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!
Publishing two issues of Allegro Poetry Magazine a year, Editor Sally Long hasn’t missed a beat since 2014. Each online issue is free to read and features a fine selection of works that are not longer than 40 lines each. Long introduces Issue 29: “When I set the theme of ‘Freedom’ I had in mind an expression of solidarity with the poets and people of Ukraine and others around the world whose freedom is threatened by war and various forms of oppression. I’m pleased that the theme captured the imagination of so many poets. I’m especially delighted to be welcoming poets from Ukraine whose works are featured in this edition. I hope you enjoy reading the variety of interpretations of freedom represented in Issue 29.”
Authors who made this cut this issue include Dee Allen, Rupa Anand, Byron Beynon, Fiona Cartwright, David Chorlton, Craig Dobson, Philip Dunkerley, Tim Dwyer, Paul Fenn, S.C. Flynn, Cole Henry Forster, Jeff Gallagher, Rebecca Gethin, Marcello Giovanelli, Amlanjyoti Goswami, Robin Helweg-Larsen, Eve Jackson, Vyacheslav Konoval, Steve Lang, Mary Mulholland, Eira Needham, Robert Nisbet, Jon Plunkett, Marc Isaac Potter, Mykyta Ryzhykh, Finola Scott, Louise Warren, and Gareth Writer-Davies.
The next submission window is December 1-January 31 for the March 23 edition, which is a general issue with no set theme.
Able Muse: A Review of Poetry Prose and Art has announced the winners of the Write Prize for Poetry and Fiction, judged anonymously throughout by the Able Muse Contest Committee and the final judges, Dennis Must for fiction, and Aaron Poochigian or poetry. The winning writer and the winning poet each receive a $500 prize.
FICTION WINNER: Lorna Brown – “Looking for Anna”
Here is what Dennis Must has to say about Lorna Brown’s winning story: “‘Fiction is the art form of human yearning . . . absolutely essential to any work of fictional narrative art—a character who yearns. And that is not the same as a character who simply has problems . . .’—Robert Olen Butler. Lorna Brown’s ‘Looking For Anna’ embodies the lifeblood of those stories that endure in our memory stream long after they have been read.”
POETRY WINNER: Brian Brodeur [pictured] – “On Mistaking a Stranger for a Dead Friend”
Here is what Aaron Poochigian has to say about Brian Brodeur’s winning poem: “‘On Mistaking a Stranger for a Dead Friend’ has it all—the sounds, the psychology (a whole theory of memory) and, most important of all, playfulness even when the subject is tragic. Bird, riverbank, and a random encounter all blend into a perfect representation of a human mind at work. Bravo!”
Fictive Dream is an online magazine for well-crafted and compelling short stories “that give an insight into the human condition.” Publishing several features on a rolling basis monthly, it’s a good idea to sign up for their email notifications so you never miss out on what’s new. Recent additions include “House Porn” by Francesca Leader, “Hangar Straight” by Emily Macdonald, “Now We Are Things” by Joanna Theiss, “The Vocabulary Builder of Utopia Gardens” by Roberta Beary, “Divine Intervention” by Mary Carroll Moore, “Vivana’s Aunt” by Gay Degani, as well as stories by Melissa Llanes Brownlee, Chris Haven, DS Levy, Mary Grimm, Sara Dobbie, Michelle Panik, Kerry Hadley-Pryce, and Gary Fincke. Each story is accompanied by an original artwork or photo.
Murder in Times Square Fiction by William Baer Many Words Press, February 2023
Murder in Times Square, a Deirdre Mystery, initiates a new series by the author of the popular Jack Colt mystery series: When a young woman in a red designer dress falls twenty-five stories from the roof of Times Square One, the well-known New York fashion model known as Deirdre resolves to unravel the mystery. Capable and determined, Deirdre is relentless in her drive to unravel the mystery and find justice for the victim, while protecting those she loves from looming threats. Baer, who has worked in New York City’s fashion district, showcases not only his depth of knowledge of the fashion industry but also of New York City and its landmarks and history. He weaves an intricate, fast-paced, and spellbinding narrative that takes us through New York City, Atlantic City, the Jersey Shore, and the Caribbean. In Murder in Times Square, Baer once again proves he is a master of suspense and intrigue. Many Words Press is an imprint of Able Muse Press.
The newest issue of Jewish Fiction .net is the Rosh Hashana issue, which includes 18 stories originally written in Czech, Yiddish, Hebrew, and English – and in honor of the upcoming holidays, this new issue features no less than 5 stories translated from Hebrew. This brings to 525 the number of works published by Jewish Fiction .net, that were either written in English or translated from 18 languages. Readers can find works by Eli Amir, Shira Gorshman, Jakuba Katalpa, Mayan Rogel, Yishai Sarid, Dorit Shiloh, Steve Stern, and many more. All available to read free online.
From a dentist’s office in San Francisco to the caves of the Phong Nha Karst, Tammy Nguyen’s O sounds the depths of personal, mineral, and geopolitical histories of Vietnam. In this many-threaded narrative, a wind that carved mountains whistles through a young girl’s teeth. The electric green of a plastic forest glints off of glazed porcelain. The shape of a bowl becomes the mouth of a cave. What emerges is a story without a center: an anti-allegory that finds its meaning in echoes and refracted light, a book stitched together by the O woven through the work as its visual spine and sonic refrain. Tammy Nguyen is a multimedia artist and writer whose work spans painting, drawing, printmaking, and publishing. Intersecting geopolitical realities with fiction, her practice addresses lesser-known histories through a blend of myth and visual narrative. She is the founder of Passenger Pigeon Press, an independent press that joins the work of scientists, journalists, creative writers, and artists to create politically nuanced and cross-disciplinary projects. Ngueyn is Assistant Professor of Art at Wesleyan University.
