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!
EVENT’s latest Non-Fiction Contest Issue is here, featuring the three 2020 winning essays, and an exciting assortment of poetry, fiction and reviews to keep you entertained. Work by Alexis Pooley, Madeline Sonik, Adrienne Gruber, David Zieroth, Malgosia Halliop, David Ishaya Osu, James Pollock, Jade Riordan, and more. Read more at the EVENT website.
CRAFT has announced the winners and finalists of its 2020 Creative Nonfiction Awards judged by Joy Castro. The winning pieces and editors’ choice selections will be published this month, so stay tuned!
Winners
Tammy Delatorre: “The Ties That Bind”
Clare Fielder: “What You Don’t Know”
Liz Harmer: “Catalogue for a Coming of Age”
Editors’ Choice Selections
Sara Davis: “The Untimely Collaborators”
Marilyn Hope: “Face, Velvet, Church, Daisy, Red”
Congratulations to the winners and finalists.
The 2021 Creative Nonfiction Award will open in the Fall. They are currently accepting entries to the First Chapters Contest through June 30. The judge is Masie Cochran of Tin House.
The Spring 2021 issue of Boulevard features the winner of the 2020 Nonfiction Contest for Emerging Writers and the winner of the 2020 Poetry Contest for Emerging Writers.
2020 Poetry Contest for Emerging Writers
Winner
“Black Zombi” by Bryan Byrdlong
Honorable Mentions
Esther Ra
Calvin Walds
Christine Robbins
2020 Nonfiction Contest for Emerging Writers
Winner
“The King’s Game” by Jonathan Wei
Runner-up
“Six Articles for Survival” by Laura Joyce-Hubbard
Grab a copy of the issue or check out these pieces on the journal’s website.
Guest Post by Susan Kay Anderson.
Enticing though it may be to dream of cold landscapes when summer days get a bit too warm (already) it does not exactly seem wonderful to imagine taking a sauna during the pandemic and sweating out life even more, getting exhausted even more. That’s not the point of the sauna, as Cheryl J. Fish seems to report in her book of poems/memoir/travel journal. The sauna is the sacred space for contemplation and just plain bathing and, well, for everything under the sun in order to be close to the sun in the darkness.
Cheryl J. Fish’s The Sauna Is Full Of Maids is an adventure to Finland told with poems, photographs, and lines from the Kalevala, Finland’s origin story/epic/saga.
It is great to look through this book and daydream about journeys and berries and boggy lakes. These are prose poems and travelogues in poem form, told with the sparse flavor of the North. I am really attracted to the ancient lifeways in this book:
“His journey paralleled birds and reindeer. Spread his culture, migrating.”
from “Another Round Of Heat”
“In the Kalevala, birds lay eggs in a barren water-mother’s knee. The bottom half of a smashed egg becomes earth.”
from “Unreliable Snowpack”
It isn’t all ancient lore here. There are meetings with fellow artists and travelers, foragers, dreamers, and recent immigrants to Finland. It is amazing to realize (yet again) that we live on a tiny planet and its inhabitants have been following the flow of the elements forever and that during our lives we get glimpses of what is important, what helps us to be alive. Those things could include the sauna, the icy cold water, vasta birch sprigs, and the steam.
The Sauna Is Full Of Maids by Cheryl J. Fish. Shanti Arts Publishing, June 2021.
Reviewer bio: Susan Kay Anderson lives in Oregon’s Umpqua Basin, author of, Please Plant This Book Coast To Coast, available from Finishing Line Press.
Deadline: Year-round
John Updike once said, “Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.”
At Driftwood Press, we are actively searching for artists who care about doing it right, or better. We are excited to receive your submissions and will diligently work to bring you the best in full poetry collections, novellas, graphic novels, short fiction, poetry, graphic narrative, photography, art, interviews, and contests.
We also offer our submitters a premium option to receive an acceptance or rejection letter within one week of submission; many authors are offered editorships and interviews. To polish your fiction, note our editing services and seminars, too.
