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NewPages Blog

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

“Cathedrals of Hope” by Lauren Markham

Guest Post by Holly Vasic.

In the 35th-anniversary edition of the San Francisco-based literary magazine ZYZZYVA, Lauren Markham’s essay, “Cathedrals of Hope,” reminisces on the women’s suffrage movement. This piece is timely as 2020 America marked the centennial anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Markham not only reflects on the women who sacrificed their freedom and endured abuse so that women can vote today but also discusses populations forgotten in the 1920s: men and women of color.

Markham weaves her own narrative into the larger historical picture, describing how her first-time voting was marked with devastation when George Bush Jr. won—again. Markham takes a unique look at where we as Americans are in regard to democracy while commentating on where we came from. Markham writes, “How easy human beings can forget the people who came before us, and the debts we owe.”


Cathedrals of Hope” by Lauren Markham. ZYZZYVA, 2020.

Reviewer bio: Holly Vasic is a Graduate Instructor seeking a Master’s in Folklore at Utah State University with an undergrad in Journalism.

Plundered Beliefs

Guest Post by Andrew Romriell.

In “White Witchery,” from Guernica, Elissa Washuta offers fierce insight into the varied and complex ways whiteness has plundered Indigenous bodies and beliefs. Here, Washuta offers difficult truths surrounding colonialism and settler violence alongside the strength of her own perseverance.

Growing up in a “heavily Catholic, forest-and-farmland slice of New Jersey,” Washuta found a sincere desire to make magic, to be a witch who “brings change to the seen world using unseen forces.” To Washuta, magic became a way of finding stability within the uncontrollable world surrounding Native women in America, an America where, Washuta describes, “[colonizers whisper] that I’m not wanted here, not worthy of protection, nothing but a body to be pummeled and played with and threatened into submission.” Yet, through magic, her own tenacity, and the communal strength she finds in a women’s spiritual circle, Washuta says, “ My whole body is a fire” and “I have not died yet.”

“White Witchery” grants a rare and vulnerable insight into the capitalistic industry of the United States, the pop-culture surrounding self-care and self-healing, and the internal struggle of surviving a colonized America as a Native woman, a woman with “nothing now but my big aura, my fistful of keys, and my throat that still knows how to scream because no man has succeeded in closing it.” Though the journey Washuta takes us on is not an easy one, it is one of the most compelling, vulnerable, and important ones we can take.


White Witchery” by Elissa Washuta. Guernica, February 2019.

Reviewer bio: Andrew Romriell is an avid writer, teacher, and student who is passionate about experimental forms, research-based writing, and intersections of genre. Learn more at ajromriell.com.

What the Heart Remembers

Guest Post by Kelsie Peterson.

Catherine Young’s essay, “In That River I Saw Him Again,” published online in November 2020 by Hippocampus Magazine, reads like a coal train passing by you. It is full of glimpses of beauty and wonder, as well as the past, with a poetic through line that moves like the “shadows” Young describes. Using the imagery of coal trains from her childhood, photographs, and early motion pictures, Young’s essay wonders at the idea of memory, of life, and of those lost in her childhood.

The central question running through this essay is, “What can the heart remember? Young invites readers to discover an answer with her as moving pictures first allow her father to come alive once more, and then ultimately, her uncle. Young’s writing offers a unique and engaging perspective on the life of memory.

What engaged me most as a reader was this piece’s inventive use of engaging imagery and repetition of poetic meditations. The reading experience mirrored that of a train passing or of the flicker of the early motion picture. The flashes of ideas flowed together in a truly unforgettable piece.


In That River I Saw Him Again” by Catherine Young. Hippocampus Magazine, November 2020.

Reviewer bio: Kelsie Peterson is completing her last semester at Utah State University and will graduate with her MS in English.

Call :: A Home for Stubborn Writers

CHESTNUT REVIEW (“for stubborn artists”) Invites Submissions Year Round

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 $100 and a copy of the annual anthology of four issues (released each summer). 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! chestnutreview.com

A Portrait of Perspective

Guest Post by Padmaja Reddy.

Safia Elhillo’s Home is Not a Country is a novel in verse with beautiful poems about Nima, her mama, her baba she has never seen, and the better and beautiful version of herself.

