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!
In this issue, Joe Tobias merges a surgeon’s knowledge with the instincts of poetry in three poems beginning with “Repair.” Karen Salyer McElmurray recalls pivotal moments of grief as she plans her father’s memorial at the beginning of the pandemic in “How Souls Travel.” And Benjamin Anastas explores Japanese jetlag porn and the verb tenses of a man’s life at age 47 in the short story “Going Underneath.” Learn about this issue’s images at the Cutleaf website.
This Bridge is truly an invitation to cross over into other realms. Young writers (age 14-24) created all these texts and images, from a wonderful range of places, points of view, backgrounds, gender locations, and experiences. Drama by Ethan Luk; fiction by Morgan MacVaugh, Cassandra Lawton, Deborah Yoder, Oreoluwa Oladimeji, and Catrina Prager; and nonfiction by Divya Mehrish. Find more contributors at the Bridge website.
Deadline: December 31, 2021
The Chestnut Review (“for stubborn artists”) invites submissions year round of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, and photography. We offer free submissions for poetry (3 poems), flash fiction (<1000 words), and art/photography (20 images); $5 submissions for fiction/nonfiction (<5k words), or 4-6 poems. Published artists receive $120. Notification in <30 days or submission fee refunded. We appreciate stories in every genre we publish. All issues free online which illustrates what we have liked, but we are always ready to be surprised by the new! We are currently reading for our Spring 2022 issue. chestnutreview.com
Congratulations to the winner and finalists of the Press 53 Award for Poetry.
Winner
The Italian Professor’s Wife by Ann Pedone
Finalists
We Are Children by Bill Ayres
Watts UpRise by Ron Dowell
The Bones Beneath by Sheila Smith McKoy
Splendor of Ignition by Robert Miltner
Passaic by Paula Neves
The Past Tense of Green by Alison Prine
The Ice Beneath the Earth by Brian Ascalon Roley
Tom Lombardo served as the only reader and judge for this contest, and Pedone’s manuscript was chosen from more than 380 entries. The Italian Professor’s Wife will be published by Press 53 in April 2022.
Guest Post by Julia Wilson.
There is something magnetic about a story that centers on feral children, unfettered by adults, who live by their own rules and justice. A Luminous Republic does just that, evoking memories of the Salem witch trials and Lord of the Flies.
The hordes of unchaperoned children in this novel arrive to the city mysteriously, and it’s uncertain whether their purpose is to wreak havoc or they only seem that way because the society they’ve set up runs contrary to rules most adults abide by. The narrator, who himself is guilty of transgressions and lack of empathy, struggles with his feelings about this mob of mysterious children who disappear every night into a secret civilization.
“They’re just children . . . children we’ve treated like criminals.” But what if their own children are inspired by these untamed children? Then how do the adults feel about the innocence of this ragged group?
Barba uses foreshadowing to allow the reader glimpses of grim events to come, keeping tension and foreboding strong. The reader knows from the outset that the situation deteriorates tragically for many involved, but not how, when, or why. Through this narrative technique, Barba also allows the narrator time to lay blame and normalize behaviors which cross into forbidden territory.
This is a gripping and beautifully written book which questions the ease in which members of a ruling society can excuse behaviors that cast out those who differ, believing that incorporating these nonconformists will weaken the bonds of their carefully molded world.
A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba. Mariner Books, April 2020.
Reviewer bio: Julia Wilson is pursuing a Masters in Writing at Johns Hopkins University.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
ANMLY is currently looking for a new fiction reader. This volunteer position asks for two or three hours of your time per week. The publication tends to focus on work that is experimental and innovative.
Applications are open until November 15. Email the editors to apply.
Guest Post by Susan Kay Anderson.
From Bock’s poem, “My Father’s Paintbox” grief could bite, then, could devour, even with the greys and mixed silvers of a wolf pelt, its coat.
The color of grief is wolf
There is a lot of snow and ice and coldness in this book, too, though, so the title could refer to something smooth and frozen, liquid which was once flowing and now locked. Tears?