Read issue 8.1 featuring R. C. Davis, Ben Kline, Brennan McMullen, Wren Hanks, Kelsey M. Evans, Jake Goldwasser, Kat Y. Tang, Mason Boyles, Lynda Montgomery, Sam Heydt, Robin Gow, Lina Patton, Lora Kinkade, & Summer J. Hart for a taste of what they like. www.driftwoodpress.net
805 Lit + Art online lit mag not only features new and emerging writers, poets, and artists, they provide a series of Story Toolbox workshops to help writers practice and hone their craft. Open to participants 16 years and older, upcoming workshops with Writer and Editor Julieanna Blackwell [pictured] and hosted by Manatee Libraries include Writing in Flash-Prompts (7/12/21) and Study of Novella in Flash (7/19/21). Visit the 805 Events page for more information.
Deadline: July 5, 2021
Our 4th annual first book prize is open. If you have a manuscript or know someone who does, please give us a shot. Awarded annually to a poet writing in English who has not yet published a full-length poetry book, the prize seeks to represent the best contemporary writing in high quality editions of enduring value. Prospective entrants are encouraged to familiarize themselves with Conduit, which champions originality, intelligence, irreverence, and humanity. Previously unpublished manuscripts of 48-90 pages should be submitted through our Submittable page or via the USPS. Bob Hicok is the final judge. Please visit www.conduit.org/book-prizes for details.
Deadline: September 1, 2021
Puerto del Sol will be accepting entries to our annual contest in poetry and prose between May 1 and September 1. Judges are Eileen Pollack in prose and Todd Dillard in poetry. Winners receive $500 and publication. $9 entry fee includes one-year subscription. All manuscripts entered will be considered for publication. See website for complete guidelines—puertodelsol.org. Las year’s winners were Babette Cieskowski with her poem “American Sonnet for My Medical History” and prose “is the watermelon sweet?” by Emily Yang.
Guest Post by Linda C. Wisniewski.
Silver crescent
April moon glimmers anew
clear as your eyes
—Bless the Birds
During this pandemic year, I’ve been reading stories of people living through hard times, successfully or not. I am less judgmental these days of how people handled things: My mother during the Depression. My father fighting in the Pacific during WWII. A friend with terminal cancer. Maybe it’s a gift of age, but I crave witnessing the journey over advice for a good life.
In her memoir of grief, author Susan J. Tweit writes eloquently of the two years preceding her husband’s death from brain cancer. She ends each chapter with a haiku about a day from that time. Not at all depressing, the book is the story of their attempt to make the best of each day together, sometimes failing but always holding onto love.
Tweit, a plant biologist, and her husband, Richard Cabe, an economist turned sculptor, are settled into a happy marriage and fulfilling work when one day on a road trip, he sees thousands of birds that are not real. The vision was actually a gift, leading to a quick diagnosis and treatment that probably gave them more time together, time they spent intentionally.
They talked about their love, their marriage, their families and their work. They hoped for a cure. They took a long road trip through the American West, enjoying their natural surroundings—the plants, animals, and yes, birds in each stopping place. It was the kind of road trip where you allow yourselves to take time, to stop when you see something interesting, knowing the destination will still be there at the end.
When the end finally comes, you feel you’ve gotten all you can from the trip.
We can’t escape the scary parts of life, though we surely try. This memoir reminded me that facing them head on, with honesty, acceptance, and love makes meaning of even the worst of circumstances.
Bless the Birds: Living with Love in a Time of Dying by Susan J. Tweit. She Writes Press, 2021.
Reviewer bio: Linda C. Wisniewski is a writer, reader, quilter, knitter and happy trail walker in Bucks County, PA, where she guides people writing memoirs. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.
Guest Post by Manasi Patil.
Impending Fate is the third book in the series, Shattered Triangle. This novel is told through the point of view of Giovanni Lozano, and progresses with the plots of the other protagonists of the series: Lt. Tom Moran, Giuseppe Lozano, and Giovanni himself.
Three determined people, one genius murderer, and an ‘impending fate.’ After the identity of the murderer of Giuseppe Lozano’s family is revealed in A Consequential Murder, and the story is followed in Beleaguered Truth, I was beyond obsessed with the Shattered Triangle series. William P. Messenger is my new favorite author, and I’m so glad to have had this opportunity of reading the trilogy.
