoption in the past year while at the same time nearly one-third of broadband users pay more to get faster connections.

Writing, Technology and Teens
Amanda Lenhart Sousan Arafeh Aaron Smith Alexandra Rankin Macgill
4/24/2008
Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.

Reissue :: On Reading

On Reading
W.W. Norton, September 2008
ISBN 978-0-393-06656-2
68 duotone photographs/80 pages

“André Kertész (1894-1985) was one of the most inventive, influential and prolific photographers in the medium’s history. This small volume, first published in 1971, became one of his signature works. Taken between 1920 and 1970, these photographs capture people reading in many parts of the world. Readers in every conceivable place—on rooftops, in public parks, on crowded streets, waiting in the wings of the school play—are caught in a deeply personal, yet universal, moment. Kertész’s images celebrate the absorptive power and pleasure of this solitary activity and speak to readers everywhere. Both playful and poetic, On Reading is reissued with striking new duotone reproductions. Fans of photography and literature alike will welcome this classic.”

NewPages Update :: September Book Reviews Posted

Once again, the NewPages Book Reviewers have outdone themselves with a unique selection of books. Stop by and check out these reviews:

Dear Everybody
Novel by Michael Kimball
Alma Books, September 2008
Reviewed by Josh Maday

Vacation
Novel by Deb Olin Unferth
McSweeney’s, September 2008
Review by Matt Bell

Liam’s Going
Novel by Michael Joyce
McPherson & Company, July 2008
Review by Rav Grewal-Kök

In the Land of the Free
Flash Fiction by Geoffrey Forsyth
Rose Metal Press, July 2008
Review by Sean Lovelace

New World Order
Stories by Derek Green
Autumn House Press, June 2008
Review by Dan Wickett

Sound + Noise
Novel by Curtis Smith
Casperian Books, September 2008
Review by Matt Bell

Bill’s Formal Complaint
Poetry by Dan Kaplan
The National Poetry Review Press, March 2008
Review by Micah Zevin

Lands of Memory
Stories by Felisberto Hernández
Translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen
New Directions, July 2008
Reviewed by Josh Maday

Who Can Save Us Now?
Brand-New Superheroes and their Amazing (Short) Stories
Ed. by Owen King and John McNally
Free Press, July 2008
Review by Matt Bell

In Hovering Flight
Novel by Joyce Hinnefeld
Unbridled Books, September 2008
Review by: Christina Hall

LGBT Thowback :: Freaky Lit

FREAKS READ showcases gay literature, erotica in East Village
by Scott Stiffler
EDGE Contributor
Thursday Aug 28, 2008

Just as the city’s gays were starting to clean up their act, along comes a bold and unapologetic happening that puts specific elements of gay life behind the mic and back on the front burner.

Working in the tradition of literary salons set in literate saloons, FREAKS READ is a new monthly event whose gay bar location and 21-plus policy guarantees exposure to the sort of provocative adult content on which urbane LGBTs used to thrive.

Founder and host Charlie Vazquez books the unconventional talent.

“We call it FREAKS READ because we started the reading as part of Freak Week, a week of events leading up to Pride,” he said.

In the true spirit of Pride and all things freaky, Vazquez sorts through the submitted material to ensure the poetry and fiction on display is filled with enough sex, gore and out there concepts to provide LGBTs with an antidote to the encroaching world of baby carriages, Jamba Juice franchises and other soul-crushing hallmarks of urban hetero-assimilation…[read the rest]

A Day of Literature in the Park

On Sunday, Sept. 7, the Christopher Morley Knothole Association will present a “Day of Literature in the Park: Poetry and Prose Picnic.” The event will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Christopher Morley Park, located on Searingtown Road in Roslyn Estates, New York.

The Knothole Association will present live readings and interpretations of classic works of literature. Local residents can be part of the fun by bringing their own poems or novels to read from and then share what they believe the author is saying, what the author’s history is, and why that work of literature has significant meaning. The Day of Literature will be held outdoors under the shade tree at the Knothole, itself the preserved study of Christopher Morley.

