Home » NewPages Blog » Page 34

NewPages Blog

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

New Book :: Triptychs

Triptychs poetry by Sandra Simonds book cover image

Triptychs
Poetry by Sandra Simonds
Wave Books, November 2022

Sandra Simonds’s Triptychs is a brilliant intersection of poetic form and the passage of time. Initially crafted in handwritten strips on rolls of receipt paper obtained at a dollar store, then assembled into three textual columns that sit side-by-side on the page, these triptychs are joined or disjoined in several ways—through diction, through the special relation of words (evoking intimacy, touch, or, in contrast, alienation), and through thematic similarities or dissimilarities. As a result, the poems energize the confines of this writing space as they invite readers to recall painterly constructions and news headlines, wherein each pillar is in conversation with another, sequentially and simultaneously. With the same lyric attention found in all of Simonds’s poetry, the poems here mark an innovative shift in poetics that is both polyvocal and singular.

Books Received August 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 “New Books” tag under “Popular Topics.” If you are a publisher or author looking to be listed here or featured on our blog and social media, please contact us!

Poetry

American Bitch, Rae Hoffman Jager, Kelsay Books
Blood Snow, dg nanouk okpic, Wave Books
the Colored page, Matthew E. Henry, Sundress Publications
Creature Features, Noel Sloboda, Main Street Rag Publishing
In Our Now, Valyntina Grenier, Finishing Line Press
Intimacies in Borrowed Light, Darius Stewart, EastOver Press
Optic Subwoof, Douglas Kearney, Wave Books
Pacific Light, David Mason, Red Hen Press
possessions, Alan Botsford, Cyberwit.net
Slight Return, Rebecca Wolff, Wave Books
Steeple at Sunrise, Burt Kimmelman, Marsh Hawk Press
Triptychs, Sandra Simonds, Wave Books
What Follows, H.R. Webster, Black Lawrence Press
Whistling to Trick the Wind, Bart Edelman, Meadowlark Books

Fiction

Against the Wall, Alberto Roblest, Arte Público Press
Breathing Lake Superior, Ron Rindo, Brick Mantel Books
Chronicles of a Luchador, Ray Villareal, Arte Público Press
The Displaced, Rodrigo Ribera d’Ebre, Arte Público Press
Hayley and the Hot Flashes, Jayne Jaudon Ferrer, Small Town Girl Publishing
The Meadow and the Misread, Max Halper, Threadsuns Press
Midstream: A Novel, Lynn Sloan, Fomite Press
Prize for the Fire, Rilla Askew, The University of Oklahoma Press

Nonfiction

Eating Up Route 66, T. Lindsay Baker, University of Oaklahoma Press
Making Your Mark, Peter Davidson, Sweet Memories Publishing
The Plea, Patricia L. Bryan & Thomas Wolf, University of Iowa Press
Ships in the Desert, Jeff Frearnside, Santa Fe Writers Project
These Dark Skies, Arianne Zwartjes, University of Iowa Press
Warrior Spirit, Herman J. Viola, University of Oklahoma Press

New Book :: the Colored page

The Colored Page poems by Matthew E. Henry published by Sundress Publications

the Colored page
Poetry by Matthew E. Henry
Sundress Publications, July 2022

From the author of Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag), the Colored page by Michael E. Henry (MEH) is a visceral meditation on the multi-layered experience of a Black body in educational spaces. Sprawling with metaphors and allusions to both the contemporary and the historic, Henry brings readers an intense narrative chronicle of the speaker’s life as student, educator, and finally as a writer. At the center, there is a reckoning with the racism written into the pages of America, and Henry leads us from the microaggressions of educational oversight to the horror of blatant dehumanization. In pieces that directly call out those responsible—educators, institutions, and peers alike—the speaker moves via Henry’s generously vivid poems through open letters, vignettes, and poetic narratives that uncover the realities of an educator’s life’s work in the “United” States today. In a world that so often seeks to minimize Black experiences, the Colored page does not inflate, but neither does it look away. Yet, too, there is joy in these pages. Henry invites us to love, but please don’t touch, the beauty of Black hair, of Black lives, and of our Black students. Henry asks us to look at the vile and call it out, but then we are tasked to shift our focus to the glory that is the student who triumphs. Henry invites us, ultimately, to a celebration.

New Book :: Intimacies in Borrowed Light

Intimacies in Borrowed Light poetry by Darius Stewart published by EastOver Press book cover image

Intimacies in Borrowed Light
Poetry by Darius Stewart
EastOver Press, July 2022

Intimacies in Borrowed Light is Stewart’s first book-length collection of poems, bringing together works from his three previous chapbooks—The Terribly Beautiful, Sotto Voce, and The Ghost the Night Becomes—in addition to new poems. The result is a book that is more than the sum of its parts, but one that coalesces around themes of love, addiction, violence, sexual identity, and the corporeal body to betray the intimate moments that illuminate, especially, Black gay male experiences. Stewart received an MFA in poetry from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin (2007) and an MFA from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa (2020). In 2021, the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame honored him with the inaugural Emerging Writer Award. He is currently a Lulu “Merle” Johnson Doctoral Fellow in English Literary Studies at the University of Iowa.

Contest :: September 30 Deadline for 2022 Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest

Winning Writers Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest banner

Don’t forget September 30 is the deadline to enter the 2022 Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest from Winning Writers. This contest awards two top prizes: $3,000 for a poem in a traditional/rhyming style and $3,000 for a poem in any style. Work can be previously published. $8,000 awarded in total. Stop by the NewPages Classifieds to learn more.

Magazine Stand :: Crazyhorse – Spring 2022

Crazyhorse literary magazine Spring 2022 issue cover image

The newest issue of College of Charleston’s Crazyhorse literary magazine features the winners of their 2022 Crazyhorse Prize in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry as well as Fiction by Louise Barry, Marian Crotty, Katherine Damm, Stephanie Macias, Hugh Sheehy, Kris Willcox; Essays by Grey Wolfe LaJoie, Rhea Ramakrishnan, Kiyoko Reidy, Brenna Womer; Poetry by Christopher Bakka, Ciaran Berry, Paola Bruni, Marianne Chan, Gregory Dunne, Rasheena Fountain, Daniel Garcia, April Gibson, Aiden Heung, L. A. Johnson, Chi Kyu Lee, Nicole W. Lee, Grace Li, Oksana Maksymchuk, Forester McClatchey, Sarah Fathima Mohammed, Shonté Murray-Daniels, Derek N. Otsuji, Isaac Pickell, Ayesha Shibli, Katie Jean Shinkle, Emma Soberano, Pablo Piñero Stillmann, Grace Wagner, Tianru Wang, NaBeela Washington, Sandra M. Yee. This issue’s cover art is by J.Otto Seibold, California (after the fires).