Giuseppe’s relationship with Jackson progresses and it’s a cruel twist when the former first kills Jackson’s partner in order to be with him, and then kills Jackson himself, when he sees him as a potential threat. Giovanni is ready to break the sacrament in order to save the country and do the right thing. He may get banished from his church for doing so, but after three years, he is prepared for the consequences.
Impending Fate is a riveting combination of religion, politics, and mystery. The story of ‘Shattered Triangle’ progresses further and also ends, unfortunately, in this edition. After reading the series, the question is: will the broken shards of the shattered triangle survive?
Impending Fate by William P. Messenger. Black Rose Writing, December 2017.
Reviewer bio: Manasi Patil is a young author with a passion for writing.
The latest issue of THEMA explores the theme: The Tiny Red Suitcase. Work by Madonna Christensen, Cathy Bryant, Stuart Jay Silverman, Lynda Fox, Jesse Doiron, Rayna Bright, Sivakami Velliangiri, and more.
The Spring 2021 issue features the Winners of the 2021 Open Season Awards: Matthew Hollett, Zilla Jones, and Tanis MacDonald. Poetry by Saeed Tavanaee Marvi, Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin, Leslie Joy Ahenda, Manahil Bandukwala, Sophie Crocker, Kari Teicher, Tia Paul-Louis, Ngwatilo Mawiyoo, Hussain Ahmed.
Deadline: Rolling
50 Give or Take daily delivers micro-fiction of fifty words or less straight into your inbox. Please subscribe (it’s free!) to get an idea of what is published, before submitting your work. All accepted 50 Give or Take pieces will be published in a print collection at the end of every year, starting in 2021. All you have to do is submit your: 50-word story, one-line bio, website or social media URL, and a vertical photo of yourself to [email protected]. Good luck!
The June issue of The Lake is now online featuring Estaban Allard-Valdivieso, Georgi Bailey, Daisy Bassen, Sylvia Freeman, Neil Fulwood, Margaret Galvin, Maren O. Mitchell, Fiona Sinclair, J. R. Solonche, Richard Allen Taylor, Damaris West, Sarah White, Rodney Wood.
The Spring 2021 edition of Boulevard is now available with winning poems from the 2020 Poetry Contest by Bryan Byrdlong, the winning essay from the 2020 Nonfiction Contest by Jonathan Wei, and a craft interview with Emily St. John Mandel. New poetry by Adrian Matejka, Adedayo Agarau, JD Amick, Clare Banks, Lory Bedikian, Ava C. Cipri, Laura Davenport, Kwame Dawes, Rosalind Guy, Rachael Hershon, Lisa Low, Jane Morton, and more.
Deadline: June 15, 2021
Indigo Moor judges the MacGuffin’s 26th Poet Hunt contest, open April 1 through June 15! $500 first prize plus publication; up to two Honorable Mentions will also be published. All entrants receive one copy of this issue. Send no more than five poems per $15 entry fee. Include a cover page that lists your contact info and poem titles. On the following page(s), include your poem(s), beginning each poem on a new page devoid of personally identifiable information to preserve the blind review process. Enter via Submittable, or to enter by email or post, see full rules at schoolcraft.edu/macguffin/contest-rules.
Deadline: June 30, 2021
Now in its seventh year, the North Street Book Prize is sponsored by Winning Writers and co-sponsored by BookBaby and Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Self-published books in seven categories can win up to $5,000 plus additional benefits. Submit online or by mail. Winning Writers is a partner member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, and this contest is recommended by Reedsy. Entry fee: $65 per book. Free gifts for everyone who enters. Final month to enter! Deadline: June 30. winningwriters.com/northnp21
Deadline: July 31, 2021
There’s two months left enter the 2021 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize judged by Mark Doty. $1,000 for first place and a letterpress broadside printed by Felicia Rice of Moving Parts Press, $500 for second, $250 for third. Top five published in Red Wheelbarrow Literary Magazine. Submit up to 3 original, unpublished poems. $15 entry fee. Deadline: July 31, 2021. For complete guidelines, see redwheelbarrow.submittable.com/submit.
The National Writing Project has long been a source of support for writing teachers (K-12+), providing programs where teacher-leaders work with local teachers on developing approaches to teaching writing as well as engaging in their own writing practice. Those who have local chapters benefit from the professional development and community programming, but now NWP is expanding that opportunity by introducing an online space for teachers to connect and collaborate with writing teacher colleagues.
