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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!

Call :: Into the Void Wants Your Work in Issue #17

Into the Void coverDeadline: September 7, 2020
Award-winning print & online Into the Void is open to submissions of fiction, flash, creative nonfiction, poetry, & visual art for Issue #17 through September 7. Payment is $10 per poem/flash/art or $20 per long-from prose piece, a contributor copy, & a one-year online subscription. No theme, & no reading fees until Submittable monthly limits reached. Send us something that makes us feel alive. Details: intothevoidmagazine.com/submissions/.

Call :: Speckled Trout Review Fall 2020 Issue

Deadline: October 15
Speckled Trout Review is planning a special print issue on the theme of CRISIS for its Fall 2020 (2.2) publication. In a lifetime we experience crises of the heart, the mind, and the body, as well as global crises—the present COVID-19 pandemic, racial unrest and social injustices, natural catastrophes, and many others that leave indelible impressions. We want to hear from poets whose speakers come out stronger after a crisis. The deadline is Oct. 15. Please read the guidelines carefully before submitting. Specific guidelines can be found here: speckledtroutreview.com/2019/08/04/welcome-to-my-blog/.

Contest :: 2020 Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest

Winning Writers Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry ContestDeadline: September 30, 2020
18th year, sponsored by Winning Writers. Win $3,000 for a poem in any style and $3,000 for a poem that rhymes or has a traditional style. Total prizes: $8,000. The top two winners will also receive two-year gift certificates from our co-sponsor, Duotrope (a $100 value). Both published and unpublished work accepted. Winning entries published online. Fee: $15 per poem. Length limit: 250 lines. Judged by S. Mei Sheng Frazier, assisted by Jim DuBois. This contest is recommended by Reedsy as one of the best of 2020. See past winners, advice from the judge, and submit online at winningwriters.com/tompoetry.

Call :: We Pay Contributors! Driftwood Press Submissions Open

Driftwood Press website screenshotSubmissions 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

Sponsor Spotlight :: Rockvale Review: Bold & Vulnerable Poetry

Rockvale Review screenshotRockvale Review was founded in 2017 as an online journal devoted to “bold and vulnerable poetry.” They publish work from new, emerging, and established writers and feature image-driven poems that are hard-edged and finely crafted. They do offer optional print editions of their issues which are released in May and November of each year.

They have a unique feature where every poem accepted for publication is paired with a piece of art created by a Featured Artist. A Featured Musician will also craft music to respond to several of the poems in each issue. In doing so, Rockvale Review produces a journal that speaks beyond words, moving into the visual and auditory layers of the human spirit.

Their sixth issue was published in May 2020 and features work by Travis Stephens, Ivo Drury, Kate Deimling, Shannon Wolf, M.G. Hofmann, Wendy Drexler, and more. Stop by their listing at NewPages to learn more.

Black Warrior Review Now Offering No-Fee Contest Submissions to Black Writers

Black Warrior Review - Spring 2020Black Warrior Review is a biannual print literary magazine that has been publishing exciting established and emerging literary talents since 1974. The journal is published by the students in The University of Alabama’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.

In an effort to do their part and stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, they have gathered donations to launch an effort to provide free contest submissions for up to 400 Black writers to their annual writing contest. This will not be a one-off initiative, but a sustained effort they will continue into the future. In their July 28 announcement, the BWR staff stated “This is part of a much larger effort/wish of the BWR staff to do away with contest fees, but an undertaking such as this has to start somewhere, and in this pivotal moment this is our focus.”

They recognize this effort alone is not enough and are doing their best to continue to prioritize ways in which they can make their journal a more equitable place where all Writers of Color can feel welcomed and supported.

The 2020 contest judges are Paul Tran, Lucy Corin, Mayukh Sen, and C Pam Zhang. Categories are Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, and Flash. The winners of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry will receive $1,000 and publication in the Spring 2021 issue. The Flash winner will receive $500 and publication in the Spring 2021 issue. Deadline to submit is September 1.

You can read their full announcement here.

They the Mothers

Magazine Review by Katy Haas

From Issue 38 of Bellevue Literary Review, Kathi Hansen’s “We the Mothers” (honorable mention in the 2020 BLR Prize) imagines the mothers of boys who have been accused of sexual assault. They meet together in book-club-like fashion, able to speak freely with one another when no one else understands.

Hansen writes of them in a collective. They speak of their sons as one being as they look back to their childhoods, their teenage years, and the ways their boys were raised in their homes. Only when one woman begins to question her son’s innocence does the story diverge, separating her from the rest of the group, finally naming her apart from the others. I found this to be a cool, well done device for this piece, and a unique point of view to have on these now familiar stories.

Despite focusing on this side of the story, Hansen does a good job of avoiding too much sentimentality. The mothers tell their collective story without demanding understanding or sympathy from the reader. After all, as they point out, only those in their group can truly understand.

Call :: Grand Little Things Seeks Formal Poetry

Deadline: Rolling
Grand Little Things is open for submissions! Visit us at grand-little-things.com/submission-information/ for more info! GLT is looking for formal poetry (think sonnets, villanelles, etc.) or blank/free verse that uses traditional poetic techniques. Open to never-been-published-writers and up and comers, as well as established writers. No fee required.

Witness. Vulnerable. Mystery.