New Book :: Whistling to Trick the Wind

Whistling to Trick the Wind poems by Bart Edelman published by Meadowlark Books book cover image

Whistling to Trick the Wind
Poetry by Bart Edelman
Meadowlark Books, November 2021

What does it mean to live a full life as the countdown is nearing its end? The variety of narrators and characters in this poetry collection provide answers in these snapshots of impactful moments. Fifty-four poems, divided into four sections–Yellow, Red, Black, and White–balance humor and seriousness, the savored and the fleeting, the makeup of human experience. Bart Edelman was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and spent his childhood in Teaneck. He earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Hofstra University and spent decades teaching at various colleges and universities, most notably Glendale College, where he edited the literary journal Eclipse. In addition to being one of the coolest dudes ever, Bart has had numerous roles in the literary community, published lots, and continues to live an amazing life that he shares through his poetry. If you don’t already know him, you should.

Where to Submit Round-up: July 29, 2022

hand holding a pen and writing in a notebook
Photo by Designecologist on Pexels.com

It’s time to say goodbye to July this weekend. That also means there’s plenty of end-of-month deadlines you don’t want to miss out on. Oh, and plenty of beginning-of-month ones, too! To help keep your submission goals strong and not miss out on opportunities, jump into our weekly Where to Submit Round-up.

Want to get alerts for new opportunities earlier in the week? NewPages weekly newsletter subscribers get early access to new calls for submissions and writing contests before they go live on our site, so subscribe today! You’ll also get our monthly eLitPak (view this month’s here!) along with the occasional promotional emails from advertisers.

Continue reading “Where to Submit Round-up: July 29, 2022”

Contest :: The St. Lawrence Book Award for Debut Poetry and Prose

Black Lawrence Press logo

Every year Black Lawrence Press awards The St. Lawrence Book Award to an unpublished first collection of poetry or prose. This award is open to any writer who has not published a full-length manuscript in any genre. The winner receives $1,000, book publication, and ten copies of the winning book. Deadline to enter is August 31, 2022. Find out more by stopping the NewPages Classifieds.

Magazine Stand :: The Iowa Review – Spring 2022

The Iowa Review literary magazine Spring 2022 issue cover image

The newest issue of The Iowa Review (Spring 2022) includes a Portfolio on Poetic Black Resiliency. In the Introductory Notes (which can be read in full online here), the editors write to answer the question, Why resiliency?

First, resiliency goes beyond these repeated moments that speak to Black advocacy for justice and reiterates the continued insistence to continue, first (this has not always been a given, unfortunately). Resiliency also persists in making this world better as we are determined to thrive. This selection of poems goes beyond a buttoned-up stoicism and presents a diversity of emotions and approaches to methods of living, resiliency, and resolve. I have been astounded by the breadth of ideas, breath through the lines, and depth of emotion by the poets kind enough to contribute, some of whom are long overdue for their debut in TIR. The introspection and circumspection in this section spans a range of feelings: from the very personal to the sweepingly political reality of African-American lives over the last four hundred years.

A Portfolio on Poetic Black Resiliency features works by Tracie Morris, Joanne V. Gabbin, Lois Elaine Griffith, Yona Harvey, Nathaniel Mackey, Shelagh Wilson Patterson, Douglas Kearney, Steve Cannon, Harryette Mullen, Asiya Wadud, Janice A. Lowe, Yolanda Wisher, Delali Ayivor, Duriel E. Harris, Terrance Hayes, Jo Stewart, and Tracie Morris. Also featured in this issue is Poetry by Maria Zoccola, Brian Simoneau, Sara Elkamel, Susan Leslie Moore, Mariano Zaro, translated by Blas Falconer, Alice Turski, Jared Joseph, Kevin Norwood, Daniel Barnum, and Colin Kostelecky; Nonfiction by Steffan Triplett, Liza Cochran, and Julia LoFaso; Fiction by Dessa, Danica Li, Aleyna Rentz, Marian Crotty, Su Tong, translated by Ting Wang, Daisy Hernández, Kirsten Vail Aguilar, and Jackson Saul; and Artwork by Tim Fielder.

Book Review :: A Judge’s Odyssey

A Judge's Odyssey by Dean B. Pineles published by Rootstock Publishing book cover image

Guest Post by Kimberly Cheney

Judge Dean B. Pineles’ memoir is a journey through a dangerous forest of uncertain trails and trials, searching for that pinnacle of democracy: the rule of law. It includes a near career-ending event when, as the Vermont governor’s legal counsel, Pineles recommended taking into custody the children of a secretive religious community based on allegations of mental and physical abuse, an event etched into Vermont’s legal and cultural history. Pineles divulges how he subsequently survived a very contentious judicial confirmation process and became a respected Vermont trial judge, inoculated with the wisdom and humility that came from this intense personal ordeal.

Twenty-one years later, after a successful judicial career, Judge Pineles shares how he began another career as an international rule of law adviser in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Georgia. He details how, after rigorous screening by the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, he was selected to be an international criminal judge, helping to improve justice in that tortured land. He finds it a maelstrom of complex social, international, cultural, ethnic, and political forces. He recounts many of his cases, including his meticulous fact-finding, and by ignoring these perilous forces he demonstrates how the rule of law should be implemented. Nevertheless, some of these cases have bizarre outcomes which undermine his best efforts. These are compelling accounts that demonstrate a vigorous mind bringing to life important events. Readers seeking an understanding of the frailty of democracy mediated by thoughtful judicial process will find Pineles’ journey intriguing.

Publishers note: Judge Pineles will donate 100% of his net profits to international and domestic refugee relief organizations.

A Judge’s Odyssey: From Vermont to Russia, Kazakhstan, and Georgia, Then on to War Crimes and Organ Trafficking in Kosovo by Dean B. Pineles. Rootstock Publishing, July 2022.

Reviewer bio: Kimberly Cheney is a former Vermont Attorney General and author.

If you are interested in contributing a Guest Post to “What I’m Reading,” please click this link: NewPages.com Reviewer Guidelines.

New Book :: Breathing Lake Superior

Breathing Lake Superior a novel by Ron Rindo published by Brick Mantel Books book cover image

Breathing Lake Superior
Fiction by Ron Rindo
Brick Mantel Books, October 2022

Overcome with grief following the death of his youngest child, Cal Franklin uproots his wife and teenaged children to a ramshackle subsistence farm in far northern Wisconsin. Withdrawn and estranged from all they know, JJ and her stepbrother, John, struggle to adapt to life off the grid and to Cal’s increasingly erratic behavior. Without electricity or even running water, the family suffers a series of calamities until Cal feels a call to preach. He builds a small log church on the property, and his unconventional message soon attracts a following. When elderly locals profess to be healed by the touch of Cal’s hands, word spreads, and desperate people descend on the church from across the country. Though overwhelmed and doubtful of his powers, in a final act of love and faith, Cal seeks to raise his young son from the dead. Narrated by Cal’s stepson, John—named for “the chronicler of Christ’s miracles”—Breathing Lake Superior is an exploration of the mystic borderland where the mental strain of overwhelming grief becomes entangled with the promise and hope of ecstatic faith.

