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!
Yazoo Clay Stories by Schuyler Dickson Livingston Press, August 2022
Co-winner of the Tartt First Fiction Award, Yazoo Clay is a collection of character-driven deep south stories from writer and regenerative farmer Schuyler Dickson. Experimental, humorous, and thought-provoking, this is a book “about the collapsing floor of living.” Dickson earned a BA in Southern Studies from Ole Miss and his MFA in Creative Writing from Northwestern. Readers can find an excerpt from the book here: “Happy Birthday.”
NewPages welcomes Chicago Young Writers Review to the scene, “a space uniquely created with the K-8 students in mind” says founder Daria Volkova. A native Chicagoan, Volkova wanted to preserve Chicago’s influence on her as a dynamic, diverse, multiethnic and multicultural city in their organization’s name. “We encourage young authors from all backgrounds to submit their work. In fact, we’ve had the most enthusiastic response from the communities of color and immigrant communities in and around Chicago. We also wanted the name to speak to our mission. There is an abundance of literary magazines for older writers, but there are less accessible spaces for the younger kids with whom we work. By including the ‘young writers’ within our name, we are stating exactly what we are and who we were made for. We are a playground (forgive the pun) for young creators to gain confidence in their work and blossom into stronger readers, thinkers, and writers.”
Boasting a twenty-year publication run, Salamander hails from the English Department at Suffolk University in Boston. This newest issue features poetry from over 50 authors, including Akhim Yuseff Cabey, Kelly Weber, Keith Leonard, John Sibley Williams, Robbie Gamble, J.P. White, Jane Zwart, Mag Gabbert, Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, Mel McCuin, Kassy Lee, Eliza Browning, Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Anthony Borruso, Luke Patterson, Alina Stefanescu, Rita Feinstein; Fiction by Bergita Bugarija, Megan Peck Shub, Anita Trimbur, Jade Song, Julialicia Case; and Creative Nonfiction by Rochelle Hurt and aureleo sans. Cover art by Wes Holloway (in addition to a full-color portfolio inside).
All Is Leaf: Essays and Transformations Nonfiction by John T. Price University of Iowa Press, June 2022
All Is Leaf: Essays and Transformations by John T. Price draws inspiration and urgency from the storied Goethe Oak tree at Buchenwald concentration camp—and from the leaf as a symbol of all change, growth, and renewal—and explores a multitude of dramatic transformations, in his life and in the fragile world beyond: “the how of the organism—that keeps your humanity alive.” Price employs an array of forms and voices, whether penning a break-up letter to America or a literary rock-n-roll road song dedicated to prairie scientists, or giving pregame pep talks to his son’s losing football team. Here, too, are moving portrayals of his father’s last effort as a small-town lawyer to defend the rights of abused women, and his own efforts as a writing teacher to honor the personal stories of his students.
In Morgan (A Lyric), winner of the 2020 Gold Line Press Nonfiction Chapbook Competition, Boyer Rickel, a most open and ethical writer, writes out of “a sensation so precise” what it means to love—beyond shame or humiliation, in expansive and humble ways—not as “the hero,” but as “the hero’s sidekick.” Were this chapbook a musical composition, the minor scale “branching patterns of sound” referring to the relationship between men and their mothers, the luxury of who gets to age, the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, writing and reading poetry, and listening to music—the harmonic and cacophonic backdrop of lives at the center of a love song. A love story—between one who lives openly as a gay man and one who is more secretive in his choices, one in middle age and healthy, and one in his thirties, living with the complications of cystic fibrosis. The major scale “branching” the complexities of personality (“there might be many Morgans”), relationship (“separate states of extremity”), and eroticism (“denial begets desire”); the trappings of love and illness; the primary and secondary gains of caretaking—“a trade of need for need.” This is elegiac writing that “remove[s] us (readers) from time” as love and death do, but perhaps more than centering on death, this writing exalts lover and beloved—“To touch a boundary, to feel a limit”—leaving as much love on the page as possible.
Reviewer bio: Jami Macarty is the author of The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona, and three chapbooks, including Mind of Spring (Vallum, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. Jami’s writing has been honored by financial support from Arizona Commission on the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and by editors at magazines such as The Capilano Review, Concision Poetry Journal, Interim, Redivider, Vallum, and Volt, where Jami’s poems are forthcoming.