Guest Post by Susan Kay Anderson

Witness.

Fred Marchant views the inexplicable and gives us the air it breathed in his poems in Said Not Said. I have been looking at this book, reading it, studying with Marchant, and looking at it again for the past three years. Most of that time I worked as a graveyard-shift custodian cleaning university buildings. Now, I live at my parents’ and take care of the both of them during the days of the pandemic. What Marchant sees in his life is revealed in this book. He sees what is not fair. He sees reality but events he cannot control. Here we are in 2020: sitting ducks. Marchant’s poems get into the feeling of this but also access the profound stability of peace and understanding. In “Fennel” he writes:

At the end maybe you were thinking
of Whitman and his claim that dying
was luckier than we had supposed.
Or not. Or not. Here is the bee . . .

Marchant shows us that nature with a capital N intercedes, maybe not to change the course of events he witnesses, but to carry an event to another place, a different emotion. Continue reading “Witness. Vulnerable. Mystery.”

Contest :: Tinderbox’s 2020 Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Prize

Deadline: August 31, 2020
Tinderbox Poetry Journal is pleased to announce its fourth annual contest, the 2020 Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Prize, judged by torrin a. greathouse! There are no limitations in form or content; we are interested in everything from traditional forms to free verse to lyric essay to flash fiction. The winner will receive $750, and the runner-up will receive $500. All finalists will be published and paid the standard rate of $15/contributor. Semi-finalists will also be considered for publication. Please submit up to three (3) pieces ($15, or $20 with feedback) here: tinderboxpoetryjournal.submittable.com/submit. We look forward to reading your work!

Call :: Superstition Review Issue 26

Deadline: August 31
On behalf of Arizona State University and the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Superstition Review is dedicating Issue 26 to work that promotes inclusion and explores new ways to dismantle racial and social inequality. We have chosen this theme in order to magnify voices that have been traditionally undermined by our histories, institutions, policies, laws, and habits of daily life. Our submissions will be open August 1st-31st. We accept art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. superstitionreview.asu.edu

Call :: Storm Cellar Open to Submissions – Surprise Them!

Deadline: Rolling
Storm Cellar, a journal of safety and danger, seeks amazing, adventurous new writing, art, and photography. Indigenous, Black, POC, gender nonconforming, women, LGBTQIA+, disabled, neurodivergent, fat, poor, and border-straddling authors encouraged. Midwest connections a plus. Specific, strong, and strange voices welcome: surprise them! Full guidelines at stormcellar.org/submit and submission manager at stormcellar.submittable.com.

Program :: University of South Alabama’s MA in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing

University of South AlabamaSpring 2021 Application Deadline: December 1
The MA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing offers students an opportunity to develop their writing in a variety of genres (including screenwriting) and to work with the writers sponsored by the Stokes Center for Creative Writing. The Stokes Center enhances the English department’s offerings in creative writing by sponsoring readings, lectures, forums, community projects, and other events that are free and open to the public. It also supports students through its undergraduate and graduate awards in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. A number of competitive scholarships are available to augment the assistantships and tuition waivers such as summer creative writing awards for work on individual projects. For students who enroll full time, the MA in English can be completed in four semesters. Students also have the option of enrolling part time and/or completing the degree through evening coursework. Come develop your craft in a diverse and vibrant city near world-class beaches.

What Is Real?

Guest Post by Susan Kay Anderson

Rereading The Intangibles by Elaine Equi, during the pandemic, it suddenly reads like a meditation, yet it was published “before” in 2019. Well, it matches the feeling of ennui of the pandemic, police brutality, and the more overarching panic of the climate crisis. This is also true of a lot of poetry I read now, Because of my state of mind, and I am sure others would agree (desperate/bored/searching/hopeful/raw/terrorized), we are also mesmerized by poetry and what poets have to say.

What Equi has to say in The Intangibles is as straightforward as she’s always been. From her titular poem: “Prove you’re not a robot / Answer the question: / What color is the silver basket?”

Her poems are directed outwards but also fold endlessly in on themselves. They are playful in their sense of what it feels like to be confined, in quarantine, yes, and even before the quarantine period we are currently in even happened. From her poem “Faces” we see ourselves and others in a bleak, yet hopeful way: “I love to watch / the dough of faces / flower.”

This book slays with amazing titles. Here are some:  “Deep In The Rectangular Forest,” “Ode To Weird,” “Ghosts and Fashion,” “Home On The Range” (okay, not such a weird title, but a very exquisite and wonderful poem), “Granular Time/Granular Distance,” and “Looking Out The Window In A Novel.”

Each of these poems blossoms into a novel (and not a virus).

The Intangibles by Elaine Equi. Coffee House Press, 2019.

Reviewer bio: Susan Kay Anderson’s first book of poems is Mezzanine, from Finishing Line Press, 2019. She also has work forthcoming in Sleet, and another book from Finishing Line Press. She lives in Oregon.

Contest :: The 2020 Coniston Prize for Women Poets

Radar Poetry 2020 Contest banner adDeadline: September 1
The Coniston Prize from Radar Poetry recognizes an exceptional group of poems by a woman writing in English. This year’s judge is Ada Limón. The winner will receive $1,500 and publication. Up to 10 finalists will also be awarded publication in the contest issue. Coniston Prize entries will be accepted through Submittable until the deadline of September 1, 2020. The reading fee is $20. Visit www.radarpoetry.com/contest to review the guidelines and read the work of past winners.

