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!
Scribble is an online venue for flash and short fiction (2,000 words or less) publishing 3-5 stories every two months. The May 2022 issue features works by Sidney Stevens, Olivia Germann, Josh Price, and Philip Sherrod, with an introduction from Editor-in-Chief Jae Worthy Johnson. Scribble is free to read online as well as its full archive of issues. Submissions are no-fee and open year-round.
Ascension
Fiction by Steve Tomasula
University of Alabama Press/FC2, August 2022
Ascension by Steve Tomasula is a novel about the end of nature, or rather, the end of three “natures”: the time just before Darwin changed the natural world; the 1980s, just as the digital and genetic revolutions begin to replace “nature” with “environment”; and today, a time when we have the ability to manipulate nature at both the scale of the planet and at the genome. The narrative follows three different biologists on the brink of each of these cultural extinctions to explore how nature occupies our imaginations and how our imaginations bring the natural world, and our place in it, into existence.
Guest Post by Kevin Brown
Michelle de Kretser’s novel tells two stories, one narrated by Lyle, the other by Lili; which one you read first depends on which side of the book you begin with. Neither story has an intricate plot: Lili’s follows her year as a teacher at a high school in France, while Lyle’s tells about his experience in an Australia in the not-too-distant future. While the two narratives seemingly have nothing to do with one another, they are held together by the question of who or what the scary monsters are. Both main characters are not native Australians, having relocated from what sounds like a Southeast Asian country, Lili when she was younger and Lyle as an adult. These monsters could simply be those who look down on them for their racial and ethnic difference. De Krester explores that idea, but she has broader concerns. Lili struggles with the daily fears of being a woman in a patriarchal society; though nothing violent happens to her, she knows it could. Lyle’s skin is slowly changing to white, a representation of the sacrifices he’s made to assimilate, possibly becoming a monster himself. Ultimately, the systems of power that go unnoticed are the monsters underneath the proverbial beds of the main characters and perhaps the readers, as well.
Scary Monsters: A Novel in Two Parts by Michelle de Kretser. Catapult, April 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/.
Watershed Review is a biannual online publication from the Literary Editing and Publishing (LEAP) certificate program at California State University, Chico, providing professional training for writers, artists, and editors. The result is a beautiful, easily accessible, online journal, the most recent edition of which features Fiction by Nathan Greene, Anastasia Jill, Kameron Ray Morton, Mikayla Randolph, Daniel Webre; Nonfiction by Jordan Charlton, Leah Francesca Christianson, Alaina Scarano, Renee Soasey, Angela Youngblood; Poetry by Abdulmueed Balogun, Jennifer Bullis, Lauren Hyunseo Cho, Dennis Cummings, Javan Howard, Courtney Ludwick, Daniel Edward Moore, L.I. Henley & Laura Maher, Annie Przypyszny, Evy Shen, Ashley Somwaru, Jeddie Sophronius, Nancy White; and Art by Russ Allison Loar, Mario Loprete, Christina Rosche.
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
BABE, Dorothy Chan, Diode Editions
Best of the Sucks, ed. Mark Spitzer, MadHat Press
Beyond the Time of Words, Marjorie Agosín, Sixteen Rivers Press
Breaking Down Familiar, Donald Levering, Main Street Rag Publishing
A Brilliant Loss, Eloise Klein Healy, Red Hen Press
Call Me Fool, William Trowbridge, Red Hen Press
Cance Voodoo, Melissa C. Johnson, Diode Editions
Cannon Fodder, Jay Sizemore, Crow Hollow Books
Coining a Wishing Tower, Ayesha Raees, Platypus Press
The Convert’s Heart is Good to Eat, Melody S. Gee, Driftwood Press
The Winter/Spring 2021 release of Cimarron Review is a double issue (214 & 215) and features Poetry by Mischelle Anthony, Wale Ayinla, Aliki Barnstone, Margo Berdeshevsky, Ralph Burns, Justin Carter, Lisa Compo, Steven Cramer, Mary Crow, Jim Daniels, Jordan Durham, Rebecca Griswold, Susan Gubernat, Mark Halliday, Lisa M. Hase-Jackson, Jaimee Hills, Kjerstin Anne Kauffman, Jenna Le, Harriet Levin, Richard Lyons, Naomi Mulvihill, Shannon Nakai, Amanda Newell, Joanna Novak, Kristel Rietesel-Low, Judith Skillman, Darius Stewart, Sarah R. Stockton, Cheyenne Taylor, Lauren Tess, Lee Colin Thomas, Natalie Tombasco, Julia Wendell, Margot Wizansky, Theodora Ziolkowski; Fiction by Kawika Guillermo, Mike Broida, Janis Hubschman, Barry Kitterman, David Mizner, Kirstin Scott; Nonfiction by Bill Marsh, Eric Pankey, Hannah Baker Saltmarsh, and Jackie Stowers, with cover art by Marissa Klee-Peregon.