The color of grief is wolf
A small, squarish book that fits well in the hand. Yes, the title caught my eye, too, fairytale talk but larger, with a cover depicting the night sky, so instantly we are transported to the realm of Star Trek and other space ports, like Duncan Jones’ Moon movie. Plus, I love prose poems and these make up most of Glass Bikini. I also love sadness and sad writing. Endlessly interesting and endless like space (we think).
Never, ever, fall in love
with a bird. I’ve come to know the difference
between sadness and grief. Sadness
is the knell of a bell on a buoy at night
(from “The Island Of Zerrissenheit”)
This poem could definitely rip you in two. This whole book could but it is glassed over; it is smooth in appearance because of the prose poems and a few poems which are in lines. Things are smooth until something comes out and grabs you because
The color of grief is wolf
In “Field Trip To The White House,” a school excursion turns nightmarish as the Gingerbread Man hides in “dim corridors” waiting to catch children with its “dripping red mouth.”
It is hard to stay away from this book. I know I should . . . yet . . . maybe the horrific breaks up the sadness? This could be.
Glass Bikini by Kristin Bock. Tupelo Press, December 2021.
Reviewer bio: Susan Kay Anderson’s books are Mezzanine and Please Plant This Book Coast To Coast. Her poems are in recent issues of Heron Tree and forthcoming in Barrow Street, Interim, and Wild Roof Journal.
In THEMA‘s Fall 2021 issue, writers and artists explore the theme “Which Virginia?” Work by Jill Munro, Dallas Gorbett, Kathleen Gunton, Virginia McGee Butler, Lynda Fox, John Lambremont Sr., J. Jackson, James Penha, Robert Boucheron, Bill Glose, June Thompson, Max Gutmann, Paula Messina, Dana Stamps II, Rachel Lister, Lorrain Merrin, H.B. Salzer, Daniel Brown, and Linda Berry. Cover photo by Chuck Galey.
More info at the THEMA website.
Registration Deadline: Rolling
Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) workshops follow a proven method that affirms writers by building confidence, creating an atmosphere of equal exploration, and protecting confidentiality. AWA trains writers to uphold the AWA method and become workshop leaders who work with everyone from novice writers, who have been led to believe they have no voice, to experienced writers seeking to hone their craft. AWA-trained leaders have founded a number of incredible non-profits devoted to using writing to address social justice issues. See our website for more information.
In this issue: poetry by Jordan Escobar, John McCarthy, Mary Buchinger, Dorsía Smith Silva, Kayla Sargeson, Maggie Graber, Nazifa Islam, Eddie Kim, and Miles Waggenr. Short fiction by Jennifer Gauthier, Andrew Zhou, Abby Walthausen. Essays by Elizabeth Henry, Yelizaveta P. Renfro, Gary Fincke, and Janine DeBaise. Hybrid prose by Jim Peterson, plus a collaborative essay by Denise Duhamel & Julie Marie Wade. Find it at the South Dakota Review website.
The November issue is centered around collaborative poetry and prose with work by Nilufar Karimi & Eliseo Ortiz; Miriam Karraker; Gabrielle Bates & Jennifer S. Cheng; She Who Has No Master(s); Jan Dennis Destajo & Kabel Mishka Ligot; Kim Seong Eun & Cindy Juyoung Ok; Traci Morris, Harryette Mullen, Jo Stewart, & Yolanda Wisher; Kimberly Blaeser, Molly McGlennen, & Margaret Noodin; Cindy Juyoung Ok on the collaborative process; and Noam Dorr & Cori A. Winrock. See what else you can find in this issue at the Poetry website.
Deadline: January 31, 2022
Ethos Literacy—a nonprofit literacy program—announces its 3rd Annual Short Short Story Contest. 100 word limit on one of these topics: chewing gum, horror movies, skyscrapers, or tubas. Cash prizes: Best in Contest: $250; Best Youth Prize (14 years or younger): $100; 4 Best of Category: $100; People’s Choice $100. Publication in a digital magazine + webcast of winners reading their stories. Submission fee: $10. Proceeds support literacy programs for teens and adults.
