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!
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.
Guest Post by Haydyn Wallender.
For as long as she can remember, Scarlett Dragna has dreamed of Caraval: a magical show where fantasy and reality collide. Legend, the mastermind behind the show, has declined to return any of Scarlett’s letters of urgency to see his magic—until now.
Swept off of her island by a mysterious sailor, Scarlett and her sister Tella aren’t just players of the show—they are the main attractions. Whisked into a world where nothing is as it seems, and with countless warnings to not believe what her eyes tell her, Scarlett learns that following her heart is the only way to find the truth—and her sister—before it’s too late.
Garber’s language and characters make the magic of her story come to life. Creating a strong bond between her readers and her characters using childlike wonder, hope infuses the pages with every turn, despite all the tension, confusion, and panic that is a common theme throughout this novel.
This book marvelously captures what it’s like to be caught in between a child and a young adult, where themes of love, sisterhood, and courage fill the pages. Garber’s ease of writing a story so full of twists using these themes is evident in her style and the composition of her work; each chapter seems to build up to something larger, as if Legend himself is creating the storyline. It is a wonderful novel for all who are grasping for that little bit of child—and magic—still left in oneself.
“Magic will find those with pure hearts, even when all seems lost.” ―Morgan Rhodes
Caraval by Stephanie Garber. Flatiron Books, May 2018.
Reviewer bio: Haydyn Wallender is an insatiable reader, writer and reviewer. Her experience with written work(s) extends back through her undergraduate, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at Washington State University. Her writing style and English-based experiences can be found at her website: (haydynwallendershowcase.com).
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Featuring some wonderful poetry, fiction, and narrative nonfiction from: Geoff Anderson, Shuang Ang, Claudia Delfina Cardona, Aaron Caycedo-Kimura, Stephanie Chang, Bryce Emley, Miguel Barretto García, Janalyn Guo, Bill Hollands, Ricardo Frasso Jaramillo, Karishma Jobanputra, Ravi Mangla, Shannan Mann, Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, Robert Okaji, D. A. Powell, Monica Prince, and AM Ringwalt. Find this issue at the wildness website.
Lush and allusive, tuned to a background in translating Nepal Bhasa poetry, Running Out of Words for Afterwards gives voice to cycles of desire, loss, and renewal. Like the many rivers that flow through this book, David Hargreaves’ poems, in various turns, can be urgent, expansive, unpredictable, or calm, conveying the reader through landscapes both mystical and mundane, through illusions of selfhood, and the struggles of language to accept its own limitations. “A truly exquisite book of poems.”—Charlotte Pence
New fiction by Whitney Collins, Ryan Napier, Barbara Barrow, Sarah Schiff, and Shannon L. Bowring. Poetry by Anna Tomlinson, Betsy Johnson, Mary Ann Samyn, Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, Lauren Green, Tianru Wang, Michael Dhyne, Aimee Seu, Ashley Sojin Kim, Dorianne Laux, Miguel Martin Perez, Chris Ketchum, Cheyenne Taylor, Isabelle Shepherd, Samuel Cheney, Riley Ratcliff, and Emma Aylor. Plus, art by David Gilman, Zwanda Cook, Annie Bates-Winship, Peter Kent, Sandra Ducoff Garber, Susan Gefvert, Toby Tover, and Ken Garber. Now at the Raleigh Review website.
The prose and poetry in this issue helped out editorial team find beauty and peace both through the pandemic and through Hurricane Ida. We hope you love them as deeply as we do. Fiction by Nicole VanderLinden, Mike Itaya, Heather Monley, Banzelman Guret, and Lucy Zhang; poetry by Ashley Crout, Jacob Griffin Hall, Amanda Gaines, Maari Carter, Maegan Gonzales, Bernardo Wade, Athena Nassar, Joanna Fuhrman, and Elizabeth Bergstrom; and nonfiction by Dan Leach and Sofía Aguilar. Find this issue’s interviews at the New Orleans Review website.
The Nov/Dec 2021 issue of the Kenyon Review features the winners of our 2021 Short Nonfiction Contest: Brigitte Leschhorn Arrocha, Christian Butterfield, and dm armstrong; stories by Bennett Sims, Morgan Thomas, Robert Travieso, and Hananah Zaheer; an essay by Paula C. Brancato; a short play by Kemuel DeMoville; and poems by O-Jeremiah Agbaakin, Kai Carlson-Wee, Lindsay Stuart Hill, Richie Hofmann, Dayna Patterson, Colin Pope, and Arthur Sze.
More info at the Kenyon Review website.
In the latest issue, find work by RC deWinter, Florence Murry, Lawrence Bridges, Barbara Daniels, Michele Parker Randall, Bryan Price, Dave Sims, Yvonne Morris, Avery Gregurich, Adele Evershed, James Butcher, William Welch, Mark McKain, Pamela Sumners, J. E. O’Leary, Bill Hollands, Ronald Walker, and more. Find a full list of contributors at the Hole in the Head Review website.