No running shoes required for this marathon, but you will definitely need stamina and perseverance! This annual Poetry Marathon invites writers to join in a half- or full-day of poetry writing, responding to prompts posted on the hour starting a 9:00am on June 25 and running (no pun intended) through 9:00am on June 26. If you’re not up for the full 24-hour marathon, there are two 12-hour half-marathons (my speed). The first is for day folk and goes from 9:00am-9:00pm on June 25, and the second is for night owls, from 9:00pm on June 25 to 9:00am on June 26. The platform is WordPress, which allows each participant their own space to post as well as to give and receive feedback. Participants who successfully complete their event will receive a certificate of achievement and are eligible to submit works for inclusion in the annual anthology. Over the past several years, the marathon has had over 500 participants each year, though not all finished. That’s the challenge! Registration is open June 1-19, 2022. Hope to see some of you there!
There is only one month left to enter self-published books to the 8th annual North Street Book Prize from Winning Writers. Self-published books in seven categories can win up to $8,000 plus additional benefits. They are also offering free gifts from their co-sponsors to everyone who enters. Submit your own self-published title by June 30, 2022. See their ad in the NewPages Classifieds for full details.
Congratulations to Glass Mountain Editor Natalie Dean who graduated this spring from the magazine’s home base, University of Houston. She reminds us in her editor’s note that “art is always worth the trouble. Making time, even when you truly have none, to create and to engage with art is worthwhile. Always.” Likewise, it is worthwhile to appreciate what others have created, using it to fortify and inspire us all through our own busy lives. The Sping 2022 issue of Glass Mountain online is at the ready, with art by Rebecca May, Gabriela Carrion, Sydney Cristofori, Samantha Capps, Guliz Mutlu, Bill Wolak, Mellany Medina; poetry by Victoria Woolf Bailey, Laurinda Lind, Zoe Elisabeth, DS Maolalai, Zoe Korte, Sarah Mills, Nicole Knorr, Alex Blum, Clara McShane; prose by Julie Beals, Stephan Lang, Lena Levey, Annalisa Morganelli, Ashley Sgro, Abbi Tobin; and Writing Competition Winners: “night drive” by Vanna Do, and “Rumors of Resurrection” by Katy Borobia.
Reverse Engineer
Poetry by Kate Colby
Ornithopter Press, October 2022
In Kate Colby’s ninth collection of poems, Reverse Engineer, she continues her excavation of the unknown, “the key to which breaks / the lock by breaking in it.” Operating at the junctures of perception and sensation, philosophy and grief, Reverse Engineer explores the deep recesses of human experience where conventional language doesn’t quite reach. Katy Colby has received awards and fellowships from the Poetry Society of America, Rhode Island State Council for the Arts, The Dodd Research Center at University of Connecticut, and Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room.
Early Bird Registration for the 2022 August Poetry Postcard Festival ends June 4, and registration for the event ends completely on July 4, so do not delay!
Celebrating 15 years, this event invites writers to sign up to be placed in a group. Once each group reaches 32 registrants, each receives a list of names and addresses. The goal is to write a poem a day on a postcard to the next person on the list after your own name and mail it to them. In return, you will receive a poem from each participant in your group. Writers are encouraged to start in advance of August 1 to allow time for the postcards to arrive, but it’s common to have some days go by with no card arriving and others with several cards waiting in the mailbox.
Continue reading “Event :: 2022 August Poetry Postcard Festival”
Committed to sharing stories that need to be told, Memoir Magazine is accepting memoir and creative nonfiction by writers of African descent – all writers of the African Diaspora, regardless of country of origin or residence – for their upcoming anthology Black Memoirs Matter. “Our goal,” the editors say, “is to chronicle the global Black Experience through memoir. At the same time, we are looking for universal truths that transcend race, like mental health, self-love, parenting, etc.” Submissions should be 500-4k words, written in the first person, with simultaneous and previously published works welcome. “We seriously encourage emerging and unpublished writers to apply.” Acceptance pays $50 honorarium and a print version of the anthology. There is a $25 fee with all entries also considered for standard nonfiction publication in Memoir Magazine. Deadline: August 31, 2022.
Every summer, SYNC gives participants two thematically paired audiobooks each week for sixteen weeks from May through August. Participants sign up for free and download the Sora student reading app. Anyone can actually sign up for the program, not just teens, but the titles are all geared toward teen readers 13+. The cool thing is that the books are “borrowed” and stay in the Sora app until you return them, with a loan time of 35,999 days. So, basically, the books are to keep unless someone purposefully returns them. The titles available each week are ONLY available to borrow for that week, so if you miss a week, then you miss out on those books. Right now, Week 6 is coming up, so there is still plenty of good audiobooking to be had. Visit SYNC via AudioFile and get started today – and spread the word to your teen readers and YA fans.
Breaking Down Familiar
Poetry by Donald Levering
Main Street Rag Publishing, May 2022
Donald Leverings’s 16th book of poetry, Breaking Down the Familiar, grapples with a host of harrowing assaults to the narrator and his family: illness and accidents, addiction and madness, estrangement and divorce. Yet as mind and body falter, as faith is undermined and relationships sunder, as aging parents can neither be changed or saved and former athletes tally their infirmities, previously obscured strength emerge – as a ruined golfer in one poem says, “Your character is revealed / in the handicap you claim.” Finally, the poems re-enact the family’s reconstitution, the way in the eponymous poem, shattered bottle pieces are refashioned into artisan’s sea glass crafts. A former NEA Fellow, Donald Levering won the Tor House Robinson Jeffers Award, selected by Eavan Boland; the Carve Poetry Prize, judged by Carmen Giménez Smith; and the Literal Latté Poetry Award. Levering’s work has also been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac podcast.