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The newest issue of The Malahat Review features their Open Season Award Winners, which includes both their works as well as an interview with each Kaitlin Debicki (poetry), Sara Mang (fiction), and Bahar Orang (nonfiction) – all winning works and interviews can be read online. The rest of the issue is chock full of great works, with Poetry by Ronna Bloom, Laura Cok, Francesca Schulz-Bianco, Carolyn Smart, Joan Rivard (online and includes an interview), T. Liem, Katherine Alexandra Harvey, Jamie Evan Kitts, Bill Howell, Aaron Tucker, Steve Noyes, Eric Wang, Domenica Martinello, Judith Taylor; Fiction by Suzannah Windsor, Jeff Noh, Jaime Burnet; and Creative Nonfiction by Kate Gies, Shauna Andrews, Ellise Ramos (online and includes an interview), and Ian Clay Sewall. Cover art by Emily Hermant.
Almost: My Life in Theater Memoir by Roselee Blooston Apprentice House Press, September 2022
Almost: My Life in the Theater tells the story of Roselee Blooston’s decades-long struggle to fulfill her early promise by becoming a professional actress, taking her to far-flung locales from Europe to Texas to New York City. Along the way, she encounters several Oscar winners and nominees—including Meryl Streep, Greer Garson, and Olympia Dukakis—who each had a profound effect on her self-image and trajectory, though no one had more influence than her mother, a visual artist, whose life served as both cautionary tale and beacon. Blooston can lay claim to trailblazer status as a solo performer, but she asks herself and the reader to deeply consider the true meaning of success and the value of a creative life. Her calling, commitment, and longing for recognition will resonate with anyone who has followed a passion, been thwarted in the attempt, and then successfully and happily reinvented themselves. Apprentice House is an entirely student-managed book publisher with students at Loyola University Maryland responsible for every aspect of the publishing process, from acquisitions to design and publication of every book. Learn more here.
Indebted to the docupoetics tradition, Raena Shirali’s summonings investigates the ongoing practice of witch (“daayan”) hunting in India. Winner of The Hudson Prize, these poems interrogate the political implications and shortcomings of writing Subaltern personae while acknowledging the author’s Westernized positionality. Continuing to explore multi-national and intersectional concerns around identity raised in her debut collection, Shirali asks how first- and second-generation immigrants reconcile the self with the lineages that shape it, wondering aloud about those lineages’ relationships to misogyny and violence. These poems explore how antiquated and existing norms surrounding female mysticism in India and America inform each culture’s treatment of women. As Jericho Brown wrote of Shirali’s poetics in GILT, her “comment on culture, on identity, on justice is her comment on poetry.” summonings offers a commentary on power and patriarchy, on authorial privilege and the shifting role of witness, and ultimately, on an ethical poetics, grounded in the inevitable failure to embody the Other.
The newest issue of Good River Review, the biannual online literary journal of the School of Creative and Professional Writing at Spalding University, is available to read online. In between issues, Good River Review regularly features book reviews, interviews, essays on the practice of writing, along with literary news.
In addition to the poetry and prose selected for this issue, Editor in Chief Kathleen Driskell shares that the issue “closes with two essays on the writing life from our new anthology Creativity & Compassion: Spalding Writers Celebrate 20 Years. Faculty member in Writing for Children and Young Adults Beth Bauman offers her thoughts ‘On Crafting Surprise in Fiction,’ and Bruce Marshall Romans, faculty member in Writing for TV, Screen, and Stage, shares his essay ‘On Fear.'” Works are also included from authors Tommy Dean, Jessy Easton, Michael Henson, Crystal Wilkinson, Dmitry Blizniuk, Akhim Yuseff Cabey, Alexander Etheridge, Julia Gibson, January Gill O’Neil, Julia Koets, Andrew Najberg, Tatiana Retivov, F. Daniel Rzicznek, and Fernando Valverde (trans. by Carolyn Forché).
Terrain.org invites participants to attend an online conversation between acclaimed environmental writers and activists Sandra Steingraber and Taylor Brorby. In this event, noted environmental author and activist Sandra Steingraber is in conversation with Taylor Brorby about his debut memoir, Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land. This conversation is sponsored by Terrain.org, with Zoom hosting provided by the University of Arizona, Monday, June 27, 2022, 5 p.m. PT / 6 MT / 7 CT / 8 ET. Registration is free.
