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!
Published by the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California, this is inaugural issue of the Southern California Review (formerly the Southern California Anthology). Continue reading “Southern California Review – 2008”
West Branch is the semiannual poetry publication of the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, though the journal does not restrict itself to poetry. This issue’s prose includes a beautiful essay by J. Malcolm García, and a short story by Christopher Torockio. García’s contribution, “A Good Life, Cowboy,” is the story of his saving a puppy in Afghanistan from a deadly, staged dogfight. As a journalist, García has a reporter’s eye for detail. As an essayist, he has a creative nonfiction writer’s gift for pace and timing. Torockio’s story, “Weights,” is a family story told in the authentic and appealing voice of a teen-aged boy, the kind of sturdy, traditional narrative that can be extremely satisfying. Torockio, happily, has a book of short stories coming out soon from Carnegie Mellon. Continue reading “West Branch – Spring/Summer 2008”
Published out of Auburn University, Southern Humanities Review has a distinctly academic flavor. Ann Struthers’s series of poems in formal verse pays tribute to the Romantic poet Coleridge. Among the poetry I also liked Bruce Cohen’s “Hotel Chain” which explores the creepiness of hotel rooms. He writes: “Bibles are blank / & escort services are circled in the yellow pages.” In T. Alan Broughton’s “Legacy,” a father comes to grip with his own father’s habit of arguing with him: “We still argue, my father and I, / although he’s dead. He leans on the table, / meshing his hands, gently chiding, never raising his voice.” Continue reading “Southern Humanities Review – Spring 2008”
This issue of Tin House contains writing that is as vivid and entertaining as its bright pink cover. In the editor’s note, Rob Spillman explains what his magazine looks for in a story or poem: “To see things anew, to be reminded of what it is to be alive.” Sounds like a large ambition, but the selection of stories, poems, essays, and book reviews in this magazine provide just that. Continue reading “Tin House – Summer 2008”
Peripheral by nature, Marginalia’s slice-of-life vignettes range from titles such as “Other People are a Maze” to Barbara Baer’s “Korean Ribs.” The latter includes a wonderfully translated line, “Please hair that looks like sow.” Only an Animal Collective song can compare in its breadth of lyrics to the wonderfully captured sentiment and moment in each piece. Continue reading “Marginalia – 2007”
The Straddler is a journal that hungers to challenge the mind of its readers by publishing a diverse and heady collection of literature whether it is poetry, fiction, essay, movie review or criticism. In one of their introductory pieces, “An Editor Has Her Say,” by Elizabeth Murphy, they break down their philosophy to its core elements: “Put even more simply, our hope is to provide a venue for work that understands the importance of its context. That is, without tossing the rinds and skating away.” So, do not cower in an intellectual stupor because you are scared of the truth. Here, the truth is something to be embraced, stimulated and coaxed into being because it is potent and intoxicating. Continue reading “The Straddler – Spring/Summer 2008”
Brick is an excellent literary journal printed out of Toronto specializing mostly in nonfiction, though it publishes poems, stories and interviews. Continue reading “Brick – Summer 2008”
Feile-Feste is a taut little review produced by Paradiso-Parthas Press in New York City, “an independent venture circumventing corporate publishing.” The press defines the work it publishes as “accessible and innovative.” I’m not sure this issue demonstrates a great deal in the way of innovation, but the work is definitely “accessible” and much of it is appealing. What is most innovative, perhaps, is the inclusion of several works in English/Italian alongside their Italian/English translations, both prose and poetry. These include a very long narrative poem by a New York-based poet of Sicilian descent, Maria Frasca, and an essay by Enzo Farinella, a native Sicilian who lives in Ireland. Continue reading “Feile-Festa – Spring 2008”
“The Jilted Issue: Poems of Love Lost” – I’ll admit I was nervous. In the interview that opens the issue with prolific poet and editor, Ontario native and British Columbia resident Tom Wayman, Wayman surmises that poets are drawn to write about love because poetry is the language of heightened emotion. And love is, certainly, one of life’s “main sources of heightened emotion.” Frankly, my anxiety was heightened from the get-go as I envisioned a volume of overwrought, or worse sentimental, verse. But this is, after all, Contemporary Verse 2, and I need not have worried! These are wonderful poems, surprisingly unpredictable in language, if not emotion, with contributions from widely published poets and poetry editors (Tom Wayman, Rocco di Giacomo, Susan McCaslin, Jenna Butler) as well as writers whose poetry may be less well known, but whose work is no less worthy (Kelli Russell Agodon, Robert Banks Foster). The issue also includes winners of the 2007 Lina Chartrand Poetry Award, Aldona Dzieziejko and Elsabeth de Marialfi. Continue reading “Contemporary Verse 2 – Spring 2008”