Application Deadline: January 15 UNC Greensboro’s MFA is a two-year residency program with fully funded assistantships and stipends. UNCG offers courses in poetry, fiction, publishing, and creative nonfiction, plus teaching opportunities and editorial work for The Greensboro Review. Students work closely with faculty in one-on-one tutorials and develop their craft in a lifelong community of writers. Note our new December 15th priority consideration deadline! Visit our website and view our flyer to learn more.
Green Burial Poetry by Derek Graf Elixir Press, January 2023
Winner of the Elixir Press 2021 Antivenom Poetry Award, Judge Kirun Kapur had this to say: “Lush and frantic, Green Burial submerges us in a dazzling, apocalyptic pastoral. Here we find a brother’s funeral and a lover’s last drink on the way to rehab as we travel a dreamscape of birds, trash, down-on-their-luck towns, motels and oil derricks. ‘A body falls / through the galaxies / inside an opal,’ the poet writes. And so, we do. In Graf’s hands the end of the world is both grief-stricken and saturated with an exhilarating, hallucinatory zeal.” Derek Graf was born in Tampa, FL. He completed his MFA at Oklahoma State University and his PhD at the University of Kansas. He currently lives in New York City. Green Burial is his first collection.
Madville Publishing currently has two open calls for submissions, The Second Annual Arthur Smith Poetry Prize for a full length poetry collection closes September 30, and the Sticks & Bricks: Stories from the Wrong Side of Town Anthology closes November 30, 2022. Visit our site and view our flyer for more information.
Deadline: October 1 The annual Permafrost Book Prize is open for submissions. Sponsored by Permafrost, the northernmost literary magazine in the U.S., the prize is awarded in alternate years in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. In 2022, the prize will be awarded for nonfiction. Judge: Joy Castro. The winner of the contest will receive $1,000 and publication by the University of Alaska Press. Visit our website or view our flyer to learn more.
Registration Deadline: October 15, 2022 Featuring headliners Carmen Agra Deedy, Sarah “Juba” Addison and local legend, Cisco Guevara at the main show on 10/15/22 at 7pm at the TCA, Taos, NM. Other events include community storytelling, storyswap, storytelling workshop, and a children’s performance at an elementary school. Come, tell a story, hear a story, laugh, cry and be entertained. FMI, go to our online schedule or call SOMOS, 575-758-0081. View flyer to learn more.
The Todos Santos Writers Workshop is thrilled to announce our 10th anniversary session, JANUARY 28 – FEBRUARY 5. Join us for a week of workshops, craft talks, fiestas, and camaraderie in our pueblo magico by the sea. Faculty: Christopher Merrill, Leigh Newman, Jeanne McCulloch, Karen Karbo, and Rex Weiner. Open to writers in all genres and at all levels. For more information and to register, please go to our website. Register with early bird discount before October 15. View flyer to learn more.
Submit published or unpublished poems to the 20th annual Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers and co-sponsored by Duotrope. We will award $3,000 for the best poem in any style and $3,000 for the best poem that rhymes or has a traditional style. The top 12 poems will be published online. Final judge: S. Mei Sheng Frazier. Deadline: September 30. Fee: $20 for 1-3 poems. View flyer to learn more.
With more mild weather, it’s definitely a good time to take a blanket, a light sweater, a cup of coffee or tea and heat outside with your notebook and pen to write and edit. Or grab your laptop and get working on your submission goals.
Want to get alerts for new opportunities sent directly to your inbox every week 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! You’ll also get our monthly eLitPak (view September’s here) along with the occasional promotional emails from advertisers.
Writing While Parenting Essays by Ben Berman Able Muse Press, March 2023
Ben Berman’s Writing While Parenting explores what it means to pursue one’s creative passions while also raising a family, how having children can make us more vulnerable and imaginative as artists. Given how hectic parenting is, it is possible to balance a career and family let alone find two minutes to pee without someone tugging your leg and asking to watch you make bubbles? How do we possibly find the time or energy to be creative? Spanning five years, these essays range from humorous beginnings (the seven-year-old daughter complaining that she just got kicked in the weenie) to more serious moments (finding two swastikas etched into the slide at the playground, a few blocks down the street from the family home). No matter the genesis, each piece examines the overlaps and dissonance between the creative life and the procreative one. This is a witty, inspired, and illuminating collection for the writer and/or the parent.
While Gabrielle Zevin’s title might initially make readers think of Shakespeare, she sets her story in the 1990s and 2000s video game culture. Her title refers to the ability to start over in games, to continue playing the game until one figures out how to win. Life, though, doesn’t present that same opportunity, and, while lifelong friends Sam and Sadie are still relatively young at the end of the novel, they have come to the clear realization that they are mortal. They are unable to start over during their experiences of loss, which, at times, paralyzes them; their differing approaches to those occurances often leads to the conflict between them. Sam and Sadie recognize each other’s gifts, but they also know each other better than most spouses, so they also see the other’s shortcomings. They thus often seem Shakespearean, star-crossed lovers who come together to create games, then drift apart, often over miscommunication and misunderstandings. Zevin’s novel explores creative friendships and the conflicts that come with them, but, more importantly, she creates characters one wants to spend time with, even when they are at their most frustrating. In other words, she creates characters who behave like humans, for better and worse.
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/.