Write Now Teacher Studio will open on June 3, 2021, and NWP invites teachers to join a live launch event through mobile app or the web. The Write Now Teacher Studio will let teachers connect and collaborate around specific topics of interest in their teaching, attend events about writing and teaching writing, join groups to address challenges, take courses designed by experienced writing teachers, and create or join reading and writing groups.
To learn more about the Write Now Teacher Studio or to sign up for the launch, visit NWP Eventbrite Registration.
Hippocampus Magazine and Books has announced that they will be hosting their annual 3-day creative writing conference this summer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
If you haven’t heard about HippoCamp before, it is geared toward creative nonfiction writers of all skill levels and backgrounds and is formatted “in the style of a professional development, industry conference.” They feature solo presenters passionate about their topics rather than panel discussions. There you can hone your craft, explore publishing options, and find ways to balance your writing and real life while meeting new friends to learn from and share with.
This year’s conference will take place August 13-15, 2021.
They offer additional pre-conference workshops you can apply to as well as add-ons, like book sale space. As of this writing there are 102 spots remaining, so if you’re interested in nonfiction and learning more and honing your craft, don’t forget to register soon.
Global Vaccine Poem is a joint project between the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University and the University of Arizona Poetry Center. It was launched in April and invites everyone to “share their voices to promote COVID-19 vaccination through the imaginative language of poetry.”
They ask that you read the model poem, “Dear Vaccine” by Naomi Shihab Nye and then choose a prompt to respond to. You only need to send a few lines in your own words. No need to worry about rhyming, spelling, or grammar as they simply want people to share their thoughts.
So far there are submissions from the US, Canada, France, Turkey, Mexico, and Malaysia. You can read about the hope, the frustrations, the positives, and the negatives of living through this pandemic.
Stop by their site to read the model poem, responses, and consider adding your voice.
Guest Post by Manasi Patil.
Beleaguered Truth is the second book in the series Shattered Triangle. In this second installment, the identity of the killer is known, and they are present right in the front seat, but there is no way to capture them.
Lt. Tom Moran knows the identity of the murderer of Giuseppe Lozano’s family. But there’s no evidence through which he can prove it. And he’s frustrated. Fr. Giovanni Lozano also shares the fate of Tom when the murderer successfully silences him by confessing his sins in a sacred confession in the church. Giuseppe Lozano, in order to fulfill his ambitions, stops at no extent. For him, everything is expendable. Even his family. And the fact that he orders his family to be killed proves him to be an ambitious, but ruthless and cruel person.
After the identity of the murderer of Giuseppe Lozano’s family is revealed in Shattered Triangle: A Consequential Murder, the story left me speechless. It was so unexpected, and yet seemed so real. Beleaguered Truth adds more to the story with Giuseppe’s point of view and how he feels about the consequences he created. William Messenger has done very well in writing out this book, especially in capturing a new point of view. It certainly makes the story more intriguing, as I felt a need to know how Giuseppe feels after murdering his own wife and three children.
Beleaguered Truth is a great political thriller and very captivating, to say the least. The book deals with the impact of the truth on Tom and Giovanni and delves deep into the story that is Shattered Triangle.
The triangle is being shattered. This book questions: will it be broken into pieces, or is it possible to mend them together and reconstruct the once beautiful triangle?
Beleaguered Truth by William P. Messenger. Black Rose Writing, August 2015.
Reviewer bio: Manasi Patil is a young author with a passion for writing.
The Missouri Review always has plenty to offer readers. Aside from the usual poetry and prose, there are art features, a “curio cabinet” feature, and an interview. In the Spring 2021 issue, Jacob Griffin Hall interviews poet, essayist, professor, and editor Camille T. Dungy. The two discuss everything from types of research to environmental writing to poetic beginnings. There is plenty to take away from this interview, but what I enjoyed most was the portion on “experiential research,” excerpted here:
HALL: In an interview with Arkana, you talk about “experiential research”—”Listening to the world, paying attention, watching and looking” is just as important as, say, digging into archives. What habits or practices do you have that help you be attentive to the world around you?