The newest issue of The Dillydoun Review has a genre for everyone, perfect for your summer beach or favorite park bench reading. Just stay in the shade as you enjoy Short Stories by Soidenet Gue, Michael McGuire, Max Talley; Flash Fiction by Atom Cheung, Alice Orr, Kylee Webb; Poetry by Tobi Alfier, Jeffrey Dreiblatt, Jess Levens, Lilian McCarthy, Laura Ann Reed, Patrick Wilcox; Prose Poetry by Glenn Armstrong, Emily Kingery, Preeti Talwai; Nonfiction by Shannon Barbour, Matthew William Jeng-Zhe Seaton; Flash Nonfiction by Amanda Barnett, Giuseppina Iacono Lobo, James Morena, Sarahmarie Specht-Bird, and Guinotte Wise. All free to read online – so head on over today!
Stubborn Writers Workshop—multigenre, come and get feedback on your prose or poetry and workshop with other CR readers and writers. 7/30/22, 11am PT/2pm ET/7pm UTC-0/8pm CET, 2 hours, $25
6 Weeks, 6 Poems—beginners and advanced poets alike will find the inspiration, community, and tools to write six new poems in six weeks. Each poet will also have a chance to workshop once during the class. 6 Sundays from 7/10-8/14, 11am PT/2pm ET/7pm UTC-0/8pm CET, 1.5 hour sessions, $200
Discounts are available for contributors, staff, or returning attendees. For more information see the Chestnut Review workshops page.
Wise to the West Poetry by Wendy Videlock Able Muse Press, November 2022
In Wise to the West, Wendy Videlock embraces her Western terrain and surroundings—family, neighbor, barbershop, morning shower, coyote, badger, wolf, blackbird, hawk, canyon, mesa, mountain—with songs, odes, witticisms, lamentations. Along the way, she tilts toward the grand view of the world around—relaying turns of uncertainty or affirmation, history or the latest news, myths and the mystic—and gifting readers musings and meditations in her unique style full of quirks, wit, wisdom, and surprising turns. Wendy Videlock lives on the western slope of the Colorado Rockies with her husband and their assorted critters. Her work appears in Hudson Review, Oprah Magazine, Poetry, Dark Horse, the New York Times, Best American Poetry, and other venues.
Published online biannually out of the Arkansas Writers’ MFA Program at the University of Central Arkansas, Arkana accepts works “from the whole universe at large” and seeks “inclusive art that asks questions, explores mystery, and works to make visible the marginalized, the overlooked, and those whose voices have been silenced.” Fulfilling this expectation, Arkana Issue 12 includes fiction by Zachary Johnson, Andrena Zawinski, and Erin Townsend; creative nonfiction by Melissent Zumwalt and Molly Wadzeck Kraus; poetry by Talya Jankovits, Aliah Jocelyn, Neha Rayamajhi, Lauren Scharhag, Leticia Priebe Rocha, Dante Di Stefano, and Saramanda Swigart; and interviews with Elizabeth Rush and Kai Coggin.
June will be over with next week. Had to believe our year is officially half over with. How is your writing and submitting going? Well, we hope. Speaking of submitting, don’t forget that our Big List of Writing Contests is arranged by deadline date to help you plan out some submissions there. With June ending, take a look at contests coming up in July and August and beyond.
As always, please enjoy this round-up of literary magazines, press, events, and programs open to general and contest submissions to help you with where to submit your work. And…don’t forget that NewPages newsletter subscribers get early access to new calls for submissions and writing contests before they go live on our site, so subscribe today! You’ll also get our monthly eLitPak along with the occasional promotional emails from advertisers.
If you need a beach read to get you through high summer, look no further than Razzmatazz, Christopher Moore’s follow-up to his hilarious page-turner Noir. (Make it a full vacation and read both novels.) This time out, our hero Sammy, his main squeeze Stilton (don’t call her “the Cheese”), and their unlikely roster of demi-monde pals must dodge both gangsters and cops to solve a double murder, locate a rich nob’s runaway daughter, and retrieve a mysterious relic before even more chaos ensues in late-1940’s San Francisco. In true noirish fashion, most of the action takes place in the wee small hours, when, as Sammy relates, the fog has “swallowed the city like a damp woolen crocodile.” Zany, with devious plotting and enough wise-cracking dialogue to fricassee a Maltese falcon, Razzmatazz is another healthy serving of Moore’s signature recipe: equal measures of screwball comedy, hard-boiled mystery, and X-Files-like otherworldliness. (Don’t skip the “Afterword and Author’s Note.”)
