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NewPages Blog

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

Magazine Stand :: Green Mountains Review – Laureate Series #1

Green Mountains Review literary magazine cover image

Published by Green Mountains Review, the first of five editions devoted to American Poet Laureates is now available. This gorgeous folio-sized publication is a celebration of “the beauty of the diverse voices that make up our country,” and features the first ten Laureates: Rhode Island’s Tina Cane; Virginia’s Luisa A. Igloria; Oregon’s Anis MojganiNew Hampshire’s Alexandria Peary; North Carolina’s Jaki Shelton Green; Maryland’s Grace Cavalieri; Louisiana’s Julie Kane; Kansas’s Huascar Medina; Wisconsin’s Dasha Kelly Hamilton; New York’s Alicia Ostriker. Solidarity of Unbridled Labour provided the layout and design, and with the addition of artwork throughout, this is going to be a collectible. Don’t miss getting your copy today!

Magazine Stand :: New Ohio Review – Issue 30

New Ohio Review literary magazine cover image

New Ohio Review generously publishes multiple works by individual poets as well as many quality single pieces in the Winter 2022 issue, including fiction by Max Bell, Anne Coopestone, A.J. Rodriguez, Tanya Bomsta, Sarah Cypher; nonfiction by Faith Shearin, Lisa K. Buchanan; “When We Talk About Mountains, We Talk About Memories,” a conversation with Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour; and gobs of poetry, including works by Marcia LeBeau, Lisa Alletson, Benjamin Grimes, Katie Condon, Michael Derrick Hudson, Peter O’Donovan, Peter Maeck, Linda K. Sienkiewicz, Shelly Stewart Cato, Ted Kooser, Allison Funk, Nancy Miller Gomez, Emily Wheeler, and so so many more, you just have to read it to believe it!

Magazine Stand :: Able Muse – Winter 2021/2022

Able Muse literary magazine cover image

The Winter 2020/2021 issue, Number 29 of Able Muse includes the winning and finalist stories and poems from the 2021 Able Muse contest (Able Muse Write Prize). This issue’s featured poet is Rhina P. Espaillat and includes an interview by Deborah Warren. There is also fiction by Amina Lolita Gautier, Randy Nelson, Jonathan Starke; essays by Michelle Cacho-Negrete, Chidiebube onye Okohia, Mark Pearce, Joachim Stanley, N.S. Thompson; and poetry by Liz Ahl, Leo Aylen, Lee Harlin Bahan, Bruce Bennett, Hilary Biehl, John J. Brugaletta, Dan Campion, Sarah Carleton, Ted Charnley, Gregory Emilio, Nicole Caruso Garcia, Stephen Gibson, D. R. Goodman, Susan McLean, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, Francesco Petrarca, Estill Pollock, Erica Reid, Mary Romero, Kelly Rowe, Leona Sevick, Michael Spence, Ann M. Thompson, Will Toedtman, Toni Treadway, E. D. Watson, Gail White, Steven Withrow, as well as art on “A Distance Theme.”

Magazine Stand :: Southern Poetry Review – Issue 59.2

Southern Poetry Review cover image

After focusing a previous issue on the “long poem,” Southern Poetry Review Editor James Smith tells readers he was prompted to “review our archive of the last decade or so for short poems.” Thus, this issue is a companion publication, “celebrating an opposite impulse in making poems that serve their subject, brevity.” Included in this anthology are poets Abby Rosenthal, Sarah Rolph, Marsh Muirhead, Majorie power, Patricia Hooper, Jason Tandon, Robert West, Eric Pankey, James Scrutton, John Harris, Michael Chitwood, David Tagnani, Joe Wilkens, and many more.