Magazine Stand :: Sky Island Journal – Summer 2022

Sky Island Journal online literary magazine Summer 2022 issue cover image

Sky Island Journal’s stunning 21st 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. Read works from Amy Marques, Ann Chinnis, Annette Sisson, Arden Stockdell-Giesler, Beth Oast Williams, Carole Greenfield, Cheryl Slover-Linett, Courtney Justus, Cristian Ramirez, Cynthia Singerman, Dan Shields, Deron Eckert, Edilson Afonso Ferreira, Emily Patterson, Erin Henry, Fannie H. Gray, Heather Diamond, Isabel Markowski, John Muro, Julie Benesh, Kathryn De Lancellotti, Katrina Hays, Kiana Mccrackin, Kit Willett, Lisken Van Pelt Dus, Lorrie Ness, Maira Rodriguez, Melody Wilson, Michael Keenan Gutierrez, Michele Lovell, Mizuki Kai, Nancy Beauregard, Olivia Badoi, Philip Cioffari, Robbin Farr, Valerie Nies, Vivian Montgomery, and Wylde J. Parsley,. Always free to access, and always free from advertising, discover what over 100,000 readers in 145 countries already know: the finest new writing is just a click away!

New Book :: Buy a Ticket

Buy a Ticket: New and Selected Poems Poetry by Judith R. Robinson book cover image

Buy a Ticket: New and Selected Poems
Poetry by Judith R. Robinson
Word Poetry, February 2022

Buy a Ticket by Judith R. Robinson is a collection of poems about life—its imperfect beauty, its poignance, and the forces that propel it forward. Toggling among life stages—from a child’s recollections of school with its “blue-lined grainy first-grade paper” to an adult’s look back through the eyes of shared reminiscence with a boon companion, these poems resonate with a sense of time’s passage, its transience, and elasticity. Grief and disappointment compete with an indomitable will to continue despite setbacks and loss. Whether through the eyes of teenage Holocaust survivor, Dora, who gleans the forest floors in her quest to live, or the “jobless-wounded-welfar-ians” who keep on dreaming of the windfall that will make it all better, the human beings in Robinson’s poems may be beaten and bruised by life’s hard knocks, but they are not down for the count. Read sample poems here.

New Book :: American Bitch

American Bitch poetry collection by Rae Hoffman Jager published by Kelsay Books book cover image

American Bitch
Poetry by Rae Hoffman Jager
Kelsay Books, April 2022

American Bitch is Rae Hoffman Jager’s debut collection of poems that portrays a woman starting a family in an impossibly violent and impersonal world. Jager’s book juggles an unlikely pairing of poems about football, Judaism, pregnancy, and becoming a parent. This collection is a funeral march and a celebration with allusions to Greek mythology, Marshawn Lynch, Rothko, and an ever-growing crack in the ice shelf. Jager holds a BA from Warren Wilson College and an MFA from Wichita State University. Her poetry has been published in a variety of online and print journals. In 2016 She was named The New Voice Poet out of Salina, Kansas. This book originally was a finalist with Sundress and Birdcoat Quarterly before finding a home with Kelsay Books.

Magazine Stand :: Hippocampus Magazine – July/August 2022

Hippocampus literary magazine logo

Hippocampus Magazine online issue 114 features a variety of creative nonfiction, including “Pulses” by Kathy Davis, “Bathymetry” by Sally Jonson, “Foreign” by Terri Lewis, “Peephole” by Lotus Mae, “Origin Myths” by Susan V. Meyers, “We Had No Woman” by Ronit Plank, “What I Wrote Was Congratulations What I Meant to Say Was” by Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, “The Dying Room” by Leanne Pierce Schneider, “There Are Girls Like You in Japan” by Mimi Iimuro Van Ausdall, and “De-escalation” by Lauren Woods. Read it online here. Hippocampus will also be hosting HippoCamp 2022: A Conference for Creative Nonfiction Writers – August 12-14, in Lancaster, PA. Find more information here.

New Book :: Hayley and the Hot Flashes

Hayley and the Hot Flashes a novel by Jayne Jaudon Ferrer published by Small Town Girl Publishing book cover image

Hayley and the Hot Flashes
Fiction by Jayne Jaudon Ferrer
Small Town Girl Publishing, June 2022

Hayley Swift, a country music diva who has slipped out of the limelight, gets more attention when she’s mistaken for Taylor Swift’s mom than for her former glory days. When she’s invited to perform at her 35th high school reunion, a bus accident puts her backup singers in a hospital, Hayley begs her long-gone-domestic quartet from high school to join her onstage for the gig. They’re such a hit that she invites the women to fill in on a low-budget tour for a couple of weeks while her singers recover. Thrilled at the chance to flee routine for a dream deferred for decades, the friends readily accept. Nefarious flirtations, indiscriminate mood swings, equipment malfunctions, and a few nasty cat-fights combine to wreak havoc on the Retro Rodeo tour, but it’s a crazed stalker, an overzealous fan, and an unexpected pregnancy that ultimately derail the road trip. In the midst of the mayhem, friendships and fantasies are redefined as the women come together to face one’s debilitating illness. True love emerges from the tragedy, though, and the friends discover new strengths and aspirations as this adventure ends and new ones begin.

New Book :: Optic Subwoof

Optic Subwoof poetry by Douglas Kearney book cover image

Optic Subwoof
Poetry by Douglas Kearney
Wave Books, November 2022

Optic Subwoof is a collection of talks that poet and National Book Award finalist Douglas Kearney presented for the Bagley Wright Lecture Series in 2020 and 2021. As kinetic on the page as they are in person, these lectures offer an urgent critique of the intersections between violence and entertainment, interrogating the ways in which poetry, humor, visual art, music, pop culture, and performance alternately uphold and subvert this violence. With genius precision and an avant-garde sensibility, Kearney examines the nuances around Black visibility and its aestheticization. In myriad ways, Optic Subwoof is a book that establishes Kearney as one of the most dynamic writers and thinkers of the twenty-first century.

Magazine Stand :: Gay & Lesbian Review – July/August 2022

Gay and Lesbian Review July August 2022 cover image

The July/August 2022 issue of Gay & Lesbian Review is focused on “The Lure of the Sea” and includes essays such as “A New England Romance: Harvard Prof F.O. Matthiessen and Artist Russell Cheney in Love,” by Andrew Holleran, “Sex and Gender in Native America” by Vernon Rosario, “Paul Cadmus’ Art of Cruising” by Ignacio Darnaude, “The Sea and Sexual Freedom: From Typee to Bully Budd, Melville Longed for Something Lost at Sea” by Rolando Jorif, “A Dab of Tar on a Sailor’s Posteriors” by William Benemann, and “The Fastest Woman of Her Day: Joe Carstairs Raced Speedboats in the 1920’s – and Often Won” by Martin Duberman. The publication also features reviews of recent publications as well as poetry, guest opinions, and artwork. Most article intros can be read online with subscribers having access to full content.