Rusty Sighting :: Fried Chicken and Coffee

I just got a note from Rusty Barnes about his newest literary endeavor, starting right now as a blog and seeing where interest might take it: “I’m doing periodic blogposts as well as interviews and reviews and publishing fiction and poetry, all of which is related to rural literature, Appalachian literature, and redneck/white trash literature in general. It’s at friedchickenandcoffee.blogspot.com. Right now I have a couple poems and a story posted, and interviews scheduled with Ron Rash and Silas House, as well as a review of Jayne Pupek’s Tomato Girl.”

NewPages Updates :: New Mag Listings

New Literary Magazines Listed
The Prague Revue – fiction, poetry, reviews, drama, essay, photography
Toward the Light – poetry, fiction, essay, photography
Rabbit Light Movies – video poetry
Torch – poetry, prose, artwork, video
Hawk & Handsaw – poetry, nonfiction, stories, visual art
Wild Violet – poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, essay, art, reviews, interviews
Dreaming Methods – media fiction

New Alternative Publications Listed
RiseUp – a newspaper and online magazine celebrating race and ethnicity

Jobs :: Various

Hartwick College Department of English and Theatre Arts invites applications for a full-time, 3-year position in fiction writing commencing September 2009 (pending final administrative approval) at the rank of assistant professor. Dr. Robert Bensen, Acting Chair, English and Theatre Arts. November 15, 2008.

University of Michigan Department of English Language & Literature invites applications for the Helen Herzog Zell Visiting Professorship in Creative Writing visiting appointment in fiction, which is a three-year appointment (through April 30, 2012), with potential renewal for two additional years (through April 30, 2014). Candidates should be emerging writers (no more than one or two books published or under contract) who have achieved distinction in their writing & excellence in their teaching or who have demonstrated the promise of such distinction & excellence. Send letter of application, c.v. & short writing sample (25 pages) by November 10 to: Professor Sidonie Smith, Chair, Department of English Language & Literature, University of Michigan, 3187 Angell Hall, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003.

Arkansas Tech University invites applications for a tenure-track, assistant professor in fiction writing, beginning August 11, 2009. Dr. Carl Brucker, Head, Department of English. November 25, 2008.

The 2009-10 Stadler Fellowship offers professional training in arts administration & literary editing in a thriving, university-based poetry center, while also providing the Fellow time to pursue his or her own writing. December 6, 2008.

The Creative Writing Program, New York University seeks a renowned fiction writer of national reputation who will play a leading role within the Creative Writing Program, & will hold a tenured appointment in the Department of English. Position to begin September 1, 2009, pending final administrative & budgetary approval.

University of California, San Diego, Department of Literature is seeking a poet to teach in a thriving undergraduate program & new MFA program. November 15, 2008.

Colby-Sawyer College has an opportunity for an innovative and energetic full-time Assistant Professor of Literature and Creative Writing in the Department of Humanities. This is a tenure-eligible faculty position available in late August 2009. October 15, 2008.

Narrative Contest Winners Announced

Narrative Magazine announces the winners of the 2008 First-Person Story Contest:

First Place ($3,000) Gina Ochsner On Principle
Second Place ($1,750) Heather Brittain Bergstrom Celilo Falls
Third Place ($1,000) Holly Wilson Night Glow

Ten Finalists ($125 each)
Alethea Black Mistake
Abby Frucht But You’re Not
Lisa Fugard The Ghost of Anton Viljoen
Ed Gray Freedom Cross
Barb Johnson Turn It Up
Twister Marquiss Spectator Sports
David Peters The Dressing Room
Marc Petersen Shopping in the Middle of the Night
Debra Spark 46
Terese Svoboda Recon