Weaponized Information

Guest Post by Eron Henry

Information and news are increasingly weaponized. While not new, the weaponization of news and information has been set on steroids by the rise of social media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and their counterparts in other countries, such as in Russia and China, have become the main source of news for citizens.

It is in and through social media that propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation thrive. The first, propaganda, is a way to tell one’s own story and can be used for good or ill. Advertising, for instance, is a form of propaganda. The second, misinformation, is false and faulty news that need not be deliberately false but can be harmful. The last, disinformation, is the deliberate spreading of false and misleading news and information with the intention to create confusion and cause harm.

Because social media is now the most widely used source of news and information, persons become easily misled and fooled because social media is a fertile breeding ground for misinformation and disinformation.

In Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It, Richard Stengel tells how false and faulty news is now normalized. The former editor of Time Magazine, Stengel was recruited by the State Department during the Obama Administration to counter misinformation and disinformation, especially those put out by Russia and ISIS, the terrorist group.

It was a Byzantine experience. An admixture of outdated technology, ill-prepared and ill-informed government officials and workers, turf wars, career ambitions, ego, and more, got in the way of countering the coordinated and concerted attack on truth and facts, both within the United States and globally.

Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It by Richard Stengel. Atlantic Books, October 2019

Reviewer bio: Eron Henry is a communications consultant. He blogs at https://oletimesumting.com.

Buy this book at our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Call :: Raleigh Review Open to Submissions through Halloween 2020

Deadline: Halloween 2020 at Midnight
The Raleigh Review believes that great literature inspires empathy by allowing us to see through the eyes of our neighbors, whether across the street or across the globe. They are currently open to general submissions for poetry and flash fiction through Halloween 2020 at Midnight. There is a small convenience fee to submit to their general submission categories as this helps to defray the costs associated with operating via the Submittable platform, a necessary resource for them as their staff is located across the country and at times the world. They encourage you to check out their free full-issue online archive to find out more about them: www.raleighreview.org.

Call :: Fleas on the Dog Open to Submissions for Issue 7

Deadline: August 30
They’re the site your teacher warned you about! The no frills brown bag in your face thumb your nose online psychotropolis for the literarily insane. Get committed today! The infamous dude sextet is bustlin’, hustlin’, itchin’ and twitchin’ for QUALITY short fiction, nonfiction, poetry, plays and screenplays that smell ripe and kick ass for their cage-rattling upcoming Issue 7. If they like what you submit they’ll be all over you; if they don’t they promise to be gentle, especially if it’s your first time. See our Guidelines for details: fleasonthedog.com. Runs July 1-August 30. Check out Issue 6 released this past May for a taste of what they like.

Eerie Reflections: Lacrimore

Guest Post by Laura Kincaid

Lacrimore by SJ Costello explores our relationship with grief and tragedy through a speculative lens. The gothic novel draws readers in with beautifully dark prose that builds a haunting world. While the story unfolds slowly, the flawed characters and mystery compel readers to turn the page.

The novel opens with Sivre Sen, a faithless medium journeying across a stormy lake to a small island. There sits Lacrimore, a crumbling labyrinth of a mansion shrouded by legends. During a vision, a ghost called her there to complete his funeral rites. In Costello’s Victorian-inspired world, mediums are revered and influential, especially after a recent epidemic. However, Sen has never before experienced visions of the dead. After arriving, she meets the dead man (who is still alive), a staff trapped by circumstances, and a dubious doctor in exile. As Sivre searches the house for answers and closure, she discovers dark secrets in its rotting walls. The book is like Lacrimore itself—a quiet, mysterious tale standing alone in a much larger world.

Though in development before the COVID-19, the novel was a poignant and refreshing take on pandemic literature. Instead of focusing on dystopian survival, the story centers on what happens after survival. How do we process our grief? How do we reflect on the societal failures that came to light? What change is required to be better? Lacrimore doesn’t claim to answers all these questions. It remains a spooky story that is fun to read, but opens the door for those who want to ponder its deeper themes.

Lacrimore by SJ Costello. June 2020.

Reviewer bio: Laura Kincaid is a writer, editor, and lover of the fantastical. Find her work in Twist in Time and at laurakincaidmusings.wordpress.com.

Literature that Rattles the Soul

Guest Post by Brian Phillip Whalen

I’m rereading Peter Orner’s collection of essays, Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live. (What a title! I’m also rereading Jonathan Franzen’s How to Be Alone.) Orner’s essays are ideal stay-at-home reading—easy-to-digest, elegantly composed—and his sparing prose is second-to-none at conveying depths of feeling in few words. The result is a perfectly-paced, heartfelt, sad, funny, and breathtaking book.

Orner seamlessly blends craft analysis (examinations of Chekhov, Welty, Malamud, Hurston, Wideman, Kafka, and scores of other writers) with memoir (stories of fathers, children, love, loss, joys, regrets, the pleasures—and solitude—of reading). Each essay is inspired by an act of reading, prompting explorations into the ways in which the books we read inform, intersect with, and sometimes mirror our lives:

It gets me every time. The way a story about characters, nonexistent people, pushes us back to our own, the people who do exist, who do walk the earth.”