She opens with talking about the photographs in a lifetime before her and when her parents were not yet parents. She knows about her father through the photographs everywhere in their house including the one in her mama’s wallet.


Her verse captivates in narrating her life in suburban America, the land still foreign to her mama, her only friend Haitham, her school, Arabic classes.

Her name is supposed to be ‘Yasmeen’ not ‘Nima’ which means grace. And she believes she is not a graceful girl quite contrary to her name.

She echoes her mama’s grief over the loss of her father and a lost world where she would be happier.

I miss him too          my father            though we never met

I miss the country that I’ve never seen the cousins

& aunts & grandparents I miss the help

They could have offered

When she is bullied and called a terrorist, she questions mama: ‘why did you bring us here? they hate us’ and spills the desire to have her baba or someone to protect her, a common notion shared by all immigrant children about their parent’s decision to migrate leaving homeland.

Elhillo’s poetry elegantly captures how the questions about where we come from can take over our life. It’s a portrait of perspective, which holds up a mirror to show that ultimately, we are telling our own stories, and we can choose to see them differently.


Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo. Make Me a World, March 2021.

Reviewer bio: Padmaja Reddy, originally from India, lives in Connecticut. She received an MA in English Literature from SK University. Former journalist and she published poetry and book reviews in various publications like Yale Review of Books, NewPages.

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Blue Desert: Historical Fiction for Avid Readers

Guest Post by Sherri A. Wilkinson.

Alice, a young eighteen-year-old British woman, moves to Africa with her family in 1910, where they live through the fallout of the war (World War I). After an auto accident, Alice finds herself living among the Tuareg tribe in the Sahara Desert. She then has to re-enter British society seven years later, a changed woman. When she receives a telegram in her senior years (age 78, set in 1970) her secrets are revealed.

The story moves at a steady pace alternating between 1910 and 1970; her life in the desert is remembered as well as her current situation. As an older woman, we see how her early years have affected her. The story takes place in about one week’s time, but there is a lot we learn, with a lot of family drama. I was fascinated about the Tuareg culture and how Alice adapted.

Overall I enjoyed Blue Desert and recommend to avid readers.


Blue Desert by Celia Jeffries. Rootstock Publishing, April 2021

Reviewer bio: Sheri A. Wilkinson is an avid reader and reviewer from Princeton, Illinois. She is a longtime member of LibraryThing.com, where she has reviewed over 1000 books.

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Event :: Study Online with The Constellation, A Place for Writers

yellow start with blue text on a white background saying The Constellation A Place for Writers

Study Online with Great Writers Who Are Also Great Teachers

Deadline: Year-round
Location: Virtual
The Constellation, A Place for Writers provides innovative, online creative writing workshops that inspire, instruct, nurture, and challenge. Our acclaimed instructors offer classes in short fiction, novel, essay, memoir, poetry, children and young adult, literary translation, publishing, and hybrid forms. We host sessions for writers at all levels. The brainchild of award-winning and bestselling author Connie May Fowler, The Constellation is a global community of writers who support and elevate each other as they engage in the important work of honing their art and craft. In addition to workshops, The Constellation mentors weekly free prompts, write-ins, and more. Workshops begin this May.

Get Happy with Lawson

Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

This book was absolutely phenomenal and it was a 5-star read! It dealt with mental health, specifically anxiety and depression, in such a fun way. I burst out laughing so many times that people would actually give me weird looks or ask what was happening. Jenny Lawson is just so funny and she somehow combines this humor with her terrible experiences to create the intriguing, hilarious, inspiring masterpiece that is Furiously Happy. There are lighthearted parts, and there are parts that are really serious and it all balances out perfectly.

This book did leave me with more questions than answers, but it definitely made me think about how “normal” my life seems compared to hers. I also learned that both of those lives are perfectly acceptable.

To anyone who is struggling with mental health, this could definitely help you, and even if it doesn’t you will probably still enjoy it nonetheless. I know I did.


Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson. Flatiron Books, February 2017.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Call :: Vine Leaves Seeks Micro-Fiction of 50 Words or Less

50 Give or Take posterSubmit your 50-word story to 50 Give or Take

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!