“At last, terror has arrived.” Thus begins the big bang of this little journal in Arda Collins’s “The News.” Quality poems follow, as is guaranteed by titles like “Heaven,” the silly goodness of Robyn Schiff’s “Dear Ralph Lauren,” and “1450-1950” by Bob Brown, a picture-poem, for want of a better word. It has eyes surrounding the verses “Eyes / Eyes / My God / What eyes!” Continue reading “Jubilat – 2007”
“To be valued more for the ethnicity I was seen to represent, rather than for what I could contribute as an individual, struck me as more than a little embarrassing, particularly since I felt myself to be hardly representative of any group that I could think of,” writes Mark Smith-Soto in his “Editor’s Note,” an essay exploring the difference between the terms “Hispanic” (more inclusive) and “Latino” (predominance of English with “overflow of Spanish,” among other distinctions.) While Smith-Soto’s essay is in no manner didactic, I read his remarks as cautionary and approached this collection of 16 “Hispanic and Latino” poets as I would any “uncategorized” and eclectic group of writers. Continue reading “International Poetry Review – Spring 2008”
Fiction’s first with the Mississippi Review, as usual, and this issue begins with a story about fake implants called “A Miracle of Nature” – oh, the irony! Things go wrong, as things should in short stories, and the final line clinches it with “But back then she couldn’t say no; she couldn’t.” Ten more short stories follow, including Colin Bassett’s “This is so We Don’t Start Fighting” and Jennifer Pashley’s “How to Have an Affair in 1962,” which begins as all thusly titled stories should, with the directness of the line “we meet in public.” Continue reading “Mississippi Review – Spring 2008”
The special fiction issue of Louisiana Literature is full of ghosts. Each of the ten stories focuses on loss and loneliness. Together, they present a compelling picture of all the ways we get abandoned: by lovers, family members, pets, and even by our own sense of right and wrong. Continue reading “Louisiana Literature – 2008”
It’s here. It’s finally here. The first issue of The Open Face Sandwich. Is it glorious? Yes! It’s a breath of fresh air. It’s the cataclysm I’ve been waiting for. It destroys my sense of place; it unhinges my hold on reality. It de-clasps my notion of a literary journal. It’s been advertised in a million places with a small, tasteful card. And it’s finally in my hands. O, the marvel of it. I gush for reasons such as: Continue reading “The Open Face Sandwich – 2008”
Low Rent is a little magazine with a lot of heart. It put out its first issue in January and plans on publishing six times a year. Issues 1 and 2 are already out with Issue 3 in the works. Continue reading “Low Rent – January 2008”
If ever there were reason to reject the age-old adage never judge a book by its cover, this issue of Pleiades would be it. Amy Casey’s marvelous “upended,” an acrylic on paper, which reflects her perception “of the nervous state of the affairs in the world,” certainly upends that advice. Casey’s images of a world suspended make me believe there are wonders, marvels, and fresh perspectives ahead, and this is absolutely true. Tom Fleischmann’s essay, “Fist,” is one of the riskiest pieces of creative nonfiction I’ve seen in a long time, a meditation on fists that is linguistically and sexually provocative, without being forcedly edgy, odd, or experimental. Continue reading “Pleiades – 2008”
Hard as it would be to do, if I were pressed to name my top two or three favorite literary journals, I’d have to include The Malahat Review, which never fails to satisfy. Continue reading “The Malahat Review – Summer 2008”
Prick of the Spindle is a journal that fills its literary itinerary with almost every literary genre imaginable. It is one of the most comprehensively complete journals in terms of its subject matter as well as its devotion to the concept of representing large intellectual and culturally diverse writing communities. One unifying image of the type of writing that they publish is a merging of a chaotic and energetic prose flowing rapidly but with a structure grounding each piece in a specific style or meaning. Continue reading “Prick of the Spindle – 2008”
“Does the world really need another publication?” asks Didi Menedez, publisher of Oranges and Sardines. “Not really,” she answers herself, and goes on to explain, rather mysteriously, that small presses are instead “forming the path to what we really need.” While I have no idea what that means, I personally am glad that Oranges and Sardines exists, because it is clearly not just another publication. Continue reading “Oranges and Sardines – Summer 2008”
Raving Dove is like an impressionist painting that you have continuously observed in order to view obscured or distant images or ideas that you may have missed at first glance. Its literary sensibility seems to be one of simple and precisely written elegance to evoke serious political ideas, such as the affects of war, a central focus in this issue, and how it defines our “humanity,” whether it is in the form of nonfiction, poetry, fiction or photography.