Magazine Stand :: World Literature Today – July/August 2022

World Literature Today literary magazine July August 2022 issue cover image

The Ukrainian cities of Odesa and Kharkiv take the spotlight in World Literature Today’s latest city issue, in which poets, novelists, playwrights, artists, journalists, editors, photographers, translators, and culture workers offer glimpses into their daily lives since the Russian invasion of February 2022. Other highlights include essays and fiction from Austria, Belarus, Chile, Colombia, Nigeria, South Africa, and the US; poetry from Peru, Portugal, and the US; lively interviews with Ben Okri and Maša Kolanović; recommended reading lists; as well as reviews of new books by Isabel Allende, Elena Ferrante, Mohsin Hamid, and dozens more. With the latest issue, WLT remains an indispensable guide to the best in international literature

New Book :: possessions

possessions poems in american poetry by alan botsford book cover image

possessions: poems in american poetry
Poetry by Alan Botsford
Cyberwit.net, May 2022

Author Alan Botsford has penned three other poetry collections—mamaist: learning a new language (Minato no Hito); A Book of Shadows (Katydid Press) with William I. Elliott; and mamaist: a different sort of light (dark woods press). He has also published the hybrid essay-dialogue-poetry collection Walt Whitman of Cosmic Folklore (Sage Hill Press). This newest collection consists of a large cast of poets, of multiple voices, over 150, including many contemporaries. As Botsford writes, “this book is a love letter to the art of American poetry, a tribute to American poetry’s pedigree. Its method is simple—I tried to synthesize what the poets wrote with my own music.”

Events :: Snapdragon Virtual Workshops

Snapdragon Workshop Poetry and Ritual with Jacinta V. White logo image

Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing offers a variety of online workshop and “popup workshops” open to the public with some accepting donations and others with set fees. Snapdragon offers a membership that includes an annual subscription to their quarterly publication, discounts on classes and workshops, members-only content, and other freebies. Upcoming workshops include “Writing the Ancestors: A Generative Online Workshop with Jacinta V. White” (July 30 & 31), “Poetry and Ritual: A Path Towards Self Awareness & Awakening with Poet, Author, & Publisher Jacinta V. White” (August 14), and “Writing & Rage: Discussion & Workshop with Jacinta White & Aginetta Mulima” (August 25). Check their website for other events and the newest issue of Snapdragon journal.

Magazine Stand :: Blue Collar Review – Spring 2022

Blue Collar Review poetry magazine Spring 2022 issue cover image

The Blue Collar Review is a quarterly journal of poetry and prose published by Partisan Press with the mission “to expand and promote a progressive working class vision of culture that inspires us and that moves us forward as a class.”

The editors comment: “Poems in this collection focus on poverty, labor struggles, and on the devaluing of, and impact on, children in our corrupt corporate oligarchy. Children suffer inordinately from the criminal irresponsibility of political opportunism and arrogant class disregard. . . Violence driven by bigotry is a continuing foundational American reality. . . The scapegoating and targeting of people based on perceived differences is meant to divide us, diverting the focus of our frustration and rage from those who perpetrate vicious, unrelenting injustice upon us to our class brothers and sisters. Added to the targets of hate are Trans and gender non-binary people. As a class, our struggle demands transcending such prejudices and creating our own justice rooted in our common issues and interests.”

These poems, then, “exists to make us more aware of the commonality or our shared class experience and to strengthen the social solidarity we need to have a voice and to create authentic democracy.” Readers can find sample poems on the Blue Collar Review website along with submission and subscription information.

New Book :: The Meadow and the Misread

The Meadow and the Misread a novel by Max Halper published by Threadsuns Press book cover image

The Meadow and the Misread
Fiction by Max Halper
Threadsuns Press, June 2022

X Parke Penate, a college freshman, realizes she has no memories from before the age of 12 or 13. Determined to understand why, she boards a plane home over winter break to speak with her parents. But her plane crashes, and X Parke is stranded alone in the cold forest. What ensues is a journey—equal parts surreal and hyperreal, epic and interior, esoteric and harrowing, strange and familiar—to uncover the truth about her missing memory. Max Halper is the author of the novella, Lamella, and numerous short fictions. He lives in upstate New York.

New Book :: Against the Wall

Against the Wall Stories by Alberto Roblest book cover image

Against the Wall
Stories by Alberto Roblest
Arte Público Press, March 2022

In the prologue to this inventive collection, the exhausted protagonist finally reaches the doors to paradise after an arduous journey, but the longed-for entrance doesn’t have a handle or keyhole and there’s no bell or intercom. He considers climbing over it, but the wall reaches to the sky. He thinks of magic words that might open it and even kicks it, to no avail. The long, difficult trip has brought him to nothing except a concrete wall surrounded by desert. The characters in these seventeen stories find themselves with their backs against the wall, whether literally or figuratively. They run the gamut from undocumented immigrants to faded rock and soap-opera stars and even the Washington Monument. The eyes of the world focus on the blackened obelisk, which is covered in millions of insects, as government forces attempt to deal with this national emergency! Several pieces deal with people who are lost or long to go back in time. In one, Ramírez wakes up disoriented to discover he—along with untold others—is trapped in a bus terminal, unable to leave the Lost & Found area that’s piled high with thousands of suitcases, trunks, backpacks and packages.

New Digs :: Alice James Books

Alice James Books new office door

Congratulations to Alice James Books who, after nearly 30 years of programming with the University of Maine at Farmington has relocated to an independent office in New Glouster, Maine. [Video of new office space.] “This is a major breakthrough for the press!” say Carey Salerno, Executive Director & Editor, and Anne Marie Macari, President. “Our team is excited to concentrate our focus more fully on AJB’s core values and mission-driven work. The move comes at the moment we are about to celebrate our 50th anniversary in 2023, highlighting what’s always been important to us: publishing books that matter by poets who have something important to say.” Founded as a feminist press, Alice James Books is “committed to collaborating with literary artists of excellence who might otherwise go unheard by producing, promoting, and distributing their work which often engages the public on important social issues.” Visit their website for more information.

Where to Submit Round-up: July 22, 2022

hand holding a pen and writing in a notebook
Photo by Designecologist on Pexels.com

The mid-month deadline explosion has passed, but don’t forget about the deadlines coming at the end of this month! And since the weather has been getting unbearably hot and humid, it’s the perfect time to stay indoors with a cool drink to write and edit, isn’t it?