In this issue, Matt Prater celebrates the music of escape in three poems beginning with “The Slow Work of Unlearning.” Robert Sachs recounts the story of a boy named Evelyn who knew how to make the dogs howl in “A Delicious Silence.” And Jay Hodges reveals the intimate world of caring for someone with severe memory loss in a series of linked essays beginning with “Our Own Country.” Learn about this issue’s images at the Cutleaf website.
This issue features the winners of the 2021 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest. Short stories by and interviews with Morgan Green, Chris Blexrud, Mariah Rigg, Haley Hach, and Nina Elli. New poetry by Medeia Starfire, Emily Bludworth de Barrios, Anne Pedone, and Nick Martino. New nonfiction by Simona Blat and Raymond Wlodkowski. Additional features can be found at the Carve website.
Deadline: January 15, 2021
The Annual Rattle Chapbook Prize offers three winners $5,000 for a chapbook (up to 36 pages), plus 500 author copies, and distribution to Rattle’s 8,000+ subscribers. Entry fee of $25 includes a 1-year subscription to the magazine. Deadline: January 15. For guidelines and to read past winners, visit our website: www.rattle.com/chapbooks.
Deadline: Rolling
Atmosphere Press currently seeks book manuscripts from diverse voices. There’s no submission fee, and if your manuscript is selected, we’ll be the publisher you’ve always wanted: attentive, organized, on schedule, and professional. We use a model in which the author funds the publication of the book, but retains 100% rights, royalties, and artistic autonomy. This year Atmosphere authors have received featured reviews with Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, and have even appeared on a giant billboard in Times Square. Submit your book manuscript at atmospherepress.com.
In the Autumn 2021 issue of World Literature Today, Sarah Moore interviews Noémi Lefebvre. The two corresponded in May 2021 shortly after Poètique de l’emploi had been published in English and Parle had been released in France. The interview immediately had me interested with as they discuss the English translation of Poètique de l’emploi‘s title:
Sarah Moore: Your most recent work to be translated into English, Poètique de l’emploi, considers the question of employment. The English translation of emploi, which variously means “employment,” “use,” and “labor,” into “work” already shows the tension that you explore between how we earn a living and how we spend our time. How do you feel these different aspects relate to each other? Why were you interested in the subject?
Noémi Lefebvre: First, it’s a subject that affects me. I don’t understand the link between work and salary or why, when I work, I’m not earning much of a living. For example, when I write, I don’t earn much money, but that’s my real job. There isn’t a clear connection between the money we earn and the work we do. Also, work is a social condition that we’re all supposed to accept but one that often significantly restricts freedom. That’s what I wanted to consider. When a baby is born we don’t think, “Oh, super, it’s going to have a wonderful job,” unless, of course, you’re very narrow-minded. We think first about life and freedom, not in terms of paid work. I wanted to explore what remained childlike in me and what retains the desire to always be free in life, while work is often restrictive or creates living conditions that are just impossible—not for everyone but, still, often.
Check out the rest of the interview at WLT‘s website.
This past spring, Frontier Poetry ran their first Poetry Lab, and they’re back with another one this winter.
With this online space, your work will be read and edited by editor-partners Jenny Molberg, Kathleen Volk Miller, Rob MacDonald, and Mike Good.
Digital versions of Frontier‘s poetry chapbooks: How Often I Have Chosen Love by Xiao Yue Shan, Shadow Black by Naima Tokunow, and In the Year of Our Making & Unmaking by Frederick Speers will be paired with guided learning materials about crafting your own chapbook.
Participants will also receive over 40 pages of submission advice from editors from a selection of other literary magazines. Frontier promises to “send you a dozen great places that could be a good fit for your particular voice. Every participant will get individualized recommendations from our experienced team.”
You can learn more about the poetry lab at Frontier‘s website and register for the $299 lab through their Submittable. The deadline to register is November 30.
Deadline: December 31, 2021
Versal is currently accepting submissions for the biennial Amsterdam Open Book Prize. Chapbook-length to full book manuscripts between 25 and 80 pages of different genres and forms, including poetry, fiction and nonfiction prose, and especially experimental, hybrid and collaborative pieces are welcome. Inventive works that create new landscapes visually, sonically or cognitively excite us. Writing that resists and rebels. Work that is humanizing and radical and necessary in the world. Literary expressions that push boundaries. Linguistic gatherings and reckonings. Judge: Raina León. Deadline: December 31, 2021. For full guidelines, please visit: www.versaljournal.org
Deadline: January 31, 2022
Submissions are now being accepted for the 10th Saroyan Prize. The awards, co-sponsored by Stanford Libraries and the William Saroyan Foundation, are “intended to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan legacy of originality, vitality, and stylistic innovation.” Two prizes of $5,000 each are given for works of fiction and nonfiction. Writers who have published four books or more are ineligible. Submit five copies of your work published between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2021, with a $50 entry fee by January 31, 2022. Visit our website for complete eligibility and submission details: library.stanford.edu/saroyan.