It’s always intimidating to review a journal of the stature, prominence, and historic importance of Poetry. Consider this issue’s Table of Contents, and you’ll see what I mean: a portfolio of poems by Jack Spicer (who, during his lifetime, never appeared in the journal) introduced by Peter Gizzi and Kevin Killian; poems by Kathryn Starbuck, Albert Goldbarth, Bob Hicok, Heather McHugh, Dean Young, D. Nurske, among other great and notable talents; a radio play in translation by the late and utterly remarkable Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai, introduced by playwright Adam Seelig; and the “Comment” section, “Poets We’ve Known,” featuring nine near geniuses, including Fanny Howe and Eleanor Wilner. This issue, “Summer Break” (there is something of a break-from-the-standard-poetry-routine about this issue), also includes seven delightful poetry cartoons by Bruce McCall, and, finally, a series of Letters to the Editor that makes me very sorry, indeed, to have missed the Marilyn Chin translations of Ho Xuan Huong’s poetry that sparked such charged responses. Continue reading “Poetry – July/August 2008”
Fast for a few days first so you’ll be good and hungry. This is a double issue, “A Readable Feast,” featuring poems, stories, essays, art, and “Real Recipes by Real Writers.” (It does make me wish, perversely, for some fake recipes by imaginary writers, I must confess.) The great eating (I mean reading) begins with the delicious cover, “Plenty,” by Billy Renkl, a splendid buffet of typically American foods. The issue is crammed with delectable art, including sweet black and white illustrations, sensuous charcoal drawings, and dreamy, surreal drawings that have the quality of papercuts. Continue reading “River Styx – 2008”
From The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen by Jeffrey B. Symynkywicz – posted in full with comments on NPR.
1. The world has gone awry.
2. There is a power within the souls of men and women to transcend the world and to achieve real victories in spite of the world.
3. The world is as it is.
4. Life without connections is empty and dangerous.
5. Our stories symbolize something deeper.
6. Life is embodied.
7. It’s all about change.
8. There is no guarantee of success.
9. Hope is resilient.
10. There is always something more.
With a masthead combining Patrick James McAllaster (Editor-In-Chief/Creator), Kris Loveless (Editor-In-Chief), and Karen Rigby (Poetry Editor/Adviser), I would expect to see Emprise Review kick into high gear without a hitch.
Online in the first issue (August 2008) are works by Emily Brungo, William Doreski
Maurice Kilwein Guevara, Christine Hume and Christopher Woods. Submissions – especially non-fiction and photography – are being accepted until September 20 for the next issue. Additionally, the publication accepts fiction and poetry – and overall is looking for work that has a “punch-in-the-gut, hard to define, memorable quality that inspires more than one reading.”
I’m sure you’ve got that, right?
MotherVerse Magazine’s Writing Workshops are open and will begin Sept 15. Both are cool concepts that run on a sliding fee scale – an old and greately appreciated concept, with scholarships available as well.
Writing Motherhood Workshop – focused on developing your current writing (creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry and blogging) or finding your voice in developing new writing. Gain the support and feedback of fellow mother writers and experienced mentors in this supportive environment. This is a 5 week workshop. Limit 20 attendees. Sept 15 – Oct 20, 2008
Publishing a Blog Workshop – learn how to begin and follow through on a successful mother writer’s blog with the help of experienced mother bloggers. This workshop will cover both the technical aspects of starting a blog as well as the development of blog writing. This is a 5 week workshop. Limit 20 attendees. Sept 15 – Oct 20, 2008
We don’t normally run contest information on the blog, but this one from Virginia Quarterly Review is being publicized via word of mouth only – with no entry fees being charged, so it warrants a blog spot. From VQR Managing Editor Kevin Morrissey:
To encourage and cultivate young reviewers and critics under the age of thirty, the Virginia Quarterly Review is holding a “Young Reviewers Contest” in September 2008.