Want to get alerts for new opportunities? The NewPages weekly newsletter subscribers get early access to new calls for submissions and writing contests before they go live on our site, so subscribe today! You’ll also get our monthly eLitPak (view this month’s here!) along with the occasional promotional emails from advertisers.

Continue reading “Where to Submit Round-up: July 22, 2022”

New Book :: Ships in the Desert

Ships in the Desert environmental travel essays by Jeff Fearnside published by Santa Fe Writers Workshop Books cover image

Ships in the Desert
Essays by Jeff Fearnside
Santa Fe Writers Project Books, August 2022

In this linked essay collection, author Jeff Fearnside analyzes his four years as an educator on the Great Silk Road, primarily in Kazakhstan. Peeling back the layers of culture, environment, and history that define the country and its people, Fearnside creates a compelling narrative about this faraway land and soon realizes how the local, personal stories are, in fact, global stories. Fearnside sees firsthand the unnatural disaster of the Aral Sea—a man-made environmental crisis that has devastated the region and impacts the entire world. He examines the sometimes controversial ethics of Western missionaries and reflects on personal and social change once he returns to the States. Ships in the Desert explores universal issues of religious bigotry, cultural intolerance, environmental degradation, and how a battle over water rights led to a catastrophe that is now being repeated around the world.

Book Review :: Loss/Less by Rebecca A Durham

Loss/Less poetry by Rebecca A. Durham published by Shanti Arts book cover image

Guest Post by Jami Macarty

The beautifully sounded, ecologically aware, and botanically influenced poems of Loss/Less, Rebecca A. Durham’s second collection, is, to my read, not so much interpretive of loss related to climate crisis, but intends to be reconciliatory: “This is how I enter the forest & this is how it enters me too.” Combining the geological and botanical with the plaintiff and ecstatic, the collection conjures Rumi and Thoreau. One way to read the book is as one long poem, an epistle to Thoreau, challenging his words “nothing could defile this pond.” The poet wonders if the transcendentalist knew that was a “lie.” Is Durham a new transcendentalist in her asking “what kind of extinction is this”; in her call for “a moratorium on cement or at least errant elements”; her command “uncut / all those holy trees”; her recognition that “we are illicitly complicit in disaster”? Like Thoreau, perhaps even if Durham knows it is already “too late,” her poems insist:

this is how we kneel
at the hemlock

pulled back
from the brink

pulled back from the helm
of helplessness, hatred

(from “Arboreal Burial,” 77)

Call to action, educational primer, love song, the poet calls on the many gestures of poetry, creating if not an abundance, less loss. What remains? Loess, a windblown sediment, or as the poet writes: “I gather bitter fruits / map my fissures.” What else is there as “we are primed for decay’s reticent elegance.” A special and compelling book!

Loss/Less by Rebecca A Durham. Shanti Arts Publishing, January 2022.

Reviewer bio: Jami Macarty is the author of The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona, and three chapbooks, including Mind of Spring (Vallum, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Jami’s writing has been honored by financial support from Arizona Commission on the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and by editors at magazines such as The Capilano Review, Concision Poetry Journal, Interim, Redivider, Vallum, and Volt, where Jami’s poems are forthcoming.If you are interested in contributing a Guest Post to “What I’m Reading,” please click this link: NewPages.com Reviewer Guidelines.

Magazine Stand :: Reckoning – No. 6

Reckoning literary art magazine issue number 6 2022 cover image

Reckoning is a nonprofit, annual journal of creative writing on environmental justice, with this newest issue, edited by Aïcha Martine Thiam and Gabriela Santiago, addressing the intersection between social upheaval and environmental change. The publication features poetry, essays, fiction, and art by Zuzanna Kwiecien, Francesca Gabrielle Hurtado, Russell Nichols, Tom Barlow, Nicasio Andres Reed, Nicholas Clute, Cislyn Smith, Nancy Lynée Woo, Tim Fab-Eme, E.G. Condé, Ken Poyner, Daria Kholyavka, Sofia Ezdina, Avra Margariti, Grace Wagner, Sigrid Marianne Gayangos, Kola Heyward-Rotimi, Scott T. Hutchison, Nicole Bade, Susan Tacent, Jessica McDermott, paulo da costa, Ellie Milne-Brown, Amanda Ilozumba Otitochukwu, Charlotte Kim, Rebecca Bratten Weiss, Amirah Al Wassif, Brianna Cunliffe, Jacob Budenz, Miriam Navarro Prieto, Wen-yi Lee, Mari Ness, Takayuki Ino, Rumi Kaneko, Preston Grassmann, Jesse Nee-Vogelman, Al Simmons, Laura Adrienne Brady, Prashanth Srivatsa, Taylor Jones and Luke Elliott.

Magazine Stand :: New England Review – 43.2

New England Review literary magazine vol 43 no 2 2022 cover image

Carolyn Kuebler’s introduction to the newest issue of New England Review (43.2) is a thoughtful reflection on the place of domesticity, travel, and tourism as it is reflected through the eyes of writers and interpreted by readers. The Editor’s Note along with several pieces from this issue are available to read online here. Kuebler also comments on the special feature, “Polyglot And Multinational: Lebanese Writers In Beirut And Beyond”: “The section in fact was born out of guest editor Marilyn Hacker’s desire to go someplace new, to know it more deeply, to feel the heat and rain and to hear voices in cafés. It began with her fascination and curiosity about the Lebanese writers whose works she’d read and translated and culminates here in something altogether uncategorizable.” In addition, this issue includes Poetry by Tomaž Šalamun, Gillian Osborne, Victoria Chang, Analicia Sotelo, Justin Jannise, Corey Van Landingham, Carmen Giménez, Steven Duong, and Tiana Clark; Fiction by Nandini Dhar, David Ryan, A. E. Kulze, Christine Sneed, Roy Kesey, and Kosiso Ugwueze; Nonfiction by Marianne Boruch, Maud Casey, Ben Miller, Sarah Fawn Montgomery, and Richard Harding Davis.

New Book :: Warrior Spirit

Warrior Spirit by Herman J. Viola published by University of Oklahoma Press book cover image

Warrior Spirit: The STory of Native American Patriotism and Heroism
Military History by Herman J. Viola
The University of Oklahoma Press, March 2022

For decades, American schoolchildren have learned only a smattering of facts about Native American peoples, especially when it comes to service in the U.S. military. They might know that Navajos served as Code Talkers during World War II, but more often they learn that Native Americans were enemies of the United States, not allies or patriots. In Warrior Spirit, author Herman J. Viola corrects the record by highlighting the military service—and major sacrifices—of Native American soldiers and veterans in the U.S. armed services. Warrior Spirit introduces readers to unsung heroes, from the first Native guides and soldiers during the Revolutionary War to those servicemen and -women who ventured to Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Herman J. Viola is Director of Quincentenary Programs in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Other contributors include Ellen Baumler, Cheryl Huges, and Michelle Pearson, with a foreword by Debra Kay Mooney.