Magazine Stand :: Mississippi Review – Issue 49.3

Mississippi Review cover image

This Winter 2022 Mississippi Review issue celebrates fifty years of publication with poetry from Rae Armantrout, Mary Jo Bang, Kwame Dawes, Bob Hicok, Bin Ramke, Tomaž Šalamun, Natalie Shapero, and Bronwen Tate; non-fiction by Kazim Ali, Emily Pittinos, Moly Rideout, and Brandon Shimoda; and fiction by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow, Nicole Callihan, Suzanne Greenberg, Mary Miller, Rick Moody, and Ernie Wang, all wrapped in a luxurious royal blue with gold imprint. So lovely!

Magazine Stand :: Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine – Spring/Summer 2022

The newest bi-annual online issue of Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine is available to read online via Issuu and features works by Sandeep Kumar Mishra, Babk Movahed, Pam Munter, Shari Brand Ray, Bill Bernon, Dmitry Blizniuk, Leslie Hodge, Al Maginnes, Ron Riekki, Noah Harrell, Marietta Modl, and many more. Originally founded to encourage submissions from seniors, SBLAAM judges all works on the criteria of quality that “enrich our experience.”

Magazine Stand :: Tint Journal – No. 7

Tint Journal, an online journal for those who write in English as their second/non-native language (ESL writers), publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by ESL writers. They also publish book reviews, interviews, and author profiles from ALL writers year-round and pay 25€ per piece. The Spring 2022 issue features works by Brianna Colmenares, Wil-Lian Guzmanos, Maliha Khan, Laetitia Lesieure Desbrière Batista, Margit Marenich, Angela Regius, Ines Rodrigues, Yulia Tseytlin, and Lorna Ye.

New Book :: The Neverending Quest for the Other Shore

The Neverending Quest for the Other Side by Sylvie Kande book cover image

The Neverending Quest for the Other Shore: An Epic in Three Cantos
Poetry by Sylvie Kandé
Translation by Alexander Dickow
Wesleyan University Press, February 2022
ISBN: 9780819580733
Hardcover, 176pp; $35

Sylvie Kandé’s neo-epic in three cantos is a double narrative combining today’s tales of African migration to Europe on the one hand, with the legend of Abubakar II on the other: Abubakar, emperor of 14th-Century Mali, sailed West toward the new world, never to return. Kandé’s language deftly weaves a dialogue between these two narratives and between the epic traditions of the globe. Dazzling in its scope, the poem swings between epic stylization, griot storytelling, and colloquial banter, capturing an astonishing range of human experience. Kandé makes of the migrant a new hero, a future hero whose destiny has not yet taken shape, whose stories are still waiting to be told in their fullness and grandeur: the neverending quest has only just begun. Presented in side by side translation into English from French.

Magazine Stand :: The Dillydoun Review – No. 14

The Dillydoun Review cover image

The March 2022 (#14) issues of The Dillydoun Review is chock full of good reading, available free online. With short stories by Phil Cummins, Bill Garwin, David Santiago; flash fiction by Andrew Calderone, Anthony M. DeGennaro, E.S. Oliver; poetry by Roy Bentley, Ace Boggess, Kyle Heger, J.B. Hill, Stephen Jackson, Kimilee Norman-Goins, Ankit Raj; prose poetry by David Capps, Jack B. Bedell, Nidhi Agrawal, Sherrie Fernandez-Williams, Elaine Zimmerman; nonfiction by Rick Brown, Danielle Hayden, Manol Roussev. and flash nonfiction by Maria DeGuzman, Carisa Showden, Matthew Kerr, Ashley McCurry, Hemali Shah. Publishing monthly, there is a lot to keep readers coming back for more!

New Book :: Girl as Birch

Girl as Birch by Rebecca Kaiser Gibson book cover image

Girl as Birch
Poetry by Rebecca Kaiser Gibson
Bauhan Publishing, April 2022
ISBN: 9780872333338
Paperback, 92pp; $17

In Girl as Birch, Gibson mimics the flexible (adaptable? too pliant? healthily, if secretly, resilient, then, finally, aligned) motion of a birch in strong wind, as it relates to the options seemingly available to her, growing up as a girl. The poems imitate in form the experiences they evoke. The leitmotifs of red, birches, mirrors, walls enclosing gardens, labyrinths as metaphors for constraint, recur throughout the book. Without being a manifesto, Girl as Birch explores female gender roles with both pliant and uprising imagery and action. Restriction and rebellion, silence and speech, appearance and artifice, passion and repression, the past and being present, buffet and embolden the speaker of these poems. The elastic and varied syntax, pace, music, and the use of rhetoric and wit express deft self-examination. The book moves from serial impressionistic poems of early childhood to discrete lyric poems of memory and experience and on to a sense of emotional, social, spiritual evolution, not resolution.