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How Much? New and Selected Poems Poetry by Jerome Sala NYQ Books, November 2022
How Much? New and Selected Poems by Jerome Sala offers a panoramic view of a poet whose work has often been a cult-pleasure until now. Spanning Sala’s early years as a punk performance poet in Chicago to his career as a copywriter/Creative Director in New York City, these poems offer satiric insights from the “belly of the beast” of commercial and pop culture. Sala’s books of poetry include cult classics such as I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent, The Trip, Raw Deal, Look Slimmer Instantly, Prom Night (a collaboration with artist Tamara Gonzales), The Cheapskates, and Corporations Are People, Too! His poetry and criticism have appeared widely. Before moving to New York City in the 80s, Sala and his spouse, poet Elaine Equi, did numerous readings together, helping to create Chicago’s lively performance poetry scene. He has a PhD in American Studies from New York University.
Girl Flees Circus, the newest release by C. W. Smith, follows nineteen-year-old aviatrix Katie Burke after she crash lands her biplane on the only street in No Name, New Mexico. Her arrival changes her life and the lives of everyone around her. As Katie and her craft need repair, locals take her in and help her, including a schoolteacher who longs for Katie’s friendship, an interracial couple who own the town’s diner, a handsome young mechanic who lives in a teepee, and a shell-shocked veteran of World War I. As her story unfolds, Katie’s mysteries deepen—revealing shocking secrets, a scandalous past, and a future in true peril. Girl Flees Circus takes flight the moment Katie crashes to earth, promising a journey into the lives of a glamorous, redheaded stranger and the people she will change forever.
In conversation with Jonathan Bate about Stephan Fry’s book The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within and the value of poetic form, Stephan Fry encouraged writers to “Just try out writing in that form. I think people will amaze themselves when they do that.” For writers willing to explore new forms and challenge their development of craft, and for readers who appreciate seeing the variety of poetic expertise that a single form can produce, Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor is your next stop.
Developed in August 2020, the cadralor is a portmanteau of the names of the two co-creators of this poetic form, Christopher Cadra and Lori Howe. The rules of the form are explained on Gleam’s website, but in brief, this is a five-stanza poem with each stanza containing a consistent number of lines, up to ten, and each stanza able to stand alone as a complete poem. It cannot be narrative, though the stanzas should be contextually related. They must be imagist, vivid poems without cliché that are “a feast for the senses.” The fifth stanza acts as the crucible “illuminating the gleaming thread (Thus, the ‘gleam’ in the name.) that runs through the entire poem,” pulling the poem “into a coherence as a kind of love poem,” and answering the compelling question, “for what do you yearn?” The poem does not need to be a traditional love poem, as the editors explain, “Yearning takes many forms,” but it is characteristic that a “successful cadralor end on a note of hope rather than hopelessness.”
Poets ready to tackle the form can expect their work to be well received by seasoned writers who want to engage the community in a supportive way. Editor in Chief Lori Howe is author of two books of poetry, Cloudshade, Poems of the High Plains, and Voices at Twilight, was Executive Editor of Blood, Water, Wind, and Stone: An Anthology of Wyoming Writers, and formerly Editor in Chief of Clerestory: Poems of the Mountain West, and Open Window Review. She holds an MFA in Poetry from University of Wyoming, where she is also Professor. Founding Editor, Christopher Cadra is a poet/writer whose work has appeared in The Cimarron Review and elsewhere. His criticism has appeared in Basalt and a journal he edited, The Literati Quarterly.
Publishing two to three issues per year, Gleam accepts submissions via email, and, as Howe points out, “We offer a great deal of feedback on submissions, and often offer ‘revise and resubmit’ options, which we believe is somewhat rare among poetry journals. We do this because the form is both new and especially challenging to embody. We like to encourage poets to keep working on cadralor until they get there.”
There is a growing list of contributors whose cadralor have arrived to provide readers “the finest examples of this form anywhere in the world,” including Louise Barden, Rachel Barton, Robert Beveridge, Susan Cole, Kate Copeland, Jane Dougherty:, Scott Ferry, Malcolm Glass, Joanna Grisham, Georgia Hertz, Marie Marchand, Bob McAfee, Julia Paul, Charlotte Porter, Nick Reeves, Michelle Rochniak, Anastasia Vassos, Sherre Vernon, Sterling Warner, Ingrid Wilson, and Jonathan Yungkans.
In starting this new form as well as taking it onto a public platform, Howe shares, “My greatest joy is in reading submissions of cadralor from all over the world and discovering that this form is being taught in MFA poetry workshops around the country.”
As Cadra and Howe state, Gleam is THE flagship journal for the new poetic form, the cadralor, and the plan is for it to continue to hold that well-deserved place in our literary community.
With its 46th and newest issue, Wordrunner eChapbooks‘ Summer 2022, The Satisfaction of Longing by Victoria Melekian, the number of fiction collections published in their free, online or epub format is 24. Add to this 5 memoirs, 5 poetry collections, and 12 anthologies, and visitors will find plenty to keep their reading needs satisfied, indeed!
Melekian’s stories are considered “emotionally rich and ethically complicated. . . suffused in longing and loss.” The collection of seven stories opens with the chance encounter of a woman and man who had once endured unbearable tragedy. A fatherless woman with an imprisoned husband has a mysterious benefactor. Two sisters conflict over what to do with their father’s ashes. In the final story, a woman and her son flee her estranged husband, who never wanted children.
This collection may be read free online but can also be purchased as an ebook edition ($2.99) from Amazon or Smashwords with authors receiving 50% of all royalties. ALL Wordrunner Authors are paid, and this also supports an indie press!
Later this year, Wordrunner will be publishing their 25th fiction collection, Death in the Cathedral by Malcolm Dixon. Look for it in December.
The theme for the Spring 2023 issue will be announced by December and submissions open January 1 through February 28, 2023. Guidelines may be found here.