New Lit on the Block :: The Earth Chronicles

The Earth Chronicles online newspaper logo image

What happens when a high school student in love with writing since the third grade grows into a climate activist who believes in empowering her fellow youth? The answer is The Earth Chronicles, a student-led environmental newspaper that focuses on youth voices for climate action and awareness about our planet. Julianne Park and her brother, Aiden Park, both Dougherty Valley High School students, say they started The Earth Chronicles during the pandemic “when the wildfires raged across California and near our homes. We were scared and we saw fear on the faces of our friends and family. But we decided to turn this around. Our goal is to spread awareness and educate people about what is happening on our planet. Through writing, we want to empower students to fight climate change in their own unique ways and equip them with the tools they need for the future.”

Continue reading “New Lit on the Block :: The Earth Chronicles”

New Book :: Without Goodbyes

Without Goodbyes: From Puritan Deerfield to Mohawk Kahnawake Poetry by Ginny Lowe Connors book cover image

Without Goodbyes: From Puritan Deerfield to Mohawk Kahnawake
Poetry by Ginny Lowe Connors
Turning Point, December 2021

Without Goodbyes by Ginny Lowe Connors is a collection of poems based on a historical event: the infamous 1704 raid on the village of Deerfield, Massachusetts. More than 100 Deerfield residents: men, women, and children, were captured. Then they began the 300-mile trek to New France, the French colony, in Quebec. The poems, which trace a narrative but are lyrical in nature, focus on Joanna Kellogg, an eleven-year-old girl, and two of her siblings. They were adopted into Mohawk families in the village of Kahnawake, a Mohawk community centered around a Jesuit mission. The physical journey Joanna and her siblings took to reach Kahnawake was grueling; of even greater interest is the journey she took to truly become a member of the Mohawk community. Read sample poems here.

Magazine Stand :: The Louisville Review – 91

The Louisville Review literary magazine issue 91 Spring 2022 cover image

The Louisville Review, Number 91, Spring 2022, after being supported for 45 years by higher educational institutions is now an independent publication. As Editor Sena Jeter Naslund shares in the Editor’s Note, her home has become the new “home” of The Louisville Review – a home “haunted” by the ghost of little-known poet Madison Cawein, who lived there over 100 years ago, and who published a poem that contained the phrase “waste land” – inspiring the more likely known T.S. Eliot’s work, “The Waste Land.” And so, Sena tells readers, “it pays off to read small literary mags, as well as to publish in them. . . And it pays off to SUBSCRIBE to them, for many reasons, but also so that you won’t miss out on some important trigger to your own imagination.” Here! Here!

The newest issue of The Louisville Review features ample imagination starters, with Poetry by Mary Ann Samyn, Adrian Blevins, Adam Tavel, Kyle D. Craig, Diamond Forde, Ann Pedone, Rachel Whalen, Kevin McLellan, Christopher Howell, Roy Bentley, Gabriel Welsch, Clay Cantrell, James Hejna, Rolly Kent, Alamgir Hashmi, Jack Ridl, Don Bogen, and Michael Mark. Fiction – which, get this, is “arranged to spotlight the progressive ages of the various protagonists” – ! – by Jane Ogburn Dorfman, Dennis Hurley, Patricia Dutt, Rebecca Bernard, Edward Jackson, John Sims Jeter, S. A. Griffin, and Marguerite Alley. And my all-time favorite section, “Cornerstone,” featuringing work by writers K-12: Saanvi Mundra, Kay Lee, Jiayi Shao, Haile Espin, Henry Phoel, Bravery Grace Boes, Alexander Miller, Matteo Tremaine Pavlenko, and Emma Catherine Hoff.

Cover art “Table For . . . ” by Joyce Gardner.

New & Noted Lit and Alt Mags – July 2022

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

Alaska Quarterly Review, Spring/Summer 2022
The American Poetry Review, July/August 2022
Arkansas Review, 53.1
Bellingham Review, 84
Blue Collar Review, Spring 2022
Brick, 109
Brilliant Flash Fiction, June 2022
Carve, Summer 2022
The Cincinnati Review, 19.1
Cleaver, Summer 2022
Cream City Review, 46.1
Cutleaf, 2.14
The Dillydoun Review, June 2022
Driftwood Press, 9.2
Event, 51.1
Five Points, 21.2
Freefall, Spring 2022
Gay & Lesbian Review, July-August 2022
Good River Review, 3
Hamilton Arts & Letters, 15.1
The Hollins Critic, June 2022
Image 112
In These Times, July 2022
Inch, Summer 2022
Kenyon Review, July/August 2022
The Lake, July 2022
The Louisville Review, Spring 2022
The Malahat Review, 218
The Missouri Review, Spring 2022
New England Review, Summer 2022
Notre Dame Review, Winter/Spring 2022
Off the Coast, Summer 2022
One Story, 290
Otis Nebula, 17
Pembroke Magazine, 54
Poetry, July/August 2022
Prairie Schooner, Fall 2021
Reckoning, 6
Room, 45.2
Ruminate, Spring/Summer 2022
Salamander, Spring/Summer 2022
The Shore, 14
Sleet, Summer 2022
Superpresent, Summer 2022
Thema, Summer 2022
The Tiger Moth Review, 8
World Literature Today, July/August 2022
The Woven Tale Press, July 2022
Writing Disorder, Summer 2022
Yellow Medicine Review, Spring 2022

Book Review :: More or Less by Susannah Q. Pratt

More or Less by Susannah Q. Pratt book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

The premise of Susannah Q. Pratt’s collection of essays is in her subtitle: Essays from a Year of No Buying. After becoming overwhelmed by how much she and her family owned, she convinced her husband and three teenage boys—through her use of a PowerPoint—to go one year without buying anything other than what was necessary. Her project raises questions about what is necessary, what we actually need to live meaningful lives in the twenty-first century, and the importance we attach to what we buy, both in healthy and unhealthy ways. At her best, Pratt’s essays explore important questions of gender, class, and privilege, examining the ways aspects of our identities impact what we’re able to buy and own. While Pratt credits an essay by Ann Patchett in 2017 on a similar subject, I was surprised she didn’t mention Judith Levine’s 2007 book Not Buying It, in which Levine takes on the same project. Pratt’s essays are a solid update to Levine, given how the world has changed in fifteen years, especially as the rise of online shopping has made buying unnecessary items even easier, but interacting with one who came before would make her work even stronger.

More or Less: Essays from a Year of No Buying by Susannah Q. Pratt. Eastover Press, February 2022.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.

If you are interested in contributing a Guest Post to “What I’m Reading,” please click this link: NewPages.com Reviewer Guidelines.