The second issue of Good River Review is out. Prose by K.B. Carle, Whitney Collins, M Shelley Conner, Melissa A. Domjan, and Quinn Grover; poetry by Chelsea Dingman, Elizabeth Dodd, Naoko Fujimoto, Beth Gordon, Kinshuk Gupta, Jacob C. Harris, Kaylor Jones, Kiki Petrosino, Jeremy Radin, Mark Lee Webb, and Nicholas Yingling. Katy Yocom interviews filmmaker Skye Wallin, as well as ATL’s Robert Barry Fleming. Plus, three book reviews. More info at the Good River Review website.
This issue includes the winning story from the 2020 Short Fiction Contest by Seth Bockley, a Boulevard Craft Interview with Best Show host Tom Scharpling, new fiction from Joyce Carol Oates, Melissa Chadburn, Angela Ma, Liwen Xu, and Roy Parvin, new poetry from Michaela Carter, Michael Hettich, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Brooke Sahni, and Alexandra Teague, and essays by Stephen Benz, Anne Kenner, and Jessica Weatherford.
More info at the Boulevard website.
Chatham’s MFA in Creative Writing grows from Rachel Carson ’29, a creative writer known for her social conscience. Our students treat writing as a public act with the power to effect meaningful change. Their ideas, convictions, and writing matters. Our students think deeply about their spaces and identities. They look within then connect to the world with care and intention. Concentrations include travel writing, nature writing, food writing, publishing, social engagement, and pedagogy to complement the MFA degree with genres in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and children’s writing (low-residency only). Additionally, we offer an on-ground full-residency program and a low-residency program.
In the latest issue of The Blue Mountain Review: Faylita Hicks on the fierce divine feminine. Life, love, music, and famous pants of David Shaw. Introducing the truth of K. Iver. Swing in the joy of Sammi Garrett. Finding faith and success with the Edwards Sisters. Featured from Athens, GA: Jittery Joe’s & The Georgia Tehatre. See what else is in this issue by visiting The Blue Mountain Review website.
“The Health of the Sick.” Many of the pieces in this issue of Bennington Review display a keen awareness of the vulnerability of the human body, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Poetry by Michael Bazzett, Kelly Moore, John Sibley Williams, Eryn Green, Rebecca Zweig, Chris Dahl, Elisa Gabbert, Sandra Simonds, Holly Amos, Sarah Barber, Benjamin Landry, Tom Paine, Suphil Lee Park, K.A. Hays, John Blair, Anna Leahy, Stella Wong, Toby Altman, Cynthia Cruz, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Angela Ball, Mary Biddinger, Leah Umansky, and more. See what you’ll find in prose at the Bennington Review website.
Deadline: January 14, 2022
$2,500 honorarium and book publication: Submit book-length collection of poems to the Colorado Prize for Poetry by January 14, 2022 (we will observe a 5-day grace period). $25 reading fee (add $3 to submit online) includes subscription to Colorado Review. Final judge is Gillian Conoley; friends and students (current or former) of the judge are not eligible to compete, nor are Colorado State University employees, students, or alumni. Complete guidelines at coloradoprize.colostate.edu or Colorado Prize for Poetry, Center for Literary Publishing, 9105 Campus Delivery, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-9105.
ANMLY #33 is out. The journal is back with translations, fiction, poetry, comics, and CNF! International, intersecting, always interesting. Comics by Wild Iris, Kathryn Smith, and Halo Lahnert; poetry by Tori Ashley Matos, Sage Ravenwood, Rachel Lee, Nora Rose Thomas, Maya Salameh, KT Herr, Jae Nichelle, Fox Rinne, Dorsía Smith Silva, and more; fiction by William Dempsey, Ray Levy, Diane Glancy, and others; and nonfiction by Lauren Scheer and Josie Lê. More info at the Anomaly website.
Welcome to Adroit 39 featuring words and art by Stephanie Chang, Ngoc Pham, Eliza Brownig, Julian Guy, Nur Turkmani, Amy Woolard, Paul Tran, Ari Banias, Lory Bedikian, Jack Goodman, Matilda Lin Berke, Robin Gow, Despy Boutris, Kate Lee, So Eun Kim, Seungmin Kang, David Kirby, Sharon Lin, Kyle Wang, Enshia Li, Amal Haddad, David Emeka, Sofia Montrone, Kate Wisel, Andrew Grace, the students recognized by our Adroit Prizes, and more! Cover art by Veronika Vajdova. More info at The Adroit Journal website.