You don’t need to live in New York to take advantage of the many free events offered by the Poetry Foundation Library. Their calendar is peppered with community activities that include in-person with a virtual option as well as virtual-only events. Events like a Book Club with small group discussion online, moderated by library staff, with all participants residing in the U.S. offered a complimentary copy of the book; Forms & Features, which is billed as “part discussion, part poetry workshop,” online monthly series; and numerous Readings and Lectures, Screenings, and Performances.
The two upcoming Book Clubs are All the Blood Involved in Love by Maya Marshall [pictured] on September 30 and Somebody Else Sold the World by Adrian Matejka on October 21. Participants are welcome to sign up for one but not both club events. Closed captioning is available via Google Meet and an ASL interpreter will be provided upon request.
From its founding in 1958, december has remained true to its founders’ declaration, “We are humanists…far more concerned with people than dogmatic critical or aesthetic attitudes.” And showing this by publishing cutting-edge fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and art. Now on the cutting edge in print as well as online, december readers will find much to entertain: twice a year print journal, contests, online extras including contributor interviews, “From the Vault,” and “Poetry With Purpose.”
This newest print edition features Poetry by Sean Cho A., P. Hodges Adams, Jennifer Atkinson, Jessica Barksdale, Brenda Beardsley, John Blair, Evana Bodiker, Lisa Cantwell, Christian J. Collier, Sally Lipton Derringer, Daniel Donaghy, Dagne Forrest, Rebecca Foust, Ariel Friedman, Karen Holman, Romana Iorga, Judy Kaber, Susanna Lang, Jim McGarrah, Melissa McKinstry, Karen McPherson, Linda Michel-Cassidy, Michael Montlack, Kristina Moriconi, Barbara Mossberg, Alicia Rebecca Myers, David Oates, Lizzy Peterson, David Anthony Sam, Sarah Sousa, Paula Stacey, Richard Stimac, Anne Dyer Stuart, Shelly Reed Thieman, Alden Wallace, John Sibley Williams, Ariana Yeatts-Lonske; Fiction by Annelise Hatjakes, Michelle C. McAdams, John Paul Scotto, Timothy Wojcik; Nonfiction by Kierstin Bridger, Jennifer Dupree, Erin Langner, Mark Liebenow, Clancy Tripp; Art by David Humphrey; Robert Lowes Haiku Society: An Interview with Ben Gaa; Cover art by Joan Hall.
A homeless man is mysteriously abducted. A journal is left on the edge of a subway platform, filled with stories about a world that doesn’t exist. Not far from here a scientist is murdered in cold blood. The only clues are his burned-down lab. A magnetically propelled motorcycle, and a man walking around New York City with the last living falcon on the planet. Imagine a world where your every thought, your every move, is filtered through The Central Lens Network. Now imagine being a twelve-year-old boy and discovering a special pair of lenses that allow you to access this network undetected. This is exactly what happens to Matthew Glen the day his father is murdered then two years later mysteriously appears back in his life. In a style that echoes back to the Dark Age of Comics when graphic novels were coming into an art form of their own, Myopia merges science fiction with noir steampunk into a thrilling alternative reality, where government and big business use entertainment devices to cover up a new authoritarian landscape.
Write Out (#writeout) is a free two-week celebration of writing, making, and sharing inspired by the great outdoors. It is a public invitation to get out and create that is supported with a series of online activities, made especially for educators, students, and families, to explore national parks and other public spaces. The goal is to connect and learn through place-based writing and sharing using the common hashtag #writeout.
This year’s Write Out is STEAM-Powered (STEAM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) and will run October 9-23, 2022. To support this theme, Write Out will be organized around the use of notebooks and journals that inspire observing, describing and annotating just like STEAM professionals do!
Write Out encourages all participants to get outdoors, write, create, reflect, share, and connect with one another on and offline. Your time commitment and level of participation in Write Out is flexible; you can use any of the content created in your own way, at your own pace, for and with your own community—you are also welcome to create your own!
Sign up now to receive information to support your planning and participation: https://writeout.nwp.org.
Produced four times a year by Shanti Arts, Still Point Arts Quarterly is a truly beautiful and engaging art and literary journal. Each issue focuses on a theme and features historical and contemporary art, fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, “Intended for artists, nature lovers, seekers, and enthusiasts of all types.” The publication is free to download from their website, but this is one journal readers will appreciate having in full-color print. When I look at the online version, it is impressive, but when I hold that copy in my hands, it’s truly immersive. Fitting, because the newest issue is themed “Immersed in Books.” Some featured works include Kathryn DeZure “Turning Fifty with Virgina Woolf,” Megan L. Steusloff “The Books I’ve Read,” Zachary Nelson “A Book is the Fastest Way to Travel,” Terry Barr “Greyhound Seats,” Jane Hertestein “Books as Signposts in Our Life,” Rosalie Sanara Petrouske “The Frangrance of Words,” and Wally Swist “Sam Murry, Bookseller,” as well as many others. Featured art and artists include Helen S. Geld, Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord, and numerous book-related archival artworks and photographs. If you have ANY booklovers in your lives (including yourself), you’re going to want to get a copy of this in their hands (or direct them to the Still Point website for the free download).
Essentially Essays by Richard Terrill Holy Cow! Press, October 2022
From Minnesotan author and jazz musician, Richard Terrill’s Essentially is an essay collection that explores what is most essential to him, from the difficult lives of jazz musicians, to trout fishing, to the shifting population and mores of suburbia. “Here’s the thing,” Terrill writes. “There’s always the thing, isn’t there, and most often, not just one?” Terrill asks through this series of wide-ranging, funny, and sometimes gut-punchingly vulnerable essays, What is essential? Maybe trout fishing, the music of Bill Evans, or the whys of dog ownership. Maybe Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story, WeChat messaging app, a musician’s early hearing loss, and spying on the neighbors. Or maybe the coming apocalypse, almost getting lost in the woods, trespassing, town clean-up days, and the reason Miles Davis never listened to his own recordings. At times self-effacing and funny, at times outspoken and provocative, Terrill fixes a clear eye on the contradictions in our present moment. “We’re at that point in a journey where you know where you’re going, but you don’t know where you are,” he writes. “The destination should come anytime now.”