Magazine Stand :: EVENT – 51.1

Event literary magazine issue 51.1 cover image

The newest issue of EVENT print publication of poetry and prose features their 2021 Non-Fiction Contest finalists with introductory commentary by Judge David A. Robertson, who writes, “in the end, that’s what writing stories is all about: connecting. You connect with your readers. They connect with something within themselves or to each other.” The winning entries: 1st Place “Penance” by Cayenne Bradley; 2nd Place “All My Love, Alex” by Vicki McLeod; 3rd Place“One Route, Over and Over” by Nicole Boyce. Also included in this issue is Poetry by Matsuki Masutani, Julian Gunn, Russell Thornton, Laurie D. Graham, Vincent McGillivray, Mark O. Goodwin, Zoe Landale, Kate Marshall Flaherty, Dan MacIsaac, J.G. Chayko, and Erin Kirsh; Fiction by Brian Moore, Joel Fishbane, and Adrian Markle; and numerous reviews of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The next deadline for EVENT‘s 2022 Non-Fiction Contest is October 15. More details on their website here.

Book Review :: Contain by Cynthia Hogue

Contain poetry chapbook by Cynthia Hogue published by Tram Editions book cover image

Guest Post by Jami Macarty

In her chapbook Contain, poet Cynthia Hogue responds to artist Morgan O’Hara’s mandala-like series “Nineteen Forms of Containment.” O’Hara made her drawings on the back of The New York Times articles that she read during the height of the pandemic, and Hogue continues that recto-verso interactive throughout her chapbook. The poems on the recto side respond to O’Hara’s drawings and those on the verso side to The Times articles. The correspondences are non-interpretative, various, and layered. In some cases, news stories have been directly quoted to make cento-like poems, and given that the poems stay within the eight- to twelve-line range, the rondeau, triolet, and sonnet forms loom. The variety of poetic containers might be thought of as an analog for the various ways and by what means we each were contained during lockdown—by the coronavirus pandemic—and by social justice-related realities of the “circle wherein we live.” Hogue calls particular attention to first responders, long-haul truckers, food banks, racially motivated murders, and the climate crisis as “a way / of putting word to something / for which there are no words.” By “inward- / turning,” acknowledging the anxiety and isolation of our lives, these tender and humble poems explore the “global operation of containment”—what and who holds us. Which is captivity and which embrace. Beautiful! Hurrah new chapbook publisher, Tram Editions!

Contain by Cynthia Hogue. Tram Editions, June 2022.

Reviewer bio: Jami Macarty is the author of The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona, and three chapbooks, including Mind of Spring (Vallum, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Jami’s writing has been honored by financial support from Arizona Commission on the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and by editors at magazines such as The Capilano Review, Concision Poetry Journal, Interim, Redivider, Vallum, and Volt, where Jami’s poems are forthcoming.

If you are interested in contributing a Guest Post to “What I’m Reading,” please click this link: NewPages.com Reviewer Guidelines.

New Book :: Slight Return

Slight Return poetry by Rebecca Wolff book cover image

Slight Return
Poetry by Rebecca Wolff
Wave Books, October 2022

In her new collection, renowned publisher and poet Rebecca Wolff voyages in the myopia of American consumer consciousness—erotic regard, spiritual FOMO, gentrification, branding—without destination. Labyrinthine in their paradoxical musings and incisive in their witty recriminations, these poems grapple with the hubris and dysmorphia of the soul. Wolff is a poet that is unafraid to be a querent, not only of sages (“I only hang out with people / who are psychic / anything else is a / waste of precious / continuity”) but of language itself (“How else is one to know how to proceed / How is one to make a motion against— / electric word life”) In Slight Return, the journey is infinite and elusive—aspiring in the best way toward a point of diminishing returns and withholding any promise of a comfortable landing.

Magazine Stand :: Driftwood Press – Issue 9.2

Driftwood Press online literary and art magazine Issue 9.2 cover image

Driftwood Press will be switching to an annual anthology structure, so this is the final “biannual” issue for readers to enjoy. The latest short stories “Winged,” “Sore Vexed,” and “The Great Fall” show off the versatility of Driftwood Press like no other issue: readers are moved from a war-torn country to a Norweigian countryside, then to a global pandemic of missing memories. This issue also includes numerous poems investigating the paranormal, gun violence, familial strife, and more.

Driftwood Press also offers readers interviews with most of their contributors, with this issue featuring Chad Gusler, Caroline Bock, Kate Griffin, Daisuke Shen, Samantha Padgett, Emily DeMaio Newton, Danae Younge, Kindall Fredricks, Roben Gow, Danielle Shorr, Laura Goldin, Adriana Stimola, Kelly Gray, Amanda Hartzell, Austin Sanchez-Moran, Daniel Ferreira, and Amanda Ngo and Kendall Krantz, and additional works by Maxime Cousineau-Pérusse, Triin Paja, and Sofia Sears.

Magazine Stand :: Sleet – Summer 2022

Sleet online literary magazine summer 2022 issue logo image

Summer Sleet 2022 is now online! It’s a beautiful, especially moving edition featuring student poets from Thunder Mountain and Yaakoosge Daakahidi high schools in Juneau, Alaska, in a “By Invitation Only” category. David Buck, Nakima Budke, Joseph Cavanaugh, Elizabeth Djajalie, and Savanna Tisher offer readers a view of the Alaskan landscape and what it means to “be from” this vast northern community. Summer Sleet 2022 also hosts Poetry by Samir Atassi, Nancy Botkin, Jack Chielli, E.J. Evans, Marsha Foss, Scott Gardner, Mom’s Dementia, Paul Ilechko, Kathryn Kysar, Debbie Laffin, John Palen, Joan Roger, Dan Sicoli, Suzanne Swanson, Matthew A. Toll, Cody Triplett, Jay Wittenberg; Creative Nonfiction by Mary Casey Diana, Mariana Navarrete, Anthony J. Mohr; Fiction by Vicki Addesso, Scott Gardner, Mike Herndon, Jerry Kivelä; and a fun section called “Irregulars” with unique contributions from Melanie Alberts, Kathryn Kysar, Mary Lewis, Colette Parris, Holly Pelesky, Edwina Shaw, Tee, and T. Wallace. Sleet is free to read online, and Sleet is currently open for submissions until August 31, 2022. All work, all topics welcome with a special theme for the winter edition: TATTOOS. Visit their website for more information.