The MFA in Creative Writing program at George Mason University combines acclaimed faculty with a welcoming community to be the place where you want to create literary art. With the new Watershed Lit: Center for Literary Engagement and Publishing Practice, we are here to develop your artistic and professional careers. Students can receive funding as Graduate Teaching Assistants or Graduate Professional Assistants. Be part of the rich cultural life at Mason, in Northern Virginia, and throughout the Washington, D.C., region. Check out a recording of our Online Open House! Just email [email protected] to request access.
After a brief hiatus, NewPages has brought back our physical LitPak mailing to graduate and undergraduate creative writing programs and classes.
The LitPaks were mailed last week and contain fliers and ads from december, Florida Atlantic University/Swamp Ape Review, Diode Editions, Arcadia University MFA, Temple University Press, Soundings East, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Rattle, Fourth Genre, The Society of Classical Poets, Amherst Writers & Artists, selva oscura press, George Mason University MFA/BFA, Chatham University MFA, Colorado Review, Tint Journal, Copperfield Review Quarterly, Collateral, I-70 Review, Willow Springs, Change Seven Magazine, Abandon Journal, and Blackwater Press.
Don’t worry if you’re not on the list to get the physical mailings, because we are happy to share a special digital edition right here on the NewPages Blog. Please feel free to print, download, and share the digital version of the fliers.
If you are interested in making sure your university’s writing program receives future LitPaks, please contact us!
The Fall 2021 issue of Southern Humanities Review features the winner of the 2021 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, judged by Jericho Brown.
Winner
“Slouching like a velvet rope” by Elizabeth Aoki
Runners-Up
“Dorothy Dandridge on White Men in Hollywood” by Maurya Kerr
“I Left the Church in Search of God” by Darius Simpson
Aoki will receive $1000 and travel to Auburn, Alabama to celebrate the seventh annual poetry prize where she will read her work at an event headlined by Jericho Brown. The Fall 2021 issue is sold out in print, but you can still check out the winning poem online.
CRAFT has announced the winners of the 2021 Short Fiction Prize judged by Kristin Valdez Quade. The winners were published this month.
First Place—Willa Zhang: “Night Air”
Second Place—Leesa Fenderson: “Ugly: A Stream of Consciousness”
Third Place—Cyn Nooney: “Just the Thing for a Day Like This”
Finalists
María Isabel Álvarez: “Happiness and Other Found Objects”
Caro Claire Burke: “Gold Rush”
Emily Cataneo: “From the Mouths of Girls, a Leviathan”
Celeste Chen: “your body is a memory in motion”
Gina L. Grandi: “Layabout”
Kathryn Holmstrom: “From Gardens where We Feel Secure”
Robert Maynor: “Always with You”
Anna Mazhirov: “An Absolute”
Amanda McLaughlin: “Cheap Trick”
Neeru Nagarajan: “Suckling”
A.J. Rodriguez: “Lenguaje”
Leigh Claire Schmidli: “Sometimes the Going”
Congratulations to the winners and finalists. Don’t forget their Flash Fiction Contest is open to entries of stories up to a 1,000 words through October 31. The guest judge is Robert Lopez.
Not wanting to let novelists have all the fun during the month of November, Creative Nonfiction is offering a self-guided Write Your Memoir course.
Running from November 1-26, the course is patterned after their popular Thirty-Minute Memoir and is designed to “help you break the potentially overwhelming task of writing a memoir into manageable daily writing assignments.”
Each week’s lesson will be revealed on Mondays and will focus on a different aspect of memoir writing and offers daily prompts to help you generate work and inspiration via written lectures and selected readings.
The best part? It’s only $29.99, so join NaMeWriMo today!
