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At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!

Magazine Stand :: The Meadow – 2022

The Meadow literary magazine from Truckee Meadows Community College 2022 issue cover image

Hailing from Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada, The Meadow has established itself as a leading annual literary publication with works being recognized by Utne Read, the Pushcart Prize anthology, The Best American Sports Writing anthology, and the Best American Essay anthology. Co-Editors Lindsay Wilson and Robert Lively have maintained one of the few literary journals in the country that publishes their students alongside experienced writers and artists and involves students in the production as well as board oversight of operations. Add to this: the publication is completely free. Print copies are distributed on campus, in the community, and to contributors, and a complete copy of the publication is available to read online via Flipbook platform. I only just started to read the 2022 edition, and am already taken by the opening poems: “The Ambulance Took Away Another Person Today” by Alice “Lucky” Lacerenza, “filaments” by Robin Gow, “plenty” and “big love” by Kolbe Riney, “Minor Miracles in Time Travel” and “Thirty Thieves and the Thunder Chief” by Patrick Meeds, “A Tooth is a Tree” by Matthew Burnside, and “The Walk” by Merlin Ural Rivera. With 74 contributors, this is the kind of magazine to “carry along” or bookmark to read whenever you can spare a free moment or hunker into and be swept away page after page.

Review :: “How to Pray for Your Enemies” by Cristina Legarda

Cristina Legarda headshot

Post by Denise Hill

Like many well-intentioned meditators, I struggle with the concept of metta, that effort to show loving kindness both to ourselves and others, including our enemies. “Be like the Dalai Lama…” To which I respond, “We cannot all be Dalai Lamas.” However, “How to Pray for your Enemies” by Christina Legarda [pictured] from the most recent issue of Sky Island Journal has been the keenest instructional I have encountered.

It begins, “First, get the fantasy of vengeance / out of your system. The way / you would core them out / with your sharpest knife…” which is the most un-Dalai Lama thought we might gravitate toward (and which Mindset author Carol Dweck says is prevalent in both the fixed- and growth-minded). After filling out this fantasy with additional detail (which feels more disturbing than satisfying – and rightly so), Legarda moves the reader to the next phase, to cry and “collect all your tears / and put them in the sun till all you have / is their salt [. . . ] and how tiny / the heap will seem to you, after all / those tears, a little mountain no bigger / than the print from your thumb.” While that may seem dismissive, it actually acknowledges how the internalized pain and torment we manifest results in very little that is tangible or beneficial to us. It is both a validation and a call to “move on.”

Legarda moves on by taking the experience from the external to within, taking the reader to go “sit alone in the desert” until the vision of a child comes, “the hungry child, crying child / hiding behind your enemy’s face,” telling the reader to embrace this child, “until you no longer wish / to cut out your own core; / until the child inside you / weeps no more.”

With this, Legarda brings the instruction full circle to that initial vengeful evisceration, showing us how there is no other. The damage we do, we do to ourselves, and that child is our own self who needs loving kindness.


“How to Pray for Your Enemies” by Cristina Legarda. Sky Island Journal, Fall 2022.

Reviewer bio: Denise Hill is the Editor of NewPages, which welcomes reviews of books as well as individual poems, stories, and essays. If you are interested in contributing a Guest Post to “What I’m Reading,” please click this link: NewPages.com Reviewer Guidelines.

Magazine Stand :: Carve – Fall 2022

Carve print literary magazine fall 2022 issue cover image

The fall issue of Carve means being able to read the winning entries of their annual Raymond Carver Short Story Contest!

First Place
“To Love a Stranger is Certain Death” by Brandon J. Choi

Second Place
“A Rugged Border” by Candice May

Third Place
“Don’t Speak” by Megan Callahan

Editor’s Choice
“Birdsong” by Abby Provenzano
“-K” by Ned Carter Miles

But that’s not all! The issue also includes interviews with each of the winners in a feature aptly titled “What We Talk About,” as well as Carve’s intriguing “Decline/Accept,” in which an author whose work Carve ‘declined’ was accepted elsewhere, giving the author a chance to explain their perspective on the rejection and the process that led to the work’s acceptance. This issue’s author is Steve Fox for his work “Then It Would Be Raining,” which Carve rejected and which went on to win the Whitefish Review Montana Prize for Fiction.

Readers can also enjoy poetry from Katy Aisenberg, William Erickson, Elizabeth Sylvia, Rachel Marie Patterson, and CooXooEii Black, nonfiction from Kimberly Knight, and the forward-looking “One to Watch” – an interview with Mazli Koca by Anna Zumbahlen.

Magazine Stand :: Willow Springs – Fall 2022

Willow Springs print literary magazine Fall 2022 issue cover image

Happy 90th to Willow Springs! Well, 90th ISSUE that is! Included in this installment is a special feature with Albert Godbarth, beginning with several poems and followed by an interview, which is a bit of a unicorn since Goldbarth “is not a fan of interviews. He would rather write poems than speak about them, and he would rather we read the poems than ask about them.” Also included in this issue are works by Hussain Ahmed, Rasha Alduwaisan, Nicole V Basta, Denver Butson, Aran Donovan, Kindall Fredricks, James Grabill, Juliana Gray, Tom Mccauley, Joan Murray, Matthew Nienow, Triin Paja, Amanda Maret Scharf, Emily Schulten, Melissa Studdard, Elizabeth Tannen, Fritz Ward, David Wojciechowski, Gregory Byrd, Anca Fodor, Jason Graff, Julie Innis, Anthony Kelly, and Lauren Osborn. And that beautiful goat on the cover is Heavens Falling by Alexis Trice.

Magazine Stand :: New Letters – Summer/Fall 2022

New Letters print literary magazine Summer Fall 2022 issue cover image

The latest issue of New Letters opens with Editor Christie Hodgen exploring Nikolai Gogol’s “The Overcoat” as well as Frank O’Connor’s analysis of it in relation to what the staff at New Letters looks for in their submissions selection – those nuances of what “transforms the short story into a true art form.” Including essays and poetry in that mix are the contributors to this issue: Daniel Chacón, Drew Calvert, Mary Rechner, Anna Schaeffer, Doug Ramspeck, Shane Stricker, Corie Rosen, Amanda Schmidt, Danielle Harms, Matthew Raymond, Lorraine Hanlon Comanor, Maria Zoccola, Kwame Dawes, Fleda Brown, Campbell McGrath, Lisa Lewis, Ted Kooser, Albert Goldbarth, Edith Lidia Clare. And, a new feature – chapbook publication, debuting with Homewrecker by Kate Northrop. Paintings and collages by Kathy Liao complete the volume.