Razzmatazz by Christopher Moore. William Morrow, May 2022.
Reviewer bio: James Scruton is the author of two full collections and five chapbooks of poetry as well as dozens of reviews, essays, and articles on poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.
If you are interested in contributing a Guest Post to “What I’m Reading,” please click this link: NewPages.com Reviewer Guidelines.
Translation of the Lilies Back into Lists Poetry by Laynie Browne Wave Books, June 2022
Laynie Browne’s latest poetry collection, Translation of the Lilies Back into Lists playfully employs the list poem and delivers poems which evade genre and subvert the quotidian material of daily life. These poems consider elegy, absence and bewilderment while allowing associative logic to make poetic leaps in imagination and mood that belie convention. This book explores the myriad ways one could attempt to categorize a lived experience with its dizzying infinitudes by marking it in finite language and ultimately shows how poetry is an experiment for that translation. Browne’s collection considers language, time, and poetics in a way that is as electrifying as it is elusive. In homage to poet C.D. Wright, her title is inspired by Translations of the Gospel Back into Tongues.
Originally founded in 1779 as “GlassWorks in the Woods,” Glassworks is a publication of the MA in Writing program at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ, publishing both free-access online and print copy for purchase. Glassworks Issue 24 features artwork by Guilherme Bergamini, Rachel Coyne, Elinora Lord, and Leah Oates; fiction by Charlie Beckerman, Marco Etheridge, and Garth Robinson; nonfiction by Cole Brayfield and Cheryl Skory Suma; and poetry by Jared Beloff, Joel Best, Susana H. Case, Jessica de Koninck, Iris A. Law, Sharon Lopez Mooney, Toti O’Brien, Susan Chock Salgy, Kira Stevens, Denise Utt, Austin Veldman, and Cynthia Ventresca. Glassworks’ reading period is August 15 – December 15 for submissions in artwork, fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, flash, and hybrid forms. There is no fee to submit through November 30 OR for the first 1,000 submissions, whatever comes first. After that, there is a $2 fee. Don’t delay!
Revolutionary Books is a new imprint of Artvoices Books, seeking to publish “Poets who embody the essence of the revolutionary: fearless, passionate and unwavering.” This, their debut title, The Lowly Negro by James Smith, is a written account of a poor, destitute, and uneducated inner-city Black male’s life and journey in the U.S., showing his ability to sustain and survive by weathering the lows as well as the highs. As an African American, he is both an invisible man and one who believes he is the sum of his experiences. The poems relate how Others believe his existence is an illusion of rehearsed lines, walking with his eyes closed, hoping for the best. The Lowly Negro is a singular voice representing countless men and women from disenfranchised and marginalized communities. The forgotten and neglected of society who only have the written word as their protest find a voice in this collection. Author James Smith is an American poet who comments, “I write for catharsis: my weapon of choice. I am a black man who has survived Hell on Earth in search of forgiveness, enlightenment and sanity.” Poem samples and a companion film by Jameson Stokes can be found here.
Oracle: Fine Arts Review was established in 2003 and is supported by the University of South Alabama Student Government Association, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Departments of English and Visual Arts.
Run by students, this literary magazine publishes work from national and international writers and artists and is open to submissions every fall. Stop by their listing on NewPages to learn more about them.
elsewhere online literary magazine of prose publishes works they consider “at the crossroads” with the editors caring “only about the line / no line” and asks writers for short works of flash fiction, prose poetry, and nonfiction that “cross, blur, and/or mutilate genre.” elsewhere further concentrates their efforts by publishing only six writers quarterly, and the newest issue highlights those top six with works—and a few opening lines to tantalize readers—from Benjamin Bartu (“good mercy, we’ve broken it at last!”), Cynthia Marie Hoffman (“The universal sign for choking is a hand clamped to the throat like an animal fastening teeth to its prey.”), Lis Moberly (“I disembowel a deer in the yard.”), Benjamin Niespodziany (“My neighbor bought a white Ferrari and painted it red then again back to white.”), Ken Poyner (“The birds are back.”), and Ren Weber “(I ask my neighbor if I can lean over the fence and take an orange from her tree.”). elsewhere is free to read online.