New England Review – 42.1

New design. New writing from Cuba. New essays, stories, and poems—from Susan Daitch, Carl Dennis, Matthew Lansburgh, Charif Shanahan, and more. In our long-awaited translation feature of new writing from Cuba, you’ll find “hyper-real, speculative, socio-politically explicit, photographically existential, and experimental forms,” says translator Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann in her introduction. Read more at the New England Review website.

Plume – April 2021

For this month’s Plume featured selection, Nancy Mitchell interviewed five Poet Laureates: Tina Chang, Elizabeth Jacobson, Paisley Rekdal, Levi Romero and Laura Tohe. In nonfiction: “Correspondence In The Air” by Ilya Kaminsky and “Twilight of the Theorists” by Doug Anderson. Andrea Read reviews Steven Cramer’s Listen.

Contest :: The Heartland Review Press 2021 Chapbook Contest

Deadline: May 15, 2021
Grand Prize $750 and 25 copies. Submit and no more than 32 pages of original poetry in one Word document. Include a cover page with personal and contact information and a list where poems were previously published if needed. We are not looking for the most publications, but the best short collection of poems. www.theheartlandreview.com/chapbooks

Sweetness of Honey

Guest Post by Christopher Nicholson.

The best friend I ever had was my dog Milo. He offered the best kind of love—not unconditional but predicated on the most reasonable conditions. I had to earn his love and could feel good about that, but he didn’t expect me to be perfect. This sensation is nothing new to most people who have had a pet.

In “Honey, I’m Home: Beyond the Rescue Door,” published in the Fall/Winter 2020-2021 edition of Magnets and Ladders, Bonnie Blose reminisces on sharing such a love with the titular cat, Honey, who found her at a local rescue shelter and chose her immediately. Honey had some traumatic experiences in her past that affected her behavior and didn’t make her an easy pet. Blose committed from the very beginning to give her the love she needed, no matter what, for however much time they had together. She did exactly that.

Blose extols her cat’s intelligence and emotion, painting her as almost human—or as Blose would insist, better than human. This is also a relatable mindset for me and other past or present pet owners. They are not mere accessories; they are our friends, our family, our confidantes. Honey shows as much personality in the story as any human character, and one senses that it’s true to life, that Blose isn’t just anthropomorphizing her for dramatic purposes.

Magnets and Ladders is an online magazine for writers with disabilities, and this story won first place in the nonfiction category of the National Federation of the Blind Writers’ Division’s 2020 contest, so the author’s disability is a constant subtext without ever being stated outright in the story. One gets the impression that Blose needed Honey as much as Honey needed her, that their relationship was symbiotic in a way. Many people are so preoccupied with finding romantic companionship to “complete” themselves that they overlook the potential of pets—but in this time when human connection is so limited, they may rediscover an appreciation for the one-of-a-kind bonds that animals can offer.

Take a few minutes, open your heart, and give this story a chance.


“Honey, I’m Home: Beyond the Rescue Door” by Bonnie Blose. Magnets and Ladders, Fall/Winter 2020-2021.

Reviewer bio: Christopher Nicholson is an English 1010 instructor and Creative Writing graduate student at Utah State University. He writes and blogs about all kinds of things at https://www.christopherrandallnicholson.com.

Mortality and Motherhood

Guest Post by Mia Jensen.

“When the butterfly struggles out of its pupa, for three long hours its wings are wet and as utterly useless as a newborn’s hands.”

In “Life Inside,” found in Issue 211 of Cimarron Review, author Caroline Sutton contemplates the limitations of mortality and motherhood amid the upcoming birth of her first granddaughter. Sutton ingeniously weaves the eager experiences of her pregnant daughter with the vulnerable life cycle of monarch butterflies and their fruitless efforts for survival in a hostile world.

Reflecting on her own complicated pregnancy decades before, Sutton likens the near loss of her infant to the toxic consumption of milkweed leaves. Monarch mothers lay eggs on milkweed plants and milkweed plants alone, for when monarch larvae ingest the plant’s toxic properties, predators avoid the black and yellow creature. Sutton thinks back to her traumatic delivery and questions her blind trust during the delivery, her assumptions that everything would be alright because it always was, because mothers always offered protection. But, in a world strung with chaos and turmoil, perhaps there are some obstacles a mother cannot predict.