Guest Post by Kevin Brown
Amy Bloom’s memoir relates her husband’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and their struggle to find a way for him to die as he chooses rather than suffer through years of mental decline. Bloom weaves chapters from the past — as she realizes what’s happening to her husband and the revelation of his diagnosis — with those of Brian’s final days in Switzerland, as well as chapters on the challenges those who want to end their life face. Bloom writes movingly about her love for Brian, consistently reminding the reader through scenes she describes, in addition to her reflections, that her helping him die comes out of that love. As soon as he is diagnosed, Brian asks Bloom to help him, as she has always been the planner in their relationship, and he has begun to lose the ability to do that type of work. This book is a testament to their marriage and their love as much as it is an exploration of why someone would want to end their life and why the person who loves them most would want to help. It is, as the subtitle states, a memoir of love and loss, and the reader feels both equally.
In Love: A Memory of Love and Loss by Amy Bloom. Random House, 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/.
Rx
Poetry by Josh Sapan
Red Hen Press, November 2022
In this debut poetry collection, Rx, Josh Sapan guides us through a lifetime of love and loss as he navigates death — of loved ones, of crickets, of houseplants — in an American landscape teeming with wonder and the promise of rebirth — in the stars, the wind, the minnows in the bay. In Rx, the prescription is literal (“blue-fog medicine breath”) and figurative (“Love so big, / it comes in a gigantic red box.”). Sapan offers a glimpse into the sometimes painfully delicate and beautiful parts of life.
Blink-Ink is an adorable little lit mag, but don’t let its 4×5 zine-style format or 50-words or less per submission fool you – this is a powerhouse fiction publication – as previously reviewed on NewPages. Thematic by issue, the theme for #48 is “Rumors” and includes works by Beret Olsen, Nancy Stohlman, Jon Fain, Judith Shapiro, Lou Storey, Jennifer Mills Kerr, Mark Budman, Karen Lillis, Crystal Bonano, Daryl Scroggins, Mike Yunxuan Li, Liz Mayers, Catfish McDaris, Renuka Raghavan, Karen Lillis, Lindsey-Loon Ricker, Patricia Woods, Bryan Jansing, Gay Degani, Micahel Fagan, and Saif Sidari with photography by Alix Rhone Fancher. Visit their website for submission guidelines and upcoming themes.
Guest Post by Nicholas Michael Ravnikar
This eclectic book from Chris Courtney Martin foregrounds commodified intersections of American culture in light of spiritual awakening. Reclaiming Hollywoodspeak IP to refer to poems written during “idle” time, Martin questions the very idea of value creation. Deploying the true American musical habits of blues (viz “Black Betty” and “Hellhound”) and jazz, these syncopations and melodies transmute the cannibalized, dollar-driven kitsch rituals and artifacts of Americana into talismans for meaning-making. Independent Black cinema is never far from mind, as Melvin Van Peebles and Rudy Ray Moore, for instance, were both threats to and sources for the status quo. Readers dance from piece to piece as rhymes and measures suggest expectations to upend. Consider the first (and last) stanza of “Intuition”:
Who are you?
I been knew.
Who am I?
I, too, fly.
Here’s verse to echo Dickinson, Brooks, and Blake. And Martin’s spiritual grasp can perhaps match theirs, with topics that span Kundalini awakening, paganism, tarot, and hoodoo. There’s depth, too, in Martin’s excavation of how our society manufactures us in the mainstream, particularly in the concluding essay. Therein, these “Idle Poems” suggest the “Intellectual Property” beneath the mirror of any reader’s encounter with art. This is fun, prophetic stuff.
The Book of IP (Idle Poems) by Chris Courtney Martin. Alien Buddha Press, June 2022.
Reviewer bio: Blurring the lines between understanding and overthinking since 1982, Nicholas Michael Ravnikar is a neurodivergent dad/spouse/poet who writes kids books for grownups. He hasn’t made anything from NFTs yet. After working as a college prof, bathtub repairman, substance abuse prevention agency success coach, copyeditor and marketing specialist, he’s been disabled and unemployable following a nervous breakdown. In his spare time, he lifts weights, meditates and plays pickleball. Join him on social media and read more at bio.fm/nicholasmichaelravnikar
Elixir
Poetry by Lewis Warsh
Ugly Duckling Presse, April 2022
Animated by a poignant blend of humor, pathos, joie de vivre, and nostalgia, Elixir is an extended meditation on everyday life and the passage of time. Fragments of narrative, overheard dialogue, song lyrics, and slant memoir surface and recede throughout. Examining the inseparable entanglement of the quotidian and the profound with wit and candor, these poems are personal, direct, and elusive at the same time. Lewis Warsh (1944–2020) was a key poet of the second generation New York School and — as a teacher, poet, mentor, and publisher of Angel Hair and United Artists Books — a significant figure in New York poetry communities for over 50 years. He authored over thirty volumes of poetry, fiction, and autobiography.