Writer and cartoonist Alyssa Graybeal is inviting participants to join her Group Coaching for Crip Memoirists. Identifying as “queer crip editor/book coach and award-winning memoirist,” Graybeal’s mission is to “ignite budding crip memoirists to start writing their books with confidence” in an effort to “untangle ableism” and empower marginalized communities of all kinds. If you are a writer who identifies as disabled, chronically ill, or neurodiverse, and you’re “ready to take down ableism through storytelling,” Graybeal promises a “superchill, supportive environment” to help get you started – or perhaps continue – to develop your story to share with others. The 60-minute weekly group sessions start on Monday, July 11, 2022. Find more details at her website here. Graybeal’s manuscript, Floppy: Tales of a Genetic Freak of Nature at the End of the World won the 2020 Red Hen Press Nonfiction Award and is forthcoming Spring 2023.
Love’s Universe: New & Selected Poems Poetry by Nina Carey Tassi Cherry Grove Collections, April 2022
Nina Carey Tassi’s intimate poems in Love’s Universe explore the myriad ways that love finds a home in human hearts, from searing first desire through the oceanic depths of marriage and family to soul-piercing faith and the uplifting joys of nature and one’s country; not least is the unexpected miracle of suffering, all suggesting that love indeed animates the universe. Read sample poems here.
Salamander literary magazine has announced a new poetry award: Louisa Solano Memorial Emerging Poet Award for work published in the magazine. Funded by the Ellen LaForge Memorial Poetry Fund, the first two awards will actually be given retroactively from Salamander‘s latest two issues (54 and 55). The winner will receive a monetary award, announcement in a future issue, and an e-portfolio of their work provided for free access on Salamander‘s website. Award winners will also have the opportunity to offer a virtual reading with the judge and virtual class visits at Suffolk University, where Salamander is based.
“Emerging,” the editors explain, “for our purposes, will mean poets who have not published more than one full-length poetry collection at the time of their publication in Salamander. Poets without any previous publication history will also be considered, as will poets who have published chapbooks but not a full-length poetry collection. No other basis will be used to narrow down the possible eligibility. Writers can be of any age, background, location, etc.”
For more information, stay tuned to the Salamander website.
Runner-up for the Monadnock Essay Collection Prize, Without Saints by Christopher Locke is a journey to rediscover hope between the ruins: Poet Christopher Locke was baptized by Pentecostals, absolved by punk rock, and nearly consumed by narcotics. Like the propulsive Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson, Without Saints is a brief, muscular ride into the heart of American desolation, and the love one finds waiting for them instead. Christopher Locke was born in New Hampshire and received his MFA from Goddard College. His poems, fiction, criticism, and essays have appeared in numerous publications, and he is the recipient of the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Award and the 2018 Black River Chapbook Award. He now lives in the Adirondacks where he teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at North Country Community College.
The newest issue of Bending Genres online literary magazine features fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction they consider “thrilling, oddball, unusual, and stunning.” Filling out the expectations for this spring 2022 issue are works from Travis Dahlke, Lisa Weber, Deanna Baringer, Miriam Gershow, Cole Beauchamp, Michael Beard, Marisa Vargas, Bupinder Bali, Kristin Bonilla, Stuart Watson, Koss Just Koss, Mugdhaa Ranade, Margo Griffin, Dan Higgins, Audrey Carroll, Brad Liening, Adrian Frandle, Jenny Stalter, Adrienne Barrios and Leigh Chadwick, Rod Martinez, Isabelle Doyle, Nicholas Claro, Gary Reddin, R.J. Lambert, Mikki Aronoff, J.A. Pak, Slawka G. Scarso, Rachel Laverdiere, Bobby Miller, and Shane Kowalski. Submissions for Bending Genres are open year-round and the publication is free to read online along with a full archive.
The Summer 2022 issue of Rattle features a “Tribute to Prisoner Express,” a non-profit program based in Ithaca, New York, which sends books into prisons, allowing prisoners to communicate with each other creatively through a newsletter. Last year, Elizabeth S. Wolf donated her Rattle Chapbook Prize-winning collection, Did You Know?, to the program, and encouraged participants to write chapbooks of their own. The resulting poems were so powerful, that the editors decided they had to share. The issue includes an introduction by Elizabeth, and a conversation with the program’s director, Gary Fine, discussing the profound role expressive writing can play in rehabilitation. In addition to the contributions from thirteen Prison Express participants, this issue also features works from Nicelle Davis, William Virgil Davis, Kristina Erny, Mark Fitzpatrick, David Galloway, Lola Haskins, Emily Ruth Hazel, Alexis V. Jackson, Shawn Jones, Laura Judge, Lynne Knight, Milica Mijatovič, Abby E. Murray, Valerie Nies, Eri Okoye, Kathryn Paulson, Erin Redfern, Mather Schneider, George J. Searles, Maia Siegel, Elizabeth Spenst, Susan Vespoli, Wendy Videlock, and Arhm Choi Wild.