Magazine Stand :: Waterwheel Review – Issue 16

Waterwheel Review header logo

The March 2022 (#16) issue of Waterwheel Review is available to view and read on their homepage. Using a unique online presentation, Waterwheel Review publishes three pieces of writing each month, September through May, with accompanying companion pieces selected or solicited by the editors. Subtitled “Literature Without Labels,” the editors “hope authors will take advantage of our refusal to define what we publish, and send us un-name-able bits and pieces.” See for yourself by visiting the Waterwheel Review website.

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

The Wrath Bearing Tree logo

The March 2022 additions to The Wrath-Bearing Tree are online and ready to be enjoyed! Nonfiction: @RobBokkon with “Last of the Gonzo Boys: P.J. O’Rourke, War, and the Evolution of a Political Mind” and Mark Hummel on American paranoia in “Underground.” Poetry: Ricardo Moran, Kevin Norwood, Michael Carson. Fiction: Steven Kiernan’s narrator carries Dick Cheney’s shotgun in “War Ensemble” and Jillian Danback-McGhan’s narrator dances with a war criminal in “Allied.” The Wrath-Bearing Tree also features contributors on their YouTube channel. Check them out today!

Magazine Stand :: The 2River View – Spring 2022

The 2River View cover image

The Spring 2022 issue of The 2River View is now available, with new poems by Simon Anton Niño Diego Baena, Devon Brock, T. Clear, Lenny DellaRocca, Sara Eddy, Michael Estabrook, Tim Gavin, William A. Greenfield, Gail Lukasik, Rachel Mallalieu, and Amy Speace. And 2River is now reading for the 26.4 (Summer 2022) issue of 2RV. Published online quarterly, The 2River View is available to read free online and can also be downloaded as a PDF or in a “Make the Mag” format that can be reproduced for traditional print reading – great for classroom use, teachers!

Magazine Stand :: Kenyon Review – March/April 2022

Kenyon Review cover image

In September 2021, Kenyon Review invited writers to contemplate the subject of work, leaving the invitation open wide to interpretation. The texts represented in this issue, culled from the 1,408 submissions they received, ask readers to interrogate definitions of work and the value we ascribe to different kinds of work. These poems and narratives also require that readers be attentive to labor often uncredited as work. In their way of bearing witness, in their generosity and urgency, the pieces in this issue consider the ways work engages both public and private selves, and the ways it holds us, if only temporarily, to particular circumstances, geography, and each other. Read more on the Kenyon Review website.

Notre Dame Review – No. 52

Notre Dame Review cover image

The Summer/Fall 2021 issue of Notre Dame Review is subtitled “New Life” and offers stellar prose and poetry from Adam Byko, Natalie Storey, and John Vanderslice, as well as poetry from Mary Gilliland, David Moolten, and Honora Ankong, among many others. As a companion to the print issue, the website includes additional content such as author commentary on their published work, weblinks, expanded bios, links to other works, and related interviews. The publication also provides a “web extra” from the print edition to read in full. For this issue, William O’Rourke’s A Covid-19 Journal: Intermittent is available. Stop by the Notre Dame Review website for all this and more.