In My Secret Place, Max Talley deftly mixes humor with pathos with biting social commentary in seventeen short stories, of legendary jazz musicians meeting for a recording session in 1966, of a painter dealing with the art market crash in downtown Manhattan, of a woman’s surreal walk home in Southern California after another day as a house cleaner, about a mid-’70s bar band achieving one-hit-wonder status, and a middle-aged wife dreaming of her imperious Long Island youth. Talley describes musicians and artists, underdogs and eccentrics; secret heroes of their own lives. People driven by eccentric quests that bewilder friends and family. Apartment managers, stoned teenagers, and pop culture collectors, all trying to live in and make sense of a modern world that may have already left them behind. Talley’s first novel, Yesterday We Forget Tomorrow, debuted in 2014, and his crime thriller, Santa Fe Psychosis, was published by Dark Edge Press in spring 2022. He teaches a writing workshop at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and at Santa Fe Workshops. More at www.maxdevoetalley.com.
Based out of the University of Tulsa, Nimrod International Journal Spring/Summer 2022 is appropriately themed, “What Now? The Future We Make.” Edited by Eilis O’Neal, this volume includes works by Amelia L. Williams, Lorna Crozier, Krystyna Dabrowska, Lauren Camp, Cristina J. Baptista, Tim Raymond, Tennessee Hill, Ginny Threefoot, Susan Azar Porterfield, Kailey Tedesco, Hannah Smith, Oksana Maksymchuk, Scott Lowery, Joel Peckham, Jacqueline Guidry, Kim Garcia, David Troupes, Lucyna Prostko, Suzanne Manizza Roszak, Stephanie Niu, Fatima Jafar, Dante Novario, Geoff Anderson, Katherine Fallon, Charles Grosel, Lauren Coggins, Molly Sutton Kiefer, Sarah Wetzel, N.Y. Ling, Crystal Cox, Amy Wang, Jayden A. McClam, Matthew Olive, Cady Favazzo, Lisa Wartenberg, and Erin Evans.
Music Gigs Gone Wrong Edited by Richard Peabody and Gerry LaFemina Paycock Press, September 2022
File this one under Bad Luck/Fate/Music Musician: Someone who puts $5000 worth of gear into a $500 car to drive 100 miles to a $50 gig . . . What could possibly go wrong? Edited by Gargoyle Magazine‘s Richard Peabody and writer/musician Gerry LaFemina, Music Gigs Gone Wrong gathers 74 musicians and vocalists to share exactly what can happen, whether the music be punk, rock, folk, jazz, funk, you name it. Contributing writer Michael Gentile, SpliceToday, writes “Music Gigs Gone Wrong is the ultimate ‘I’m with the band’ backstage pass. Here’s a diverse look at a variety of live music disasters told firsthand. Whether it’s a half-empty biker bar or a packed 3,400-seat auditorium— turn on the house lights—you’ll hear about the people, dates and places from big cities to the middle of nowhere. The musicians will sing in your ear about the ordeals they had to go through. Tell me more, I love reading rattling rants and sneering inner thoughts. This grand and wonderful collection appeals to all, especially band members and admirers. Without reservation, swallow Music Gigs Gone Bad hook line and sinker. Go hang out with an enjoyable read; one that draws you in deeper and deeper, guiding visions that beckon you to ride away.”
Dust off the CD player, it’s time for Gargoyle‘s audio issue (#76). “Hunted and gathered” by editor Richard Peabody, the line-up features music and spoken word by Amanda Newell, Barbara Ungar, Blair Ewing, Bob Hate/Chet Hix, Bone People, Carmen Calatayud, The Crooked Angels, Dave Essinger, David Taylor Nielsen, Eugenie Bisulco, Gerry LaFemina and the Downstrokes, Henry Crawford, John King, Knuckleberry Finn, M. Scott Douglass, Maryann Hannan, Nancy Mitchell & The Chris English Band, Randi Ward, Sally Toner, Sarah Browning, Stephen Scott Whitaker, and Tim Wendel.
Belly to the Brutal by Jennifer Givhan sings a corrido of the love between mothers and daughters, confronting the learned complicity with patriarchal violence passed down from generation to generation. Givhan’s poetry edges into the borderlands, touching the realm of chora—humming, screaming, rhythm—transporting the words outside of patriarchal and racist constructs. Drawing from curanderisma and a revived wave of feminist brujería, Givhan creates a healing space for Brown women and mothers. Each poem finds its own form, interweaving beauty and devastation to create a pathway out of the systems that have for too long oppressed women. The poems dwell in the thick language of “motherfear,” “where love grows too / in the shining center of the wound.” This poetry of invocation moves toward a transformation of violence that is ultimately redemptive. Jennifer Givhan (Albuquerque, NM) is an award-winning Mexican-American poet and novelist whose family has ancestral ties to the Indigenous peoples of New Mexico and Texas.
It’s the first full week of September. Weather in Michigan can’t make up its mind if it wants to be fall or cling on to summer. This means its a great time to grab a cup of coffee, tea, or cocoa in the morning and get to writing, editing, and submitting while you can still catch a break and enjoy some great weather (hopefully) in the afternoon.
Want to get alerts for new opportunities sent directly to your inbox every week instead of waiting for our Friday 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! You’ll also get our monthly eLitPak (view August’s here) along with the occasional promotional emails from advertisers.
