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!
“Living on the Water.” Featured writers this issue include Jennifer Novotney, Tricia Gates Brown, Patricia B. Carley, Susan Emeline Bills, Marc Eichen, Jennifer Fearon, Katherine Hauswirth, Barbara Cole, Anthony Cordasco, Karen Bowers, Felecia Babb, Rachel Racette, Debbie Cutler, and Russel Rowland. See this issue’s featured artists at the Still Point Arts Quarterly website.
You will fall for the autumn issue of The Shore. It features moving and inventive poetry by Paige Sullivan, Julia Watson, Chris Cocca, Dhwanee Goyal, Paige Welsh, Caroline Plasket, Katie McMorris, Vismai Rao, Debarshi Mitra, Tatiana Clark, Abi Pollokoff, Sophia Liu, Mia Bell, Loisa Fenichell, Barbara Daniels, Julia McDaniel, Jennie E Owen, Melissa Strilecki, Corinna Schulenburg, Odukoya Adeniyi, and more. See who else contributed to this issue at The Shore website.
With paintings by Jenny Brillhart, fiction by Jeff Frawley, Matthew Raymond, Kevin Breen, Kay Bontempo, and David Blanton; essays by Anne Kenner, Kathy Flann, and Phillip Hurst; poetry by Rosalie Moffett, Ann Keniston, Evan Blake, Lynn Domina, John McCarthy, D. S. Waldman, Diane Martini, James Harms, John Bargowski, Jill McDonough, Ed Falco, Jeffrey Harrison, Sharon Dolin, Danusha Laméris, Lance Larsen, Richard Lyons, Linda Pastan, Mark Kraushaar, Melissa Kwasny, and Nance Van Winckel. More info at The Gettysburg Review website.
A new issue of The Boiler is out with nonfiction by Virginia L Wood; fiction by Joe Baumann, Margaret Emma Brandl, Mialise Carney, Kathryn Holzman, and Yun Wei; and poetry by Sarah Ghazal Ali, Ruth Baumann, Flower Conroy, Jennifer Funk, Aeon Ginsberg, Bretty Hanley, Allie Hoback, Jenna Le, Fatima Malik, Noathan Spoon, travis tate, James Kelly Quigley, and more. Art by Claire Morales.
More info at The Boiler website.
Each issue, Spoon River Poetry Review features one SRPR Illinois Poet. The Summer 2021 issue features Carlos Soto-Román. His work, translated by Daniel Borzutzky, spans 16 pages and is followed by an interview conducted by Borzutzky.
The two discuss Soto-Román’s forthcoming book 11, the interview beginning with the question, “How was the book written?” Soto-Román answers:
First, I wouldn’t say the book was written, at least, in the traditional sense. Maybe just a couple of “poems” included in the book were actually written by me. The whole process was more about compiling different fragments, quotes, and excerpts from multiple documents related to the Chilean dictatorship period and combining them within a new context in order to configure an alternate narrative of events, one that is intentionally veiled, which forces the reader to confront the past in a different way, encouraging the exercise of personal and collective memory to therefore complete the gaps.
You can learn more about Carlos Soto-Román and his work in the current issue of SRPR.
Application Deadline: November 15, 2021
Event Dates: January 10-15, 2022
Event Location: Virtual
18th Annual Virtual Palm Beach Poetry Festival, 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.
Join Terrain.org next Monday for the Terrain.org Reading Series. The Zoom event will take place on Monday, September 27 at 5:00pm MST. This Q&A and reading will feature Joy Castro, Elizabeth Jacobson, and Allen Braden, and will be moderated by Juan Morales.
You can register for this online event here.
Guest Post by Kristina Pudlewski.
I read a poem recently called “Dash Poem” by Linda Ellis. Only the Poet Rupi Kaur has ever amazed me with her words but then this poem came along and changed my outlook on life.
The “Dash Poem” is one of beauty. It reminds us that all of the years we are alive, we should live them well. We should not live for materialistic objects but for memorable moments, and we should love ourselves and those around us. “Dash Poem” also reminds us to create a life we will be proud of and I think a lot of people in the world want that.
This poem brought tears to my eyes and power back to my soul. I advise everyone to read this poem once, because that is all you will need to do to change your outlook on life.