DUNGY: Ha. It’s not a habit or practice. It’s a way of life. I suppose it could be taught. I suppose we all have to learn to slow down and pay better and different attention from time to time. But I also think that an artist, a writer, must look at the world more attentively, more closely, more patiently and carefully than people who are not artists tend to look. It’s just how I move through the world. I can stop and hear myself thinking if I want to, but I am always thinking in this way. “How would I describe the color of that grass?” “Oh, look, that rabbit has a bit of russet on its scruff.” “I wonder when they first release Subarus in the US?” “Do you think that woman’s eyes are naturally gray? Those are all questions I asked out loud or in my head today.
Deadline: July 31, 2021
Enter your fiction of at least 40k words or poetry manuscripts of around 90 pages for a chance to win $500 and publication by Winter Goose Publishing. Honorable mentions may also receive publication. Submissions are being accepted from 5/1 – 7/31. ENTER TODAY before time runs out!
Join The Adroit Journal on Thursday, June, 2021 for the Word is Bond #3 reading. 100% of the proceeds will go toward the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund and the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
Readers include Jessica Abughattas, Chen Chen, Taylor Johnson, and Paul Tran with host Anthony Thomas Lombardi and co-host/co-curator Alexa Patrick.
Purchase tickets and find out more at Eventbrite.
Deadline: July 15, 2021
Able Muse is currently accepting submissions for our forthcoming issue, Winter 2021/2022. Submit poetry, fiction, essays, book reviews, art, and photography. Submission opens yearly January 1 and close July 15. Read our guidelines and submit at www.ablemuse.com/submit/. Don’t forget to check out the work featured on our website for an idea of what we’re looking for.
Founded in 2015 by Michelle Tudor and Peter Barnfather, Wildness is an online literary magazine devoted to publishing poetry, fiction, and narrative nonfiction. They currently publish on a quarterly basis with new issues appearing in February, May, August, and November.
In December of 2019, they released the Wildness Omnibus through their parent company Platypus Press. This print anthology celebrates work published in their first twenty issues from Hanif Abdurraqib, Ruth Awad, S. Erin Batiste, Abigail Chabitnoy, K-Ming Chang, Leila Chatti, Chen Chen, Nina Li Coomes, Kyle Dacuyan, Geffrey Davis, Dalton Day, Shastra Deo, Theophilus Kwek, Peter LaBerge, Tariq Luthun, Irène Mathieu, Anis Mojgani, Mary Mussman, Patricia Patterson, Janel Pineda, Jeremy Radin, David Rompf, Omar Sakr, Raena Shirali, Clint Smith, Maggie Smith, Bethany Swann, An Uong, Marco Yan, and Sylvia Watanabe.
Stop by their listing to learn more.
Booksellers share their experiences selling books a year after George Floyd’s murder led more people to support Black-owned bookstores and purchase more books by Black authors.
PBS News Hour covers this in “Anti-racist reading drove business to Black bookstores. Owners hope that’s not the end of the story.” Find the full article here.
The MFA Program in Creative Writing at Chatham University and literary magazine The Fourth River have announced the creation of the Jeffrey “Boosie” Bolden Series. The first publication will be a special anthology called Black Visions. This anthology was conceived of and will be edited by the MFA Emerging Black Writers in Residence Cedric Rudolph and Caitlyn Hunter along with alums Samantha Edwards and Nicole Lourette.
About this anthology: Are you a black writer, or a writer who is black?
Black artists everywhere are all too familiar with this question and label on their work. Why are Black artists always called upon to write about the Black experience, about Black pain? Where are the discussions about craft, form, and futurisms? This anthology was born out of the need to create more space for Black voices; all Black voices. We want to see how your medium amplifies your voice and who you are as an artist, without the limitations of formality, genre, or subject. We are looking for the musicality, depth, and vibrancy that is Black art.
The anthology is accepting submissions through 11:59 PM on Friday, June 18 with expected publication in fall of this year.
The series is named after Chatham MFA alum and former Fourth River editor Jeffrey “Boosie” Bolden who refused to write prose or poetry restricted by genre and pushed himself to create hybrid flows fusing prose and rap. His mixtape-memoir Wolves was released in November 2020 after his passing in June of 2020.