The prize for the winning entry is $1,000, publication in VQR‘s Winter 2009 issue, and a publishing contract for three additional reviews worth up to $3,000. Finalists (up to five) will receive a complimentary one-year student or associate membership in the National Book Critics Circle, a one-year subscription to VQR, and may also be offered paid publication in VQR (in print or online).
For more information, visit the VQR website at or contact VQR at [email protected] or 434-924-3124.
Small Press Traffic announces a call for applications for the position of Executive Director, to begin employment on January 1, 2009.
The English Department at the University of Wyoming invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in nonfiction to join the MFA faculty, appointment to begin in Fall 2009.
LISTENING BOOTH & 4000 WORDS 4000 DEAD
A public project by Genine Lentine & Jennifer Karmin
Sunday, August 10, 2008
2-5PM in Dolores Park
San Francisco (near 18th & Dolores)
LISTENING BOOTH offers pedestrians a place to sit down and talk to an attentive listener for five minutes. Participants choose their desired level of listenership: 1. Silence 2. Non-verbal backchannel responses: hmm, nodding, etc. 3. Neutral verbal responses: “I hear you,” “I understand,” requests for clarifications, etc; 4. Comments, questions, analogous examples, stories, etc; 5. Advice 6. Freestyle. After five minutes, the listener bows and says “Thank you.” (2-3:30pm) FREE – all are welcome
4000 WORDS 4000 DEAD is a public poem. Submissions are ongoing as the Iraq War continues and the number of dead grows. During street performances, these words are given away to passing pedestrians. Send 1-10 words with subject “4000 WORDS” to jkarmin-at-yahoo-dot-com. All submissions become part of this project. (4-5pm)
***
GENINE LENTINE’s poems, essays, and interviews have appeared in American Poetry Review, American Speech, Diagram, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, O, the Oprah Magazine, and Tricycle. She collaborated with Stanley Kunitz and photographer Marnie Crawford Samuelson on The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden (W.W. Norton, 2005). Her manuscript, Mr. Worthington’s Beautiful Experiments on Splashes was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her project, Listening Booth was recently part of Southern Exposure Gallery’s 1st Annual Public Art day. She lives in San Francisco.
JENNIFER KARMIN curates the Red Rover reading series and is a founding member of the public art group Anti Gravity Surprise. Her multidisciplinary projects have been presented at a number of festivals, artist-run spaces, and on city streets. She teaches creative writing to immigrants at Truman College and works as a Poet-in-Residence for the Chicago Public Schools. Recent poems are published in Bird Dog, MoonLit, Womb and the anthologies A Sing Economy, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century and Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces.
Publishers Listed
Eberhardt Press
Print Lit Mags Listed
Fulcrum
The Broome Review
make/shift
Ping Pong
Rivet
Online Lit Mags Listed
Big Bridge
Sea Stories
Typo
Arsenic Lobster
Print Alt Mags Listed
Hyphen
New Scientist
Redwire
Online Alt Mags Listed
Alt Magazine
What’s the issue with CUTTHROAT‘s online only issue? I posed a few questions to Pamela Uschuk, editor-in-chief, about why, the decision-making behind this, and what it might indicate for the future of CUTTHROAT (does going online mean no more print?). Her resonse gives some great insight into how a magazine is run and all the behind-the-scenes people and work required to maintain a quality publication. Here’s her response:
“I can tell you why we made the decision to publish one online edition and one print edition per year. The reason is mainly monetary, but there are side issues worth discussing.
CUTTHROAT is largely unfunded, so Bill Root and I pay to publish this magazine. We receive so many worthy submissions in poetry and short fiction, we felt that printing one issue a year didn’t allow us to publish enough of these wonderful submissions.
CUTTHROAT is truly a labor of love.
None of our editors/staff is paid – except for the judges we hire to judge our national literary prizes. All work is volunteer, and our editors work hard, reading through a mountain of material for each issue.