“Dash Poem” by Linda Ellis. 1996.
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.
Stay cozy with your new favorite book. Look for it at the Book Stand. This month we feature three poetry titles, and two nonfiction titles.
The Breaks by Julietta Singh celebrates queer family-making, communal living, and Brown girlhood, complicating the stark binaries that shape contemporary US discourse.
Bernard Clay’s autobiographical poetry debut, English Lit, juxtaposes the roots of Black male identity against an urban and rural Kentucky landscape.
Hex & Howl by Simone Muench & Jackie K. White is collaborative writing at its most innovative, playful, and powerful.
Andrea Kayne’s Kicking Ass in a Corset maps out effective leadership that teaches readers how to tune out the external noise so that they can truly live and lead from the inside out.
In origin story, Gary Jackson outlines a family history of distant sisters, grieving mothers and daughters, and alcoholic fathers.
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 Jiya Ahuja.
This novel revolves around the Story family residing in gull cove island: a grandmother who owns the entire island, and parents who were disinherited by a mysterious “You know what you did” letter.
Jonah, Aubrey, and Milly are cousins who hardly know each other and have never met their grandmother. So when they receive a letter from their long-lost grandmother inviting them to the island, they aren’t particularly thrilled to go but, their parents see this as a golden opportunity to get back in their mother’s good graces. When they arrive on the island, the cousins realize their grandmother has different plans for them. Here they uncover secrets that lead them to their family’s dark and mysterious past. The entire family has secrets that they wish remained buried.
The story is told from three main points of view and is filled with a lot of twists and turns that keep readers hooked until the very last line. Although some parts felt a little slow-paced, this is still satisfying and entertaining enough. The Cousins is a highly recommended young adult mystery to readers of age 13 and above.
The Cousins by Karen M. McManus. Delacorte Press, December 2020..
Reviewer bio: Reach Jiya Ahuja here.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Join Nimrod‘s Editor-in-Chief, Eilis O’Neal, and Associate Editor, Cassidy McCants this week on Thursday, September 23 at 7:00pm CDT for a virtual Q&A session. Do you have questions about the publishing industry, getting ready for submissions, editing, revising, and everything in between? They have answers.
Learn more about O’Neal and McCants and this “Ask Us Anything: Editing and Publishing Q&A” at Nimrod‘s Submittable, where you can also register for the event for five dollars. While you’re there, check out the other upcoming virtual events they’re offering throughout fall.
A novella in stories, these ten powerful and gritty, interlinked tales take readers inside an impoverished, drug-ridden central Florida neighborhood where the Collins family lives. The three children are being raised by their bartender mother while their father is in prison. The angry oldest son Phillip bullies his siblings—Daniel, who likes to try on his mama’s clothes and lipstick, and little sister Tammy, wise beyond her years. Tammy has a crush on Angelo, a boy across the street whose multi-generation Puerto Rican family provides a contrast with the dysfunctional Collinses. More about this issue at the Wordrunner website.
The new Fall 2021 issue is hard to miss with a stunning cover by Minnesota poet and artist Paula Cisewski! Inside, you’ll find interviews with poet Mervyn Taylor and talk radio host turned author Peter Werbe, a visit with Tessa B. Dick, a closer look at the legacy of Braiding Sweetgrass, and reviews of books by Joan Mitchell, Richard Wright, Geoff Dyer, Will Alexander, Duo Duo, N. H. Pritchard, Allison Bechdel, and many more! More info at the Rain Taxi website.
Our cover artist is Retura Claar. This issue’s featured artist is Derrick Breidenthal, and our featured poet is Luke Levi. Also in this issue: poetry by Audrey Colasanti, Sam Sharp, J. P. White, Hugh Hughes, Elaine T. Stockdale, and more; prose by Jason Goldsmith and Waverly Woldemichael; and art by Buffy Davis, Sharon Becker, Katya Belena, Tiffany Wong, M. Russek, and others. More info at the Humana Obscura website.