Best of the Sucks: High-Octane Poetix from the Legendary Toad Suck Review
Edited by Mark Spitz
MadHat Press, March 2022
For fans of the legendary Toad Suck Review, and for anyone who missed that boat but would have an appreciation for innovative literature that’s quirky, edgy, and International Avant-Garde, this revival publication is your ticket to get on board. This publication will reestablish Toad Suck Editions as MadHat takes it into the future, so consider this your time to catch up with the class! Digging back to its Exquisite Corpse roots, the transitional period to the inception of Toad Suck, and pummeling chronologically through the issues, works in this collection feature Michael Anania, Antler, Robert Archambeau, Debangana Banerjee, Amiri Baraka, Nicolas Bataille, Elva Maxine Beach, Marck Beggs, Jericho Brown, William Burroughs, Vincent Cellucci, Ha Kiet Chau, Jack Collom, Gillian Conoley, Heather Cox, JJ Cromer, Tim Dardis, Diane di Prima, The Dirty Poet, Allen Ginsberg, Lea Graham, Brenda Mann Hammack, Matthew Henriksen, Jack Hirschman, Tyrone Jaeger, Stacy Kidd, klipschutz, Scotty Lewis, Lyn Lifshin, Gerald Locklin, Sandy Longhorn, James McWilliams, Henri Michaux, Mlle. Akakia-Viala, Craig Paulenich, Gabriel and Marcel Piqueray, Jacques Prévert, Arthur Rimbaud, Ed Sanders, Davis Schneiderman, Norman Shapiro, Chris Shipman, Tim Snediker, Gary Snyder, Mark Spitzer, Daryl Spurlock, Frank Stanford, Mike Topp, Joey Trimble, Anne Waldman, Ken Waldman, Laurie Welch, Lew Welch, and CD Wright.
Collateral Issue 6.2 Spring 2022 features poetry by Jonathan Endurance, Justin Evans, Clare Goulet, Shakiba Hashemi, Lee Peterson, Diana Pinckney, Adrian Potter, Tatiana Retivov, Renée M. Schell, Ingrid L. Taylor, Christina Vega, Pramila Venkateswaran, fiction by Susan McKenna, Burt Rashbaum, Kristen Leigh Schwarz, nonfiction by Genara Necos, and an interview with and portfolio of work by artist and activist Saiyare Refaei. Collateral is an online literary journal run by people who are directly and indirectly impacted by violent conflict and military service with the mission to publish literary and visual art concerned with the impact of violent conflict and military service beyond the combat zone. Collateral also offers free, face-to-face creative writing workshops, readings, panel discussions, and book signings in their communities. In addition, they “strive to directly address the impact of war by facilitating writing opportunities for refugees and military-civilian communities.” Collateral reads submissions year-round with March 1 and September 1 deadlines for issue publication.
Welcome to the final Where to Submit Round-up for May 2022! June will be upon us next week and our year will be half over with. I hope you are doing your best and keeping your submissions goals going strong. Check out the calls for submissions and writing contests featured on NewPages for a jumping off point.
Don’t forget that our newsletter subscribers get early access to calls and contests before they go live on our site, so subscribe today!
Continue reading “Where to Submit Round-up: May 27, 2022”
I recently attended “Writer Mind Marketing Mind” virtual workshop with Allison K Williams [pictured] hosted by Jane Friedman. And – no – this is not a paid ad. In fact, I paid to attend and am only choosing to run this review because the session was so good along with some absolutely ridiculous elements I can’t help but share.
The 70-or-so-minute workshop was the epitome of the cliche ‘hit the ground running.’ From start to finish, Williams kept an incredible pace of information flowing smoothly from her experience and expertise as social media editor for Brevity and as an editor and writing coach for writers, having helped guide authors to deals with Penguin Random House, Knopf, Mantle, Spencer Hill, St. Martin’s and independent presses among many other publishing experiences. Jane Friedman was also present, helping to manage the session and contributing at different points. If you have not yet read Friedman’s book, The Business of Being a Writer, that’s your first order. She is totally no-nonsense about the reality of writing and publishing, both encouraging and providing much-needed slaps upside the head for anyone who thinks the “business” of publishing is not the responsibility of the writer. It is. Period. This philosophy was echoed throughout “Writer Mind Marketing Mind” – hence the title – but in addition to expressing what writers need to equip themselves with to enter into the business aspects, Williams was also no-holds-barred on what doesn’t work and the misperceptions writers have about those. Much to the satisfaction, I might add, of many in attendance who seemed relieved to let go of those false notions.
As I indicated, there were several ridiculous components to this workshop. The first is that it only cost $25. I’m a bit of a virtual workshop pro by now, and I can say for certain that this is an outrageously low fee for what I got from the session. In addition to all the information that was shared live, participants get access to a recording of the event for a month, we get the full PowerPoint presentation slides, the complete speakers’ transcript, the Zoom chat transcript, a workbook filled with resources that Williams references throughout the workshop, and a separate document with every question that was asked with the answer if it was given during the session as well as answers that were added after the session. And I don’t mean we get some limited access to all of this for a month and then it’s gone. We got access to download and keep ALL of these materials. Additionally, Williams is working on a kind of marketing tracking document that she calls the Marketing Launch Sheet which basically maps out an itinerary for marketing a writing project. This is one step away from being its own app, and it will utterly revolutionize writers’ marketing work. While I say that all of this is ridiculous, it is actually in keeping with Friedman’s philosophy to keep education for writers realistically accessible, and Williams shares in this with her supportive mentoring approach. The concept of community is alive and well here.