Art & Healing Online Popups

Snapdragon Journal cover art

In addition to its quarterly thematic e-publication, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing also offers quarterly, donation-based online events featuring a different artist and artistic practice. Sunday, March 20, 2022, from 2:00-3:30 (EST) Toni Becker will host “The Art of Losing.” An intuitive, mixed media artist, healing art facilitator, and Reiki II practitioner, Becker will share her “experience with grief, the act and art of letting go through ritual, ceremony, and art that brings forth healing and a level of self-discovery.” She adds, “Grief is heavy but there is another side to it — one that will grace you with light and ease.” Visit the Snapdragon website for registration information.

Magazine Stand :: The American Poetry Review – March/April 2022

American Poetry Review cover image

The newest issue of The American Poetry Review (51.2) is one many fans will want to get their hand on. Featuring new poems by numerous poets, including Sharon Olds, Kazim Ali, Sharon Olds, Edgar Kunz, Emily Lee Luan, KB Brookins, and a conversation, “Jennifers of the 1970s” between Jen Karetnick, Jennifer L. Knox, and Jennifer K. Sweeney. Visit The American Poetry Review website to read some of the publication’s content online.

Kestrel – Issue 46

Kestral literary magazine cover image

In the Winter 2021-2022 issue of Kestral: A Journal of Art and Literature, the editors comment that “A theme emerged organically” around food, hunger, and thirst: “We not only spend time thinking about food; we have deep feelings about it, hard thumbs up for our favorites or thumbs down for disgusting foods we’d rather start than eat. Food can provide solace and sustain us with its memory. It’s mythic and essential, political and also a point of conflict.” Visit the Kestral website to read select content by Patricia Caspers, Mark Crimmins, Hayley Harvey. Lily Lauver, Jory Mickelson, Jane C. Miller, and Rose Strode.

Rivanna Review – Issue 3

Rivanna Review cover image

The March 2022 issue of Rivanna Review (#3) includes stories by Lynne Barrett, Harris Coverley, Maija Haavisto, and Mitchell Toews, essays by Maxim Matusevich, Brother Boncoeur, Brent Howe, and Muriel Gudgeon, art by Jim Ross, Lia Mageira, and Norm Melichar, as well as a feature called “Notices” which includes three historical essays about “Little Blue Books,” “The Sorcerer,” which examines “the writer as sorcerer […] and none more adept than Marcel Proust,” and “La Scarzuola,” the Franciscan monastery. Visit Rivanna Review for more information.

Where to Submit Round-up: March 2022 Week 2

While March is still having an identity crisis with the weather, hopefully you are finding time to enjoy the good things coming with winter slowly saying goodbye while also balancing out your submission goals. NewPages is here to help you with our weekly round-up of where to submit. If you missed last week’s round-up, find it here.

Don’t forget newsletter subscribers get early access in every Monday! And stay tuned because on March 16, our next eLitPak will be making its way. Again, newsletter subscribers get first access to these fliers, so subscribe today.

Continue reading “Where to Submit Round-up: March 2022 Week 2”

Magazine Stand :: Poetry – March 2022

Poetry cover image

Srikanth Reddy’s Editor’s Note to Poetry Magzine begins by describing a photo included in the March issue, identifying a woman in the image, “Overlooked in her lifetime and ours, Margaret Esse Danner (1915–1984) made an art of looking intently at the world around her. As the first Black woman on Poetry’s editorial staff, she routinely sought out other overlooked writers to publish under the magazine’s ‘Open Door’ policy during her workday at the office.” She boldly states, “This issue of Poetry seeks to address an overlooked poet.” with Reddy’s admission, “I’m not sure how many times I’ve overlooked her.” Read more in the full issue content on the Poetry website.

Young Writer Summer Mentor Program

Adroit Journal logo

Now in its tenth year, The Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program is an entirely online program that pairs experienced writers with high school and secondary students (students in grades 9-12 and gap year students, high school class of ’21 or ’22) interested in learning more about the creative writing processes of drafting, redrafting, and editing. The program offers mentorships in the genres of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The aim of the program is not formalized instruction, but rather an individualized, flexible, and often informal correspondence. Poetry students will share weekly work with mentors and peers, while fiction and creative nonfiction/memoir students will share biweekly work with mentors and peers.