Inside, you’ll find essays and flash creative nonfiction by writers including: Sophie Scolnik-Brower, Morgan Eklund, Kathryn Fitzpatrick, Joey Garcia, Karen Green, Nita Noveno, Jess Payne, Sherry Shahan, Gary Smothers, Hannah Smothers, and Hillary Wentworth. Our new edition also features an articles section full of reviews, interviews, and columns. More info at the Hippocampus Magazine website.
The Georgia Review’s Fall 2021 issue is here. This issue features new writing from Stephanie Burt, Kwame Dawes, G. C. Waldrep, Rosa Alcalá, Aryn Kyle, and many more. Additional highlights in the issue include an essay by Darby Jo translated from the Korean, a story by Laila Stien translated from the Norwegian, and a can’t-miss art portfolio by Derek Fordjour, accompanied by an introduction and interview with the artist from GR Managing Editor C. J. Bartunek. More info at The Georgia Review website.
Issue 17 of Cutleaf is live. In this issue, Melissa Helton shares two poems beginning with “The Teenager Has Gone Witchy.” Hanna Ferguson uses food to recount important moments in her life in “An In-Progress Cookbook of Recipes That Stick to My Ribs.” And Joan Wickersham prepares for Halloween with the best of intentions in the short story “The Subterranean Calendar.” Learn about this issue’s images at the Cutleaf website.
Guest Post by Julie Christine Johnson.
Jews were attacked in a series of pogroms and subjected to systematic oppression during the late nineteenth and early 20th century, scapegoated as the cause of political and economic upheaval. These pogroms and the long history of limiting Jewish movement in Eastern Europe foreshadowed the Holocaust. These awful conditions intensified as nationalist movements and state-sanctioned violence grew.
Textbooks can present us with facts, but literature allows us to feel the stories history hopes we will hear. In his absorbing and graceful debut novel, Horodno Burning, author Michael Freed-Thall brings us into the heart of a family forever transformed by persecution. Continue reading “‘Horodno Burning’”
Volume 13 of Consequence journal is now available! We’ve undergone a number of major changes since our founder, George Kovach, passed away last year, but what hasn’t changed in the least is our commitment to bringing you astounding prose, poetry, visual art, and translations that address the human consequences and realities of war and geopolitical violence. See what you can find in this issue at the Consequence website.
Next month, The Massachusetts Review will co-host an event for Looking Back at Hong Kong: An Anthology of Writing and Art forthcoming from co-host Cart Noodles Press. This reading and panel discussion will feature Nicolette Wong, Xu Xi, Sharon Yam, Yeung Chak Yan, and Q.M. Zhang.
These writers “who have called Hong Kong home will come together to read from their work and reflect on the profound changes and subtle transitions that have transpired in Hong Kong, both in recent times and over the past decades.”
The online event will take place on Wednesday, October 6 at 8PM EDT. Learn more and register here.
American Life in Poetry
Column 860
By Kwame Dawes
What haunts this loose sonnet by Carrie Green is loss, anticipated loss, but loss, nonetheless. Yet, what emerges is an elegant “pre-elegy.” A tender anthem to a father and to the sweetness he represents, an anthem made more intimate by the choice of addressee: “Brother.”
ROBBING THE BEES
By Carrie Green
after John Wood
Brother, one day the grove and hives will empty:
the neighbor’s trees frozen back to stumps,
our father’s bees scattered across the scrub.
But today the scent of orange blossom
reaches our patch of sand, and the beeyard
teems with thieving wings. Our father works
the hives, white shirt buttoned to the neck,
hands glove-clumsy. Veiled, he’s mysterious
as a bride. Brother, we’ll want to recall
the pollen-dusted light kissing scrub oak
and sand pine, the needles smoking in tin,
the bees’ stunned flight as our father offers
a taste of honey on his pocketknife.
Our tongues steal sweetness from the rusted blade.
WE DO NOT ACCEPT UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2020 by Carrie Green, “ROBBING THE BEES” from Studies of Familiar Birds (Able Muse Press, 2020). Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2021 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Kwame Dawes, is George W. Holmes Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska.
Book Review by Katy Haas.
Sometimes it’s important to slow down and not only enjoy the ride, but take in the details and really sit with them. Erica Van Horn does this in her collection of short essays, By Bus.