New Book :: Alone in the House of my Heart

Alone in the House of My Heart poetry by Kari Gunter-Seymour published by Swallow Press book cover image

Alone in the House of My Heart
Poetry by Kari Gunter-Seymour
Swallow Press, September 2022

Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour’s second full-length collection resounds with candid, lyrical poems about Appalachia’s social and geographical afflictions and affirmations. History, culture, and community shape the physical and personal landscapes of Gunter-Seymour’s native southeastern Ohio soil, scarred by Big Coal and fracking, while food insecurity and Big Pharma leave their marks on the region’s people. A musicality of language swaddles each poem in hope and a determination to endure. Alone in the House of My Heart offers what only art can: a series of thought-provoking images that evoke such a clear sense of place that it’s familiar to anyone, regardless of where they call home.

Magazine Stand :: Bellevue Literary Review – Issue 43

Bellevue Literary Review pint magazine issue 43 fall winter 2022 cover image

Bellevue Literary Review‘s newest issue (43) is themed “Recovery,” which Editor-in-Chief Danielle Ofri comments, “When we initially considered recovery as a theme for BLR, Covid-19 wasn’t yet a twinkle in any epidemiologist’s eye. [. . . ] It can be exhausting to contemplate all that is happening, much less consider how we might ever recover. Literature can never offer a ‘how-to’ manual for recovery—that we’ll leave to the strategists of the world. Rather, it offers an opportunity to grapple with the individual strands of our lives, teasing out one tiny aspect to ripple slowly through our fingers. Literature won’t necessarily give us the answers, but it will help us wrestle with the questions.”

Helping us wrestle with the questions in this Fall/Winter issue is Fiction by Kyle Impini, Andrea McLaughlin, Meredith Talusan, Yen Ha, Arya Samuelson, Wes Byers, Margaret Buckhanon, Julia Mascioli, Christopher Mohar, Daniel Pope; Nonfiction by Sakena Jwan Washington, Saima Afreen, Ucheoma Onwutuebe, Carolyn Abram, Rebecca Grossman-Kahn, William Walker, Diane LeBlanc; Poetry by Anthony Aguero, Monique Ferrell, Emily Hockaday, Gaetan Sgro, Lolita Stewart-White, Stephanie Choi, Anne-Marie Thompson, Talia Bloch, Rochelle Robinson-Dukes, Tara Ballard, Nicholas Yingling, Holly Mitchell, Denise Duhamel, Carrie Purcell Kahler, Nina Clements, Kathryne David Gargano.

New Book :: The Wake and the Manuscript

The Wake and the Manuscript fiction by Ansgar Allen published by Anti-Oedipus Press book cover image

The Wake and the Manuscript
Fiction by Ansgar Allen
Anti-Oedipus Press, December 2022

In this brooding and obsessive novel, Ansgar Allen recounts the story of a nameless man who attends a funerary wake with no other distraction than papers that once belonged to the body on display. The deceased considered the papers to be his magnum opus, a text that unraveled everything he had been educated to accept, beginning with the spectre of religion—namely The Church of Christ, Scientist—and ending with the very fabric of educated, civilized thought. Allen’s protagonist thinks he’s above the conclusions drawn in the titular manuscript, but the blurred lines between what he reads and what he sees in himself incite an apocalypse of introspection. The result is a dark, labyrinthine attempt to diminish (and eventually annihilate) the memory of the man who came to rest on the table before him. Literary and existential, The Wake and the Manuscript explores the vagaries of death, identity, desire, and indoctrination as it (un)buries a history of delusion that speaks volumes about the human condition.

Where to Submit Round-up: November 11, 2022

hand holding a pen and writing in a notebook

Happy Veteran’s Day. Don’t forget to take some time today to support your veterans – maybe write a piece about them or pull out a piece in progress you’ve been meaning to finish. Looking for a home for your work? Dive into our Where to Submit Round-up for November 11, 2022. And speaking of Veterans, don’t forget today is the deadline to submit to the first edition of literary magazine ISSUED.

Want to get alerts for new opportunities sent directly to your inbox every Monday afternoon instead of waiting for our Friday Where to Submit Round-ups? For just $5 a month, you can get early access to new calls for submissions and writing contests before they go live on our site, so subscribe today! Free subscribers get access to the latest submission opportunities on the following Monday.

Continue reading “Where to Submit Round-up: November 11, 2022”

Magazine Stand :: Kaleidoscope – Summer/Fall 2022

Kaleidoscope literary magazine issue 85 cover image

Kaleidoscope magazine creatively focuses on the experiences of disability through literature and the fine arts publishing personal essays, creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and book reviews. Issue 85 contains nuggets of contentment and acceptance. The featured essay is “My Mother’s Geranium” by AnnaLee Wilson. Desperate to uncover her family’s history and the mystery disease impacting many of the women in it, the author began asking her aging mother questions in search of answers. This essay is the result of those inquisitive visits. This issue’s featured artist is Alana Ciena Tillman, a mouth artist and entrepreneur. Her “Happy Cow” image on the cover is delightful. Kaleidoscope hopes readers will enjoy the poetry, essays, and stories of strength, connection, and contentment offered by their contributors: Marcia Pradzinski, Nancy Deyo, Troy Reeves, Kirie Pedersen, Evelyn Arvey, Sylvia Melvin, Cristina Hartmann, John William, Kale Bandy, Jen Eve Taylor, Doug Tanoury, Dina S. Towbin, Mary Wemple, Colleen Anderson, Levi J. Mericle, and Sandra J. Lindow.

New Book :: Dolore Minimo

Dolore Minimo poetry by Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto published by Saturnalia Books book cover image

Dolore Minimo
Poetry by Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto
Translated by Gabriella Fee and Dora Malech
Saturnalia Books, October 2022

In Dolore Minimo, Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto attends to her own becoming in language both tender and fierce, painful and luminous. This collection, Vivinetto’s first, charts the course of her gender transition in poems that enact a mutually constitutive relationship between self and place, interrogating the foundations of physical, cultural, and emotional landscapes assumed or averred immutable. Her imagination is rooted in the Sicilian landscape of her native Siracusa, even as that ground shifts under foot in response to the poet’s own emotional and physical transformations. Vivinetto engages with classical mythology, Italian feminist theory, and received constructs of family, religion, and gender to explore the terrors and pleasures of a childhood that culminates in a second birth, in which she must be both mother and child. Fee and Malech’s collaborative translations reflect the polyvocal and processual qualities of Vivinetto’s poetry, using language that foregrounds an active liminality and expresses the multiplicities of the self in dynamic conversation over the course of the collection. In Dolore Minimo, the lyric “I” is a chorus, but an intimate one.