Sutton concludes by comparing her daughter’s upcoming delivery with a caterpillar’s metamorphic emergence. Rather than reflecting on the cliché symbol of hope, Sutton contemplates the feebleness of the new creature. Its wings, wet, useless, and unable to defend against predators looking to “attack and devour the butterfly, toxins and all, before the wings ever open fully.” Although monarch mothers provide protection from larvae to pupa, they cannot predict the perils awaiting beyond the chrysalis.


Life Inside” by Caroline Sutton. Cimarron Review, Spring 2020.

Reviewer bio: Mia Jensen is a graduate student at Utah State University studying creative writing. She loves horror novels, trail running, and her Australian Shepherd.

Contest :: Poet Hunt 26, Judged by Indigo Moor, is Now Open!!

Screenshot of The MacGuffin's 26th Annual Poet Hunt
click image to see full-size flier

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.

“The Wide, Wide Sea” by Patrick Ness

Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

Patrick Ness’s “The Wide, Wide Sea” is a short story from the Chaos Walking series that takes place before the start of the first book, but is meant to be read between the second and third.

I am a sucker for a good forbidden love story and this one did not disappoint. The main character is a human who has fallen in love with a spackle, and they have such a wholesome story in such a gruesome place. Realistically, I don’t think any of the plot twists were super unpredictable, but I personally did not see any of them coming and that was such a roller coaster of events coming out of nowhere. Not to mention how loveable the characters were despite the fact that the story was less than 40 pages long.

This was an extremely enjoyable story and I gave it 4.75 out of 5 stars.


The Wide, Wide Sea” by Patrick Ness. Walker Books, 2018.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Contest :: 2021 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize Now Open for Submissions

Red WheelbarrowDeadline: July 31, 2021
RED WHEELBARROW POETRY PRIZE 2021: 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.

Contest :: North Street Book Prize for Self-Published Books

sketched lion head surrounded by text reading North Street Book PrizeDeadline: 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.

Contest :: Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest

Lion's head on pastel blue and purple backgroundDeadline: April 30, 2021
29th year, sponsored by Winning Writers, co-sponsored by Duotrope, and recommended by Reedsy. Submit published or unpublished work online to win $3,000 for the best story and $3,000 for the best essay. Ten Honorable Mentions will receive $200 each. Length limit: 6,000 words. Entry fee: $20. Top 12 entries published online. Final judge: Dennis Norris II. Learn more at winningwriters.com/tomstorynp2104.

Listen to ‘The Songs of Trees’ with David George Haskell

Guest Post by Carolyn Dille.

How many tree whispers and shouts can you hear? How many mysteries and histories are there in wood and water, bird and human, ice and insect? How much do you like to travel? Go with George David Haskell to explore these questions and many others. He takes us far beyond tree rings and photosynthesis, far below roots and above crowns, though we visit those too when we read of his forest adventures around the world as a researcher and teacher of biology and environmental studies.

Listening to Haskell’s lush language, alive with many forest voices—maples and green ash in suburbs and forests, and Sabal palm forest in Georgia dunes—we attune to the wonders of our own senses of sound and touch and sight. Trees have developed their own suite of senses: They sense when water is fresh or salt and know how much to take up and conserve. How to shorten and wax-coat leaves in dry climates.

We meet individual trees and hear their rhythms throughout a year and into their afterlife. That afterlife is part of the larger symphony of nature, where the sounds and touches and sights include every sentient creature’s life and afterlife.

From an Amazon forest preserve in Ecuador where the ceibo tree is a living deity, through Echizen, capitol of Japanese artisan wood paper, with stops in New York City to listen to street trees, to the Florissant Fossil Beds in southern Colorado, and to other places with their own tree songs, Haskell writes the music of trees in a language that allows us to tune into the symphony of terrestrial life.


The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature’s Great Connectors by David George Haskell. Penguin Random House, April 2018.

Reviewer bio: Carolyn is a poet and a Soto Zen priest who leads art and meditation retreats and workshops. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Call :: Driftwood Press Seeks Artists Who Care About Doing It Right

banner with artwork showing mountains, woods, and a woman's headSubmissions accepted 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. www.driftwoodpress.net

Don’t forget to check out Issue 8.1 which was just published in January 2021.