Deadline: November 15, 2021
We’re looking for manuscripts of at least 48 pages that engage the perilous conditions of life in the 21st century, as they pertain to issues of social justice and the earth. Because we believe the truth is always experimental, we’ll especially appreciate books with innovative approaches. Beginning in 2021 and going forward, Interim will be publishing two books in their Test Site Poetry series—one title publicized as the winner of the Test Site Poetry Series and the other as the Betsy Joiner Flanagan Award in Poetry. Both winners will receive $1,000 and publication by the University of Nevada Press. www.interimpoetics.org/test-site-poetry-series
Guest Post by Joyce Bou Charaa.
Usually, reading a biographical book is not as enjoyable and exciting as this impressive one by Andrew D. Kaufman. The Gambler Wife is the life story of a brilliant woman who played a huge role in her husband’s writing career, their love story marking the Russian literary history of the 19th century. The interesting life of Anna Snitkina, a successful Russian feminist, and her husband Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the famous writer of all time, will be remembered for many decades.
In this book, Kaufman traces the life of Anna Snitkina, from her childhood as an educated and ambitious young girl who likes reading and storytelling, until she met her most favorite writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and worked with him as a stenographer. Continue reading “A Historical Love Story”
Application Deadline: November 15, 2021
18th Annual Virtual Palm Beach Poetry Festival is taking place January 10-15, 2022. Focus on your work with America’s most engaging and award-winning poets. Workshops with Kim Addonizio, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Chard deNiord, Mark Doty, Yona Harvey, John Murillo, Matthew Olzmann, and Diane Seuss. One-On-One Conferences with Lorna Blake, Sally Bliumis Dunn, Nickole Brown, Jessica Jacobs, and Angela Narciso Torres. A special Craft Talk by Kwame Dawes, Special Guest Poet, Yusef Komunyakaa. Poet-at-Large, Aimee Nezhukumatathil. To find out more, visit www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org. Apply to attend a workshop by November 15!
Guest Post by Chloe Yelena Miller.
Chloe Yelena Miller, author of Viable (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2021) interviews Lindsay Merbaum, author of The Gold Persimmon (Creature Publishing, 2021).
I so enjoyed reading your book, Lindsay. I was curious to understand what “feminist horror” meant, and these two, interwoven, gender-focused storylines offer a clear definition. The psychological horror of loneliness and loss and the distance between self and the mother figure felt tangible throughout the book. The characters were seeking physical and emotional comfort, despite or because of what’s happening around them. I admire how easily the characters’ mothers’ voices interject in scenes where the mothers would not otherwise be present. Continue reading “Chloe Yelena Miller Interviews Lindsay Merbaum”
Driftwood Press has officially announced the results of their Novella Reading Period. Kevin Litchty’s The Circle That Fits is the winner. “The novella explores the fraught relationships between two parents and their son as they live in a travelling carnival.” The Circle That Fits will be released in 2022.
Due to a generous donation from Sarah “Hollis Queen,” the award for Litchty’s novella was increased from $400 to $1,000.
Driftwood Press is currently accepting novella manuscripts once more. There is a $20 fee. Future novellas selected will receive $400, publication, and 10 copies of their printed novella.
This month on the Terrain.org website, find poetry by Daryl Jones, Laura Winter, Justin Hunt, Gregory Wolff, Allan Peterson, and Catherine Stearns; nonfiction by Mitchell Thomashow, Laura Pritchett, and Jen Hirt; and fiction by Richard Courage. In the “Currents” section are prose and photos by Thomas Hallock. Now at Terrain.org website.
Deadline: January 15, 2022
Background: The contest is in honor of Emma Howell who was born in Portland, Oregon, and died in 2001, at the age of twenty. She left behind a single volume of poetry: Slim Night of Recognition. This prize is an effort to promote the publication of young poets, to honor Emma’s memory, as well as honor the time and effort her father, Christopher Howell, former Director of Willow Springs Books, has put into our press. Prize: $2,000 + manuscript publication. Eligibility: Poets 35 years old and younger who have not yet published a book-length poetry manuscript. Submit: bit.ly/3aE00R3.