For the present, we decided that the best option for us is to publish one print edition (this past year’s issue ran to 180 pages!), and to publish one online edition per year. Because we don’t have to pay for reproduction of art work inside the magazine, this online edition allows us to feature visual artists as well as writers.
We choose one guest fiction editor each year to edit the online fiction submissions. This year’s guest editor was William Luvaas. Our poetry editor, William Pitt Root, edits for both online and print editions each year.
The future of CUTTHROAT is bright. We are all committed to publishing this magazine for the long term. We are old-fashioned and love the feel of the print edition in our hands, so we have no plans to to to an entirely online format. We are lucky, each year, to have interns to help us out with logging in submissions, creating data bases, mailings, etc. We also have two terrific web designers, Laura Prendergast and Kevin Watson, who help me maintain our website and set up the magazines.”
Volumes 3 and 5 of CUTTHROAT are available online in PDF format.
Oberlin College Press is pleased to announce Dennis Hinrichsen of Lansing, Michigan as the winner of the twelfth annual FIELD Poetry Prize. His manuscript, Kurosawa’s Dog, was chosen from over 425 entries. It will be published in spring 2009.
Dennis Hinrichsen is the author of four previous collections of poetry, The Attraction of Heavenly Bodies, The Rain That Falls This Far, Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights, and Cage of Water, as well as a chapbook, Message to Be Spoken into the Left Ear of God.
The FIELD Poetry Prize contest, open to all poets, is held annually each May. The winner receives $1,000 and the manuscript is published in the FIELD Poetry Series. FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics is published twice yearly and has featured the works of both well-known writers and new talents since 1969.
Oh, I don’t know – I think I’ve said a few of these…
Things You’ll Never Hear a Literature Student Say
By Jennifer Thompson
Jul 24, 2008 on Associated Content
Are you a translator of Chinese into English? PEN Amreican needs your help. Contact PEN for more information: [email protected]
12th Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival
Thursday, September 25 – Sunday, September 28, 2008
Waterloo Village in Stanhope, New Jersey
This biennial festival is the largest poetry event in North America, with this year’s event expecting 20,000. These four-day celebrations of poetry have been called “poetry heaven” by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, “a new Woodstock” by the Christian Science Monitor, and simply “Wordstock” by The New York Times.
The Festival, held in even-numbered years since 1986, immerses audiences and nearly five dozen internationally acclaimed poets in readings, discussions, and conversations focusing on poetry. Events are held all day and evening in performance tents accommodating anywhere from 100 to over 2,000 people. During each day of the Festival, ten or more separate stages offer different activities simultaneously. The most recent Festival, in September of 2006, attracted a total audience of nearly 17,000.
An essential component of each Festival is a series of special programs for high school students (Sept. 25) and for teachers (Sept. 26)at all levels, elementary through college. More than 4,500 students and 2,000 teachers from throughout the country participate in conversations and readings designed specifically for them during the first two days of the Festival.
Admission is well within reason, with the most costly four-day pass topped at $78 (discounts at all levels for students!).
This year’s line-up includes Chris Abani, Coleman Barks, Taha Muhammad Ali, Coral Bracho, Billy Collins, Lucille Clifton, Mark Doty, Martín Espada, Joy Harjo, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Ted Kooser, Maxine Kumin, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Linda Pastan, Charles Simic, C.D. Wright, Franz Wright and dozens of other accomplished poets, musicians and storytellers.
The NewPages Book Reviewers have been especially busy this last month with a unique selection of books. Stop by and check out these reviews:
The Withdrawal Method
Fiction by Pasha Malla
Anansi, 2008
Review by Matt Bell
Nylund the Sarcographer
Novel by Joyelle McSweeney
Tarpaulin Sky Press, October 2007
Review by Cynthia Reeser
Structure of the Embryonic Rat Brain
Poetry by Christopher Janke
Fence Books, March 2007
Review by Cyan James
Awesome
Novel by Jack Pendarvis
MacAdam/Cage, August 2008
Review by Matt Bell
Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea Novel by Sergio Ram
29 July 2008
The judges for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction have announced the longlist for this year’s prize. The longlist of 13 books, often referred to as the ‘Man Booker Dozen’, was chosen from 112 entries; 103 were submitted for the prize and nine were called in by the judges.