Ness’s “The New World”

Guest Post by Natalie Hess.

“The New World” is a short story and prequel to the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. It follows Viola as she first travels from her beloved home ship in space to the new planet where her people are trying to find a new place to call home as their old planet is being slowly destroyed.

It was definitely very strange to read about this being described as such a big opportunity for all of these people, but for Viola to be so against the idea of being the first one to go to this place because of the risks it involved. Her negative attitude throughout the whole story was very obnoxious but relatable at the same time, and the ending made me question my judgement of her throughout the story even more.

This was quite a fun read, and I enjoyed learning about some of Viola’s background. I gave this one 3.75 out of 5 stars.


The New World” by Patrick Ness. Candlewick Press, September 2010.

Reviewer bio: I’m Natalie Hess and I’m simply a high school student who LOVES reading everything from scifi to romance to nonfiction and everything in between. I also love sharing my thoughts and I hope you enjoy!

Contest :: Flying South 2021

painting of buildings and mountains with flying south and book pages flyingFlying South 2021 Call for Submissions – $2000 in Prizes

Deadline: May 31, 2021
$2,000 in prizes. From March 1 to May 31, Flying South 2021, a publication of Winston Salem Writers, will be accepting entries for prizes in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry. Best in Category winners will be published and receive $500 each. One of the three winners will receive The WSW President’s Favorite award and win an additional $500. All entries will be considered for publication. For full details, please visit our website: www.wswriters.org/flying-south.

The Shore – Spring 2021

The spring issue of The Shore is bursting with breathtaking poetry by Dana Blatte, Jessica Poli, Matthew Tuckner, CD Eskilson, Dakota Reed, Kelsey Carmody Wort, Martha Silano, SK Grout, Hilary King, Babo Kamel, Noa Saunders, Jeremy Michael Reed, Lucy Zhang, C Samuel Rees, Becki Hawes, Kevin Grauke, Jenny Wong, Steven Pfau, Ashley Steineger, Danielle Pieratti, Eric Steineger, Farnaz Fatemi, Scarlett Peterson, Sarah Elkins, Katie Holtmeyer, Robert Fanning, Jean Theron, Heidi Seaborn, Caroline Riley, Sarah Stickney, David Keplinger, Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan, Tara A Elliott, Laren Mallett, Richard Prins and Sam Sobel. It also features dazzling art by Joshua Young.

Radar Poetry – No. 29

Radar Poetry’s newest issue features poetry by Geula Geurts, Despy Boutris, K. D. Harryman, Jennifer Beebe, Marietta Brill, Kathryn Haemmerle, Michelle Menting, Julia Paul, Amanda Chiado, Jane Zwart, Meggie Royer, Claudia Acevedo-Quiñones, Janine Certo, Cynthia White, Rachael Inciarte, Josh Exoo, Casey Patrick, and Ruth Dickey, as well as accompany art by artists such as Ethan Pines, Tema Stauffer, Lava Munroe, Honour Mack, and more.

Qu – Winter 2021

This issue of Qu features “Rogue Valley” by Midge Raymond, “Social Studies” by Stephany Brown, “The Summer of Disappearing Moms” by Kristin Gallagher, “Brooklyn” by Roy Bentley, “survival float” by Rachael Gay, “Touch Starvation” by Rachael Gay, “Last Seen Leaving Campus with Unnamed Male” by Mary Wolff, “A Marriage of Lies and One Truth” by Mary Wolff, and more.

“She” by Grace Camille

Guest Post by Tyler Hurst.

In “She,” published in Issue 18 of Into the Void, author Grace Camille begins with an inventory of the things that the she has chosen to hold onto. Through the memories the objects invoke, we are introduced to the narrator’s own addiction, a need to belong, to be a part of something and to nurture “a proper addiction” that “began as a Hail Mary plan to be accepted by sleek, serious coworkers.”