In the current issue: nonfiction by Barbara Liles and JJ Peña; fiction by Barbara Barrow, Erin Comerford, Judith Dancoff, Erica Jasmin Dixon, and Lee Rozelle; and poetry by Elizabeth Aoki, Mary Leauna Christensen, Noah Davis, Armen Davoudian, Marlanda Dekine, Andrew Hemmert, Maurya Kerr, Cate Lycurgus, Athena Nassar, Khalisa Rae, Darius Simpson, and Ariana Francesca Thomas.
More info at the Southern Humanities Review website.
New writing by Tamas Dobozy, Marcie Alexander, B.H. Fairchild, Jennifer Perrine, Heather Sellers, and Eliza Tudor. Fiction by Shubha Sunder, Andrew Porter, David Ryan, Marcie Alexander, and Maureen Aitken. Essays by Amy Day Wilkinson and Emily Ruehs-Navarro. See poetry contributors at the New Letters website.
In this issue Erika Veurink takes us on a tragic, and perhaps painfully humorous, first date with two people whose interest in each other simply don’t match in “Five Hours Ahead.” Diane Payne recounts ways isolation makes simple trips to the dentist or the grocery fraught in the short essay “The New You.” And Ralph Sneeden asks, “Where is the middle / distance of history” in four poems beginning with “Skiff Hill.” The images in this issue are from a 1921 illustrated guide to figure skating by Swedish skating champion Bror Myer. More info at the Cutleaf website.
Registration Deadline: May 15, 2022
Event Dates: June 12-16, 2022
Location: Delphi Resort Adventure Spa in Leenane, Ireland
With Carolyn Dawn Flynn, acclaimed novelist/memoirist and TEDx speaker, and writer-poet Jona Kottler. Let the mythic landscape of Connemara call you to a writing adventure at this enchanted spa resort. For writers of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Participants receive an extensive editorial letter and individual consultations, plus craft talks. Whether you’re writing essays or a book-length memoir, short stories or a novel, this retreat is designed to help you deepen and refine your work-in-progress. You will have time to write at this generative and restorative retreat. Website: www.carolynflynn.com/ireland-retreat-2022/
Join The Adroit Journal in two days, on Tuesday October 26, 2021 for the release reading for their 39th issue.
Readers include Jonny Teklit, Paul Tran, Lory Bedikian, Anthony Okpunor, Kate Wisel, and our Adroit Prizes winners Stephanie Chang and Enshia Li! Kate Gaskin will host the Zoom event.
Register for the event and learn a little bit more about the readers at Eventbrite.
Guest Post by Skylar Edwards.
Shakespeare meets Shanghai in this Romeo and Juliet retelling with a monstrous twist. Chloe Gong modernizes a familiar, yet different, plot sequence, with relevant characters and battles against colonialism, while honoring classical themes: love, hate, and loyalty. Roma and Juliette align to fight a monster, while navigating the dangers of a blood feud, gangster-run Shanghai, and foreign powers. As heirs to the competing gangs, Roma and Juliette have the most to lose and the stakes have never been higher.
Juliette returns from America to find that the life she once knew has changed and she struggles to redefine herself within Shanghai. Her loyalty to the Scarlet Gang is tested against the disputing territories quickly rising to power: rival gangs, communists, and colonizers. Tensions rise as she is forced to collaborate with her former lover, Roma of the White Flowers.
Gong paves the way for YA representation and creates authenticity by normalizing diverse characters, each with a unique perspective. In the story’s web, intertwined with queer and cultural identities, readers discover the Scarlet Gang are Chinese, while The White Flowers are primarily Russian. Sparks emerge between same-sex characters and readers discover that one gang member identifies as transgender.
Readers assume the antagonist is the monster who has released a plague of madness on Shanghai. However, Gong uses the monster-hunt trope to highlight who the real enemy is: each other. Two lovers and liars must put aside their differences, and convince others to do the same, before it is too late. Readers are left with a disastrous ending, where competing territories turn on each other and release the real monsters into Shanghai.
“Men are sometimes masters of their own fates.” —Shakespeare
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong. Margaret K. McElderry Books, November 2020.
Reviewer bio: Primarily a bookish fanatic working with nonprofits, Skylar is also a micro-influencer on BookTok; follow TwiceReadTales for more!