Vacation

In Deb Olin Unferth’s Vacation, people are always following each other from one place to another, starting with Myers, a middling office worker whose main distinguishing characteristic is a dent in his skull from jumping out a window when he was young. When he discovers that his wife is spending her evenings following a man named Gray through the streets of New York City, he begins to follow her himself, a process that stretches wordlessly through the first two years of their marriage. Later, after Myers and his wife decide to separate, Myers goes looking for Gray directly, leading to yet another chase that takes him across the Americas in search of a man who, if not exactly a rival, is still the closest thing Myers has to a cause for the dissolution of his marriage. There are other characters throughout the book who have their own loved ones or enemies to follow, each of their stories intersecting the love triangle of Myers, his wife, and Gray, until the book is just one more place for its characters to get lost in, to lose sight of their goals, to find, if not what they were looking, then maybe something they needed instead. Continue reading “Vacation”

Liam’s Going

Almost nothing happens in Liam’s Going, a novel by Michael Joyce now out in paperback six years after its hardcover release. Joyce has written a number of hypertext fictions, and there is something of the feel of hypertext to this novel too, both in its swirling temporality – it loops continually from the present to the recent and more distant past – and in its occasional lack of momentum. Continue reading “Liam’s Going”

In the Land of the Free

When Flash Fiction was younger, you’d see it only occasionally in the neighborhood, maybe pedaling through the pages of Mid-American Review. But then something happened. Flash grew up, and got itself a diverse group of friends, with funky names like Short-Short and Postcard Fiction. Now, flash fiction is everywhere, in all of the magazines, online and in print, and we have publications devoted to the genre (SmokeLong Quarterly, Quick Fiction, flashquake, to name but a few). The next step of this maturation was natural, necessary, and finally realized: entire collections of flash fiction put out by publishers like Elixer, Calamari, Ravenna, and Rose Metal Press, who recently published Geoffrey Forsyth’s In the Land of the Free, the winner of their Second Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest. Clearly, this innovative press respects the flash fiction genre, and the idea of book as artifact. The text is an aesthetic marvel. Carefully crafted from a textured French paper, with an emerald green endpaper of Indian silk with straw, this objet d’art is something to behold. In a word: impressive. Continue reading “In the Land of the Free”

New World Order

Baghdad, Dubai, Brazil, Mexico, Asia, South Africa, Perth, Australia, Central America: In the eleven stories that make up Derek Green’s New World Order, only one takes place in the United States and in that one, “Cultural Awareness,” the characters are taking a seminar to get ready to spend time working in different lands. Green has taken his decade of experience working as both a journalist and consultant in foreign lands, and created an excellent collection of stories. Continue reading “New World Order”

Sound + Noise

Told in chapters which alternate viewpoints between its dual protagonists, the plot of Curtis Smith’s Sound + Noise is quieter than its title suggests – it is less the thrashing of a building cacophony than it is the last gentle notes of a favorite ballad. Tom and Jackie are both people with heavy pasts, the kind that refuse to let them move forward with their lives as fully as they might like until, little by little, they help each other to start again. Tom’s past is personified in the comatose person of his wife Karen, while Jackie’s is tied up in the past life she led as a backup singer for a famous country band. For each of them, part of what makes their pasts so daunting to overcome is that they love the lives they once led – Tom loves his wife, but from the very beginning it is obvious that she’s never going to awaken from her coma. Similarly, Jackie looks backwards from her new life as the owner of a local bar where she sings once a week, often covering the very band she was once a member of. Continue reading “Sound + Noise”

Bill’s Formal Complaint

In Bill’s Formal Complaint, Dan Kaplan presents us with Bill, a typical American male who must face his life’s various stereotypical boredoms with a smile and a wink, all the while struggling to avoid falling prey to anguish or despondency. Told in a haphazard, reflexive memoir style, the problems of Bill’s existence past and present are written in an informal, absurdist jump cut presentation, making it read like the haphazard biography of a C-list celebrity. Continue reading “Bill’s Formal Complaint”

Lands of Memory

Even if most English readers don’t know it, the influence of Felisberto Hernández’s writing can still be seen today in the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar, and Italo Calvino. Despite the recent trend of rediscovered Latin American writers, such as Roberto Bolaño, and their torrents of translated work, it is unsurprising that the foundations of Latin American literature are still being unearthed. Luckily, with this collection of two novellas and four short stories by Felisberto Hernández, one more influential Latin American writer’s work is finally available to English readers. Continue reading “Lands of Memory”

Who Can Save Us Now?