Magazine Stand :: The Common – Issue 24

The Common literary magazine Issue 24 cover image

The Common‘s mission has always been to deepen our individual and collective sense of place. This fall, Issue 24 of the magazine gives readers the chance to explore the creative possibilities of disaster, ponder the responsibility of telling others’ stories, and reflect on the power dynamics that arise along racial, religious, and regional lines. Contributors to this most recent issue include Fiction by Sindya Bhanoo, Ahmed Naji, Kathleen Heil, Gerardo Sámano Córdova Logan Lane, Gabriel Carle, Rossella Milone; Essays by Alexis M. Wright, Robin Lee Carlson Alexandra Teague, Meera Nair; Poetry by Tommye Blount, Joseph O. Legaspi, Akwe Amosu, Austin Segrest, Hussain Ahmed, Anacaona Rocio Milagro, Sara Munjack, Tom Paine, Elizabeth Metzger, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Darius Simpson, David Mills, Robert Fanning, Terri Witek, Daniel Tobin, Matt Donovan.

Magazine Stand :: Sky Island Journal – Fall 2022

Sky Island Journal Issue 22 Fall 2022 online literary magazine cover image

Sky Island Journal’s stunning 22nd issue features poetry, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction from contributors around the globe. Accomplished, well-established authors are published—side by side—with fresh, emerging voices. Readers are provided with a powerful, focused literary experience that transports them: one that challenges them intellectually and moves them emotionally. Always free to access, and always free from advertising, discover what over 115,000 readers in 145 countries and over 700 contributors already know; the finest new writing can be found where the desert meets the mountains.

Contributors in the Fall 2022 issue include Adrianna Sanchez-Lopez, Amanda Leal, Amy Marques, Angela Williamson Emmert, Barun Saha, Carly Taylor, Christian Knoeller, Cristina Legarda, Daniela Paraguya Sow, Doug Jacquier, Erin Olson, Evangeline Sanders, Greg Rapier, James K. Zimmerman, Jason Brightwell, Jen Schneide, Jeniya Mard, Jeremy Dixon, Jolene Won, Jonathan Odell, Katy Luxem, Lee Potts, Lindsay Rockwell, Lorrie Ness, Matt Hohner, Nicholas Trandahl, Nicole Rollender, Pepper Trail, Phillip Sterling, Rose Mary Boehm, Sam Fouts, Shanna Yetman, Shannon Huffman Polso, Susan Su, Tara Williams, Tawnya Gibson, Tina Lentz-Mcmillan, and Wren Jones.

New Book :: In the Plague Year

In the Plague Year poems by W.H. New published by Rock's Mills Press book cover image

In the Plague Year
Poetry by W.H. New
Rock’s Mills Press, September 2021

A book still timely in its content and as a testament to our shared experience, In the Plague Year is a book about living through the Covid-19 pandemic, when a coronavirus and its variants swept around the globe. In this suite of poems, William New reveals how, from March 2020 to March 2021, people coped with the threat. This is a book about love and death, laughter and loss, the price of isolation, and the cost of staying alive. This pandemic was no minor unease, and this book is no workaday diary: it’s a powerful record of people’s lives as a new pandemic vocabulary became the idiom of the day. In these poems, people prove to be both dismissive and empathetic; officials react both creatively and slowly; institutions adapt or fail; not everyone survives. New’s poems are fresh, witty, serious, and sensitive―a powerful personal documentary that testifies to the strength of community.

Magazine Stand :: Water~Stone Review – 2022

Water Stone Review online literary magazine 2022 issue cover image

Celebrating a quarter of a century of publishing, Water~Stone Review Executive Editor Meghan Maloney-Vinz writes in the introduction to the 2022 annual issue just how long a time this is for a literary journal, “It is a rarity in a world saturated with places and ways to publish and in a time wrought with budget cuts and conglomerate takeovers. We are grateful for our long ride.”

Helping celebrate this milestone are the many contributors to this issue, which can be read online or in print: Fiction by Shannon Scott, Annie Trinh, Maureen Aitken, Rachel Finn-Lohmann, Nadia Born, A. Muia, J. G. Jesman, Davida Kilgore, Ernestine Saankaláxt Hayes; Poetry by Jennifer Huang, Tara Westmor, Michael Garrigan, Patrick Cabello Hansel, Alice Duggan, Ty Chapman, Đenise Hạnh Huỳnh, Nancy Shih-Knodel, Rosalynde Vas Dias, Sin Yong-Mok, Kathryn Savage, Jeong Ho-Seung, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Beatrice Lazarus, Walker James, Jason Ryou, Kim Haengsook, Hwang Yuwon, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Ha Jaeyoun, Chloë Moore, Eva Song Margolis, David Melville, Robert Hedin; Creative Non-Fiction by Ciara Alfaro, Catharina Coenen, J. Jacqueline Mclean, Gregor Langen, Cole W. Williams, tswb, Suzanne Manizza Roszak, Michael Hahn, Jean Mcdonough, Joseph Holt, Brad Hagen; and an interview with Michael Torres.

New Book :: The Contemporary Leonard Cohen

The Contemporary Leonard Cohen edited by Kait Pinder and Joel Deshaye published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press book cover image

The Contemporary Leonard Cohen: Response, Reappraisal, and Rediscovery
Edited by Kait Pinder and Joel Deshaye
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, November 2022

The death of Leonard Cohen received media attention across the globe, and this international star remains dear to the hearts of many fans. This book examines the diversity of Cohen’s art in the wake of his death, positioning him as a contemporary, multi-media artist whose career was framed by the twentieth-century and neoliberal contexts of its production. The authors borrow the idea of “the contemporary” especially from philosophy and art history, applying it to Cohen for the first time—not only to the drawings that he included in some of his books but also to his songs, poems, and novels. This idea helps us to understand Cohen’s techniques after his postmodern experiments with poems and novels in the 1960s and 1970s. It also helps us to see how his most recent songs, poems, and drawings developed out of that earlier material, including earlier connections to other writers and musicians.

Magazine Stand :: LILIPOH- Fall 2022

LILIPOH The Spirit in Life quarterly print magazine Fall 2022 issue cover image

LILIPOH: The Spirit in Life quarterly print magazine features art, poetry, reviews, and news related to ‘culture creatives,’ holistic health, well-being, creativity, spirituality, gardening, education, art, and social health. The newest issue includes articles on educator self-care, safety in storytelling, implicit requests from young children, hypersensitivity, climate change and its impact on farmers, celebrating pride, digital sketchbooks, and much more for readers to enjoy. Some content is available to read for free online.

Book Review :: Small Craft by Janet Edmonds

Small Craft poetry by Janet Edmonds published by Sea Crow Press book cover image

Janet Edmonds’s debut poetry collection from Sea Crow Press, Small Craft, seeks to answer two fundamental questions regarding the relationship between language and setting:

Is it possible to capture the essence of a certain place with words?

How is one able to properly articulate the aspects that define a space or a place, and implement language to reflect the attributes at the core of a location?