Readers will love to luxuriate in this generously sized 9″x9″ print South Dakota Review (with beautiful cream-colored pages). Volume 56, Number 3 features poetry by Jeffrey Bean, Claudia Buckholts, Holli Carrell, Mary Cisper, Gillian Cummings, Marlon Hacla (translated by Kristine Ong Muslim), Jacob Griffin Hall, Twyla M. Hansen, Callia Liang, Kevin McLellan, Laurie Saurborn, Tyler Smith, Kevin West, John Sibley Williams, Keith Woodruff, and Adrena Zawinski; short fiction by Joseph Biancalana; nonfiction by Sharon Goldberg; an epistolary essay by John Yohe; and a scholarly experimental essay by Jessica Hudson.
underbelly is a unique online publication with the goal “to bring to the surface what we often strive to make invisible: the joyful, arduous, miraculous, by turns tender and brutal process of shepherding a poem from its primal state to its final state.” Since 2018, Co-founders Maya Marshall and Marty McConnell have been inviting writers to share poems and micro-essays – not just in their final form, but also with the veil lifted “to undo the notion that poems always or even usually arrive perfect and whole from the genius mind of the writer.” Each contributor offers the “backstory” of the work along with one or more drafts side-by-side with the final version.
Again, the founders say, the goal is to satisfy the desire to “know how [the poem] came to be. In workshops and classrooms, we analyze the end product, often hazarding guesses about how a poem began or what forms it may have taken along the way.” Being able to see the writing process – or at least portions of it – is a way “to reassure ourselves and others who seek to improve their craft or understanding that the magic of writing and revision is a practical magic — one that can be taught, practiced, and hopefully maybe possibly even someday mastered.”
The Tree Stand Stories by Jay Atkinson Livingston Press, October 2022
Jay Atkinson’s The Tree Stand presents short stories of hardscrabble living and crushing blows, shot through with seams of love and hope. Readers will find the settings convincing and mesmerizing; the characters heartwarming and heartbreaking. Along with the title story, the 300-page collection includes “Bergeron Framing & Remodeling,” “Lowell Boulevard,” “High Pine Acres,” “Java Man,” “Ellie’s Diamonds,” and “Hoot.” Atkinson is a professor of writing at Boston University and has an extensive sports background: he has done winter exercises with the US Marines, run with bulls in Pamplona, and played rugby in Belfast during “The Troubles” of the 1980s. He’s written two novels, a story collection, and five narrative nonfiction books, and received the 2016 Massachusetts Book Award Honors in Nonfiction, among other publications and awards. An excerpt and pre-order information can be found Livingston Press.
Publishing stories “of approximately 50 words” in print since 2009, Blink-Ink has persevered through the pandemic – thanks to continued subscriber support – and plans to forge ahead despite the rising costs of print. The publication offers four “seasonal” issues per year, but also provides bonus joy to subscribers by including publications from their sister imprint, The Mambo Academy of Kitty Wang at least twice a year, as well as other “goodies and surprises.” The newest edition of Blink-Ink is themed “Storm” and features works from thirty contributors in a nifty 4.25″x5.5″ package. “Country Roads” is the newest theme, with submissions open until October 15.
Good Naked: How to Write More, Write Better, and Be Happier Revised and Expanded Edition by Joni B. Cole University of New Mexico Press, September 2022
In this revised and updated edition of Good Naked: How to Write More, Write Better, and Be Happier, once again, Joni B. Cole’s humor and wisdom shine through as she debunks long-held misconceptions of how we’re supposed to write, replacing them with advice that works. Feeling overwhelmed? Having trouble getting started or staying motivated? In this edition, Cole offers more stories, strategies, tips on craft, and exercises to serve new and seasoned writers from the first draft to the final edit. Writers will even find help making peace with rejection. Admirers as well as newcomers to Cole’s work appreciate her uniquely cheerful approach, time tested to foster creativity and productivity. Keeping this generous and essential guide close by will provide a jump start to inspiration and a daily reminder of the meaning, humor, and happiness that can be discovered in your own writing life.
Clover + Bee Magazine is – can I just say this? – a GORGEOUS digital publication of fictional prose (in all genres), narrative nonfiction, poetry, and visual art. Clover + Bee Magazine has been publishing at a rate of 3-4 issues per year, with “no set-in-stone schedule as of yet,” according to Editors Alex Campbell and Cara Copeland.
At its inception, Campbell and Copeland say they found themselves at “the perfect intersection of our own creative journeys, our places within our respective online literary and art communities, and our desire to create a platform for emerging and established creators to showcase their work. A literary and visual art magazine just made sense as something that we could do to contribute to the larger creative ecosystem.”
Publishing in an open-access online format since 2019, River Heron Review is true to its namesake in being a sophisticatedly stylish journal. This newest issue features the work of Thomas McGuire, winner of the 2022 River Heron Poetry Prize selected by Deshawn McKinney. Finalists whose works are also included: Sarah Carey, Tresha Faye Haefner, Steve Nolan, and Sal Ragen. Contributors’ works fill out the rest of this installment, including Julie Cooper-Fratrik, Stephanie McConnell, Sylvia Karman, Jennifer Bullis, Grant Clauser, Beth Oast Williams, Michael Young, Eve Rosenbaum, Stephanie Yue Duhem, Suzanne Honda, Grant Chemidlin, Carol Sadtler, Richard Foerster, Amy Beth Sisson, Matt Thomas, Lisa Marie Oliver, Charity Everitt, Andrea McLaughlin, Gloria Monaghan, Devon Balwit, Ken Turner, Daniel Rabuzzi, Cheryl Martone, Ale de Luis, and Frank Paino. General Submissions and The River Heron Editors’ Prize opened on September 1 until November 30. Additional submissions and contest period deadlines can be found on the River Heron Reviewwebsite.