There is no fee to submit to this anthology and accepted writers will receive a copy of the book and $50 honorarium.
Guest Post by Michael Hettich.
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of Blood Aria, given its poems’ formal dexterity, nuanced tonal shifts, and emotional depths, is that it is Christopher Nelson’s first full-length book of poetry. In its range of subject matter and at times harrowing emotional risk, as well as in the sheer dexterity of its strategies and tones, Blood Aria is a deeply powerful and necessary book, one of the richest first books of poetry I have read in years. This is work that reminds us of the depths of insight and feeling that are unsayable except in the most dexterous, courageous, emotionally capacious poetry; it reminds us as well of an essential human need that finds expression only in the best poetry’s capacity to speak through the blood and guts of being, balanced against the scintillating engagements of the formally-adept mind. Continue reading “Elemental Witness”
Deadline: Year-round
The Blue Mountain Review launched from Athens, Georgia in 2015 with the mantra “We’re all south of somewhere.” As a journal of culture, the BMR strives to represent all life through its stories. Stories are vital to our survival. What we sing saves the soul. Our goal is to preserve and promote lives told well through prose, poetry, music, and the visual arts. We’ve published work from and interviews with Jericho Brown, Kelli Russell Agodon, Robert Pinsky, Rising Appalachia, Turkuaz, Michel Stone, Michael Flohr, Lee Herrick, Chen Chen, Michael Cudlitz, Pat Metheny, Melissa Studdard, Lyrics Born, Terry Kay, and Christopher Moore. bluemountainreview.submittable.com/submit
River Heron Review is an online poetry journal first envisioned in New Hope, Pennsylvania by Robbin Farr and Judith Lagana. They want to serve the literary community through publication, readings, workshops, and to bring the written word to life in as many ways as possible.
RHR publishes two digital issues a year (in February and August) online along with two contest issues and a supplemental issue featuring poems of socio-political nature. Speaking of the contest issue, the River Heron Poetry Prize is currently open to submissions through May 31. The Winner receives $500 and publication. This year’s final judge is Thomas McGuire who won the 2022 prize.
RHR also offers affordable Zoom workshops. Upcoming workshops include the Telling the Story – Poetry Critique with editor Robbin Farr, Poetry Boost – From Title to Publication, Found Forms – Writing Scavenged Poems, In Conversation with Art – Writing an Ekphrastic Response, and others.
Stop by their listing on NewPages to learn more!
*updated February 1, 2023*
Deadline: June 15, 2021
The 2021 Tiferet Writing Contest is open to unpublished poems, stories, and essays through June 15. One prize winner and two honorable mentions will be awarded in each category. The prize winners receive $500 and publication in Tiferet. A $20 fee is required for each entry. You may enter up to six poems, stories of up to 3,000 words, and essays and interviews up to 3,000 words. Our judges for this contest are Christine Valters Paintner (poetry), Laraine Herring (nonfiction), and Murzban F. Schroff (fiction). Learn more at tiferetjournal.com/2021-writing-contest/.
Guest Post by Manasi Patil.
A Consequential Murder is the first book in the series, “Shattered Triangle” by William Messenger. This is an uncommon and unique book with complex characters and plots.
The blurb of Shattered Triangle: A Consequential Murder was enough to hook me right in the book. I was certainly expecting a lot from this read, and am glad to say that I had a fulfilling time, and the end left me speechless. It was very unexpected and made me want to read the whole book again just to understand how and why the plot twisted in such a manner. Continue reading “Shattered Triangle Trilogy”
In this issue of South Dakota Review, poetry by Jan Beatty, Luisa A. Igloria, Matthew Thorburn, Shira Dentz, Sarah Bate, Caroline Goodwin, Christine Stewart-Nuñez, Brenna M. Casey, Kristel Rietesel-Low, Clay Matthews, Sonia Greenfield, and Cate Peebles; and more.
We’re excited to share a new issue of Hippocampus Magazine with you. The May-June 2021 was released last week and is now at the Mag Stand. Inside, you’ll find work by Brian Benson, Rachel Bunting, K.B. Carle, Chapin Cimino, Hailey Rose Hanks, Stuart Horwitz, Gwen L. Martin, Stephanie Parent, Abigail Rose, Paul Rousseau, Kate Sheridan, Claire Sicherman, and SJ Sindu.