These poems immerse readers in the sights, sounds, and experiences that encapsulate a life in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. From the spring tides “disporting with each new and full moon, / tuned to waxing lunar cycles” to the sand where “each page of wind and ice grinds out / …eroded fossils, rocks, and minerals” to the rainbow’s “ascension of raindrops refracting reflections / of ages and places traversing the harbor,” no aspect of the natural landscape remains untouched or forgotten by Edmonds. Cycling through the seasons to present a rich image of a place during all walks of life, the reader goes on a journey from the “Dogwood, cherry, lilac blossom, petal” of the spring to the “Light streaks of long nights’ shooting stars” of the winter solstice. Time has no influence on this place, for no matter the time of year or how much time has passed since setting foot in this landscape, there is a certainty in the continuous beauty. “Across the dunes, the Province Lands: / Roiling crests crash the swash,” she writes, “and mulct the shore of every trace / Of time / And tracks / And tendered hand.” Edmonds’ poetry is a beautiful testament to the nature of Cape Cod, and the way she implements language to highlight the aspects which enhance the individuality and uniqueness of her chosen place makes her reader feel like they are coming home – or discovering home for the first time.


Small Craft by Janet Edmonds. Sea Crow Press, March 2022.

Reviewer bio: Catherine Hayes is a graduate student in English at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts and resides in the Boston area. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Blood & Thunder: Musings of the Art of Medicine, Atticus Review, NewPages, and an anthology with Wising up Press. She can be found on Twitter @Catheri91642131

Magazine Stand :: The Wrath-Bearing Tree – November 2022

The Wrath Bearing Tree logo

Established by combat veterans and maintained by a diverse board of veterans, military spouses, and writers compelled by themes of social justice and human resilience, The Wrath-Bearing Tree publishes essays, reviews, fiction, and poetry on military, economic, and social violence written by those who have experienced military, economic, and social violence or their consequences. New content is published monthly on the first Monday (going seven years strong!), and the editors have numerous podcasts available on SoundCloud under The WBT. Some recent works on the site include “For the Truth is Always Awake” by Mike McLaughlin, “On Orthodox Easter in Mariupol” by Shannon Huffman, several poems by Nidhi Agarwal, “Survivor’s Paradox” by Chris Oliver. All content is free to read online. Submissions are open year-round.

Magazine Stand :: Musicworks – Fall 2022

Musicworks print magazine from Canada fall 2022 issue cover image

Hailing from Canada, Musicworks publishes three times per year with each issue featuring stories that dig deep into the experimental sound and practices of concert music, electronic music, improvisation, instrument making, avant jazz and pop music, around art, and interdisciplinary art involving music or sound. Musicworks explores innovative music and sound art from a variety of places and perspectives. Each volume includes a CD with tracks from the featured musicians, and the non-profit also runs an Electronic Music Composition Contest each year (closing November 30, 2022). This newest issue features violinist and composer Jessica Moss; a “musical repatriation” with Goombine, Marion Newman, and Jeremy Strachan; Tona Walt Ohama in conversation with Jesse Locke; and interdisciplinary artist Chole Alexandra Thompson in conversation with Sara Constant. The CD features ten tracks of new and rediscovered music from artists in the issue. Visit their website for subscription information, including discounts for students.

Magazine Stand :: EVENT- 51.2

Event print literary magazine issue 51.2 2022 cover image

For 50 years, EVENT has published the very best in contemporary new poetry and prose as one of Western Canada’s longest-running literary magazines. EVENT welcomes submissions written in English from around the world and features emerging and established writers side-by-side. EVENT also prints commissioned illustrations alongside the writing, and each cover features the work of a British Columbia photographer. In its newest issue, readers can find Poetry by Marc Perez, Angela Hibbs, Joel Robert Ferguson, Janet Bartier, Gordon Taylor, Robbie Chesick, Sarah Lachmansingh, Matt Rader, Jonathan Focht, Lisa Baird, Gillian Wigmore Fellows, James Scoles, Martin Heavisides, Michaela Morrow; Fiction by MJ Malleck, Jen Currin; Non-Fiction by Sandy Pool, Tricia Dower, Jason Jobin; several reviews, and cover art, “Casa Wabi,” by Douglas Hampton (2022) with illustrations throughout by Nora Kelly.

Magazine Stand :: Poetry – November 2022

Poetry magazine November 2022 issue from the Poetry Foundation cover image

The November 2022 of Poetry, the publication of the Poetry Foundation, includes numerous works by Will Alexander in the special feature “Will Alexander: Poet-As-Spectrometer” introduced by Johannes Göransson along with an interview of Alexander by Jenna Peng. Also included in this volume are works by Troy Osaki, C. Dale Young, Austin Araujo, Wingston González, Julian Randall, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Raquel Salas Rivera, Carl Phillips, Gabrielle Bates, Adam Wolfond, Liliana Ponce, Tina Chang, Torrin A. Greathouse, Tariq Luthun, and Taneum Bambrick. All content is free to read online in addition to many other poetry resources for readers, writers, and teachers.

Book Review :: README.txt: A Memoir by Chelsea Manning

ReadMe.txt: A Memoir by Chelsea Manning book cover image

Guest Post by MG Noles

Chelsea Manning’s astonishing new book README.txt: A Memoir reads like a spy novel of the highest order. Imagine John Le Carre or Graham Greene at their best, and you will get a sense of how good the memoir is.

As Ernest Hemingway writes, “A writer’s job is to tell the truth.” Manning seems to follow this credo throughout her gripping memoir. Rich in detail, Manning examines her life through multiple lenses: from the lens of a lost trans kid in Oklahoma, from the lens of a talented Army operative analyzing war, and from the lens of a person entirely disenchanted with the horrors she witnesses firsthand on the ground in Iraq.

As her story as an intelligence analyst unfolds, Manning decides to leak documents showing episodes in which the military kills innocent civilians in the Iraq war. Not only do the soldiers kill them; they celebrate it. This is the turning point, the denouement, of her life. It is her truthfulness and her inability to turn a blind eye to this inhumanity that leads to her undoing.

The documents she leaks expose the hideous underbelly of war and cast the U.S. government in a negative light. As a consequence, she endures the hell of a court martial and a lengthy imprisonment. She comes through it bruised but not broken. Though she says she is still unable to tell us many of the details of her experience, she tells us enough to paint a vivid picture of a whistleblower’s life, and the consequences of telling the truth. Her ultimate conclusion: “The U.S. intelligence community is in a very poor position to be trusted with protecting civil liberties while engaging in intelligence work.”

Manning’s book is a watershed and a gripping read.


README.txt: A Memoir by Chelsea Manning. MacMillan, October 2022

Reviewer bio: MG Noles is a writer, history buff, and nature-lover.