Join award-winning poet, editor, and writing coach John Sibley Williams this fall for virtual Caesura Poetry Workshops. These are hosted via Zoom. Upcoming classes include Writing Evocative Love Poems (September 17), Elegy: Writing Poems of Loss (October 2 & 9), two group critique classes (Fridays in October, Sundays in November), and more.
The Most Excellent Immigrant Stories by Mark Budman Livingston Press, November 2022
“There is a secret that we immigrants never share with the natives: a good immigrant adapts to a new country, while a most excellent immigrant makes the new country better.” The 22 stories in this newest collection by Mark Budman take readers on a ride from magic realism to hardcore realism to real magic. A certified interpreter of dreams and afflictions searches for treasure buried in a set of antique pillows. An interstellar alien in disguise guards the children at play. A prescription cream stops the dream thieves. A mass killer bares his soul, if he has any. The secret of eternal youth is for sale. And twelve potentially treasure-filled pillows float throughout, befuddling and entrancing their successive owners and seekers.
I recently heard from Matthew Johnson, managing editor of Portrait of New England online literary journal, that the publication was coming back from hiatus. Truth be told: we see a lot of magazines go on “hiatus” never to be heard from again, so I took this opportunity to talk with Matthew and his colleagues about what happened and how they bounced back. Portrait of New England publishes poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction from writers who are residents, former residents, or have connections (e.g., attended college in the region) to New England.
Origin Story and Hiatus
Matthew: “The original team for Portrait of New England was Brett Murphy Hunt, Jon Bishop, and Smrithi Eswar, who are all based in Massachusetts. They published the first issue of the magazine in 2019, of which I was originally a part of, as they accepted two of my poems.”
I am originally from New Rochelle, NY, but spent the majority of my childhood in Stratford, Connecticut, of which I have fond memories. I moved down to North Carolina in high school, and outside of a year stint in upstate New York as a sports journalist and editor after my undergrad, I’ve been based in North Carolina for close to 13 years now. Though I have not lived in New England for many years, I’ve visited Connecticut since moving to North Carolina, and it has always been a special place for me.”
Brett: “Basically, the idea of a literary magazine is something we fully support, but it’s incredibly labor-intensive! The amount of hours spent setting everything up compounded with the reading and vetting of submissions, and I think it was hard to think about the next issue. I personally own two businesses and teach at two universities, so my day-to-day is already task-saturated. Plus, I think we were incredibly proud of the first one, so trying to top that felt impossible! Nevertheless, we kept our website active because we definitely had the idea to continue SOMEDAY.”
Jon: “I second everything Brett said! This was a passion project, but it was one that was becoming a full-time thing, and because of our schedules, we found it hard to think about what was next. We sort of put everything into issue one.”
A project of EastOver Press, Cutleaf publishes a new online issue twice each month and one print annual. Readers can subscribe to receive issue updates with an overview of content, making for a nice way to start the week twice a month. For contributors, Cutleaf welcomes unsolicited poetry, short stories, essays, and other nonfiction from established and emerging writers. The editors read and respond to manuscripts on a rolling basis in an effort to respond to every submission in a timely manner. Some recent contributors include Louise Marburg, Dana Wildsmith, Molly Gaudry, Marjorie Tesser, Shawna Kay Rodenberg, Beth Weinstock, Leslie Doyle, David Ishaya Osu, Leona Sevick, Darius Stewart, Carolynn Mireault, Tatiana Schlote-Bonne, Liam O’Brien, Jim Minick, and Anna Nguyen.
Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora Edited by Christopher Nelson Green Linden Press, September 2021
Published by the non-profit Green Linden Press, The Essential Voices series intends to bridge English-language readers to cultures misunderstood and under- or misrepresented. It has at its heart the ancient idea that poetry can reveal our shared humanity. The Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora anthology features 130 poets and translators from ten countries, including Garous Abdolmalekian, Kaveh Akbar, Kazim Ali, Reza Baraheni, Kaveh Bassiri, Simin Behbahani, Mark S. Burrows, Athena Farrokhzad, Forugh Farrokhzad, Persis Karim, Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, Sara Khalili, Mimi Khalvati, Esmail Khoi, Abbas Kiarostami, Fayre Makeig, Anis Mojgani, Yadollah Royai, Amir Safi, SAID, H.E. Sayeh, Roger Sedarat, Sohrab Sepehri, Ahmad Shamlu, Solmaz Sharif, Niloufar Talebi, Jean Valentine, Stephen Watts, Sholeh Wolpé, Nima Yushij, and many others. Introduced by Kaveh Bassiri.
One of my absolute favorite monthly publications, Poetry Magazine never ceases to engage me in the thresholds of change in our literary community. The September 2022 issue, with guest editor Esther Berlin, addresses concerns we have all witnessed and/or been part of transforming. “Dear Reader,” opens: “Honor, celebration, and memory come to mind when I think about the idea of monuments. The process of harnessing collective moments into a physical manifestation, something representational of the essence that surges a person’s core—that’s a monument. All the feels—rage, suffering, release, distrust, comfort, melancholy, ambivalence, ache, compassion, mercy, the urgency to remedy—contribute to constituting and dismantling monuments.” And, addressing both the internal workings at the Poetry Foundation, itself in a process of rebuilding, and those in our surrounding communities, Berlin continues, “This special issue brings attention to the idea of monuments in order to map and reframe contrived or mythical systems of power, to extend narratives through repositioning focal points.” And closes, “In my last issue as guest editor, I invite you to celebrate with me poetry as monuments, as unifying offerings, the revising of history of so many existing monuments, erased and rubbed out, and now redrawn. The unsaid no longer ruminating, no longer a hungry ghost, no longer a missed call.”