Who Can Save Us Now? is a collection of twenty-two short stories that each provide a new take on superhero lore, twisting and turning genre conventions on their head in the hopes of providing a new experience within the framework of the short story. Editors Owen King and John McNally use the book’s introduction to reflect on the difference between our world and the one that provided the more black-and-white conflicts of the Golden Age of comic books, setting the stage for tales of new superheroes “whose amazing abilities reflect and address our strange and confusing new conditions,” specifically the more modern terrors of “suicide bombers, dwindling oil reserves, global warming, and an international community in complete disrepair.” Continue reading “Who Can Save Us Now?”

In Hovering Flight

The quietly reliable narrator of In Hovering Flight, Joyce Hinnefeld’s first novel, is an everywoman character named Scarlet Kavanaugh, who, despite being raised unconventionally by her bird-loving parents, is a remarkably subtle and relatable character. Possessed of her own interesting personality, Scarlet isn’t excessively pro-nature like her recently deceased mother, Addie, or high society like their family friend, Lou. She is, however, the possessor of one of the three secrets that will eventually draw the primary themes of the entire novel together. Continue reading “In Hovering Flight”

Dear Everybody

Michael Kimball’s third novel, Dear Everybody, is wonderfully subtitled “A Novel Written in the Form of Letters, Diary Entries, Encyclopedia Entries, Conversations with Various People, Notes Sent Home from Teachers, Newspaper Articles, Psychological Evaluations, Weather Reports, a Missing Person Flyer, a Eulogy, a Last Will and Testament, and Other Fragments, Which Taken Together Tell the Story of the Short Life of Jonathon Bender, Weatherman.” Kimball juxtaposes these fragments to cultivate a swirl of humor and sadness, giving the reader a palpable sense of Jonathon’s intense alienation and loneliness at the center of the increasingly unhappy Bender family. Continue reading “Dear Everybody”

Abyss & Apex – 2008

In Abyss & Apex, the reader is transported to speculative worlds that have an air of the suspense thriller movie or the ideas prevalent in the science fiction genre. Whether it is short fiction, flash fiction, poetry or haiku (or as they call it, the “Short Form Set) you will encounter the mysterious, the strange and the unknown until your curiosity wears out or is satiated and must wait until the next issue. Continue reading “Abyss & Apex – 2008”

Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal – Summer 2008

The poetry published in the Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal is possibly the most eccentric and intriguing mix of poetic styles ever mingled together in a chemical potluck of creative energy. A fascination with the life of certain creatures and their metaphoric or allegoric relationship to humanity is often at the center of these poetic pieces, as well as some poems that speak specifically or obliquely to the not-so-friendly and explosive reactions that have or can cause the death of millions in this country. Continue reading “Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal – Summer 2008”

Colorado Review – Summer 2008

The Colorado Review is one of the most reliably satisfying journals I know, with an editorial vision that is eclectic and generous, but not haphazard – a solid, but never stodgy collection of mature work. Summer 2008 features four short stories (by Kristin Fitzpatrick, Dawna Kemper, Lon Otto, and Kirsten Valdez Quade), all of which “accent the complex spaces between parents and their children,” and one of which, Valdez Quade’s “Den Mother,” is the winner of the 2007-2008 AWP Intro Journals Project, selected by Kwame Dawes. All constitute fine, enjoyable reading. These are competent, traditional stories with characters readers can care about and identify with. Continue reading “Colorado Review – Summer 2008”