Magazine Stand :: The Gay & Lesbian Review – Nov/Dec 2022

The Gay & Lesbian Review November December 2022 issue cover image

The Gay & Lesbian Review / Worldwide (The G&LR) is a bimonthly magazine of history, culture, and politics targeting an educated readership of LGBT people and their allies, publishing essays in a wide range of disciplines as well as reviews of books, movies, and plays. The newest issue celebrates “50 years ago, a mental illness was abolished,” with essays “The Kerouac Century” by Hilary Holladay, “The Curious Case of Gordon Merrick” by Andrew Holleran, “Thom Gunn, A Poet on the Move” by Alfred Corn, “Rise and Fall of the Medical Model” by Vernon Rosario, “”The Vote That ‘Cured’ Millions” by Barbara Gittings, “Inside the APA’s Decision to Delist” by Lawrence Hartmann, and “How Psychiatrists Came Around” by Jack Dresher. The publication also includes a slew of reviews as well as poetry, opinions, correspondence, and cultural calendar info. Visit their site to read limited content as well as for subscription information.

Magazine Stand :: Foglifter Journal

Foglifter Journal online literary magazine issue 7.2 2022 cover image

Created by and for LGBTQ+ writers and readers, Foglifter Journal aims to continue the San Francisco Bay Area’s tradition of groundbreaking queer and trans writing, with an emphasis on publishing those multi-marginalized (BIPOC, youth, elders, and people with disabilities). Publishing biannually in print with features published online on a rolling basis, the newest issue (7.2) features works by George Abraham, David Aloi, Andy Bandyopadhyay, Keally Cieslik, Lydia Elias, Elliott Gish, Ira Goga, Rigoberto González, Chinedu Gospel, Edward Gunawan, William Hawkins, Gina Hay, Nora Hikari, Mika Judge, Wenmimareba Klobah Collins, Zoe Adrien Lapa, Angelina Luo, D. Keali’i MacKenzie, Vuyelwa Maluleke, Avra Margariti, Sadie McCarney, Leslie McIntosh, Stephen S. Mills, Mallory Muratore, Chelsie Blair Nunn, Troy Oko, Claire Oleson, Molly M. Pearson, Hernan De La Cruz Ramos, Nnadi Samuel, Danie Shokoohi, Sun Tzu-ping, Alex Vigue, Syd Vinyard, Ashley Wagner, Cassandra Whitaker, Nicholas Wong, and Simone Zapata.

Their website also includes The Queer Syllabus, edited by Wesley O. Cohen and Marisa Siegel. This is a joint project with The Rumpus that allows writers to nominate works for a new canon of queer literature. “When we identify our roots, when we point to the work that shaped us as writers and as people, we demonstrate that our stories are timeless, essential, and important—and so are we.”

Magazine Stand :: World Literature Today – November 2022

World Literature Today November December 2022 issue print literary magazine cover image

In a wide-ranging conversation that headlines the newest issue, World Literature Today celebrates Ada Limón being named the 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. With this latest passport to great reading, the editors are also excited to launch an ambitious new editorial initiative to offer a greater number of shorter pieces to help further diversify the magazine’s coverage and facilitate reader engagement from a wider variety of cultural angles. Through literature, music, film, food, and art, WLT is finding more ways than ever to connect you to the global cultural landscape of the 21st century. This issue features fiction by Dacia Maraini and Alit Karp, poetry by Lea Nagy, Beth Piatote, Persis Karim, and Beau Beausoleil, essays by PL Henderson and Mónica Lavín, creative nonfiction by Lin Yi-Han and Philip Metres, as well as a Symposium on Octavio Paz and an interview with Xochitl Gonzalez, with lots more “mini” content as promised!

Where to Submit Round-up: November 4, 2022

hand holding a pen and writing in a notebook

Happy November! Time to keep your submission goals going strong with our Where to Submit Round-up for the first week of November. And while we’re at it, don’t forget Sunday, November 6 is daylight savings time, so if you’re part of the country participates in this…you get to fall back an hour!

Want to get alerts for new opportunities sent directly to your inbox every Monday afternoon instead of waiting for our Friday Where to Submit Round-ups? For just $5 a month, you can get early access to new calls for submissions and writing contests before they go live on our site, so subscribe today!

Continue reading “Where to Submit Round-up: November 4, 2022”

New Lit on the Block :: Olympe

Olympe online literary magazine logo image

NewPages welcomes Olympe, a new online publication of global writing, visual art, and photography by women ages 16-24 that “describe the female experience and explore what women’s issues are relevant” to each contributor.

The concept for Olympe came about as a result of the Kravis Center for Performing Arts‘ “Changemakers: Global Women/Global Issues” workshop at the beginning of 2022. The editors got to know one another during this workshop while exploring women’s issues through lessons from Dr. Susan Gay Wemette where they created projects as a team. After that event, the team put what they had gained from those projects into creating Olympe as a way to bring awareness to women’s issues and amplify women’s voices as they share their stories through writing and art.

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Magazine Stand :: Fleas on the Dog – Issue 12

Fleas on the Dog online literary magazine logo

Fleas on the Dog is a collective of writers/editors publishing content for “those who are on the avant garde and outside the box,” with the newest issue (12) “dedicated to the Ukrainian saviours and the radical activist freedom loving spirits who have been so unjustly silenced by the monstrous machinery of petty, malevolent governments.” All content can be read for free online, and readers can find over seventy works of fiction, interviews, poetry, plays, and screenplays. The next issue is due in January 2023; no-fee submissions are open.

New Book :: This We in the Back of the House

The We in the Back of the House poetry by Jacob Sunderlin published by Saturnalia Books book cover image

This We in the Back of the House
Poetry by Jacob Sunderlin
Saturnalia Books, October 2022

Winner of the Saturnalia Book Editors Prize, Jacob Sunderlin’s first book of poems is measured in long shifts, out of sight of customers, written out in bleach, cigarette butts, and cheers to that we who work in the back of the house. Poems written the way stock pots are scoured with steel wool, the way bricks are laid with violent precision and exhausted resignation. These poems were dreamed by a head stuck inside a cement mixer, drunk on the language of work and the spoken we language creates. This is not the romanticized imaginary “Midwest” exploited by cynical politicians but a lyrical and even occult working-class landscape. Its we is made gentle by listening, by being in garages with apple-juice jugs of antifreeze underneath a sky hazed by contrails in the shape of Randy Savage and bootlegged diamonds of anti-helicopter lights while Appetite for Destruction whispers from a pile of burning leaves. This we is made of brothers, of the teenage bricklayer scamming free nuggets from Mickey Dees. These poems are sharp but loving, spoken in the light of a Coleman lantern from a boombox spread out on a blanket down by a river Monsanto owns. This we rides in a 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air left parked out in a shed, windows half-down.