The titles are:
Aravind Adiga
The White Tiger
Gaynor Arnold
Girl in a Blue Dress
Sebastian Barry
The Secret Scripture
John Berger
From A to X
Michelle de Kretser
The Lost Dog
Amitav Ghosh
Sea of Poppies
Linda Grant
The Clothes on Their Backs
Mohammed Hanif
A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Philip Hensher
The Northern Clemency
Joseph O’Neill
Netherland
Salman Rushdie
The Enchantress of Florence
Tom Rob Smith
Child 44
Steve Toltz
A Fraction of the Whole
The MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco invites applications for a tenure-track position in Creative Nonfiction at the Assistant Professor level to begin Fall 2008. Eve-Anne Doohan, Communication and Social Interaction Search Committee Chair. Apply online.
The Department of English of Wheaton College invites applications for a tenure-track position in Creative Writing – Creative Nonfiction. Dr. Sharon Coolidge, Chair. November 14.
New York Public Library – Editor. Under the direction of the Director for Publications, contributes to and manages the timely publication of the Library’s donor magazine, Bookmark and writes development-based materials in support of Development Office activities, including capital campaign pieces, membership brochures and membership pages of nypl.org.
Northwestern University Department of English is seeking applications for an Artist in Residence, a two-year appointment, renewable for two additional three-year terms (total of eight years), to start September 2009.
This position is for a poet who meets four criteria: 1) significant creative publication, 2) critical expertise in poetry & prosody, 3) acquaintance with criticism & technical analysis in prose genres, as well as the ability to teach fiction or creative nonfiction reading-and-writing courses, 4) experience teaching both creative & literature courses in a curriculum with a strong reading & analytic component.
Cover letter should be specific about your involvement in 2), 3), & 4) & should include names of referees, at least one of whom can comment on teaching. Please send letter, c.v., & a writing sample of five poems not to exceed ten pages in total (no books or complete MSS at this time) by November 3 to: Mary Kinzie, Director of Creative Writing, Department of English, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208.
Applications from women & members of minority groups are strongly encouraged.
To understand the world through its surfaces is sarcography, according to the titular character of Joyelle McSweeney’s Nylund the Sarcographer. The term “sarcography” breaks down to mean “flesh writing,” and is somewhat expanded to include rain, reading, one’s children or the idea of them, the senses, possibly more. McSweeney does not marry poetic and prosaic language – rather, she brings them together in a collision of semi-fabulist writing. Chapter 1, “I’m a Lug,” begins, “What else could I be as I walked down the street but a sarcographer of raining. I had to build a cask around it, built like itself.” Continue reading “Nylund the Sarcographer”
Christopher Janke has published a pretty book of poems. That’s obvious from the cover of Structure of the Embryonic Rat Brain alone: a mauve and purple tangle of presumable neuronal matter brushed with green. Fence Books, always pleasing with its designs, has cut Janke’s book wider than it is long and interspersed his poems with eye-catching doodles. If you flip the pages fast while staring at the lower right-hand corner you’ll see a rat put through its paces. This book makes it clear from the beginning that it intends on giving tactile pleasure while stimulating your mind. Like those famous lab rats pressing levers for cocaine, this book wants to keep you turning its pages. Continue reading “Structure of the Embryonic Rat Brain”
In Jack Pendarvis’s novel Awesome, the titular character is, in the most literal way, larger than life. A giant among men, he starts the novel off by proclaiming his own magnificence: Continue reading “Awesome”
The prolific Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez is almost unknown in this country. Only a handful of his thirty or so books have been translated into English, and just two appear to be in print in the United States, including Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea, which won the Alfaguara Prize, a major Spanish literary award, a decade ago. Margarita, translated by Michael B. Miller, is an ambitious, sweeping and beguiling work whose action spans more than half a century. With its huge cast of poets, journalists, generals, intelligence agents, failed cotton barons, whiskey priests, dictators, and many others (a character list at the end of the book runs eight pages and contains 75 names), it is a Nicaraguan national epic. Continue reading “Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea”