Contributors to this issue include Martín Tonalmeyotl, Kierstin Bridger, Lucas Jorgensen, Mansi Dahal, Rena Priest, Janelle Tan, Vance Couperus, Henk Rossouw, Crisosto Apache, Keith S. Wilson, Amber McCrary, Kenzie Allen, Lesley Wheeler, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Krystyna Dąbrowska, Serena Rodriguez, Daniela Ema Aguinsky, Spring Ulmer, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Bes Bajraktarević, Tyler Mitchell, Ajibola Tolase, Christopher Shipman, Joan Wickersham, A. Van Jordan, and Walter Ancarrow.
I always know the newest issue of Gargoyle has arrived when the post office has to send the forklift to drop off this massive tome at my doorstep. Clocking in at nearly 500 pages (see a full list of contributors here), this is an annual that will truly provide a year of great reading – nonfiction, poetry, fiction, and art (Issue 75 cover art by Cynthia Connolly). What readers can expect to find is about as clear as the submission guidelines, “Gargoyle has never had guidelines during its entire history. We don’t believe in them.” Thus – be ready for just about anything, with the underlying principle that it is quality work, “The best work we can obtain. Work we can live with. Work we can read 20 times and still get a kick out of. We’ve never had a theme issue and doubt we ever will. Obviously, we want the best poem or story you will ever write. We’re not fans of the same-old/same-old and tend to publish works that are bent or edgy.” Considering the fact Gargoyle is only open for submissions from July 1 to July 31 – or until they get enough to fill the issue, “whichever comes first,” it’s clear they are well appreciated by writers! Add to this – GaygolyeOnline, which started in May 2022 and has just released its second issue. Readers have plenty to enjoy through every season!
Winner of the 2022 American Poetry Review Honickman First Book Prize selected by Jericho Brown, Bright Shade is an appreciation of the wild woods, the rolling hills, the Appalachian air, and the little rivers that were the setting of Chelsea Harlan’s upbringing. The poems speak through the liminal space between the body and its relationships to other bodies, and the human relationship with nature—and so climate change is, inevitably, part of this book’s undercurrent of grief. As the author navigates the high highs and the low lows of manic depression, Bright Shade articulates the wonder that accompanies sadness and the sadness that accompanies joy. Chelsea Harlan’s work is humorous, indeed bittersweet (bright / shade), and a little strange in exactly the right way.
Editor’s Note: While we generally prefer new releases, we love to see contemporary takes on older titles and how readers relate to literature over time. Blonde was originally published in 2000, re-released in 2020, and will appear as a Netflix original film in fall 2022.
Marilyn Monroe’s life story is one that most film lovers assume they know well. However, in Blonde (2000), a fictional account of the legendary actress’s life, Joyce Carol Oates takes readers deep beneath the surface of Marilyn into the hidden crevices of her life and her mind. Oates’ words at times ring out like hammer blows. She writes, “Her problem wasn’t she was a dumb blonde, it was she wasn’t a blonde and she wasn’t dumb.”
Blonde leveled me. After reading it, I found myself dizzy with thoughts of the actress – her struggles, her loneliness, her tragic demise. Oates shows that those who encountered Marilyn saw her sadness firsthand and were touched by her. As described by a pharmacy clerk who waited on Ms. Monroe at Schwab’s Drugstore in Hollywood, “She seemed like the most alone person in the world.”
This book shows a hint of the infinite sadness that lies at the center of Ms. Monroe’s eyes. In films, viewers can see the wells of loneliness behind the technicolor. Reading it now in the #MeToo era makes us see the casting couch and all its cruelty for what it is: a maker of stars and a destroyer of lives.
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. Harper Collins, 2000/2020.
Reviewer Bio: MG Noles is a hermit, reviewer, history buff, and nature lover.
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The Fall 2022 issue of Rattle features a Tribute to Translation, with 17 poems spanning two millennia, originally written in a wide variety of languages—from Spanish to Swahili. Featured poets include Frank Báez, Basil of Caesarea, C.P. Cavafy, Nianxi Chen, Tove Ditlevsen, Pietro Federico, Muyaka al-Ghassaniy, Karmelo C. Iribarren, Ting Li, Federico García Lorca, Francesco Petrarca, Alireza Roshan, Endre Ruset, Amira Antoun Salameh, Max Sessner, Dag T. Straumsvåg, Georg Trakl. In the conversation section, editors spoke to Danish translator Michael Favala Goldman about his award-winning work and the incredible life’s journey into it. The open section featured a broad mix of 22 poems by fresh faces and reader-favorites: Darius Atefat-Peckham, Devon Balwit, Bruce Bennett, Richelle Buccilli, e.c. crossman, Cortney Esco, Tony Gloeggler, Chris Huntington, Karan Kapoor, David Kirby, Ron Koertge, Lance Larsen, Jessica Lee, Katy Luxem, January O’Neil, Aaron Poochigian, Cindy Veach, Richard Westheimer, Guinotte Wise. Cover art by Jenny Eickbush.
The Empty Bowl: Poems of the Holocaust and After Poetry by Judith Sherman University of New Mexico Press, September 2022
In The Empty Bowl: Poems of the Holocaust and After, Holocaust survivor Judith H. Sherman strives to record trauma through art. Her poems, written largely in the words of a fifteen-year-old survivor, provide historical entry into the Holocaust. Put simply, the poems explore the reality of the events experienced by Sherman in her determination to survive—from first leaving home to illegal border crossings, hiding, capture, imprisonment by the Gestapo, the horrors of the Ravensbrück concentration camp, liberation, and, finally, a full life of joys and challenges that came after, including the unyielding intrusions of the past and hopeful celebration of a compassionate future. Forward by Arthur Kleinman. Afterword by Ilana Gelb.