It’s Orner’s voice, however, that draws me in. Though I’ve never met him, the feeling I get reading his essays is akin to sharing stories of hurt and redemption with an old friend over a cold beer, sitting on lawn chairs in the yard at sunset.

We have all done things we wish we could erase, forever, from the record. No matter how we airbrush our histories, the hurt we have caused will, always, reach out for us—like for me today—out of the December rain.”

Orner’s objective was to write about literature that “rattles the soul,” and in so doing, he amassed a collection of essays that continues to rattle mine. This is my go-to recommendation for readers wanting bite-size, ruminative literary essays—and these days, for anyone looking, as the title beckons, for some company in isolation.

Am I Alone Here? by Peter Orner. Catapult, 2016.

Reviewer bio: Brian Phillip Whalen’s debut collection of fiction, Semiotic Love [Stories], will be released in 2021 (Awst Press). Find him here: www.brianphillipwhalen.com.

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Call :: Girls Right the World Seeks Submissions from Female-identifying Writers Ages 14-21

Deadline: December 31, 2020
Girls Right the World is a literary journal inviting young, female-identified writers and artists, ages 14–21, to submit work for consideration for the fifth annual issue. They believe girls’ voices transform the world for the better. They accept poetry, prose, and visual art of any style or theme. They ask to be the first to publish your work in North America; after publication, the rights return to you. Send your best work, in English or English translation, to [email protected] by December 31, 2020. Please include a note mentioning your age, where you’re from, and a bit about your submission.

Bluegrass Writers Studio Open to Fall 2020 Applications through August 1

Bluegrass Writers Studio logoThere is still a few days left to submit your application to the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Eastern Kentucky University. The Bluegrass Writers Studio offers one of the most affordable and progressive low-residency programs in the nation.

They offer a close-knit and supportive writing community, are devoted to their students creative and professional success, and are supportive of both literary and literary genre writing. The program offers online workshops conducted with live audio, intensive residency workshops, international literary and cultural experiences, and web-based courses in contemporary literature. Students also have the option of working on Jelly Bucket, the annual graduate-student-produced literary journal.

To be considered for their Fall 2020 program, applications need to be received by August 1. To start their program in spring, applications need to be received by December 1.

Swing by their listing on NewPages to learn more.

Vulnerability Is Strength

Guest Post by Joshua Lindenbaum

When one thinks of courage, they usually think about someone going into a burning building to save a person’s life; however, Dr. Brené Brown provides a unique, much-needed lens in which to view bravery in a broader sense in her book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. The writing is a beautiful concert of personal anecdotes alongside empirically-based research. Furthermore, Dr. Brown reveals not-so-flattering details about herself, and therefore lives the practices in which she details in her book. It is a lovely trident of logos, pathos, and ethos designed to pierce into the stubbornness of convention and tradition, especially amongst men who have been taught to not show emotions.

This incredibly organized text uproots widely-held beliefs, such as “vulnerability is weakness.” On the contrary, in her previous book The Gifts of Imperfection, Dr. Brown declares, “vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.” She defines ” . . .  vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure,” which comprises everyday life, especially during this pandemic. That’s what I think many readers will appreciate about her work: Brown manages to quantify concepts like vulnerability, shame, and even joy. She includes accounts from her own qualitative research alongside a panoply of reliable sources. In addition to providing background, there are also practical steps in, for example, fostering trust. For instance, there’s a section on “the marble jar,” a metaphor used to help us in assessing whether an individual is trustworthy or not based upon specific criteria. This approach allows one the ability to express themselves while also creating boundaries against those that don’t deserve our trust.

I know what you’re thinking: this sounds like a corny self-help book. You are wrong. It is a humanity book. Step into its pages!

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown. Avery/Penguin Random House, April 2015.

Reviewer bio: Joshua Lindenbaum’s poetry has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, Breadcrumbs, Yes Poetry, The Bangalore Review, Five:2:One, 3Elements Review, Typishly, and elsewhere.

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

It’s Always the Person You Least Expect

Guest Post by Caroline V.D.

As a first timer being introduced into the world of Rizzoli and Isles’s grisly world, I found myself left exposed to the intensity and intricately woven plot in Tess Gerritsen’s addition.

In I Know a Secret, we are pushed straight into the unfortunate murder of Cassandra Coyle, an indie filmmaker and are soon greeted with Rizzoli and Isles. For those like me who are meeting the two strong women quite late into the series, Gerritsen does a wonderful job in establishing familiarity and understanding of their characters as the murder investigation goes on. The characters throughout the book all contribute to the tension and suspense in deducing the culprit’s motives and next actions, as the number of bodies pile up and pasts uncovered. There are no moments that are wasted and no conversations that do not provide a twist to the story, as Coyle’s colleague says “Horror 101 . . . it’s always the person you least expect.”

The symbolism and messages throughout the story are consistent and well placed by Tess Gerritsen who had impressively created an impression of a web laid out by a culprit who could not be traced yet by the end of the book; the web could be followed into a single string as the culprit’s motives are laid out to the reader. It is an amazing feat done by Gerritsen who I commend for roping in another reader into her series!