The content of the workshop itself opened with misperceptions of marketing that hold writers back, which is where Williams clearly released a number of participants from these impediments as they exclaimed, “Thank goodness!!!” and “Ok, now I love you.” and “I love this webinar already” – and this was just within the first ten minutes. Williams also covered the concept of setting a mission, defining your personal and public self, understanding how writing and selling are both time-consuming activities, which markets are best for your work, what is PR vs. marketing and which are worth your time and/or your money, social media, and various ways to reach readers.
I am personally not looking to market my own writing, but, of course, I have an interest in the business of writing and being a part of the community this creates. For any writer looking to be published, Jane Friedman and anyone connected with her work are going to be your best teachers. Visit Friedman’s website and sign up for everything free that she offers and check out the upcoming workshops. Keep a lookout for where Williams will be presenting next, including another workshop with Friedman, “Why Is My Book Getting Rejected” and writing retreats and intensives with more info at her website www.rebirthyourbook.com. She will also be teaching a novel structure class for James River Writers in October, and a class on “Beautiful Beginnings, Brilliant Endings for Creative Nonfiction” in August, with information on those events not yet posted online. Williams is also the author of three writer’s guides: Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro From Blank Page to Book; Seven Bridges: Platform for Authors Who’d Rather Be Writing (forthcoming); and Get Published in Literary Magazines.
News of the Air
Fiction by Jill Stukenberg
Black Lawrence Press, September 2022
News of the Air by Jill Stukenberg was selected as the winner of the annual Black Lawrence Press Big Moose Prize (Dec 1 – Jan 31). In this novel, Allie Krane is heavily pregnant when she and her husband flee urban life after a rash of eco-terrorism breaks out in their city. They reinvent themselves as the proprietors of a northwoods fishing resort, where they live in relative peace for nearly two decades. That is, until two strange children arrive by canoe. Like the small ecological disasters lapping yearly at their shore, the problems of the modern world may finally have found Allie, her husband, and their troubled cypher of a teenage daughter. This eco-novel of a family, told from three points of view, explores how we remake our lives once we open our hearts to all the news we’ve chosen to ignore.
The Spring 2022 issue of Allium, an online journal of poetry and prose from Columbia College Chicago’s Department of English and Creative Writing, features fiction by Babak Movahed, Joshua Beggs, Tinia Montford, Wren Sager, nonfiction, Bethany Jarmul, Poetry, Kitty Donnelly, Kent Leatham, Jen Ashburn, Lee Johnson, Erin Rodoni, and the craft essay, “My Rocky Relationship with An Old Friend,” by Clementina Ojie. Rebecca Fish Ewan, author of Doodling for Writers, is the featured artist. Ewan will be teaching “Visual Hybrid Form” in a five-week online class through Literary Kitchen.
The Mothers: Poems in Conversation & A Conversation
Poetry by Dorianne Laux and Lelia Chatti
Slapering Hol Press, April 2022
The Mothers by Dorianne Laux and Lelia Chatti comes to readers from one of the oldest chapbook presses in the United States, Slapering Hol Press. This “Conversation Series” published poetry by a well-known woman poet who chooses an emerging woman poet to appear in the same collection with a conversation between them included at the end. Dorianne Laux’s sixth collection, Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems was named a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Leila Chatti was born in 1990 in Oakland, California. A Tunisian-American dual citizen, she has lived in the United States, Tunisia, and Southern France. She is the author of the debut full-length collection Deluge (Copper Canyon Press, 2020) and currently serves as the Consulting Poetry Editor at the Raleigh Review as well as teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is the Mendota Lecturer in Poetry. Slapering Hol books are collectible creations of beauty. The book design, typecasting, and cover letterpress printing are by Ed Rayher of Swamp Press in Northfield, Massachusetts, with cover art by Hyde Meissner, and run in a limited, hand-numbered edition.
A Brilliant Loss
Poetry by Eloise Klein Healy
Red Hen Press, October 2022
Eloise Klein Healy’s A Brilliant Loss is a poetic journey into the loss of language and the reclaiming of it. Healy had Wernicke’s aphasia in 2013 when she was the first poet laureate of the City of Los Angeles, and the virus hit her the night of her reading with Caroline Kennedy at the Central Library. Also called fluent aphasia, Wernicke’s aphasia affects language and the use of words. Healy’s collection shows that her brain has access to its deepest unconscious, and that place is poetry. Her deepest language is poetry. It’s as if a dancer was denied the ability to walk or run, and could only dance. Healy writes of losing her words and finding big love.
I have always considered The Briar Cliff Review to be one of the most beautifully constructed print literary journals produced, which causes me a heavy heart to include with this post the fact that Briar Cliff University will be jettisoning many of its general education programs, and with it, this decades-long literary tradition. Our condolences to the staff of Briar Cliff Review for this monumental loss to our community. They will fulfill their commitment with their final publication in 2023, so let us celebrate these final contributors to each remaining issue. Featured in this collection are winners of their 26th annual contest: Anna Round, Nancy Fowler, Patridge Boswell, William V. Roebuck, and Christine Stewart-Nuñez. As always, the remainder of the magazine features a plethora of poems, fiction, nonfiction, art, and book reviews in a handsome full-cover, large format. Cover image: Saga of the Secondaries by Dan Howard.