In By Bus, we’re transported to the bus transporting Van Horn as she describes what she sees from where she sits. “Horse” is just one paragraph long and explains an interaction between two passengers. In “Stuck in Inchicore,” we’re privy to one half of a phone conversation, the caller’s dialogue making up a majority of the essay. “A Never-Married” describes a “Ring-A-Link” bus, basically a phone-ordered bus ride which can take you “fairly straight into town” or “you ride along in the bus as it meanders through the countryside [ . . . ]. It can take as long as one hour to get to town.” We hear about it through Van Horn’s friend of a friend, Carmel, who sometimes takes this bus to meet a man—a man who is stuck on a bus for an hour with nowhere else to go. There is a variety in what the essays cover that keeps the short collection fresh throughout.
By Bus is a book for those of us who take out an earbud at the coffeeshop to eavesdrop on the gossip unfolding at a nearby table of strangers. Every interaction is a tiny glimpse into the window of a stranger’s life. Van Horn’s observations are clear and simple. She sits, she watches, she shares, and then moves onto the next one, never pausing to criticize or question. This is the perfect Sunday read, a reminder to slow down and sit with the changing landscapes and passengers of our own lives with the same gentleness Van Horn does.
By Bus by Erica Van Horn. Ugly Duckling Presse, March 2021.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Our 22nd Annual Taos Storytelling Festival features a two hour workshop by Cisco Guevara on “The Art of Storytelling,” a free community story swap, and an evening of ten featured tellers competing for cash prizes on the theme of “Transformations.” Judges are Cisco Guevara, Sarah Malone, & David McDonnell. For registration and schedule view our website, call 575-758-0081, or send us an email.
Caesura Poetry Workshop aims to inspire, educate, and energize poets of all backgrounds through affordable Zoom workshops hosted by award-winning poet John Sibley Williams. Workshops include poem analysis, group discussion, writing prompts, poem critiques, and writing time. Come join our growing community! 1-1 personalized workshops, coaching, and manuscript critiques to keep you writing and inspired also available. More information here.
The 20th Gival Press Poetry Award, with a prize of $1,000 plus book publication in 2022, deadline is December 15, 2021. Original, unpublished manuscripts of 45+ pages in any style are acceptable. Visit: Submittable for complete details, to pay $20 reading fee, and to upload your manuscript.
This year’s co-winners were Judy Juanita of Oakland, CA. and Schuyler Dickson of Houlka, MS. Their respective books will come out in June. The deadline for the new contest is December 31. Please see our website for details. And see our forthcoming books, also. Credit cards accepted.
TCW is especially inviting artwork to grace the next cover and interior sections of Volume 36 under the 2021 theme: “Disruption, Disguise and Illuminations.” Increasingly, as history meets day to day experiences, epiphanies unfold. And as we self-interrogate the disruption motifs in many of these illuminations, the roots of prevailing disruptions emerge, complicated by disguise. We’re exploring the widest permutations.
Application deadline: January 1, 2022
UNC Greensboro’s MFA is a two-year residency program offering fully funded assistantships with stipends. Students work closely with faculty in one-on-one tutorials and develop their craft in a lifelong community of writers. UNCG offers courses in poetry, fiction, publishing, and creative nonfiction, plus opportunities in college teaching and editorial work for The Greensboro Review. More at our website.
Deadline: October 30, 2021
Submit your best essays taking on the problems of today, and the potential of tomorrow. Whether hopeful or despairing, the strongest essays will find their way into publication, and the contest winner earns both Pangyrus publication and a prize of $1,000. OUR JUDGE is Jabari Asim, an accomplished poet, playwright, and writer.
A narcoleptic child in a fantastical world where dead grandmothers come to visit and witch doctors prescribe waking concoctions. Sibling rivalry and secrets propel this story in which the fate of the family rests on the shoulders of a child, Alegría.
Deadline: September 30, 2021
Submit published or unpublished poems to the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers and co-sponsored by Duotrope. We will award $3,000 for the best poem in any style and $3,000 for the best poem that rhymes or has a traditional style. The top 12 poems will be published online. Final judge: S. Mei Sheng Frazier. Fee: $15 for 1-2 poems.
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.