Book Review :: Insomniac Sentinel by Abraham Smith

Insomniac Sentinel poetry by Abraham Smith published by Boabab Press book cover image

Guest Post by Nicholas Michael Ravnikar

reading’s at a loss for punctual and capital in abraham smith’s 125-page Insomniac Sentinel so’s that the rarely contractions and possessions make em half known

each poem puts on a voice that’s not his self’s but’s still his own, like “Hoodwink Aubade” leans on a big stick to jaw about u.s. gun culture’s manliest ideas

the enjambments leave “a black eye / everywhere on the body” & insist asking how’s the commonplace meet divine as “god does / teeth to babies”

you start to notion how well organized & awake verge on disorder maybe or past it

it’s often we see little how “we / are one musical family” yet the book stays awake & ever watchful over tercet-storied dialects interjecting bits of punt nonce scents and elide how endings end in ing

that hurts to watch if you’re not so careful as him

here’s then tales to hand stories over to unspeaking & such fanciful finds we earn in the barest sense of the word

enough to veil up a skyfull of featheries

there’s cranes or crayons to keep color in the clouds run through all the pages

you’ll see for yourself if you’ve the patience & alertness

you can learn a lot from abe smith


Insomniac Sentinel by Abraham Smith. Baobab Press, 2023.

Reviewer bio: Nicholas Michael Ravnikar is a disabled neurodivergent writer, artist & critic who lives in southeast Wisconsin. He once ate peanut butter off a landline. It’s a long story. A father and spouse, he enjoys lifting weights, yoga, and meditation in his spare time. Connect with him on social media and download free books at bio.fm/[email protected]

Lit Mag News :: The Common Author’s Postcard Auction

Rumann Alam Personalized Postcard image

The Common, the award-winning literary magazine based in Amherst, MA, is opening its ninth annual Author Postcard Auction on November 7, 2022. Authors will write and send postcards in time for the holidays! This unique online auction gives book lovers from around the world the opportunity to bid on handwritten, personalized postcards from their favorite writers. The Common, whose mission is to deepen society’s sense of place through literature and nurture the careers of new and international writers, is directly benefited by proceeds from the auction. They support payment to and mentorship of emerging authors as well as The Common’s post-grad editorial fellowship.

2022 Postcard Auction Authors: Rumaan Alam, Rabih Alameddine, Gina Apostol, Christina Baker Kline, Alison Bechdel, Matt Bell, Alexander Chee, Tara Conklin, Jennifer Croft, Edwidge Danticat, Anthony Doerr, Esi Edugyan, Jennifer Egan, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Craig Finn, Jonathan Franzen, Neil Gaiman, Andrew Sean Greer, Lauren Groff, Joe Hill, Leslie Jamison, Hari Kunzru, Fran Lebowitz, Min Jin Lee, Megha Majumdar, Elizabeth McCracken, Natalie Merchant, Claire Messud, Christopher Moore, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Tommy Orange, Julie Otsuka, R. J. Palacio, Ann Patchett, Jonathan Safran Foer, George Saunders, David Sedaris, Jim and Karen Shepard, Amanda Shires, Lynn Steger Strong, Elizabeth Strout, Donna Tartt, Jeff Tweedy, Anne Tyler, Claire Vaye Watkins, Chris Ware.

Magazine Stand :: Fictive Dream – November 2022

Fictive Dream online literary magazine logo image

Fictive Dream is an online magazine for short stories (500-2500 words) that give an insight into the human condition. The publication features stories “with a distinctive voice, clarity of thought, and precision of language. They may be on any subject. They may be challenging, unsettling, uplifting, cryptic but, above all, they must be well-crafted and compelling.” The publication accepts submissions on a rolling basis and publishes one story every Friday and Sunday. Recent contributors include Gary Duncan, D.P. Snyder, Mike Fox, Len Kuntz, Douglas A. Wright, Sandra Arnold, A. J. Ashworth, and Jo-Anne Cappeluti. Fictive Dream also hosts the annual Flash Fiction February, featuring new flash throughout the month. Submissions are open to works 200-850 words until December 31, 2022.

New Book :: Butcher’s Work

Butcher's Work True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness by Harold Schechter published by University of Iowa Press book cover image

Butcher’s Work: True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness
Nonfiction by Harold Schechter
University of Iowa Press, November 2022

In Butcher’s Work, Harold Schechter explores the story of a Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America. While other infamous homicides from the same eras—the Lizzie Borden slayings, for example, or the “thrill killing” committed by Leopold and Loeb—have entered into our cultural mythology, these four equally sensational crimes have largely faded from public memory. A quartet of gripping historical true-crime narratives, Butcher’s Work restores these once-notorious cases to vivid, dramatic life. Harold Schechter is professor emeritus at Queens College, CUNY. Among his more than forty books are a series of historical true-crime narratives about America’s most infamous serial killers, including Hell’s Princess. He is married to the poet, Kimiko Hahn.

Book Review :: Where Was I Again by Olivia Muenz

Where Was I Again by Olivia Muenz published by Essay Press book cover image

Guest Post by Catherine Hayes

Where Was I Again, Olivia Muenz’s debut nonfiction chapbook from Essay Press, presents readers a glimpse into the mind of a neurodivergent reader and uses the power of language to emphasize how “we are in this together” by inviting all types of readers into her mindset and personal struggles. Muenz’s work reads like one is living inside the fragmented and constantly shifting mindset of a human. Her writing style consistently shifts between fragments, short paragraphs, and pages dedicated to a single sentence. Drifting like a “dusty balloon” she captures the truth of processing life as small moments that continue to live with us. “I am a big memory box,” Muenz proclaims, a statement that all readers can relate to yet one that distinctly reflects the author’s neurodivergent experience, the truth of her personal journey. She manages to reach her audience without compromising her own narrative. Muenz is not looking for her reader to sympathize with her or pity her, and she makes it clear that if her readers do not enjoy her narrative or don’t agree with what she says, they don’t have to stay. “I’m giving you an out,” she writes. “Well if you don’t want to take it. That’s not on me.” Her unapologetic attitude and conviction in her narrative are an admirable display of strength, especially in the face of talking about being in such a vulnerable state. Muenz expertly shows the ability of language to articulate the difficulties of reconciling body and mind, and the power of the written word to unite people in an understanding of the basic habits that all humans experience, no matter their background.


Where Was I Again by Olivia Muenz. Essay Press, May 2022.