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Guest Post by Brooke M. Smith.
Poet and essayist Jessica Sabo explores the depths of the voice within her collection of poems. A Body of Impulse offers a magnifying lens into a woman’s life reflections. An Adelaide Literary Award in Poetry finalist (2020), Sabo lays bare a rawness leaving the reader to feel commiseration with her protagonist.
In “What I Should Have Said Instead of ‘Nothing,'” Sabo’s use of metaphors and imagery detail the pain and process of wanting to be understood:
It is a cancer, mom
eating me alive from the inside like a plague
and I am so raw I can’t feel the pain anymore. I can’t feel anymore. I can’t anymore. This hollowing is the only time I feel whole
and I know–I know! I could fight back if I really tried
and if I really wanted it
but I don’t want it, mom. I get so tired of being the outsider. Tired of living in this body that has
never been a home. I am homesick, mom. I am sick, mom.
Reading these last stanzas of her poem provoked a question most humans ask in life: Who am I? Am I happy with who I am . . . who I’ve become? Self-acceptance is a process, and a painful one at times. The ending of her poem “Requital“ spotlights our imperfections as women and being human. Acceptance of our choices, learning to accept ourselves as whole and worthy, no matter the condition we are in.
Now, it is my naked body in front of a mirror
a road map of
razor scars and stretch marks, faded tattoos
piercings that refuse to close. It is here I am
learning how to say mine without stutter
refusing to apologize for taking up (too much) sidewalk. Learning to fill the space
reserved for all my apologies.
Jessica Sabo’s beautifully threaded lines leave readers pondering these questions in her three-part poetry collection.
A Body of Impulse by Jessica Sabo. Dancing Girl Press & Studio, 2021.
Reviewer bio: Brooke M. Smith is a librarian who loves cats, coffee, cozy mysteries, camping, and many other things that don’t begin with the letter C. She also is a poetry editor for 805 Lit + Art Magazine.
No tricks this October—just some book treats! Take a look at which titles we’ve featured this month at the Book Stand.
Amanda Paradise by CAConrad is made up of memories of loved ones who died of AIDS, the daily struggle of existing through the pandemic, and the effort to arrive at a new way of falling in love with the world as it is, not as it was.
Ashanti Anderson’s Black Under layers outward perception with internal truth to offer an almost-telescopic examination of the redundancies—and incongruences—of marginalization and hypervisibility.
The short stories in Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments by Jackson Bliss are an exploration of not just mixed-race/hapa identity in Michigan (and the American Midwest), but also of the infinite ways in which stories can be told, challenged, celebrated, and subverted.
In thirteen chapters, Laura Kalpakian’s Memory into Memoir provides a lively guide for anyone looking to wrestle the unruly past onto the page.
Also this month on the Book Stand, find new and forthcoming releases from Diode Editions including Dorothy Chan’s Babe, Shanta Lee Gander’s Ghettoclaustrophobia, and Kendra DeColo & Tyler Mills’ collaborative chapbook, Low Budget Movie.
You can learn more about each of these New & Noteworthy books at our website. Click here to see how to place your book in our New & Noteworthy section.
Guest Post by Kristina Pudlewski.
Stanley Tucci’s latest book, Taste: My Life Through Food, is wonderful. It takes readers on a journey through food and culture in the early 60’s to present day, 2021.
In the early chapters it talks about Tucci’s family life and what he grew up eating and experiencing in New York. Growing up in an Italian household means fun stories and delicious meals daily. Tucci describes both of these gracefully. His details about the food he grew up eating leaves your mouth watering and it’s extremely helpful that he also includes recipes so you can make the meals he grew up loving, at home with your own families.
I love to eat, but my pockets don’t enjoy the price that some meals cost these days. Taste: My Life Through Food gives insights into ways you can cook amazing meals on a budget and where to go in the United States and abroad to get a good, cheap, filling meal.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a love for cooking and travel. This book talks about both and it shows just how great life can be when surrounded by good food and good company.
Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci. Gallery Books, October 2021.