It’s back! The Writer’s Hotel (TWH) is hosting another virtual summer fiction workshop August 6 through August 28. The program centers on four weekend writing workshops and lectures, plus two full manuscript readings by TWH Editors, one-on-one agent pitching sessions, and attendee readings.
The deadline to apply is July 1, 2022 or until filled. This event is capped at 28 students. There is a $30 application fee.
Instead of an intense immersion programming, this year’s virtual event is operating on a new approach that allows them to take time and get to know one another and the TWH Directors. They will take time and give each writer even more attention than ever before.
During the Summer Workshop, writers will practice pitching manuscripts to TWH Editors Scott Wolven and Shanna McNair to hone their skills for a virtual Agent Pitching Session.
View the full schedule here. Apply today so you don’t miss out on the opportunity to hone your fiction even further.
The May/June 2022 issue of Kenyon Review features the annual “Nature’s Nature” poetry portfolio selected by former KR poetry editor David Baker, with work by Elizabeth Arnold, Marilyn Chin, Grant Clauser, Linda Gregerson, Brenda Hillman, Strummer Hoffston, Tricia Knoll, Jesse Nathan, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Maya C. Popa, Paisley Rekdal, Evie Shockley, D. S. Waldman, Rosanna Warren, Corrie Williamson. Also in this issue is drama by Sherod Santos, fiction by Renée Branum, Nolan Capps, David Crouse, Calvin Gimpelevich, Arinze Ifeakandu, Uche Okonkwo, nonfiction by Melissa Seley, and “We Sang Every Morning After Breakfast: A Cento In Memory Of Nancy Zafris” with contribution from over fifty poets, crafted by Cristina Correa. Cover image: Razi Mohammad (16) by Ambreen Butt.
Dillydoun Prize Anthology Volume 1
Edited by Amy Burns
Dillydoun Review, May 2022
In celebration of the 2021 Dillydoun International Fiction Prize, all the Winners and Honorable Mentions have been published online as well as in print. The first print anthology is now available to purchase. The Dillydoun Prize Anthology Volume 1 includes works from Alejandro de Gutierre, Kerri Schlottman, Chris Whyland, Nora Studholme, Cynthia Singerman, Alexandra Gowling, Rudy Ruiz, Anna Millard, Byron Spooner, Ronald Meek, Les Zig, Ellen Sollinger Walker, and Emma Gilberthorpe. Hosting two competitions this year, the 2022 Dillydoun Flash Fiction Prize closes July 31, 2022, and the 2022 Dillydoun Short Story Prize closes October 2, 2022. Visit The Dillydoun Review website for complete details.
Tree Lines: 21st Century American Poems
Edited by Jennifer Barber, Jessica Greenbaum, and Fred Marchant
Grayson Books, April 2022
This important new collection of works by 130 poets reflects contemporary American poets’ heightened awareness of place, close observation of nature, concern for climate, and our psychological, spiritual, and physical need for trees. A portion of the book’s proceeds will be donated to the National Park Service Foundation. The anthology treasure includes poems by Ellen Bass, Jaswinder Bolina, Victoria Chang, Anthony Cody, Toi Derricotte, Camille T. Dungy, Ross Gay, Rachel Hadas, Joy Harjo, Robert Hass, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Major Jackson, Fady Joudah, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ted Kooser, Ada Limón, Esther Lin, Philip, Metres, D. Nurske, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Linda Pastan, Kay Ryan, Evie Shockley, Vijay Seshadri, Tracy K. Smith, Arthur Sze, Natasha Trethewey, Rosanna Warren, Afaa M. Weaver, and Javier Zamora, among many other great poets of our time.
What Flies Want
Poetry by Emily Pérez
University of Iowa Press, May 2022
In What Flies Want, disaster looms in domesticity: a family grapples with its members’ mental health, a marriage falters, and a child experiments with self-harm. With its backdrop of school lockdown drills, #MeToo, and increasing political polarization, the collection asks how these private and public tensions are interconnected. The speaker, who grew up in a bicultural family on the U.S./Mexico border, learns she must play a role in a culture that prizes whiteness, patriarchy, and chauvinism. As an adult, she oscillates between performed confidence and obedience. As a wife, she bristles against the expectations of emotional labor. As a mother, she attempts to direct her white male children away from the toxic power they are positioned to inherit, only to find how deeply she is also implicated in these systems. Tangled in a family history of depression, a society fixated on guns, a rocky relationship, and her own desire to ignore and deny the problems she must face, this is a speaker who is by turns defiant, defeated, self-implicating, and hopeful. Winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize. Emily Pérez is author of House of Sugar, House of Stone, and coedited The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood.