Participation in the mentorship for students who do not qualify for financial aid will cost $450 per mentee. There is no application fee. Mentee applicants for whom tuition will be a barrier are assured that fee remission and robust financial aid will be available.

Applications will be open through March 15, 2022.

New Book :: All Rise

All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa 1910-1948
Graphic History by Richard Conyngham
Catalyst Press, April 2022
ISBN: 9781946395634
Paperback, 248pp; $24.95

This collective work revives six true stories of resistance by marginalized South Africans against the country’s colonial government in the years leading up to Apartheid. In six parts—each of which is illustrated by a different South African artist—All Rise shares the long-forgotten struggles of ordinary, working-class women and men who defended the disempowered during a tumultuous period in South African history. From immigrants and miners to tram workers and washerwomen, the everyday people in these stories bore the brunt of oppression and in some cases risked their lives to bring about positive change for future generations. With artwork by Saaid Rahbeeni, The Trantraal Brothers, Liz Clarke, Dada Khanyisa, Tumi Mamabolo, and Mark Modimola.

Salamander – No. 53

Salamander cover image

Published at Suffolk University, this new issue of Salamander includes 2021 Fiction Contest First Prize Winner, “Lucky, Lucky, Lucky” by Nicole Simonsen, and Second Prize Winner “Panzanalia” by Justina Elias, along with creative nonfiction by Sarah Cedeño, and poetry by Anindita Sengupta, Christopher DeWeese, Sara Elkamel, Inez Tan, Kathleen Winter, Minadora Macheret, Katie Marya, Seth Leeper, Lynn Gao Cox, Aneska Tan, Leigh Chadwick, Alejandro Lucero, and more.

Allegro Poetry – No. 28

Allegro Logo

The March 2022 issue of online literary magazine Allegro Poetry Magazine features poetry by Christopher Southgate, Elizabeth Barrett, Anna Saunders, Tim Love, Jane Angué, John Grey, Tony Beyer, Gareth Roberts, Robin Helweg-Larsen, Jane Simpson, Rod Whitworth, Stephen Cramer, Marjory Woodfield, Simon Smith, Richard Cecil, Peter J. Donnelly, Ed Ahern, Tim Dwyer, Alwyn Marriage, Hélène Demetriades, D A Prince, Phil Wood, Julie Mullen, and Caroline Maldonado.

Read the issue online at Allegro Poetry Magazine‘s website.

Magazine Stand :: The Gettysburg Review – 33:4

The Gettysburg Review cover image

The Gettysburg Review 33:4 features paintings by Erik Weisenburger, fiction by Jackson Saul, Benjamin Ehrlich, and Sofia Ergas Groopman; essays by Molly Gallentine, Alexis Richland, Cassandra J. Bruner, Stephen Corey, and James McKean; poetry by Kathryn Cowles, Janice N. Harrington, Colin Pope, Alice Friman, Albert Goldbarth, Christopher Howell, Margaret Gibson, Bruce Snider, Floyd Collins, Sherod Santos, Jaswinder Bolina, Nicholas Friedman, and Sydney Lea.

New Book :: Imago, Dei

book cover art

Imago, Dei
Poetry by Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose
Rattle, February 2022
ISBN: 978-1-931307-50-5
Chapbook, 44pp; $6
Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner

How does a daughter emerge whole from an upbringing saturated with religious fundamentalism? And if not whole, how does she piece together some kind of coherent self out of fragmented half-truths? The eighteen narrative poems in Imago, Dei bear witness to the emotional and psychological weight amassed from a girlhood fraught with vexed messages about what it means to be “good.” Narrated in third-person, lyric vignettes, these are poems about a daughter’s desire to be the son her well-meaning, but deeply damaged father thinks he needs; about an adolescent world filled with cute boys, predatory church leaders, Lakes of Fire, and broken girls who beg to be reborn; about the bad-girl specters of Eve, Jezebel, and Delilah that haunt her into adulthood and wreak havoc on her intimate relationships; about dirty dancing, Bible study, Lacanian theory, and crying after sex; and about what happens when a recovering evangelical becomes a mother to her own daughters.