American Dude Ranch: A Touch of the Cowboy and the Thrill of the West Nonfiction by Lynn Downey The University of Oklahoma Press, March 2022
Viewers of films and television shows might imagine the dude ranch as something not quite legitimate, a place where city dwellers pretend to be cowboys in amusingly inauthentic fashion. But the tradition of the dude ranch, America’s original western vacation, is much more interesting and deeply connected with the culture and history of the American West. In American Dude Ranch, Lynn Downey opens new perspectives on this buckaroo getaway, with all its implications for deciphering the American imagination. The book is 246 pages with 32 black and white illustrations.
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!
Agni, 95 Allium, Spring 2022 Arkana, Issue 12 Atlanta Review, Spring-Summer 2022 Bending Genres, Issue 27 Blink Ink, #48 Bomb, Summer 2022 Catamaran, Summer 2022 Cimarron Review, Winter-Spring 2021 Collateral, Spring 2022 Conjunctions, 78 Dark Matter: Women Witnessing, #14
Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina Poetry by Dara Barrois/Dixon Wave Books, June 2022
With the same tender honesty found in all of Dara Barrois/Dixon’s (formerly Dara Wier) poetry, the poems in Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina are curious about the world we inhabit and the worlds we create. Barrois/Dixon brings profound attention to the things we love—be they animals, books, skyscapes, movies, poems, or other human beings—and to the stories that shape our worlds. Here, with emotional exactitude, is a collection of poems that is unafraid to express “love humor despair loving kindness love humor empathy/humor joy sympathy love kindness courage.”
Published by Shanti Arts, the Summer 2022 issue of Still Point Arts Quarterly has been released! The theme of this issue is “Gardening: An Instrument of Grace.” It includes the work of roughly fifty artists and writers from around the world and includes essays, poetry, fiction, art, and more. The digital edition is free for anyone who signs up to receive it via email, and print copies are available by subscription or single-issue purchase. Still Point Arts Quarterly is one of the most beautiful, high-quality production art and literary journals on the market. You can view the current art feature here to see for yourself: Art Exhibit. Readers can also download many past issues as well as other art exhibits.
The Hunger promotes itself as “a journal of visceral writing” published online annually in the spring. The Hunger Press is also home to the Tiny Fork Chapbook Series which holds a yearly chapbook contest in the Summer. The Spring 2022 issue provides a wealth of great content, with Poetry by Nisha Atalie, Kristen Holt-Browning, Byron Xu, Sara Ryan, Anastasia Waid, billy cancel, Allison Blevins & Joshua Davis, Chrissy Martin, Benjamin Bartu, Geula Guerts, Melissa Eleftherion; Fiction by Monica Wang, Sarah Brokamp, Andrew Cusick, Divya Maniar, Sabrina Small, Anastasia Jill; Nonfiction by Abby Hagler, Brittany Ackerman, Stephanie Couey, E.N. Walztoni, Rebekah M. Devine; Hybrid works by Sarah J. Sloat, Sarah Carson, Jennifer K. Sweeney, Gianna Marie Starble, Kylie Gellatly; and Artwork by Bill Wolak, Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad, Janelle Cordero, Sherry Shahan, Arden Hunter, Silas Plum, and Afresh Frankincense.
Established in 1979 as the first magazine to creatively explore the experience of disability through the lens of literature and fine arts, Kaleidoscope is once again breaking new ground to share the experiences of disability through literature and the fine arts.
“TheKaleidoscope podcast,” the editors write, “is meant to expand the outreach of the magazine in a new and modern way and we want to offer more opportunities for writers to present their work. In the first episode, most of the featured writers read their own pieces, making it a more authentic and powerful experience to enjoy. We also hope to make the publication more accessible for those with visual impairments or other disabilities for whom reading can be a challenge. The very nature of the podcast format makes it more accessible to a broader audience whether listening at home, at the office, or while on a commute.”