Live Caught
Fiction by R. Cathey Daniels
Black Lawrence Press, April 2022
Live Caught by R. Cathey Daniels is the story of Lenny, who finds himself out of options. He’s lost his arm to his abusive older brothers and lost his bearing within his family. Desperate to escape and determined not to lose hope, Lenny steals a skiff and attempts to ride the Carolina rivers from his family’s farm deep in the western North Carolina mountains all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. When a storm sinks his boat, he is suddenly in the hands of a profanity-slinging priest, whose illegal drug operation provides food and wages for the local parish. Snared within a power struggle between a crooked cop and the priest, Lenny must once again rely on the thinnest shred of hope in his attempt to escape.
The newest issue of Creative Nonfiction opens with the essay “50 Years of Making Nonfiction Creative” by CNF Founding Editor Lee Gutkind, in which he reflects on the contributions of Thomas Wolfe to the birth of the genre, labeled “The New Journalism.” The issue also includes “CNF’s first examples of ‘pandemic literature’ – essays written since early 2020, stories that incorporate our many individual and collective experience from the past two years.” While many found it a difficult time to record their lives, the editors acknowledge, “Maybe it’s that when everyone’s suffering – though of course we’re not all suffering equally – it seems like there’s almost nothing to say. Our grief feels unexceptional. But there is a lot to say, and isn’t that why we write?” And here to be read are works by Laura Pritchett, Amye Archer, Caroline Hagood, Meg Senuta, Francis Doherty, A. J. Bermudez, Anne Mcgrath, Clare Magneson, Joe Primo, and Amber Taliancich, as well as a selection of “Tiny Truths: 77 Micro-essays of fleeting joys, wistful memories, and passing sadnesses from the past two years” culled from the ongoing #tinytruths posted on Twitter. Cover art by Victoria Villasana.
Posit Journal online is celebrating its 30th issue of publishing innovative, aesthetic, accomplished poetry, prose, visual art, and film. As the editors write in the introduction, “Although (to paraphrase David Byrne) we’re not quite sure how we got here, we’re thrilled that we have, thanks to the vivid and continuing engagement of our growing family of contributors and readers.” They invite readers to engage with “poetry and prose by Isaac Akanmu, Tyrone Williams, and Pearl Button that confronts the historical and contemporary poison of racism and colonial appropriation, alongside work by Julie Choffel, Erika Eckart, Vi Khi Nao & Jessica Alexander, Jo O’Lone Hahn, Sam Wein, and Nancy White exploring gender repression and violence – as well as its persistent, sometimes even exuberant defiance “swinging ourselves to wonderment” (Sam Wein, Season of Fanny Packs). The innovative poetics of Kristi Maxwell, Benjamin Landry, and Dennis James Sweeney speak to the state of the planet and even the dubious nature of the future itself, while the visual art of Andrea Burgay, Taraneh Mosadegh and Ana Rendich grapples in a different idiom with the existential challenge of living as moral and emotional beings in a threatened and threatening world.”
Plagios / Plagiarisms, Vol. 2
Poetry by Ulalume González de León
Sixteen Rivers Press, April 2022
Plagios / Plagiarisms is the second of three bilingual volumes which present several short collections of poems Ulalume González de Leόn produced from 1970 to 1975. Through her experimentation with unconventional syntax and borrowed texts, the poet skillfully blends anatomical, scientific, and philosophical vocabulary with richly erotic imagery to question our assumptions about identity and intimacy. Ulalume González de León was born in 1928 in Montevideo, Uruguay, the daughter of two poets, Roberto Ibañez and Sara de Ibañez. She studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Mexico. While living in Mexico in 1948, Ulalume became a naturalized Mexican citizen. She married painter and architect Teodoro González de León, and
Continue reading “New Book :: Plagios / Plagiarisms, Vol. 2”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!
About Place, May 2022
The American Poetry Review, May/June 2022
The Baltimore Review, Spring 2022
Black Warrior Review, Fall/Winter 2021
The Briar Cliff Review, Volume 34
Camas, Summer 2022
The Cape Rock, 50
Coastal Shelf, #6 Winter 2022
THE COMMON, 23
Communities, Issue #195
Concho River Review, Spring/Summer 2022
Consequence, Issue 14.1
Court Green, Spring 2022
Creative Nonfiction, Spring 2022
Cutleaf, Issue 2.9
Mother Kingdom
Poetry by Andrea Deeken
Slapering Hol Press, April 2022
Mother Kingdom by Andrea Deeken is the winning collection of the 2021 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest. This annual contest is open to promising new poets whose work has not yet appeared in book or chapbook form. Andrea Deeken was born in rural Missouri and has lived in the Pacific Northwest for most of her adult life. She holds a BA from Drake University and an MS in Writing and Publishing from Portland State University. Slapering Hol books are collectible creations of beauty. The book design, typecasting, and cover letterpress printing are by Ed Rayher of Swamp Press in Northfield, Massachusetts, with cover art by Hyde Meissner, and run in a limited, hand-numbered edition.
Memoir Magazine has announced the 2022 Winners of the Memoir Book Prize:
First Place
The View From Breast Pocket Mountain by Karen Hill Anton
Second Place
Animal Bodies: On Death, Desire, and Other Difficulties by Suzanne Roberts
Third Place
Finding the Right Words: A Story of Literature, Grief, and the Brain by Cindy Weinstein and Bruce L. Miller
They also eliminated the ‘honorable mention’ category this year and instead created 23 specific categories with which to recognize entrants. Four of those selected are currently unpublished manuscripts, providing authors with an avenue for (hopefully) finding a publishing home for their works.