CutBank – Summer 2008

I’m not sure what CutBank means but I now know it’s synonymous with great fiction and poetry. A university-based journal, it manages to attract emerging and established writers with serious credentials. Some of its contributors have had work in Tin House and McSweeney’s, two of the best if not the most recognizable literary journals. Continue reading “CutBank – Summer 2008”

The Deronda Review – Spring/Summer 2008

A joint US-Israeli effort, The Deronda Review makes use of every available inch of its 8 ½ x 11 pages, covers included, presenting poems written originally in English and poems in English translated from Hebrew by more than 90 poets – as many as four or five poems per page. With this much work gathered in one slender volume, it’s reasonable to expect some unevenness in quality, which is the case here. At the same time, there are a number of lovely, serious, and memorable poems. Continue reading “The Deronda Review – Spring/Summer 2008”

The Dirty Goat – 2008

The Dirty Goat is an international journal of visual art, poetry and prose that attempts to deliver a healthy bilingual tasting of literature from wide-ranging cultures and nations from the Ukraine to Iran. The pieces in this journal not only speak to the immigrant experience, as epitomized by the journal’s namesake, they also transport us to a place simultaneously otherworldly yet familiar, as if we were home, but it had been slightly altered from the photography of our memories. Continue reading “The Dirty Goat – 2008”

Fulcrum – 2008

“It’s very difficult to say peace is an ideal unless you go on to define an ideal as something you can’t possibly have, but can’t possibly help wanting to have. That’d be another way to look at an ideal. And both cases can’t possibly mind you, can’t possibly have, but can’t possibly help wanting to have.” One of this year’s “Fulcrum Features” is a set of 16 essays on “Samuel Beckett as Poet,” so you might think this excerpt is related to Beckett or to one of his contemporaries, in sensibility, if not style. But you’d be wrong! It’s from another Fulcrum Feature altogether, “Robert Frost: Three Unpublished Talks.” Continue reading “Fulcrum – 2008”

Hanging Loose – 2008

Hanging Loose, the press which gave Sherman Alexie his start as a poet, opens this volume with two of Alexie’s poems. Alexie, as usual, is simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. Quoting a section won’t give him justice. Read these poems, cry (from sadness and laughter), and know that Alexie still recognizes, despite his fame, that good poetry demands attention and vulnerability to the world. Continue reading “Hanging Loose – 2008”

Juked – Winter 2007/2008

While Juked is primarily on online literary journal, the editors call for longer submissions of fiction and cull through poetry subs and put together an annual print issue. This issue features the winners of the fiction (Marianne Villanueva) and poetry contests (James Belflower) as well as other selected work. Also included is Kelly Spitzer’s insightful interview with Claudia Smith regarding Smith’s literary struggles and successes. Continue reading “Juked – Winter 2007/2008”

The Louisville Review – Spring 2008

Sorrow, loss and grief are recurring themes among the solid fiction in this issue of The Louisville Review. In Amy Tudor’s “Mourning Cloak,” a parent mourns the loss of a still-born child. Troy Ehlers’s “The Tide of Night” is a character study of a Vietnam Vet grappling with a traumatic past. Equally sad, Cate McGowan’s “How Can You Title Longing” skillfully weaves poetry and narrative as a shopper at a flea market finds an old book of poems. The story alternates between the present day and yesteryear scenes from the life of the poet. Continue reading “The Louisville Review – Spring 2008”

Monkeybicycle – Spring 2008

This issue celebrates dirty funny, e.g. bathroom humor, disfigurement, internet porn, genitalia, an aborted fetus, sodomy jokes, piercing mishaps, unusual orgasms, Beckett and Whitman; in essence, something for everyone. If you’re not amused by your own gas then you probably won’t laugh at some of these stories. Then again, you may not get what language we speak here on Earth. Guest-editor Eric Spitznagel distinguishes between run-of-the-bowl boring poo jokes and true poo humor: those that float or sink on their literary merit. Ahem. Continue reading “Monkeybicycle – Spring 2008”