Kaleidoscope hopes that future podcasts will include interviews with writers and artists to further explore perceptions of disability as well as interviews with individuals who bring fresh insight to issues of interest to those living with a disability or those caring for someone with a disability.
Dark Matter: Women Witnessing is an online publication of art and writing created in response to this “age of massive species loss and ecological collapse.” But in addition to cataloging these atrocities, the editors seek works “with a message for how we might being to heal our broken relationship to the earth.” Edited by the team of Lise Weil, former editor of the US feminist review Trivia: A Journal of Ideas (1982-1991) and Trivia: Voices of Feminism (through 2011); Kristin Flyntz, whose area of expertise is Literature of Restoration as taught by Deena Metzger; and Metta Sáma, founder of Artists Against Police Brutality/Cultures of Violence and a Senior Fellow of Black Earth Institute. Dark Matter: Women Witnessing accepts all forms and genres of writing as well as artworks in all mediums, in response to the issue’s theme, with special features “Dreams and Visions” and “After•Words” responses to other media. Reading for the newest issue began this month. The current issue (#14) features works by Pam Booker, Suzette Clough, Jojo Donovan, Perdita Finn, Kristin Flyntz, Hilary Giovale, Kathleen Hellen, Chez Liley, and Shante’ Sojourn Zenith. All back issues are available to read online.
Join us for the Willow Writers Retreat in Hermann, Missouri July 10-14. 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 or call (954) 806-3878.
Divot Poetry is reading for Issues 5 and 6. We value fresh imagery and startling ways to describe the human condition. See our submission guidelines for full information. We look forward to reading your poetry. Rolling submission deadline. View flyer or visit website to learn more.
All the Rivers Flow Into the Sea and Other Stories Fiction by Khanh Ha EastOver Press, June 2022
From Vietnam to America, Khanh Ha’s All the Rivers Flow Into the Sea is a story collection that brings readers a unique sense of love and passion alongside tragedy and darker themes of peril. The titular story features a love affair between an unlikely duo pushing against barely surmountable cultural barriers. In “The Yin-Yang Market,” magical realism and the beauty of innocence abound in deep dark places, teeming with life and danger. “A Mute Girl’s Yarn” tells a magical coming-of-age story like sketches in a child’s fairy book. Bringing together the damned, the unfit, the brave who succumb to the call of fate, All the Rivers Flow Into the Sea is a great journey where redemption and human goodness arise out of violence and beauty to become part of an essential mercy. All the Rivers Flow into the Sea was selected as a winner of the 2021 EastOver Prize for Fiction.
Madville publishing is pleased to announce our summer reading list! Our authors worry at questions of family, home, and belonging in this amazing quartet of books. All available now for order or preorder:
Pairing writers and artists, each issue of The Light Ekphrastic online creates a space for a new poem, story, photograph, painting or other piece of artwork inspired by work previously submitted by their partner artist. Contributors typically have about six weeks to create their new work. Founded by editor Jenny O’Grady in 2010 as a way of inspiring friends who hadn’t written or made art in a while to get back into practice, the newest issue features works in conversation by Marlayna Demond, TS S. Fulk, Lela Hannah, Mary Huddleston, Layla Lenhardt, Timothy Nohe, Keleigh Norman, and Beth Schabb Williams. What a beautiful, poignant, and playful venue! Submissions are open year-round.
New summer titles from Livingston Press at the University of West Alabama include a novel about GI’s returning from WWII to about-face and enter colleges under the GI Bill. A story collection about nursing, its joys, frustrations, and heartbreak. See flyer for more details or visit website.
Started as a “pandemic passion project,” The Muleskinner Journal is an online publication of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that publishes “journal entries” (individual pieces) throughout their submission period as well as a quarterly journal.
While The Muleskinner Journal name comes from the nickname of Editor in Chief, Gary Campanella, the mission of the journal is in keeping with the muleskinner – or mule-driver – a profession that requires its animal companion to get the job done. “We look for writing of all kinds that uses skill, wit, and determination to deliver the goods,” which speaks to the clear partnership between writers, readers, and the publisher. “We accept and publish poetry, short fiction, flash fiction, short scripts, excerpts from longer works, memoir, criticism, craft essays, artwork, journalism, and shopping lists.” And for both new and established writers, the guidelines are clearly inviting: “We don’t care who you are, as long as you are the author of what you submit.”