I Know a Secret: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel by Tess Gerritsen. Penguin Random House, April 2018.

Reviewer bio: Hey all, it’s Caroline, and I am an aspiring book reviewer. Currently I’m working on a personal project where you’ll be seeing me and a lot more books in the future. Check it out at: https://theladywithinkstainedhair.tumblr.com/.

Buy this book at our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Sponsor Spotlight :: Mills College Flex Res MFA in Creative Writing

Mills College logoMills College is now offering a new kind of MFA in creative writing that enables its students to earn a degree in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction in their own way.

Along with offering more traditional classroom-based workshops and craft classes, Mills College also offers the ability to complete the degree by working one-on-one with a faculty mentor. This allows students to be on campus as much or as little as they desire. They are also expanding the amount of online offerings available during summer and January terms.

The program offers concentrations in education, literary arts administration, PhD preparation, and young adult fiction. Students can also create their own unique concentration with electives in podcasting, performance, and pedagogy. They offer a literary editing and production course that gives students hands on experience in editing their annual graduate journal 580 Split.

Stop by their listing on NewPages to learn more about their program.

Call :: The CHILLFILTR Review Seeks Essays, Poems, & Short Stories

Submissions accepted year-round.
The CHILLFILTR Review strives to bring the best new art to a worldwide audience by leveraging best-in-class technology to create a seamless and immersive web experience. We welcome submissions from all walks of life, and all perspectives. We are committed to inclusivity and kindly welcome work from marginalized voices. All featured works will receive an honorarium of $20 per 1,000 words and will be published online at The CHILLFILTR Review as well as on our Apple News Channel. Readers can vote for their favorites, and year-end “Best Of” winners will receive an additional $100 cash prize. Recent works published include “Washrooms” by Cat Hubka, “Holy Mile at Walsingham” by Sarah Law, and “An Outrageous Proposal” by Tim Tomlinson.

Southern Humanities Review – 53.2

In this issue find nonfiction by Charlotte Taylor Fryar and A. Molotkov; fiction by Kim Bradley, Judith Dancoff, Janis Hubschman, Jeff McLaughlin, and Ann Russell; and poetry by Joseph Bathanti, James Ciano, Bryce Lillmars, Esther Lin, Derek Mong, Christina Olson, Lee Peterson, L. Renée, Kristin Robertson, Mara Adamitz Scrupe, Wesley Sexton, and Annie Wodford. Find more info at the Southern Humanities Review website.

Call :: The Blue Mountain Review Strives to Represent Life through Stories

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. Issue 18 of BMR features poetry by Paul Lomax, Charleene Hurtubise, and Jack Stewart; fiction by Sofia Romero, Guinotte Wise, and Michael Hardin; an essay by Oisin Breen; interviews with Christopher Moore, Tyree Day, Blood Orange Review, and Tim Gautreaux; plus special features. www.southerncollectiveexperience.com/submission-guidelines/

Bellevue Literary Review – No 38

Issue 38 of the Bellevue Literary Review (BLR) came together just as NYC and Bellevue Hospital were in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the BLR staff were alternating N95 masks with red pens, balancing patient-care with literary work. But the issue made it to the presses and is packed with good reads. It features the winners of the 2020 BLR Literary Prizes. The poems, essays, and stories in this issue travel from China to Texas to Tehran, from small town to big city, from World War I-era to the present. Stay tuned for Issue 39, coming in the fall, whose theme is “Reading the Body.” Read more at the Bellevue Literary Review website.

Eastern Michigan University Alumni wins the Sawtooth Prize

Eastern Michigan University Graduate Program in Creative Writing websiteThe creative writing program at Eastern Michigan University is distinguished as one of the only interdisciplinary programs for creative writing in the country. They provide a rich space for exploring relationships between poetry and poetics, experimental prose, cultural translation, community service, pedagogy and contemporary arts. Their goal is to nourish the development of rigorous and imaginatively engaged writing.

Rosie Stockton, who graduated from their MA program in 2017 is currently pursuing their PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles. Rosie has become the recent winner of the Sawtooth Prize. Their book Permanent Volta will be published soon by Nightboat Books.

Christina-Marie Sears, current blog writer/admin staffer for EMU’s online journal BathHouse sat down with Stockton to discuss their work, current practice, and time at Eastern Michigan University.

One of my daily rituals is- I get up and I journal. It’s not narrative. Journaling for me is a stream-of -consciousness and image-focused practice. I have a really active dream life and I just wake up and write before I even look at my phone, but of course on some days that doesn’t always work.

Check out the full interview here.

Call :: Poetica Magazine Poetry Edition Now Open to Submissions

Poetica Magazine is looking for works centered on the Jewish experience—open to all writers, of any affiliation, or any level of writing. All accepted works will be published on the website with author’s BIO and photo. This is an open edition until we have enough material to release a 120 page print edition. No fee to submit. Visit the website to submit via SUBMITTABLE form: www.PoeticaMagazine.com.

Take a Walk “In the Woods” with Emily Steinberg

Magazine Review by Katy Haas

Emily Steinberg takes a walk “In the Woods” with her dog, Gus, in her visual narrative found in the Midsummer 2020 issue of Cleaver. During her walk, she focuses on Gus and her surroundings, reflecting on the way the real world and its real problems seem far away. In the woods, “All human makings disappear . . .” and there is only the sounds of the wind in the trees and the creek and Gus’s paws around her. This moment doesn’t last forever, though. She has to cross the threshold back into the real world where everything “comes sweeping back. Crowding my brain. Not letting me breathe.” But for a moment there is peace.