Magazine Stand :: Bomb – Spring 2022

Bomb magazine cover image

In Bomb literary magazine Spring 2022, Issue 159, John Darnielle examines the “weird primordial chaos” of the creative process with Carmen Maria Machado, Jennifer Sirey sculpts bacteria into living architecture, Neema Githere and Ethel Tawe explore how Afropresentism can propel diasporic artists into the future, and Emily Raboteau looks back to the 2020 New York City exodus. Plus, theater and protests in Paris, a dance score inspired by the natural world, and an essay on how comics can spur environmental justice.

New Book :: Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough

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Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough
Poetry by Kyle Tran Myhre
Featuring Art by Casper Pham
Button Poetry, March 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63834-009-6
Paperback, 188pp; $18 / Signed $25

Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough is a sci-fi-flavored exploration of the role that art and artists play in resisting authoritarianism. Featuring new poems, theater elements, and Casper Pham‘s stunning visual art, the book follows two wandering poets as they make their way from village to village, across a prison colony moon full of exiled rebels, robots, and storytellers. Part post-apocalyptic road journal, part alternate universe ode to Hip Hop, and part “Letters to a Young Poet”-style toolkit for emerging poets and aspiring movement-builders, it’s also a one-of-a-kind practitioners’ take on poetry, power, and possibility.

New Book :: Halley’s Comet

book cover art

Halley’s Comet
Young Adult Fiction by Hannes Barnard
Catalyst Press, January 2022
ISBN: 9781946395559
Paperback, 320pp; $16.99

Halley’s Comet is the coming-of-age story of Pete de Lange, a white 16-year-old schoolboy, set in small-town South Africa in 1986. Pete lives a relatively sheltered life, primarily concerned with girls and rugby—until one January night changes everything. Thrust together with two complete strangers—Petrus, a black farmworker’s son, and Sarita, an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—the trio find themselves running for their lives from the vicious Rudie, whose actions will ripple far beyond that fateful night. This era-defying friendship—sparked by a shared secret— challenges everything Pete thought he knew and believed. And when anti-Apartheid revolutionaries set their sights on the town, it will change the course of the three young people’s lives forever. Halley’s Comet is a story of friendship, love, change, taking chances, hope, a comet, and some pretty cool 80s music.

Call :: Daily Stories of Fifty Words or Less Straight into Your Inbox

Screenshot of Vine Leaves Press daily micro fiction newsletter 50 Give or Take

Deadline: Rolling
If a reader signs up to 50 Give or Take, they will receive daily micro fiction of fifty words or less straight into their inbox. Despite popular opinion, the name 50 Give or Take doesn’t refer to the number of words in the story. It is a metaphor for what we, as readers and writers, give and take emotionally from the written word. Do you write flash fiction? Then submit! We publish all accepted stories in a print collection every November 6. All you have to do is submit your story, one-line bio, and vertical photo of yourself. Info here: vineleavespress.com/50-give-or-take.html.

New Book :: The Loneliest Girl

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The Loneliest Girl
Poetry by Kate Gale
University of New Mexico Press, February 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8263-6369-5
Paperback, 88pp; $18.95

Who was more alone than Medusa? Raped in Athena’s temple, transformed into a monster, and banished into a cave, Medusa may be the ultimate example of victim blaming. In The Loneliest Girl, Kate Gale creates a powerful alternative narrative for Medusa and for all women who have carried guilt and shame—for being a woman, for not being enough, for being a victim. She offers a narrative in which women are the makers of the world—in which women find their way out from the cave of the Cisthene and into a world where they determine their own destiny.