Camille’s loneliness becomes our loneliness through the use of the third person, creating an emotional distance from events that still allows the reader to recognize. When she meets “him,” he makes her feel needed, wanted. When he leaves for the Peace Corps, the world becomes one of routines. “She jogs in the evenings, washes her hair weekly, flosses daily, eats sometimes,” and the list goes on. One-hundred-and-three days later, she’s still wishing after him, remembering him and longing for what she cannot hold. While she “reaches for his hand,” he is “reaching for a firefly,” revealing the futility of trying to hold onto that which does not wish to be held.


She” by Grace Camille. Into the Void, 2021.

Reviewer bio: Tyler Hurst is a graduate student at Utah State University studying creative writing while completing his last semester there.

Explorations of Pain

Guest Post by Kayla Berryman.

In Pain Studies, published in 2020 by Bellevue Literary Press, Lisa Olstein explores her relationship between pain and chronic migraines with the simple statement that “all pain is simple. And all pain is complex. You’re in it and you want to get out.”

From there Olstein takes readers through the explorations and complexities of pain by connecting pain to language, medical dramas, translations, and surprisingly, Joan of Arc. Readers will see echoes and references of Eula Biss’s lyric essay “The Pain Scale,” as well as references to the works of the poet and translator Anne Carson, among other poets. Olstein asks readers to consider migraine as “a particular version of the present. What happens when its present becomes yours for extended periods of time, for a significant portion of your life?”


Pain Studies by Lisa Olstein. Bellevue Literary Press, March 2020.

Reviewer bio: Kayla Berryman is a graduate student at Utah State University.

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

The Masters Review Announces Inaugural Chapbook Award Finalists & Winner

The Masters Review has announced the finalists and winner of their inaugural Chapbook Award judged by Steve Almond. The winning manuscript is Masterplans by Nick Almeida. His chapbook is set to be published in the fall.

Finalists were Deep Blue by Jay Allison and Oscillations by Tanya Perkins.

Don’t forget their Anthology Contest closes to entries on March 28 at midnight PST.

Citro’s Shining Reflection

Guest Post by Susan Kay Anderson.

At first, it is hard to get past the title as it is with all of Christopher Citro’s titles. They are so good in the way that they trip you up and shine back on you.

Take the title of If We Had A Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That The Sun. Lemon points to Citro’s name and its meaning, a citrus category of fruit. He also points to exuberance. The word sun points to son or to Citro as a son. It points to survival. This scene is also dismal, it is dark. If a lemon shines brightly as the sun, then this is a sunless place. Maybe a dark cedar forest. This title is desperate and makes me think of immigration or refugees who have nothing, no vitamin C.

Am I making too much of the title? Probably. It is hard to ignore its shiny reflection. I wonder where I am and wonder which side of the shadow I will go to next. I am tempted to list all his titles here, you would get lost in their stark imagery and artful sound. Teasers:  “Dear Diary Where Is Everybody” and “In Small Significant Ways We’re Horses.”

Continue reading “Citro’s Shining Reflection”

Call :: Blue Mountain Review Wants the Best Stories in All Genres

The Blue Mountain Review flierSubmissions accepted 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 life through its stories. Stories are vital to our survival. Songs save the soul. Our goal is to preserve and promote lives told well through prose, poetry, music, and the visual arts. Our editors read year-round with an eye out for work with homespun and international appeal. We’ve published work by and interviews with Jericho Brown, Kelli Russell Agodon, Robert Pinsky, Rising Appalachia, Nahko, Michel Stone, Genesis Greykid, Cassandra King, Melissa Studdard, and A.E. Stallings.

Creative Nonfiction Offering 12 Classes This Spring

Literary magazine Creative Nonfiction has currently announced their Spring 2021 courses. They are offering a total of 12 to help people achieve their writing goals.

Currently available courses are the Creative Nonfiction Boot Camp (5-week or 10-week); Thirty-Minute Memoir; Advanced Historical Narratives: Crafting the Best Material; Advanced Memoir: From First Sentence to Resolution; and Advanced Personal Essay: Finding a Way Through. The advanced courses do require you meet pre-requisites before enrolling.

These classes are offered completely online and will run April 12 through June 20, 2021.

Boundless Energy in Yi Lei’s Poetry

Guest Post by Karina Borowicz.