Reviewer bio: I am a Freelance Writer from Illinois. I love to write fiction novels, short stories and poetry. I am currently writing my first novel.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Deadline: January 15, 2022
Heron Tree is open for submissions through January 15, 2022. We will read submissions and make decisions on a rolling basis. Accepted poems will be published individually online (one poem a week beginning in February 2022) and then collected in Heron Tree volume 9, which will be available as a free downloadable ebook. This special issue will be devoted to found poetry. See our detailed submission guidelines at herontree.com/how/.
Sky Island Journal’s stunning 18th issue is now out. Accomplished, well-established authors are published—side by side—with fresh, emerging voices. Readers are provided with a powerful, focused literary experience that transports them: one that challenges them intellectually and moves them emotionally. Always free to access, and always free from advertising, discover what over 90,000 readers in 145 countries already know; the finest new writing is here, at your fingertips. More info at Sky Island Journal website.
This issue features fiction by Hisham Bustani, Scott Blackwood, Gregory Spatz, Nicole Cuffy and Blair Hurly. It includes Alice Greenway’s novella describing the life in an overcrowded refugee camp. There is also poetry by Natalie Scenters-Zapico, Emma Trelles, Suphil Lee Park, Emelie Griffin, and Benjamin Paloff plus nonfiction by Leath Tonino. And a performance piece by John Cotter.
More info at the New England Review website.
A new issue of elsewhere is out. In this issue: Laura Ring, Quinn Rennerfeldt, Phillip Sterling, Brendan Walsh, Eric Pankey, and Mary Shelley.
More information at the elsewhere website.
The latest issue of The Dillydoun Review features short stories by Amita Basu, Byron Lafayette, Tacheny Perry, Trevor Sorel, and Michael Washburn; flash fiction by Adrienne Marie Barrios, Chris Coplan, Ben Gartner, Lorette C. Luzajic, Kim McCollum, and Anna Zwede; nonfiction by Cyndy Cendagorta, Laura Gaddis, and Carla Williams; and flash nonfiction by Anne R. Gibbons, River Kozhar, and Byron Spooner. See poetry contributors at The Dillydoun Review website.
Deadline: November 30, 2021
Issue #3 of Abandon Journal is open for submissions until 11/30/21. The theme is “Abandon Time” (interpret that as you wish). No fees for general subs. Accepting just about anything, as long as it is created with abandon, and we pay our contributors. See abandonjournal.com/submissions for full guidelines.
The beautiful Autumn issue is now available. Work by Andrew Krivak, Mark Blackford, Gerrie Paino, Youssef Alaoui, Matt Moment, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Jonas Holdeman, Alyssa Witbeck Alexander, Bette Ridgeway, Ahmed Qaid, Cindy Buchanan, Sherre Vernon, Brandon Lewis, Sarah Pascarella, Alexis Kruckeberg, KJ Li, Roger Camp, Colby Vargas, Lucy Zhang, Mark Yale Harris, Chelsea Stickle, and Jacy Zhang. More info at the Chestnut Review website.
Application Deadline: December 15, 2021
Event Dates: May 19 – 22, 2022
Location: Brevard, North Carolina
Located in the mountains of western North Carolina, the May 19-22, 2022 Looking Glass Rock Writers’ Conference will explore the theme “A Sense of Place” with faculty Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Alison Hawthorne Deming, and Crystal Wilkinson leading workshops on poetry, nonfiction, and fiction writing. A partnership between the Transylvania County Library and Brevard College, the annual conference consists of writing workshops for select participants and community readings by the workshop leaders. Workshops are limited to 12 participants and scholarships are available. Acceptance is competitive and based on manuscript evaluation. There is no charge to apply. For more information visit www.lgrwc.org.
In this issue: fiction by Rosaleen Bertolino, Tim Erwin, Ryan Pollard, Duke Stewart, Shelby Kinney-Lang, S.L. Wisenberg, Ivan Prashker, and more; nonfiction by Estee Ward, Elizabeth Brogden, Jena Martin, Alanna Weissman, Chip Brown, Zoe Fowler, and others. See poetry contributors at the Bellevue Literary Review website.