This issue features fiction by Jim Barnes, James Robert Campbell, Jonathan Lindberg, Elizabeth Cummins Muñoz, and Clay Reynolds; nonfiction by Robert Kostuck, Shelley Pernot, and Christopher Thornton; and more. Read more at the Concho River Review website.
The Arts & Letters Spring Issue is now available for purchase! This issue features the 2020 Unclassifiable Prize winner. Fiction by Stephanie Gangi, Noley Reid, Simone Martel, and Kent Kosack; flash by Dan Kennedy and Matt Greene, and more.
A firm deadline of June 1, 2021 at midnight EST.
The 2021 Laux/Millar Raleigh Review Poetry Prize deadline is nearing. Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar are the judges of the finalists. This contest closes to submissions on 01 June 2021 at midnight Eastern Standard Time. Our deadlines are firm at Raleigh Review. Top prize is $500. There is a $15 entry fee to submit, and all entrants will receive a free copy of the fall 2021 prize issue. raleighreview.submittable.com/submit
Magazine Review by Katy Haas.
In Volume 33 of The Briar Cliff Review, readers can find a poem that I think most people can relate to after the past year. “Gargoyles” by Sara Wallace describes the empty of feeling of craving someone else’s touch. While the poem does lean toward the romantic side of touch (“No one’s biting your lips, / no one’s tasting you.), it comes at a time when I’m seeing my friends celebrate the ability to hug their loved ones again after, and ends up feeling more general. After being separated from friends and family during the pandemic, who hasn’t missed the intimacy of touch?
Wallace carries the idea of gargoyles through the poem, first as a smoker standing in a doorway of a bodega, and finally as the game “statues, / how when you were tagged // you had to pretend you were stone,” and could only move again when “someone touched you.” I love this thread she carries through from present to past, keeping with that yearning for physical touch.
“Gargoyles” by Sara Wallace. The Briar Cliff Review, 2021.
Guest Post by Julia Wilson.
The sense of dread the reader experiences starts with the first sentence of Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind.
“Well, the sun was shining. They felt that boded well . . . ” In fact, it does not.
Alam uses a few methods to keep the reader on edge. He intersperses somewhat alarming but sketchy details haphazardly, and doesn’t always return to explain. For instance, the narrator tells the reader one of the characters always has his epi-pen within reach, then moves on, leaving the reader to wonder: Why is it mentioned? How will it fit into the story? This keeps the reader filled with antsy anticipation.
Then there are the layers of possible menace facing the characters. The first is suspicion based on race. But are there larger threats facing them all as a group? Should they unite and put aside their differences? Alam reveals these details throughout the novel in a slow, tantalizing thread.
And finally, and most impactfully, there is Alam’s use of the omniscient narrator. In this novel, the narrator is used as a technique to impart to the reader information that none of the characters know. For instance, the narrator tells us a tick has burrowed into a boy’s skin, unbeknownst to him or anyone else. Later, when he falls ill, the reader is sure they know what has made the boy sick. But is that really the culprit, or is it something else, with the tick serving as a distraction?
Alam pulls the reader along, dropping asides from the narrator, making it clear that something really big and really bad is going to happen. And the reader watches as the characters try to catch up.
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. HarperCollins Publishers, 2020
Reviewer bio: Julia Wilson is currently pursuing a Masters in Writing at Johns Hopkins University.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Looking for something good to read this summer? See what’s new and forthcoming at the May Book Stand, including our six featured titles.
The poems in I Always Carry My Bones by Felicia Zamora tackle the complex ideation of home for marginalized and migrant peoples.
Peter Grandbois’s Last Night I Aged a Hundred Years was selected by Indran Amirthanayagam as the winner of the 2020 Richard Snyder Memorial Publication Prize.
Please Plant This Book Coast to Coast by Susan Kay Anderson gives a voice to Virginia Brautigan Aste who was married to Richard Brautigan for a decade.
Post-Mortem by Heather Altfeld spans ages and species and cultures and pays tribute to the passing glory of this planet.