Visit the Memoir Magazine website for the full list of honorees and their books.
Our contest this year will be judged by author and critic, Camille Acker. We’re looking for previously unpublished fiction of up to 8,000 words. The deadline is June 15, 2022. First place is $2,500 with an invitation to an awards dinner. Second place $750. Third place $500. The winning stories will be published in the Fall print issue of Philadelphia Stories, with all entrants receiving a complimentary copy. All authors currently residing in the United States are eligible. $15 fee. We can’t wait to read your stories! Visit website.
View the full May 2022 eLitPak newsletter.
In the Editor’s Welcome to the Spring 2022 issue of Aji Magazine online, Erin O’Neill Armendarez writes, “Among the pages of this issue, you will find writers and artists rushing headlong into what frightens us, diving deep into the mud and the grime to rise again triumphant, if only for a moment. We are honored to be featuring Keith Hamilton Cobb and Mark Hurtubise in this issue, both of whom had the courage to address injustice openly. Likewise, we are honored to be offering readers and viewers an impressive slate of photography, art, poetry, essay, and fiction, exploring the human condition, imagining beyond ourselves into the Other, the unknown.”
Also featured in this issue are works by John Allen , Alan Bern, Oisin Breen, Gaylord Brewer, Patrick Cahill, Melca Castellanos de ArKell, Nancy Christopherson, Geraldine Connolly, Lucia Coppola, William Crawford, Leslie Dianne, David Dixon, Kelly DuMar, Michael Estabrook, Sara Fall , Phyllis Green, Dan Grote, Nels Hanson, Mark Yale Harris, Paul Hostovsky, Edward Lee, Galen Leonhardy, Aenea Little , Christopher Locke, Elaine Vilar Madruga, Joe Milosch, Ivan de Monbrison, Francis Opila, Karly Page, Simon Perchik, Zack Rogow, David Anthony Sam, Sonya Schneider, Claire Scott, Maragarita Serafimova, Edward Supranowicz, Wally Swist, Zhihua Wang, Sean J. White, and David Williams.
Submissions for the fall 2022 issue are open until filled, with no submissions being accepted after November 1.
Reclaim your writing spark! Sumptuous breakfasts, yoga, wineries. Discussions led by Susan Isaak Lolis, a published and award-winning writer. Topics include: Writing Strong Characters; Creating a Sense of Place; Believable Dialogue. Before May 31: $350.00; Before June 15: $400.00; After June 15: $450.00. Accommodations separate, contact the Inn at Hermanhoff for reduced rate: (573) 486-5199. Visit website.
View the full May 2022 eLitPak newsletter.
Cancer Voodoo
Poetry by Melissa C. Johnson
Diode Editions, March 2022
Cancer Voodoo grew out of the experience of Johnson’s mother’s illness and death from lung cancer and her own attempts to come to terms with that loss. “I was trying to write about the experience of watching a parent die, an experience that most people will have, but also about the particulars of my mother’s life and death and her family history. There’s a kind of madness of grief — the way that it unhinges and unmoors — that I’m trying to capture. I’m also trying to get at how illness and death re-arrange and collapse time — how they create a milestone that all other events gather around.” Melissa C. Johnson serves as Associate Vice President and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education at The Pennsylvania State University. She earned a BA in English and Fine Arts from the College of Charleston, an MFA in poetry, and a Ph.D. in twentieth-century British Literature and Women’s Studies from the University of South Carolina.
Divot reads on a rolling basis and is currently reading poetry for our summer issues! Please send us your best work. We would love to read up to 6 poems. Also, check out our Divot Poetry Chapbook Contest ending June 15, 2022. See our submission and contest guidelines. We can’t wait to hear from you! Visit website.
View the full May 2022 eLitPak newsletter.
The MFA in Creative and Professional Writing at Western Connecticut State University is still accepting all books published in 2021 for the 2022 Housatonic Book Awards. Open to fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young adult/middle grade. Winners receive $1,500 and an invitation to our summer or winter residency. See our website for past winners and submission details.
View the full May 2022 eLitPak newsletter.
Our editors asked for stories that moved away from the norms of daily life to explore the side roads that take us away from the known. What do the characters do when they step away from what’s seen as normal or usual? What happens when they find themselves in unexpected situations or locations? Visit website.
View the full May 2022 eLitPak newsletter.
Get your copies of George H. Wolfe’s novel Aftershock, set at the architecture school at the University of Alabama, and Patricia Taylor’s Zero to Ten: Nursing on the Floor which incorporates over forty years of nursing experience as she moves from joy to frustration to devastation. View flyer for more information. Visit website.
View the full May 2022 eLitPak newsletter.
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 from May 1 – August 31, 2022. Garrett Hongo will judge. Find full guidelines here.
View the full May 2022 eLitPak newsletter.
$2,000 in prizes. Until May 31, Flying South 2022 will be accepting entries for prizes in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry. Best in Category winners will be published and receive $500 each. The WSW President’s award winner will win an additional $500. All entries will be considered for publication. For full details, please visit our website.
View the full May 2022 eLitPak newsletter.