Book Review :: Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo

Sankofa a novel by Chibundu Onuzo published by Catapult Press book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

Chibundu Onuzo’s novel Sankofa follows Anna Graham—a middle-aged British woman who goes to Bamana, a fictional African country, to find her father—as she tries to understand her mixed-race heritage. Raised by her single white mother, Anna always struggled with her identity, as she knew almost nothing of her Bamanian father. Anna lived a sheltered life with a husband (from whom she is now separated because of his recent affair) who took care of everything for her, so he and their daughter are surprised when she travels to Bamana alone. I have two minor complaints: first, the ending is a bit too neatly tied together in terms of Anna’s understanding of her identity; second, some plot developments similarly seemed too easy to predict, though Anna’s naivete prevents her from seeing what has happened. However, Anna’s grappling with her identity is a useful metaphor for a postcolonial Africa still coming to terms with the multiple strands of cultural history that make the countries what they have become. The novel serves as a healthy reminder to Americans and Europeans that African countries’ histories are more complex than they seem to those on the outside.

Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo. Catapult, October 2021.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.

If you are interested in contributing a Guest Post to “What I’m Reading,” please click this link: NewPages.com Reviewer Guidelines.

July 2022 eLitPak :: Issue 85 of Kaleidoscope Available Now! Accepting Submissions Year-round.

Screenshot of Kaleidoscope's July 2022 eLitPak Flyer
click image to open PDF

In this issue you’ll find nuggets of contentment as authors share stories of disability and the connections they experience with those who travel this journey with them. A pioneer in its field, Kaleidoscope magazine publishes literature and artwork that creatively explore the experience of disability. Submit your best work to us today! Visit our website or view our flyer for more information.

If you’re not a current NewPages Newsletter subscriber, you can access the full July 2022 eLitPak here.

Book Review :: Time/Tempo by Laura Cesarco Eglin

Time/Tempo: The Idea of Breath poetry chapbook by Laura Cesarco Eglin published by Spoonfuls Chapbooks book cover image

Guest Post by Jami Macarty

In her chapbook Time/Tempo: The Idea of Breath, Laura Cesarco Eglin gives her poetic attention to a “tension of simultaneity,” tracking temporal interruptions, disruptions, and variations, and how those time-based movements affect breath within a particular life that withstands a cancer diagnosis and recovery, illnesses and deaths of beloved family members, and “knowing languages” by undertaking writing and translation. These are poems that want “to keep track of leaving”: the departures of words on breaths and “the hours that come and those that stay, those that leave.” Time unfolds “no matter what.” Yet, there is the recognition that “nothing is lost.” That acknowledgment makes room for inquiry: “What is left of me after I’ve left a place, after it has left me.” One response to that query might be: These poems! The impressions and residues left with this reader—“a scar / of what’s no longer.”

Time/Tempo: The Idea of Breath by Laura Cesarco Eglin. Spoonfuls Chapbooks, April 2022.

Reviewer bio: Jami Macarty is the author of The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona, and three chapbooks, including Mind of Spring (Vallum, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Jami’s writing has been honored by financial support from Arizona Commission on the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and by editors at magazines such as The Capilano Review, Concision Poetry Journal, Interim, Redivider, Vallum, and Volt, where Jami’s poems are forthcoming.

If you are interested in contributing a Guest Post to “What I’m Reading,” please click this link: NewPages.com Reviewer Guidelines.

New Book :: The Displaced

The Displaced a novel by Rodrigo Ribera d'Ebre book cover image

The Displaced
Fiction by Rodrigo Ribera d’Ebre
Arte Público Press, June 2022

Mikey and Lurch are worlds apart, even if they’re from the same Mexican neighborhood in West Los Angeles. Mikey just graduated from UCLA and is determined to get out. Lurch, the leader of the Culver City gang, loves the hood—its projects, beat-up apartments, and crackheads—more than his own life. They hook up with a doctor, who is from the same area. He put himself through medical school selling dope and now is back, running a clinic across from the Mar Vista Gardens housing project. All three notice changes. Suddenly there are outsiders everywhere: white people with beards, wearing V-neck sweaters and plaid shirts, running in jogging outfits or riding bikes with helmets, oblivious to the gangbangers. They’re artists, students, developers and entrepreneurs; a plague, pushing people out of their homes. Old people on fixed incomes start getting evicted or foreclosed on and the residents of the projects are being relocated, but some of the locals aren’t going to sit by without a fight. Soon they are fortifying the housing projects and stockpiling assault weapons! This absorbing novel follows a group of people who are determined to save their homes and neighborhood from gentrification, even if it means turning to violence.

July 2022 eLitPak :: Divot Poetry Reading for Issues 5 & 6

Screenshot of Divot Poetry's flyer for the June 2022 eLitPak
click image to open PDF

Rolling submission deadline. 
Divot Poetry wants to read your poems for Issues 5 and 6. We value fresh imagery and startling ways to describe the human condition. See our submission guidelines for full information. We look forward to reading your poetry; you inspire us. View flyer or visit website to learn more.

Not a NewPages Newsletter subscriber yet? View the full July 2022 eLitPak here.

July 2022 eLitPak :: Get These Summer 2022 Titles from Livingston Press

Screenshot of Summer 2022 Titles from Livingston Press flyer for the June 2022 eLitPak
click image to open PDF

New from Livingston Press! Aftershock by George H. Wolfe is a novel about GI’s returning from WWII to about-face and enter colleges under the GI Bill. Zero to Ten: Nursing on the Floor by Patricia Taylor is a story collection about nursing, its joys, frustrations, and heartbreak. See flyer for more details or visit website.

Not a NewPages Newsletter subscriber yet? View the full July 2022 eLitPak here.

Magazine Stand :: Otis Nebula – 17

Otis Nebula online literary magazine Issue 17 cover image

Otis Nebula Editor Andrea Perkins writes that the newest issue (#17) “features the work of thirteen writers ranging from the deeply established to one who is debuting in our ‘pages.’ We also invited our contributors to participate in the creation of an ‘otis,’ which is a linked poem form generated by a simple prompt.” Eleven contributors collaborated, “donating” seed words for each other, the editors chipping in, so that each writer had twelve words to incorporate. Otis Nebula provides full guidelines for this form on their site here. Otis Nebula is a digital magazine with all issues available for free online. Contributors to Issue 17 include Peter Cole Friedman, Nathaniel Kennon Perkins, J.D. Nelson, Cameron Morse, Andrew Haley, Maria Berardi, Jennifer Ruth Jackson, Ken Meisel, Martine van Bijlert, Rebecca Pyle, Mark DeCarteret, Julia Wendell, and Chey Chesser.

July 2022 eLitPak :: 2023 Off the Grid Poetry Prize

Grid Books 2023 Off the Grid Poetry Prize Flyer

Deadline: August 31, 2022
The Off the Grid Poetry Prize recognizes the work of older poets, highlighting important contemporary voices in American poetry. Each year a winner is awarded $1,000 and publication. Contest runs through August 31, 2022. Garrett Hongo will judge. Find full guidelines here or view flyer for more information.

Not a NewPages Newsletter subscriber yet? View the full July 2022 eLitPak here.