Reviewer bio: Catherine Hayes is a graduate student in English at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts and resides in the Boston area. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Blood & Thunder: Musings of the Art of Medicine, Atticus Review, NewPages, and an anthology with Wising up Press. She can be found on Twitter @Catheri91642131

Magazine Stand :: Exposition Review – 2022

Exposition Review online literary magazine Volume VII 2022 issue cover image

Exposition Review is an independent, multi-genre literary journal that publishes narratives by new, emerging, and established writers in the genres of fiction, flash fiction, nonfiction, poetry, scripts for stage & screen, film, experimental narratives, visual art, and comics. The newest issue (Vol. VII) is themed “Flux” which means to “capture moments of change—gradual and sudden, subtle and profound, intensely personal and immensely public.”

Readers can find Fiction by Laura Freudig, Sara Landers, Mandy Shunnarah, Bernard Steeds, Kylee Webb; Flash Fiction by Carolyn Oliver, Cathy Ulrich, Lucy Zhang; Nonfiction by Jodi Scott Elliott, Charles Jensen, Achiro Patricia Olwoch (DREAMing Out Loud Contributor), Tania Perez Osuna; Poetry by Marianne Chan, jason b crawford, Lynda V. E. Crawford, Stephanie Kaylor, Alejandra Medina (WriteGirl Contributor); Stage & Screen by F. J. Hartland, Uma Incrocci, Alec Silberblatt; Experimental Narratives by Zachary Guerra, Kathryn Stam; Visual Art & Comics by ARTARIANICA (the collaborative effort of Jessy Randall and Briget Heidmous), Dmitry Borshch, Roger Camp, Meg Reynolds, Rebekah Scotland, Lorna Simpson, Film by Nate Hapke, Flora Rees-Arredondo; and an interview with Justin Chang,

New Book :: Composition

Composition debut full-length poetry by Junious Jay Ward published by Button Poetry book cover image

Composition
Poetry by Junious Ward
Button Poetry, February 2023

In this debut full-length collection, Junious ‘Jay’ Ward dives deep into the formation of self. Composition interrogates the historical perceptions of Blackness and biracial identity as documented through a Southern Lens. Utilizing a variety of poetic forms, Ward showcases to his readers an innovative approach as he unflinchingly explores the way language, generational trauma, loss, and resilience shape us into who we are, the stories we carry, and what we will inevitably pass on. Signed copies are available for preorder now. Jay Ward is a poet living in Charlotte, NC, and the author of Sing Me a Lesser Wound (Bull City Press). He is a National Poetry Slam champion, an Individual World Poetry Slam champion, and Charlotte’s inaugural Poet Laureate. He has attended and/or received support from Breadloaf Writers Conference, Callaloo, The Frost Place, Tin House Winter Workshop, and The Watering Hole, and currently serves as a Program Director for BreatheInk and Vice-Chair for The Watering Hole.

Books Received November 2022

NewPages receives many wonderful titles each month to share with our readers. You can read more about some of these titles by clicking on the “Books” tag under “Popular Blog Topics.” If you are a publisher or author looking to be listed here or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us!

Anthology

An Adventurous Spirit, ed. Nicholas Litchfield, Lowestoft Chronicle Press
At the Ogre’s Table: A Red Ogre Review Anthology

Poetry

An Audible Blue, Klaus Merz, White Pine Press
Around Here, J.R. Solonche, Kelsay Books
The Bright Invisible, Michael Robins, Saturnalia Books
Common Life, Stéphane Bouquet, Nightboat Books
Composition, Junious “Jay” Ward, Button Poetry
Defying Extinction, Amy Barone, Broadstone Books
Dolore Minimo, Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto, Saturnalia Books
Elizabeth/The Story of Drone, Louise Akers, Propeller Books
Handling Filth, Jared Schickling, Unlikely Books
If This Should Reach You In Time, Justin Marks, Barrelhouse Books
In a Few Minutes Before Later, Brenda Hillman, Wesleyan University Press
A Life Lived Differently, Kathryn Jacobs & Rachel Jacobs, Better Than Starbucks Publications

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Book Review :: Our Lively Kingdom

Our Lively Kingdom poetry by Julia Lisella book cover image

Guest Post by Chloe Yelena Miller

Julia Lisella’s title poem, “Our Lively Kingdom,” opens with the lines, “Our lively kingdom’s now broken / into village plots that others love to visit.” Themes of brokenness, healing, and finding joy weave through these poems like a river through a private landscape. My nine-year-old noticed the cover looks like a map with “tracks like a secret language.”

The covering painting, “Stories Untold,” by Sharon Santillo, sets the tone for the reader. Lisella illustrates a life of attention with lines like “All life is like that / a pursuit to satiate hunger” from “Thoughts About Hunger on a Morning Walk,” and “Is that the way of my work these days, conjuring you into existence . . . ” from “In At Home Depot 15 Years After Your Death.” Indeed, these poems resurrect and remember.

The poem "Hot Flash" has my heart (hormones?) forever. Previously, so little has been written wisely about perimenopause and menopause. Lisella writes, “is my body just grieving” and “The body’s history feels different than mine / as does the earth’s, and yet in unions / we keep telling this short story without words / with spasm and fit     like lyric     like labor."

The poems in Our Lively Kingdom give glimpses of time from the narrator’s childhood through to the pandemic, from private and familial places to nature and to her classroom. In “I’m Receiving Now,” Lisella ends the book with the line, “I’m receiving all the grief here it is here it is.” This ars poetica offers instructions on life and the poetic craft.


Our Lively Kingdom by Julia Lisella. Bordighera Press, October 2022.

Reviewer bio: Chloe Yelena Miller lives in Washington, D.C., with her family. She is the author of Viable (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2021) and Unrest (Finishing Line Press, 2013). Chloe teaches writing at American University and University of Maryland Global Campus, as well as privately. Find her at chloeyelenamiller.com and @ChloeYMiller.

Magazine Stand :: Cumberland River Review – 11.4

Cumberland River Review online poetry magazine issue 11.4 cover image

Published online four times per year from the Department of English at Trevecca Nazarene University, Cumberland River Review has held a prominent name for itself among our great reading recommendations. Accepting submissions from September – April with a response time of three months, now is the time to read up and decide if this is a good venue for your work! This most recent issue features poetry by Garret Keizer, Austin Segrest, Therese Gleason, Grant Clauser, Anna Girgenti, Jane Qwart, John A. Nieves, Kelsey D. Mahaffey, Elisabeth Murawski, and Jeff Hardin, with artwork (Cloud Shadow) by Chuck Thomas.

Magazine Stand :: bioStories – October 2022

bioStories online literary magazine logo

Publishing nonfiction prose only, bioStories offers submission guidelines that help writers focus their craft on what the editors are looking for, and express the understanding that “real life is messy,” yet acknowledge: “human nature is idiosyncratic and frequently contradictory, and, quite often, when you look close enough, it is downright graceful.” The publication features a weekly essay on its homepage and prints two issues each year. Recent online contributors include Alisa Vereshchagin, Jane Frances Hacking, Elizabeth Bird, Alden S. Blodget, Joseph O’Day, Mary Ittelson, James Seawel, Liza Wieland, and Rhiannon Koehler.