New Book :: Disruption

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Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa
Edited by Rachel Zadok, Karina Szczurek, Jason Mykl Snyman
Catalyst Press, September 2021
ISBN: 9781946395573
Paperback, 260pp; $16.95

This genre-spanning anthology explores the many ways that we grow, adapt, and survive in the face of our ever-changing global realities. In these evocative, often prescient, stories, new and emerging writers from across Africa investigate many of the pressing issues of our time: climate change, pandemics, social upheaval, surveillance, and more. Facing our shared anxieties head on, these authors scrutinize assumptions and invent worlds that combine the fantastical with the probable, the colonial with the dystopian, and the intrepid with the powerless, in stories recognizing our collective future and our disparate present. Disruption is the newest anthology from Short Story Day Africa, a non-profit organization established to develop and share the diversity of Africa’s voices through publishing and writing workshops.

New Book :: And If the Woods Carry You

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And If the Woods Carry You
Poetry by Erin Rodoni
Southern Humanities Review Press, December 2021
ISBN: 978-1-930508-51-4
Paperback, 80pp; $16.95

Winner of the 2020 Michael Waters Poetry Prize, And If the Woods Carry You takes readers on a journey to the brink of climate catastrophe; a mother grappling with her choice to bring children into an apocalyptic world sends her daughters into the woods of fairy tale as a rite of initiation. The woods carry her fears of extinction— devastating fires, rising seas, and the predatory dangers of girlhood—but also contain the transformative magic of love, interdependence, and renewal. And If the Woods Carry You roots into the wild heart of motherhood, where worry and wonder intertwine.

New Book :: Rasa

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Rasa
Poetry by Joanne Dominique Dwyer
Marsh Hawk Press, May 2022
ISBN: 978-0-9969912-7-8
Paperback, 94pp; $18

Winner of the 2021 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize chosen by David Lehman, RASA is Joanne Dominique Dwyer’s second collection of poems. Lehman noted that “Joanne Dominique Dwyer is an exceptionally talented poet, whose mind in motion on every page in Rasa gives pleasure. The author writes that ‘Intimacy means profoundly interior — / countless sets of keys and cryptic codes.’ The book is intimate in this sense. The author celebrates the power of the imagination to multiply metaphors, as in ‘Tarzan Audade,’ with its striking opening lines (‘It’s never a good sign when the patron saint / of betrothed couples is also the saint of the plague.’) and ‘No Alphabet,’ orchestrated by the reiterated ‘If not’ that begins the poem. The poet’s fruitful exchanges with Freud, in such poems as ‘To Charette with a Man,’ ‘Patron of Embalmers,’ and ‘Handsome Is as Handsome Does,’ delighted this reader.”

Rattle – 75

Rattle magazine image cover

The Spring 2022 issue of Rattle featured a Tribute to Librarians. Librarians work on the front lines of literature and are often the last bulwark against censorship, as we discuss with former librarian Janice N. Harrington in the conversation section. The theme includes 16 poems by librarians and their always-interesting contributor notes. The open section features 22 poets exploring the mysteries of life, both large and small. You can purchase the new issue at the Rattle website.

New Book :: On My Papa’s Shoulders

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On My Papa’s Shoulders
Children’s Picture Book by Niki Daly
Catalyst Press, May 2022
ISBN: 9781946395689
Hardcover, 30pp; $17.99

Whether it’s jumping in puddles with Tata in the rain, greeting the neighborhood cat on the quiet back streets with Gogo, or holding hands with Mama while rushing to make the bell, walking to school with family is the best. But nothing is better than walking to school with Papa. From high above, resting on Papa’s shoulders, all of the town is in perfect view, and Papa always says “I love you” when he says goodbye. A sweet ode to fatherhood and the special relationships children share with each member of their family, On My Papa’s Shoulders reminds readers that it’s not about where we’re going, but rather the people who walk with us along the way.

Grand Little Things – Feb 2022

Grand Little Things logo

Online literary magazine Grand Little Things is dedicated to “returning versification to verse.” They publish work on a rolling basis throughout the month. During February, they featured poems by J.P. Sexton, Gillian Thomas, Mark Burgh, Fabrice Poussin, Seth Wieck, Diane Lee Moomey, Louise Machen, J. Napolitano, Lisa Creech Bledsoe, and Paul Jones. Stop by Grand Little Things to read these and more.