This short visual narrative gives readers a moment of peace as well as we soak in the quiet moment of respite along with Steinberg. Each panel features only Gus, a fluffy scribble of a dog padding through the woods, a dog always good comfort when it’s needed. The piece works as a good reminder to take a moment to find calm and quiet in the midst of the tragedies and turmoil swirling around us. By taking these moments, we’re able to recharge as we head back into the real world to face everything once more.

Creative Nonfiction Now Enrolling for Fall Online Classes

Creative Nonfiction Fall 2019 coverThat’s right! Literary magazine Creative Nonfiction‘s Fall 2020 online writing courses are open to enrollment. They offer courses for writers of all levels from those just starting out to the more advanced. All courses will begin on September 7. If you sign up by August 15, you will save $50. If you have a buddy you want to do these courses with, you could save an additional $25.

Courses include a Creative Nonfiction Boot Camp, Introduction to Audio Podcasting & Storytelling, Magazine Writing, The Building Blocks of the Personal Essay, Writing for Change: The Study & Craft of Environmental Writing, Advanced Memoir: From First Sentence to Resolution, Advanced Personal Essay: Finding a Way Through, and Advanced Science Writing.

Learn more about all their courses and how to sign up at their website.

Seeing Dead People

Magazine Review by Katy Haas

Say, “I see dead people,” to just about anyone, and they’ll likely be able to name the movie it came from. But unlike Haley Joel Osment’s character in The Sixth Sense, attempting to help the dead find peace, Jasmine, the narrator in Catherine Stansfield’s “I See Dead People and Other Gags” uses the concept to help herself.

Jasmine tells people she can speak to their dead loved ones, and uses social media to glean information that she later uses in her sessions. Having lost her own mother at a young age and never really speaking about it again gives her a detachment from death and the sentimental feelings surrounding it, so she profits off other people’s pain and grief. However, at the end of the story, she’s hit with a surprise that may make her change her mind about her career path.

I would’ve enjoyed reading more about Jasmine and her work, getting to know more about her clients and her grandmother who casts a shadow over her mother’s death. Stansfield’s writing style is matter of fact and straight forward, fitting for Jasmine’s no-nonsense character. But what we are given is a fun read, a peak behind the medium’s curtain.

Moran Remembers

Magazine Review by Katy Haas

March and the beginning of lockdowns in the United States somehow seems like it was years ago and just days ago. Time continues to slip by in strange ways. Emma Moran touches upon this in her nonfiction piece “What I Will Say” found in the Summer 2020 issue of Sky Island Journal: “Times had changed.  The quality of time had changed.  Hours extended and compressed.  Two hours talking to your sister passed in ten minutes.  Ten minutes extended into days, as you listened to the clock counting out the seconds you couldn’t sleep through.”

In this piece, she reflects on her dad’s instruction to “Remember this. One day your grandchildren will ask what it was like, living through this. Remember it all, so you can tell them.” In the following four paragraphs she explains the way life changed during the first few months of the pandemic, and she does so poetically and eloquently: “People built fortresses out of plans.  I will write those letters, I will train the dog, I will learn to speak French, I will learn to knit, I will learn, I will learn.  We would try to learn.”

Time continues to pass and the push to return to the normal life we used to know is insistent, but Moran remembers and gives a reminder of what we did for others and how we “learned; how we changed” during those first few weeks and months, writing with a thoughtful and sympathetic voice.

14th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards Winners Announced

A leader and veteran of publishing award contests, The National Indie Excellence® Awards are open to recent English language books in print from self and independent publishers. These awards are judged by experts from various book industry professions including publishers, writers, editors, and designers. Winners and finalists are determined by the basis of superior written matter coupled with excellent presentation.

Screenshot of the 14th annual National Indie Excellence AwardsThey have recently announced the finalists and winners from their 14th annual contest. Winners include Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy edited by Nicole Seitz and Jonathan Haupt (University of Georgia Press); Boy on the Bridge: The Story of John Shalikashvili’s American Success by Andrew Marble (University Press of Kentucky); The Big Book of Chakras and Chakra Healing: How to Unlock Your Seven Energy Centers for Healing, Happiness, and Transformation by Susan Shumsky (Weiser); Trove: A Woman’s Search for Truth and Buried Treasure by Sandra A. Miller (Brown Paper Press); Great River City: How The Mississippi Shaped St. Louis by Andrew Wanko (Missouri Historical Society Press); and Fabulous Beast: Poems by Sarah Kain Gutowski (Texas Review Press).

Check out the full list of winners here.

Permission to Be Creative Granted

Guest Post by Jaimie Hanson

Creativity. Merriam-Webster defines creativity as “the ability to create.” In Called to Be Creative, author Mary Potter Kenyon not only writes about creativity, what it is, what it means, how it affects and benefits us mentally, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually, but she does so by graciously giving the reader a glimpse into her own life throughout the book. This book will grant the permission we often feel we need to be a little (or a lot) creative, and you will be inspired and encouraged, for yourself, and I dare say for others in your circle, as you read through the pages. The chapters, each with their own creative focus, are supported by research and resources throughout the book and the easy-to-do exercises at the end of each chapter allow for the very guidance and reference we seek. Write in the margins, underline the ah-ha moments that speak to you, and get your creative self active.