Guest Post by Carla Sarett.
A long weekend, and no page-turner in sight. Luckily, Carry The Dog by Stephanie Gangi arrived in my mailbox. Gangi’s debut novel, The Next, was fiercely funny; while this one’s not a comedy, it is every bit as fierce.
At almost 60, Manhattanite Bea Marx lives with an icy legacy: her mother, Miriam, took erotic pictures of her kids (the “Marx Nudes) and then killed herself after the death of Bea’s teenaged brother. Now, Bea’s life seems on hold: she’s even married the same philandering man twice. She’s obsessed with how things look (like wrinkles and Balenciaga bags) but she fails to see people realistically; she’s locked herself out. When Hollywood and MOMA come knocking for Miriam’s story, Bea starts to confront childhood truths. She finds layers and layers to unwrap, each progressively darker. But Gangi’s not after the darkness: this is a story of possibilities.
I disagreed, on many levels, with Bea’s final decision. But I am still thinking about it. That is a lot for one book to accomplish.
Carry the Dog by Stephanie Gangi. Algonquin Books, November 2021.
Reviewer bio: Carla Sarett’s novella about maverick female artists, The Looking Glass, was published by Propertius Press in October, 2021.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Mark your calendars and don’t forget to register! Able Muse Press’ next Book Launch and Reading will take place on November 13, 2021 from 3-4 PM EDT. Registration is required, but no worries it’s free!
The event will be hosted by Deirdre O’Conner and will feature a reading and Q&A with authors Len Krisak and Rebecca Starks.
Len Krisak, winner of the 2020 Able Muse Book Award, will be reading from his winning book just released on November 1, Say What You Will. Rebecca Starks will be reading from her forthcoming title Fetch, Muse (due out on November 26, but available for pre-order).
Besides the reading and Q&A, Able Muse Press has announced the publication of Brian Culhane’s Remembering Lethe. The book is available for pre-order and will be published on December 17. Culhane was a finalist for the 2020 Able Muse Book Award.
What’s new this month? A physical and structural approach to painting, stunning pixelated images, our usual resonate prose and poetry, and so much more. Work by Carolyn Anderson, Cliff S. Berman, Emil Brägg, Neil Carpathios, Dianne Corbeau, Ann S. Epstein, Mary Gilliland, Sherry Karver, Jeanne LaCasse, Joyce Peseroff, Kari Souders, and Lauren Taylor Grad. More info at The Woven Tale Press website.
Issue 6 of Variety Pack features short fiction by Bruce Meyer, Maia Kowalski, Penny A. Page, and Philip Houtz; flash fiction by Sara Dobbie, Emily Enfinger, Natascha Graham, Redfern Boyd, and Sophie Fink; and nonfiction by Natascha Graham and Robin Foster. Poetry by Ebukun Gbemisola Ogunyemi, Raymond Gibson, Megan McKinley, David Harrison Horton, and more. Find a full list of contributors at the Variety Pack website.
This month’s featured selection: “On Peach State and crafting ‘the raw materials of circumstance’”: an interview with poet Adrienne Su by Mihaela Moscaliuc. In nonfiction: “Truscon, A Division of Republic Steel, 1969-70: A Prose-Poem Sequence Disguised as a Lyrical Essay, Itself Aspiring to Be a Fictional Memoir” by Peter Johnson. Jane Zwart reviews Kasey Jueds’s The Thicket. Poetry contributors are at the Plume website.
In this issue: fiction by Jennifer Blake, Matthew C. Bush, Nathan Leslie, R. F. Mechelke, and more. Poetry by Matthew E. Henry, Jane Andrews, Richard Becker, Kay Bosgraaf, Brenton Booth, Chris Bullard, Ricks Carson, Diana Cole, Matthew J. Spireng, Beth Suter, Kevin Sweeney, Kelly Terwilliger, Mark Taksa, Eric Weil, and others. Plus a featured interview, “Teaching While Black,” with Matthew E. Henry by Shawn Pavey. Find out more at The Main Street Rag website.
The November issue is now online featuring Juke Brigley, Bex Hainsworth, Michael Burton, Jenny Hockey, Dominic James, Elizabeth McCarthy, Beth McDonough, Kenneth Pobo, Kerry Trautman, Anuradha Vijayakrishnan, Melody Wang. Learn more about this issue’s reviews at The Lake website.
In the new issue of The Dillydoun Review, check out short stories by Noah Kenny, Rachel McCarren, John Nicholson, Rebeka Selmeczki, Mark R. Vickers, and Brian Will; flash fiction by Peter Amos, Matthew Downing, and Michael Edwards; nonfiction by Anna Schott; and flash nonfiction by Rachel M. Reis, Sidney Stevens, and Ronald Wetherington. Check out poetry contributors at The Dillydoun Review website.
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