Carve accepts submissions all year round, from anywhere in the world. We pay the writers we publish ($100 for fiction; $50 for nonfiction/poetry) and have generous word count limits: up to 10,000 for fiction/nonfiction and 2,000 for poetry. We publish all three genres in print, and fiction is also published online. Submit your best work today! View flyer for more details.
Winning Writers will award a grand prize of $8,000 in its eighth annual North Street competition, and $16,750 in all. The top eight winners will enjoy additional benefits from our co-sponsors BookBaby and Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Gifts for everyone who enters. Submit books published in any year and on any self-publishing platform. $70 entry fee. Enter online or by mail by June 30. Learn more at our website and view flyer for full details.
If you’re looking for avenues to submit your creative writing and art to, you’ve arrived at the right place. NewPages’ weekly Where to Submit Round-up features calls for submissions and writing contests from literary magazines, indie presses, literary events, creative writing programs, and more.
Don’t forget that NewPages newsletter subscribers get early access to calls for submissions and writing contests before they go live on our site, so subscribe today! Oh, and you’ll also get our monthly eLitPak along with the occasional promotional email from our sponsors.
If you haven’t subscribed yet, check out the June 2022 eLitPak newsletter here for even more opportunities as well as creative writing program info and great books for summer and beyond.
Oxblood Poetry by Nicole Caruso-Garcia Able Muse Press, October 2022
Oxblood, Nicole Caruso Garcia’s debut poetry collection, testifies unflinchingly about the short- and long-term effects of a college student’s rape by her fiancé. As the poet engages with this serious topic, her arsenal includes wit, wordplay, and even humor. The diverse structures of traditional received forms—the sonnet, the sestina, various French repeating forms, the Afghan landay, blues tercets—form interesting contrasts with free verse poems in this collection. Oxblood was a finalist for the 2022 Able Muse Book Award.
Broadsided Press Anthology Fifteen Years of Poetic and Artistic Collaboration, 2005-2020 Provincetown Arts Press, April 2022
Broadsided Press: Fifteen Years of Poetic and Artistic Collaborations, 2005-2020 is an anthology that celebrates Broadsided Press’s mission of “putting literature and art on the streets.” I have always loved the work of this organization, and since its founding, Broadsided has released one beautifully designed, original, letter-sized collaboration of poetry and art (a broadside) each month: a unique collaboration between a visual artist and a writer that is a work of art in itself. These were available for free download each month so that “vectors” could print them and post them with many taking pictures and sharing these on the site. Now, for the first time, more than fifty broadsides selected from over 300 published the past 15 years are presented in a first-ever book form alongside the interviews with artists and poets who collaborated to create them and photographs of the work in public spaces.
That’s right! If you missed the June 15 deadline for the 2022 New American Fiction Prize, you’re in luck! New American Press has announced they have extended the deadline to July 1. This year’s final judge is WEIKE WANG. Winner receives $1,500, publication, and 25 copies. Swing by their ad in the NewPages Classifieds for more information.
The Mantle Poetry online literary magazine welcomes poetry for its quarterly publication, with the next deadline coming up July 7, 2022. The editors encourage writers to “Send your odd, poignant, beautiful poems. Send poems you’re proud of, whether raw, refined, or jagged.” Up to three previously unpublished poems any style or length per submission period. Check out the current issue with works by Suhrith Bellamkonda, Kyle Seamus Brosnihan, Lori Lamothe, Rebecca Macijeski, Juanita Rey, Maryfrances Wagner, and Elana Wolff.
That’s right. You now have until July 15 to enter poetry manuscripts of at least 48 pages to the 2022 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry from Lynx House Press. $28 fee to enter. Winner receives $2,000 and book publication. Stop by the NewPages Classifieds for more information.
Creative Nonfiction magazine is accepting submissions for their Sunday Short Reads email—previously unpublished work up to 1,000 words, with a deadline of August 1. Managing Editor Hattie Fletcher offers this editorial tip: “We’re open to stories on any subject, any style, but one of the questions we ask ourselves before accepting a story is, ‘Would we feel good about emailing this out to 8,500+ readers first thing on a Sunday morning?'” There is a $3 submission fee, waived for subscribers; pays $50 on publication, and all submissions are also considered for publication in CNF magazine.