New Book :: A Life Lived Differently

A Life Lived Differently poetry by Kathryn Jacobs and Rachel Jacobs published by Better Than Starbucks Publications book cover image

A Life Lived Differently
Poetry by Kathryn Jacobs and Rachel Jacobs
Better Than Starbucks Publications, October 2022

A Life Lived Differently offers readers a portrait of autism in verse and prose. The poet speaks in the voice of the autistic child, whose name is Dan. The prosaist speaks in the voice of the parent. Although Dan is fictional, he is based on real people. Kathryn Jacobs, who identifies as autistic, writes his viewpoint in poetry which is both lyrical and down to earth. She is Dan, in writing and sometimes in emotional reality also. Rachel Jacobs writes as the mom and Dan’s primary caregiver. Dan also has a brother, but their father is absent from the narrative. Dan’s parents seem to be divorced, in part due to the pressure of parenting a special-needs child. This portrayal of autism opens a door to the world and experiences of a child who faces the challenges we all do but sees and understands in a different way. At times amusing, sometimes wry, often surprising, this account offers an unparalleled view into living on the spectrum while at the same time celebrating the strength and beauty of a unique individual living with neurodiversity/Autism.

Magazine Stand :: The Awakenings Review – Fall 2022

The Awakenings Review online literary magazine fall 2022 issue cover image

Established in cooperation with the University of Chicago Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation in 2000, The Awakenings Review is one of the nation’s leading literary reviews entirely committed to publishing the works of artists, writers, and poets with mental illness. The Awakenings Review looks for submissions from writers and poets who have a distinct relationship to mental illness-either self, family member, or friend. The hard-copy journal publishes original poetry, short stories, dramatic scenes, essays, creative nonfiction, photographs, interviews, excerpts from larger works, and black-and-white cover art.

The Fall 2022 issue features works by Bibhu Padhi, Zac Walsh, Liza Potvin, Pauline Milner, Arya F. Jenkins, Zan Bockes, Eileen Coughlin, Sandy Olson Hill, Louis Girόn, Lloyd Jacobs, Gerard Sarnat, Raymond Abbott, Skye Gill, Eoin Begley, Alan Sugar, Murray Alfredson, Aileen Shaw, Jennifer Cimmerian Urbanek, Benjamin Robinson, Julia Morris Paul, Christine Andersen, Janice O’Mahony, Kate Marshall, Marie Marchand, Elizabeth Kerlikowske, Tricia Himmel, A.L. Gordon, Joshua Gage, George Drew, Joyce Cote, Cierra Corbin, and Mohineet Kaur Boparai in a free, online reading format.

Beginning in 2023, The Awakenings Review will be published twice a year – once in the spring and once in the fall. Submissions are free and open year-round via email as well as USPS.

New Book :: California is Going to Hell

California is Going to Hell poetry chapbook by Sydney Vogl published by perhappened press book cover image

California is Going to Hell
Poetry by Sydney Vogl
perhappened press, November 2021

In case you missed the debut of Sydney Vogl’s debut chap collection of poetry, California is Going to Hell (cover art by Claire Morales Design) is still available for purchase from perhappened press. These poems weave themes of family, sexuality, trauma, and healing with nostalgic images meant to immerse the reader “in color and sound.” Teacher/Writer Sydney Vogl was the winner of the 2021 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize, the 2020 AWP Intro Journals Awards, and was chosen as the poetry fellow for Martha’s Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing Teach! Write! Play! Fellowship. Vogl’s work can be found in Iron Horse Literary Review, Hobart, Honey Literary, and Booth among others.

Magazine Stand :: Spoon River Poetry Review – Summer 2022

Spoon River Poetry Review print literary magazine Summer 2022 issue cover image

Enjoying the final long days of sunshine here in the midwest, Spoon River Poetry Review Summer 2022 issue is just out. Each year, SRPR selects an Illinois-featured poet pairing to include as an extended feature of new poetry by one poet from the pair, while the other poet conducts an interview with the poet on their writing, matters of craft, and contemporary poetics. This year, the pairing is poetry by Tara Betts with an interview of the poet by Bryanna Lee. Also in this issue is new poetry by Rodrigo Flores Sánchez translated by Robin Myers, Ryan Clark, Michael Boccardo, Cynthia J. Patton, Emad Bashar translated by Bryar Bajalan and Shook, and many more. The SRPR Review Essay is “Redefining Our Futures: Recent Abolitionist Poetic Practice” by Allison Serraes, who reviews books by DaMaris B. Hill (A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland), Mahogany L. Brown (I Remember Death by Its Proximity to What I Love), and Shayla Lawz (speculation, n.). Cover art by Alondra Cervantes.

Review :: “Café Loup” by Ben Lerner

The New Yorker August 8 2022 cover image

Guest Post by Sade Frame

“I started to narrate my choking to myself, as if transforming it into a story would keep me connected to a future in which I might tell it.”

Ben Lerner’s New Yorker short story, “Café Loup,” describes, in an almost comedic manner, the narrator’s fear of dying, his skepticism regarding the circumstances surrounding death, (how his family would react if he passed, the manner in which it happened, et cetera), life regrets, and the concept of mentally postponing his own demise. The piece opens, “When I became a father, I began to worry not only that I would die and not be able to care for my daughter but that I would die in an embarrassing way. . . ” In the story, the narrator chokes on a piece of steak at a restaurant, and in the first few moments, he looks back on his life. Readers get glimpses of his past, his values, his inner turmoil, and his regrets through Lerner’s use of exemplary imagery with each of his rambling – though always connected – thought loops. One of the more important elements highlighted in this piece was his relationship with his daughter, and how he felt that he deserved to die in the cafe because he wasn’t adequate enough or somehow deserved it. It truly highlights that we cannot afford to take any moment for granted, for we do not choose our time.


Café Loup” by Ben Lerner. The New Yorker, 29 Aug. 2002.

Reviewer bio: Sade Frame is a Hawaii resident who is an aspiring recording artist and avid book reader.

Where to Submit Round-up: October 28, 2022

hand holding a pen and writing in a notebook

Happy Friday! Sorry for the unintended break last week. But our Where to Submit Round-up is back again this week to help you discover new and ongoing submission opportunities to help keep your submission goals going strong.

Want to get alerts for new opportunities sent directly to your inbox every Monday afternoon instead of waiting for our Friday Where to Submit Round-ups? For just $5 a month, you can get early access to new calls for submissions and writing contests before they go live on our site, so subscribe today!

Continue reading “Where to Submit Round-up: October 28, 2022”