Tony Trigilio’s Proof Something Happened is a book of poems based on a legendary UFO encounter.
Self, Divided by John Medeiros is a memoir detailing a time in our recent history when the world had to reckon with the emergence of a seemingly undefeatable virus.
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.
Ruminate is currently seeking an editor! Founded in 2006, Ruminate is dedicated to “cultivating authenticity through nourishing conversations while spiritually sustaining life together through action and art.” Besides the award-winning quarterly literary magazine, they also have the online publication The Waking and serve the local and broader community with online and in person events.
They seek an editor who will uphold their mission of supporting their community of artists, seekers, and readers seeking spiritually nourishing conversations as well as one who can expand the range of editorial and contributor voices to “reflect a growing and changing audience” and help them grow beyond their original roots in the Christian community.
Learn more about this opportunity here.
English as a second language literary magazine Tint Journal will be hosting a virtual reading “Tinted Tales: reading across cultures” on Saturday, May 22 at 7PM (CEST). This international, multicultural, and cross-genre event will be broadcast live from many parts of the world via Tint Journal’s YouTube Channel.
The event will be moderated by Lisa Schantl (Editor-in-Chief) and Matthew Monroy (prose editor). Tint authors Catia Dawood, Satvik Gupta, Marlene Lahmer, Héctor Muiños, Chourouq Nasri, and Iva Ticic will be taking the virtual stage along with spoken word artist Seher Hashmi who successfully applied to an open slot.
The event will be musically accompanied by Soulparlez, a female-only a cappella ensemble.
Check out the trailer & set your reminders so you don’t miss out on this virtual reading!
This month’s Plume featured selection is “Five Contemporary Love Songs edited by Leeya Mehta,” with work by five contemporary Indian poets: Tishani Doshi, Rajiv Mohabir, Jerry Pinto, Arundhathi Subramaniam, and Jeet Thayil. Chelsea Wagenaar reviews Music for the Dead and Resurrected by Valzhyna Mort. In nonfiction: “The Mind’s Meander: Indirection, Ambiguity, and Association in Poetry” by Rachel Hadas.
Welcome to our second pandemic issue of Hiram Poetry Review. The poems here have one thing in common—we liked them immediately. Work by David Adams, Anthony Aguero, Fred Arroyo, Zulfa Arshad, Enne Baker, Grace Bauer, Demetrius Buckley, Jim Daniels, Edmund Dempsey, Norah Esty, Jess Falkenhagen, Antony Fangary, and more.
A special portfolio of work from Morocco, featuring stories translated from Arabic, and art from the Hindiyeh Museum of Art. Essays on family in India and nature in England, new fiction from Celeste Mohammed and Emma Sloley, and poetry by Peter Filkins, Denise Duhamel, Aleksandar Hemon, and Jose Hernandez Diaz.
In this issue of Cimarron Review: poetry by Ken Autrey, Martha Silano, Sandra McPherson, Daniel Bourne, Erin McIntosh, George Bilgere, Annie Christian, Rebecca Cross, Chloe Hanson, Austen Leah Rose, Millie Tullis, Avra Wing, Amy Bagan, and more; fiction by Jason K. Friedman, Laura Dzubay, David Philip Mullins, and Ashley Clarke; and nonfiction by Brenna Womer, Andrew Johnson, and Lindsay Shen.
Deadline: June 15, 2021
Since 2008, the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award competition has recognized the best stories from the previous year. Our judges consist of professional writers, book reviewers, librarians, publicists, and other industry professionals. As this competition was created to help beginning and emerging authors reach new audiences, the focus is on quality, not popularity. There is a $250 cash prize for the best overall work and physical awards are given to the winners of each category. Finalists & semi-finalists will receive written feedback on their work from our judges. Deadline is June 15, 2021. Learn more at killernashville.com/awards/silver-falchion-award/.
Our new issue, ANMLY #32, features a special folio Neighbor Species and Shared Futures curated by Kristine Ong Muslim. Featuring work in various genres from Tilde Acuña, Richard Calayeg Cornelio, Reil Benedict Obinque, Regine Cabato, Pedantic Pedestrians, Melvin Clemente Magsanoc, and more. See what else you can expect to find in this issue at the Anomaly website.