One indication that a book is worth reading is the number of notes made in the margins, and I ended up with quite a few scribblings all over the clean, short poems of Maureen A. Sherbondy. Praying at Coffee Shops, with the striking cover image of a Jew praying at the Wailing Wall, suggests it will be about the modern Jew finding her place in the world. While essentially true, the stark image of close-eyed prayer belies the nuance, humor, and worldliness that come through in these poems. Nowhere is this more clearly exemplified than the title poem, whose full name is “Praying at Coffee Shops in the South”: Continue reading “Praying at Coffee Shops”
In this collection of overlapping stories, Carol Bly explores a town of moral highs and lows, a town held together by a family bakery, the ecumenical choir, and a need for automotive transportation. Bly has created a snow-covered community surrounded by the dark northern forest and the mysterious bears that inhabit it and a story about the chemicals that can either scrub the town clean or sully its very name. Continue reading “Shelter Half”
This first paperback edition of Elise Blackwell’s debut novel Hunger comes five years after its original hardcover publication by Little, Brown in 2003, but the book has aged well, its short narrative seeming even more timely as it uses its historical setting as inspiration for an exploration of how our appetites at all times threaten to topple not only our personal morality but also our professional and political principles. Continue reading “Hunger”
What to make of Spooky Action at a Distance? The title of Tom Noyes’s story collection borrows a phrase from Albert Einstein that described his feelings about a phenomenon in quantum mechanics where two particles separated by vast distances – say, millions of light years – become entangled, so that changing the state of one of the particles will instantaneously change the other. The father of relativity thought this was counterintuitive, he never fully accepted quantum mechanics as a system for understanding the microscopic world. Continue reading “Spooky Action at a Distance”
In “Feathers,” the third story in Xujun Eberlein’s debut story collection Apologies Forthcoming, a young Chinese girl named Sail is forced by her mother into subterfuge to keep her grandmother from finding out that Sail’s sister has been killed while away at school. The lie continues for years, forcing ever more elaborate fabrications from Sail: Continue reading “Apologies Forthcoming”
Pasha Malla’s debut collection The Withdrawal Method starts off with “The Slough,” a story divided into two parts. The first, a weirder, more fanciful tale, begins with the unnamed protagonist’s girlfriend announcing that she intends to shed her skin, like a snake, and emerge as someone completely new. He begins to imagine what this new woman might be like and what he might mean to her, leading up to an abrupt shift as the story stops, resets and restarts as a more realistic narrative about a young man named Pasha whose girlfriend Lee is dying of cancer. Continue reading “The Withdrawal Method”
Thanks to Delaine for sending along recent issues of Not My Small Diary . What a great introduction to this comic zine – a compilation of artists tucked between the covers. Though NewPages lost its Zine Rack when Sean Stewart moved on, and we have tried several times to revive it, we still have a great personal interest in zine culture – some of the most indie of all publishing. If you’re not familiar with Delaine’s work, check out both MSD and NMSD.
My Small Diary comics, by and about Delaine Derry Green, were initially created in 1993. The strips were initially sent for publication in such zines as The Brave New Tick and the White Buffalo Gazette. The first compilation of My Small Diary strips came out in 1995.
Not My Small Diary, a compilation of other artists’ auto-bio comics, was first released in 1996. Still going strong, these comic zines have attracted a diverse contributor base including artists such as Ed Repka, Andi Watson, Hilary Barta, Carrie McNinch, Missy Kulik, John Porcellino, Dave Kiersh, Brian Buniak, Raina Telgemeier, Ayun Halliday, Edward Bolman, Jeff Zenick, Ian Carney, Wil Kane, Dan Moynihan, Donna Barr and hundreds more. The first ten issues had an open autobiographical theme. Issue 11 had the theme of “childhood stories from age 11 & under” while issue 12 had the theme “after midnight – late night stories.” Issue 13 has the theme Lucky/Unlucky stories. Issue 14 is the “dating” issue.
Okay, so maybe Google is making us stupid in some ways (though it doesn’t act alone…), but in others, I think it’s a wonderful TOOL for learning. The latest and greatest: Google Lit Trips. You have to download Google Earth first before you can open the .kmz files, but, once you do, such works as The Road, The Grapes of Wrath, The Kite Runner, The Aeneid, The Odyssey, Hana’s Suitcase, and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants are mapped out with notes.
Books are divided into grade categories (K-5, 6-8, 9-12, HiEd), some come with slide shows as well as podcasts.
All of this is thanks to (besides Google) contributors who have provided the lit trips. More contributors are welcome, including teachers AND students! What a great class project this could make.