In tension there is energy, and the energy in My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree is released in fistfuls, waves, gusts, and flames. It is an energy that bursts forth from confrontations: between wild and tame, individual and universal, being and oblivion, exuberance and despair. And with these collisions and collusions it becomes clear that the lines we draw, the walls we build, and the boundaries we dare not cross are, despite their seeming solidity, in truth quite tenuous. They are maintained by belief, and we are free to escape. The poet declares, “I don’t believe in walls. May walls / Cease this very moment to exist. / I’m boundless.”

These poems are voracious for boundlessness, an unhooking of the self from the anchor of obedience to norms that emphasize divisions. The voices in these poems speak with revolutionary fervor about such acts of disobedience. “I am composing an explosion,” the poet says in “Besieged,” a poem in which the vertigo of broken bonds is at first frightening, then thrilling.   Throughout the book, a blissful freedom and expansiveness is found in surrender to nature and the sensual world, in merging the self with the other, and in artistic expression. Overstepping boundaries, however, is not without cost. To expand, one must break. The thrill in these poems is also a kind of searing pain.

Co-translator Tracy K. Smith says she tried to capture the original’s “rhythmic and emotional insistence.” Sound play and patterning give these poems muscle and a heartbeat: “Weary, wary, watching you / Watch me. Your gale-force gaze / Wants to topple me. I give.” One can’t help but feel windblown after reading this book. It’s a force of nature.


My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree by Yi Lei, translated from the Chinese by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi. Graywolf Press, November 2020.

Reviewer bio: Karina Borowicz is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Rosetta, which won the Ex Ophidia Prize. She writes about the craft of poetry at karinaborowicz.com/blog/.

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

NewPages Book Stand – March 2021

A new Book Stand is here with great new and forthcoming fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books. Check out this month’s six featured titles below!

Joshua Cross’s debut story collection Black Bear Creek shows characters struggling to survive as they find ways to love and hope and fight in a mining town past its glory days.

Stephanie Dickinson opens a door out of Austrian poet Georg Trakl’s psyche in the poems of Blue Swan, Black Swan: The Trakl Diaries.

In the nine stories of How Other People Make Love, Thisbe Nissen chronicles the lives and choices of people questioning the heteronormative institution of marriage.

Lily-livered by Wren Hanks “is a beautifully braided catalog of ways to live and not die.”

In her debut full-length collection of poems The Supposed Huntsman, Katie Fowley blurs the lines of gender, species, and self.

The Ways We Get By by Joe Dornich is the “bizarre, charming, darkly comic irreality of paid cuddlers and mean-spirited parents, where intimacy is commodified.”

You can learn more about each of these New & Noteworthy books at our websiteClick here to see how to place your book in our New & Noteworthy section.

Happy 5th Anniversary Leaping Clear

Leaping Clear - logoCongrats to Leaping Clear! The online lit mag is celebrating its fifth anniversary this spring.

With this special occasion, the masthead is welcoming in new editors Simon Boes and Jen Schmidt.

Readers can celebrate with the magazine by checking out their brand new Spring/Summer 2021 issue. Instead of the usual format, this issue is published as a weekly Showcase Feature which will highlight one contributor from the past five years each week until the 2021 Fall issue is released in September. This week’s showcase is “Call and Response” by author and artist Deborah Kennedy.

Virtual Launch Reading for Able Muse Winter 2020/2021 Edition

Picture collage with blue background and pictures of several peopleLiterary magazine Able Muse is celebrating the release of its new print edition with a virtual reading and Q&A session with the contributors and authors of Issue Number 28.

The event is hosted by poetry associated editor Nicole Caruso Garcia and will include fellow editors Alexander Pepple, Richard Wakefield, Karen Kevorkian, and N. S. Thompson. Contributors/readers include Bruce Bennett, Anna M. Evans, Dan Campion, Estill Pollock, J.C. Scharl, John Beaton, Susan McLean, Nageen Rather, L.M. Brown (who will be reading the winning story of the 2020 Able Muse Write Prize for Fiction), and N. S. Thompson.

The launch event will take place virtually via Zoom on April 3 from 3-4PM EDT. Attendance is free and everyone is welcome to join that wishes, too. You just have to register for the event first.