The September/October 2021 issue of the Kenyon Review features the winners of the 2021 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers; stories by Heather Bourbeau, Catherine Carberry, Marcela Fuentes, and Bess Winter; and an essay by Laurie Kutchins. See poetry contributors at the Kenyon Review website.
The Summer 2021 issue of Kaleidoscope features one book review. Sandra J. Lindow’s “Finding the Light in the Dark,” covers An Eclipse and a Butcher by Ann-Chadwell Humphries (Muddy Ford Press, 2020).
The review begins:
Consisting of thirty-eight poems, and an “Introduction” by Ed Madden, Poet Laureate of Columbia South Carolina, Ann-Chadwell Humphries’s poetry collection is well-wrought and accessible to any educated reader. As an adult, Humphries lost her vision from a genetic disorder called retinitis pigmentosa. Her website, ann-chadwellhumphries.com, describes the process of her loss “I went from (seeing through) a hula hoop to a donut and then a straw.” Her poem “My Blind Obsession” delineates how she struggled with advancing disease and at first and tried to ignore it, chase it from her yard,
but it would not leave.
So blindness and I shook hands, became friends.
Becoming friends with blindness seems a nearly impossible process, but although Humphries admits to drawing “blood” in her fight with the disease, she is convincing when she asserts that her life has become better because of her blindness (website). Her other senses have become stronger, and she claims to have “at least sixteen” of them including “sense of memory, sense of organization, sense of concentration, sense of movement, sense of orientation, [and] sense of humor” (website). Her sense of humor, in particular has been “an asset when forced to change” (41). Her wry wit peeks from many of her poems, especially when she announces that “love is blind” (41). Scents of Listerine and linseed oil wander into her poems, exemplifying her sensory grounding in the physical world. She feels the vines and flowers gilded on the cover of a rare book as if she is actually seeing them. Her powerful sense of visual organization, part memory, part something else, allows her to “imagine how people look” when she talks with them (41). All these talented senses become apparent to her readers and listening audiences, especially when she recites her poetry from memory.
Kaleidoscope‘s issues are free online, so visit their website to check out the rest of this book review.
In this issue: work by Kim Hyesoon translated by Don Mee Choi, Aaron Lopatin, Linnea Nelson, Jacob Stratman, James McKee, Leslie Ann Minot, John C. Morrison, Andrea L. Fry, Andrew Hemmert, María Negroni translated by Michelle Gil-Montero, Enzo Silon Surin, Carlos Soto-Román translated by Daniel Borzutzky, Lara Dopazo Ruibal translated by Laura Cesarco Eglin, and more. See a full list of contributors at the SRPR website.
This month’s featured selection includes an interview with Amaia Gabantxo by Mihaela Moscaliuc. Nonfiction by Chard DeNiord. Cameron MacKenzie reviews John Wall Barger’s Resurrection Fail. This month’s poetry selections can be found at the Plume website.
The September issue features John Cole, Robert G. Cowser, Hayley Mitchell Haugen, Tom Kelly, Don Narkevic, Joyce Schmid, Kiriti Sengupta, J. R. Solonche, Ian Stuart, Tineke Van der Eeken, Sarah White. Reviews of J.R. Solonche’s Selected Poems 2001-2021 and Fleur Adcock’s The Mermaid’s Purse. Read more about it at The Lake website.
Able Muse is hosting another reading with three of its authors on September 17, 2021. Are you enjoying their reading series so far? Don’t forget that these readings are being held via Zoom and are free and open to the public. You do have to register in order to participate.
Featured authors are John Philip Drury whose book Sea Level Rising: Poems was published by Able Muse Press in 2015; Rhina P. Espaillat whose book And After All: Poems was published by Able Muse Press in 2019; and Gail White whose Asperity Street: Poems was published by Able Muse Press in 2015.
Jennifer Reeser will act as host. Reeser’s collection Indigenous was published by Able Muse Press in 2019 and she has another collection forthcoming from the press in 2021/22 titled Strong Feather.
If you’ve missed out on any of these readings, don’t forget you can watch them on Able Muse’s official YouTube Channel.
magazine-news-MAYDAYEditorialPositionsAfter a year of rigorous expansion, online literary magazine MAYDAY seeks to share its updated format and expanded vision with new audiences. To do this, they are expanding and diversifying their editorial staff to include new intellectual and cultural backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and points of view.