Called to Be Creative, whether read individually or with a group (yes, even a Zoom group), belongs in everyone’s hands. It’s a book club book, a girlfriends group book, a book for those who are single or married, it’s even a book for guys (and dare I say it would be a fun challenge to create a space and opportunity for that to happen!). It’s perfect for families, for creative minds and those who don’t see themselves that way. A teaching tool for young moms, homeschool moms, and moms looking for a way to cure summer boredom. Add this book to your reading list, discover or uncover the creativity within you, embrace the creative opportunities, and be ready to be amazed as you laugh and smile, enjoying the creative moments within your everyday journey.

Called to be Creative by Mary Potter Kenyon. Workman, August 2020.

Reviewer bio: Jaimie Hanson lives in the Midwest with her family. She enjoys writing and photography. You can find her sharing both on her blog at jelizabethhanson.com.

A Woman’s Experience in the Gold Rush

Guest Post by Christina Francine

Is making a living worth risking life and reputation? For Au Toy during the American Gold Rush, it was. There isn’t another way. When her abusive husband dies from consumption on the journey by ship from China in 1849, Au is left with her freedom, but without a way to support herself.

The price women pay for independence and safety historically is high. Many women used the only resource they had – their body. For Au Toy, her choices are even more limited due to her bound feet. Not wanting to subject herself to sex work, Au opens a “Lookee shop” instead. The San Francisco bay held unspeakable danger though, especially when Au is “fragile” and “dainty,” twenty years-old, and “varmints” and “ruffians” fill the streets. Her loyal servant, Chen, is big and strong, yet the two need safer accommodations. Mining camps spring up and more men than women roam the area. Au has to be careful with who she allows inside her shanty to look at, but not touch her naked body. When one of her observing customers is a policeman from New York assigned to protect the area, he unnerves her. Ever careful, she works to not encourage him or any of her clients. And yet, John Clark’s gentle nature and soft voice give her pause. He tells her “You are so very lovely, Mrs. Toy. Your skin is like alabaster, your hair like spun silk.” He agrees to pass by regularly on his round for her safety. John Clark warms Au and yet she’s not sure exposing her heart is a good idea. She may never recover.

Grossenbacher’s Madam in Silk is a suspenseful romance to be sure, but also a treat for those longing to travel through history. She captures the essence of people, time-period, setting, and historical events perfectly. Her dedicated research is obvious. She also captures the dangers and stigma women face in order to make a living no matter the time in history. Though a historical account, the situation unfortunately exists present day. Grossenbacher reminds readers of humankind’s ability for cruelty and evil, but also for kindness and love. A heartwarming novel intricately plotted with historical data. A valuable exploration too of how women, especially foreign women, fit into the larger scheme of Gold-Rush history.

Madam in Silk by Gini Grossenbacher. Jgks Press, July 2019.

Reviewer bio: Christina Francine is an enthusiastic author for all ages. She is the author of Special Memory (picture book) and the Mr. Inker series (leveled readers). Journal of Literary Innovation published her analysis on students’ writing across the nation Spring 2016. She believes individual learning style may solve world problems.

A Treat for Duras Fans

Guest Post by M.G. Noles

Published in English in 1993, Practicalities is a rare peek inside the mind of the elusive French author, Marguerite Duras. As the author of some of the greatest French novels of the twentieth century (The Lover, Hiroshima, Mon Amour), Duras’ work has a spellbinding effect on the reader. With a hypnotic prose style unlike any other, she is at once strikingly realistic and dreamily meditative. As a lifelong fan of Duras, I was trepidatious about what to expect from this lesser known work.

But now, after having spent the day reading Practicalities, I have to say that it is stunning! The book is in fact a brief series of transcribed discussions the author had with interviewer Jerome Beaujour, and these discussions were compiled into the present book and translated by Barbara Bray.

In free-form, avant-garde style, Duras discusses everything from her love affair with alcohol to her life in French Indochina. She speaks about her approach to writing and her hatred for being often misinterpreted by critics and “fans.” She talks brilliantly about everything from surviving the war to the details of housekeeping.

Practicalities is a real treat for Duras fans and for anyone who wants an incisive mind’s perspective on the art of writing.

Practicalities by Marguerite Duras. Grove Atlantic, August 1992.

Reviewer bio: M.G. Noles is a freelance writer and history buff.

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Call :: The American Journal of Poetry Volume 10 Open to Submissions

The American Journal of Poetry skull logoDeadline: Rolling
Volume 9 is now available to read online. Now reading for Volume Ten, the Winter/Spring 2021 issue. Please visit the site read previous volumes filled with poems from poets the world over, from the first-published to the most acclaimed in literature. A unique voice is highly prized. Be bold, uncensored, take risks. Their hallmark is “STRONG Rx MEDICINE.” They are the home of the long poem! No restrictions as to subject matter, style, or length. Published biannually online. Submissions accepted through their online submission manager, Submittable; a submission fee is charged. theamericanjournalofpoetry.com

NewPages Book Stand – July 2020

This month’s Book Stand is now up at our website. We have five new featured titles, and plenty of new and forthcoming books to add to your to-read list.