New Book :: BloodFresh

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BloodFresh
Poetry by Ebony Stewart
Button Poetry, February 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63834-008-9
Paperback, 112pp; $18 / Signed $25

In BloodFresh, a celebration of identity, Ebony Stewart reclaims her own narrative to speak against the racism and colorism she’s experienced while criticizing society’s treatment of women as sexual objects. This collection reaffirms the reader through storytelling as an open letter to retell, acknowledge, overcome, and learn new ways to use poetry as a coping technique. As BloodFresh reflects the importance of owning your own space, Stewart carves out a home for herself, her poems, and all of the readers who take refuge in her words.

Contest :: 2022 Able Muse Contests Deadlines This Month

Screenshot of Able Muse's 2022 Contest Flier
click image to open full-size PDF

Deadlines: March 15, 2022; March 31, 2022
2022 Able Muse Contests :: Submit now! Write Prize (poetry & fiction): $500 each + publication. Final Judges: Aaron Poochigian (poetry), Dennis Must (fiction); $15 entry; deadline: March 15, 2022. Book Award (poetry): $1,000 + book publication. Final Judge: Rachel Hadas; $25 entry; deadline: March 31, 2022. Enter now—go to www.ablemusepress.com for full details.

Society of Classical Poets Journal – Feb 2022

person reading and praying

Literary magazine The Society of Classical Poets Journal features work online on a rolling basis gathered into a stunning print issue. During the month of February 2022, find poems by Cara Valle, Russel Winick, James A. Tweedie, Jack DesBois, Julian Woodruff, Brian Yapko, Phil S. Rogers, Paul Freeman, Gail Kaye Naegele, Jeff Eardley, and many more. Stop by The Society of Classical Poets Journal website to read these pieces and so much more.

New Book :: The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap

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The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap
Young Adult Fiction by Bridget Krone
Catalyst Press, June 2022
ISBN: 9781946395665
Paperback, 172pp; $14.95

A lot of things can feel just out of reach in 12-year-old Boipelo Seku’s small, impoverished village of Cedarville, South Africa. The idea of one day living in a house that’s big enough for his family is just a faraway dream. But when Boi stumbles on a story about a Canadian man who traded his way from a paperclip to a house, Boi hatches his own trading plan starting with a tiny clay cow he molded from river mud. Trade by trade, Boi and his best friend Potso discover that even though Cedarville lacks so many of the things that made the paperclip trade possible, it is fuller than either of them ever imagined.

New Book :: Far Company

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Far Company
Poetry by Cindy Hunter Morgan
Wayne State University Press, May 2022
ISBN: 9780814349526
Paperback, 72pp; $16.99

In Far Company reveals Cindy Hunter Morgan thinking about the many ways we carry the natural world inside of us as a kind of embedded cartography. Many of these poems commune not only with lost ancestors but also past poets. She offers conversations with Emily Dickinson, James Wright, Walt Whitman, and W. S. Merwin. These poets, who are part of Hunter Morgan’s poetic lineage, are beloved figures in the far company she keeps, but the poems she writes are distinctly hers.

New Book :: Fly High, Lolo

book cover art

Fly High, Lolo
Young Adult Fiction by Niki Daly
Catalyst Press, May 2022
ISBN: 9781946395658
Paperback, 79pp; $7.99

More fun is on the way for Lolo in Fly High, Lolo, the fourth book in Niki Daly’s Lolo series for beginning readers. Lolo is kind-hearted, creative, full of joy, and— whether it’s making homemade Christmas decorations from recycled plastics, or stepping in when the school play goes awry—she always knows just what to do to save the day! In this collection of easy-to-read stories, we meet Lolo, a girl who lives in South Africa with her mother and grandmother, Gogo. Charmingly illustrated by the author, Fly High, Lolo follows Lolo as she explores her world, and the new adventures each day brings.