MAYDAY is a volunteer organization composed entirely of unpaid volunteers who can work anywhere in the world as long as there is an internet connection.
They are open to applications for production editors, social media editors, culture editors, translation editors, and visual arts editors through October 15, 2021.
Take a look at their redesigned site and content and consider joining their team. View the PDF for more information.
Online classes with Cleaver Magazine begin early next month. Stay cozy at home as the weather gets cooler while you strengthen your writing skills.
This season, workshops include “Telling Stories of Disability and Illness” taught by Michelle Hoppe, “Voice Lessons: Identifying and Creating Perspective in Poetry” taught by Claire Oleson, “The Writing Lab: Playful Experiments to Unstuck Your Writing” taught by Tricia Park, and plenty more.
You can find additional information on how to register and what to expect from the available workshop at Cleaver‘s website.
Driftwood Press has announced their 2020 poetry collection reading period results. They have selected three manuscripts for publication.
One Person Holds so Much Silence by David Greenspan was chosen for its “surprising, jaw-dropping language from poem to poem.” Also selected, is O by Niki Tulk is a fable revealing real-world trauma of sexual assault through the fantastical. Last, but not least, Fit to be Tied by Sarah Moore Wagner examines addiction and experiences of womanhood in a small, rural town.
Honorable mentions include Robin Gow’s Stained Glass Rifle, Laura Bandy’s CINEMA, Heather Bartlett’s Another Word for Hunger, and Carolyn Oliver’s Inside the Storm I Want to Touch the Tremble.
Keep an eye out for the three forthcoming collections and if you’re interested in submitting your own poetry manuscripts, they are currently open to submissions.
And there’s still time to register! The Short Story Writing: Fundamentals class consists of five lessons: Character & Plot, Point of View, Dialogue, Inner Monologue, and Description. The best part is that each weekly lesson can be completed on your own schedule.
The lessons also include detailed explanations, examples, Carve short stories to read and respond to, and up to two short writing exercises. You are also expected to provide peer feedback to at least two other students (minimum of 5 students required for the class).
The class will run September 13 through October 21. If you’re interested, register here.
If you are interested more in help with Techniques, their next class for that starts October 25th.
Guest Post by Kirpa Bajaj.
The centerpiece of The Body is an aging playwright who accepts a very tempting offer to have his mind transplanted into a younger physique. He obviously then faces the extreme consequences of his decision to chase his vanished youth.
Hanif Kureishi’s insights into the human condition are on point. This novel is very well written and carries a hint of rare warmth and humanity. Kureishi has this certain intensity and integrity of vision which makes this book ten times more impressive. This volume of fiction is a must read!
The Body by Hanif Kureishi. Scribner Book Company, April 2011.
Reviewer bio: I am Kirpa, a bibliophile and student who loves to dive in the sea of books and reviewing them for others. I also write as it’s one of my major interests. I hope I was able to help you out!
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Guest Post by Cindy Dale.
Occasionally, you come across a book that is so unusual, so original that it stops you in your tracks. Case in point: West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge. The novel was Inspired by a true event—two giraffes in transit aboard the SS Robin Goodfellow from Africa to America shipwrecked in the 1938 “Long Island Express” hurricane. The tale is narrated by 105-year-old Woodrow Wilson Nickel from his VA hospital room as, in a race against time, he records the events of a short, pivotal period from his early life.
The year is 2025 and many species of wildlife, including giraffes, are near extinction thanks to us humans. At 17 Woody was orphaned, escaped the Dust Bowl, and made it to New York City where he got wind of the plan to transport the two stranded giraffes from New York to the San Diego Zoo. The novel recounts the audacious ocean to ocean odyssey. Woody steals a bicycle and takes off after old man Riley Jones who has been hired by San Diego Zoo doyenne Belle Benchley to transport the “towering creatures of God’s pure Eden.” Also hot on the tail of Riley Jones and the giraffes is “Red,” a pin-up pretty, young redheaded Margaret Bourke-White wannabe.