The stories in Ancestry by Eileen O’Leary champion those who are tenacious in the face of life’s surprises.

Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle follows nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah as he navigates difficult social, cultural, and ethnic divides.

Far Villages: Welcome Essays for New and Beginner Poets is an anthology edited by Abayomi Animashaun and brings a number of established and emerging poets together to welcome new and beginner poets into the art and craft of poetry.

Deborah Jang’s Float True carries story and emotion via reflections on an immigrant family, history, metaphysical musings, and earthly perplexities.

The poems in T.R. Hummer’s In These States are haunted by precise and troubling questions: what, exactly is the condition of the body politic, and how does that condition affect us, both in large and small ways, in abstract and concrete symptoms, in dailiness and in eras?

You can learn more about each of these New & Noteworthy books at our website and find them at our our affiliate Bookshop.org. You can see how to place your book in our New & Noteworthy section here: https://npofficespace.com/classified-advertising/new-title-issue-ad-reservation/.

Contest :: 2022 Miller Williams Poetry Prize Deadline in 2 Months

Don’t forget the deadline to be considered for the 2022 Miller Williams Poetry Prize deadline is November 30. Every year, the University of Arkansas Press accepts submissions for the Miller Williams Poetry Series and from the books selected awards the $5,000 Miller Williams Poetry Prize in the following summer. For almost a quarter century the press has made this series the cornerstone of its work as a publisher of some of the country’s best poetry. The series is edited by Patricia Smith. For more information visit uapress.com.

Comic & Disturbing

Guest Post by Lynn Levin

Poet and writer Chris Bullard is blessed, or maybe tormented, with a brilliant and surrealistic muse. In his new chapbook Continued, Bullard graces us with a comedy of lost souls and a range of humorously morbid imaginings.

The poet delivers his meditations and perturbations in a range of quirky and hybridized forms perfectly paired to the content. The prose poem “Cartoon” satirizes a New Yorker-type cartoon of a person stranded on a desert island. And if being shipwrecked were not bad enough, the cartoonist draws himself a hole and plummets through it into the sea. In the flash fiction piece “Miracle,” a man runs over a herd of migrating abalones as he drives to a job interview. He hides this awful secret from his wife who is sympathetic to the mollusks and later turns into an abalone himself, much to his delight. Bullard’s humor is so desperate that it becomes hilarious. I laughed aloud at his crossword puzzle poem “Down,” the word “down” evoking both the direction of the crossword clues and the speaker’s mood. Sample clues include “4. A slipping away of consciousness” and “9. The phenomenon of chaos.”

The list form is one of Bullard’s favorites. “More Prompts for the Writer” is a send-up of workshop exercises, and each evokes the tormented mindset of the instructor. Number 13 invites the writers to “Imagine a car, a ship, a flying saucer, anything for chrissakes, taking you away from here forever.” Some of the pieces in Continued are more morbid, some more hilariously absurd. I often found myself laughing aloud at the author’s deconstructions of normalcy and the self. I could go on tantalizing you with snippets of Bullard’s work, but I think you should explore these comic and disturbing poems for yourself.

Continued by Chris Bullard. Grey Book Press, July 2020.

Reviewer bio: Lynn Levin’s most recent book is the poetry collection The Minor Virtues (Ragged Sky, 2020).

Call :: Blueline Open to Work Focused on Nature

Add November 30 to your deadline reminders! BLUELINE: A Literary Magazine Dedicated to the Spirit of the Adirondacks seeks poems, stories, and essays about the Adirondacks and regions similar in geography and spirit, focusing on nature’s shaping influence. Submissions window open until November 30. Decisions mid-February. Payment in copies. Simultaneous submissions accepted if identified as such. Please notify if your submission is placed elsewhere. Electronic submissions encouraged, as Word files, to [email protected]. Please identify the genre in the subject line. Further information at bluelineadkmagazine.org.

Sponsor Spotlight :: The Society of Classical Poets Journal

The Society of Classical Poets Journal Vol. VIII cover

The Society of Classical Poets, a non-profit organization formed in 2012, publishes an annual literary magazine called The Society of Classical Poets Journal. They are dedicated to the continuation of Beauty, Goodness, Truth, and excellent poetry. They believe good, new poetry cherishes and builds on the perennial techniques like meter and rhyme as such poetry carries a message and is infused with the profound insights and character of the poet.

The latest issue of the journal contains more than 300 pages of work by James A. Tweedie, Adam Sedia, Joe Tessitore, Leo Zoutewelle, Theresa Rodriguez, Peter Hartley, C.B. Anderson, Randal A. Burd, Jr., T.M. Moore, Martin Rizley, David Watt, Joseph Charles MacKenzie, Gleb Zavlanov, Michael Curtis, Joseph S. Salemi, Martin Hill Ortiz, Sally Cook, Daniel Galef, Susan Jarvis Bryant, Ron L. Hodges, and many more.

They also post essays and poems online as well has hosting poetry contests and offering a forum for writers to workshop their poems. They are open to submissions year-round. Stop by their listing on NewPages to learn more.