Part road trip, part coming of age story, part unrequited love story, the novel is studded with meticulously researched historical references. Woody and Riley’s journey takes them on the southern route through the Jim Crow south and across the Texas panhandle where Woody must face memories from his own tragic past. At the heart of the novel is the concept of home. As Riley says to Woody, “Home’s not the place you’re from, Woody. Home’s the place you want to be.” A wonderful, heart-warming story perfect for these dark times.
West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge. Lake Union Publishing, February 2021.
Reviewer bio: Cindy Dale has published over twenty short stories in literary journals and anthologies. She lives on a barrier beach off the coast of Long Island.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Guest Post by Susan Kay Anderson.
The Space Poet is written in well-researched prose-like stanzas so it appears scientific, logical. There are some list poems. The premise for this book is so super intriguing, that’s why I am writing something here so more people know about it!
A poet is sent to a space station to do research on what it is like (space) and write poems. This book could have been sparked by more recent projects about space (besides 2001: A Space Odyssey) Laurie Anderson’s Moon project, and Duncan Jones’ movie, Moon, but there are lots of space inspired books of poems, it seems (by looking around this book at the endorsements and epigraphs and such). I like this book because the idea of it is so strange and reading it does put one into the mood of the weirdness of space. The language of science is so weird. It can be. Enter advertising language of hype and sell.
From “Planet Hop from Trappist-1f!”
Planet hop from Trappist-1 f, the terrestrial Earth-sized planet
smack-dab in the habitable zone of our galaxy’s newly
discovered solar system and your new home amongst the stars!
These poems are kind of sad. It is melancholy in space.
From “The Cupola”
[ . . . ] the space poet cannot work with this, out here where nothing
is what you think it ought to be, where there is no rage [ . . . ]
[ . . . ] student loans or credit card debt, nothing is late for work,
nothing misses someone, nothing is late for work,
nothing misses someone, nothing loves or lives or leaves—
and what’s poetic about that?
I don’t want to say it but I will: the Pandemic. Plus, going to space to get rid of debt is kind of cruel, but I can easily see millions doing so.
The Space Poet by Samantha Edmonds. Split Lip Press, February 2020.
Reviewer bio: Susan Kay Anderson lives at the headwaters of Sutherlin Creek in southwestern Oregon’s Umpqua Basin. She is the author of Please Plant This Book Coast To Coast (Finishing Line Press, 2021) Virginia Brautigan Aste’s memoir. Anderson is a poetry reader for Quarterly West and Lily Poetry Review. Her poems are forthcoming in Barrow Street Journal, Heron Tree, and Wild Roof Journal.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
The earth hanging by a thread, and more. In this issue: Alysa Bennett, Stephen Campiglio, Tricia Capello, Patricia Glauser, Edward Lee, Roger Mitchell, Tim J. Myers, Ken Post, Megan Staffel, Maxwell Suzuki, Martha Tuttle, and Susan B. Wadsworth. Read more at The Woven Tale Press website.
The Fall 2021 issue features a tribute to Indian Poets. The world’s largest democracy is also the second-largest English-speaking population. We explore the state of contemporary poetry in India, featuring 16 Indian poets and a profound conversation with Forward Prize-winner Tishani Doshi. The issue also includes both cover art and a brilliant sestina by Shreya Vikram, a young poet who debuted in this year’s RYPA anthology. See what else is in this issue at the Rattle website.
In this issue of Poetry: work by Justin Danzy, Ina Cariño, Daye Phillippo, Jai Hamid Bashir, Eugenia Leigh, Christell Victoria Roach, Janelle Tan, Marianne Chan, Jinhao Xie, RK Fauth, Philip Metres, Saddiq Dzukogi, Danni Quintos, and more. See a full list of contributors at the Poetry website.
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! Stay tuned for the Autumn 2021 issue set to be released next month. Currently reading for the Winter 2022 issue through September 30. chestnutreview.com
The cover of the MacGuffin’s Vol. 37.2 is a postcard, painted by featured artist Kathleen Frank, sent from summer vacation. Travel stories abound: hike to ESSNWNAU-AL in Gracjan Kraszewski’s “First Impressions” and fly out to Saskatchewan on a brief hunt for truth and a certain mythological creature in Alexander Wentzell’s “Big Feet.” Check out what other pieces are in this issue at The MacGuffin website.
