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!
The July issue is now online featuring Ken Autry, William Bonfiglio, David Callin, Kitty Coles, Eileen Walsh Duncan, Maren O. Mitchell, Ronald Moran, and more. Reviews of Claire Walker’s Collision and Oisín Breen’s Flowers All Sorts in Blossom, Figs, Berries and Fruits Forgotten. Also features a tribute to Eavan Boland. .
The July/Aug issue of the Kenyon Review offers fiction chosen by guest editor Angie Cruz. Featured authors include Samia Ahmed, Yalitza Ferreras, Katherinna Mar, Cleyvis Natera, and Namrata Poddar. In her introduction, Cruz writes “When I reread the stories featured in this issue, I find solace in them. They serve as evidence or reminders that as a collective, as members of the global community, everything we are feeling and experiencing now is both temporary and ongoing.” The new issue also includes work by Dan Beachy-Quick, Stephanie Burt, Floyd Collins, Nicola Dixon, Rodney Jones, Stanley Plumly, Grace Schulman, and Arthur Sze.
The spring issue includes our 2019 Editors’ Awards winners Kirk Wilson, Aurielle Marie, and Eleanor Bluestein. With additional work by Billy Collins, Angelo R. Lacuesta and Roy Allen Martinez, Jennifer Popa, Yasmeen Alkishawi, Gabriel Thibodeau, and others.
The summer New England Review issue extends deep into the past, with translations from ancient Greek, historical fiction featuring Alfred Nobel, and an essay/collage about Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen. It imagines the future with speculative fiction and crosses the Atlantic to bring together fifteen contemporary poets from the UK. Fiction by Hugh Coyle, Rachel Hall, Laura Schmitt, and more; poetry by Emma Bolden, Jehanne Dubrow, David Keplinger, Esther Lin, Joannie Stangeland, and others; and nonfiction by Indran Amirthanayagam, Zoë Dutka, and more.
Featured in our latest issue is the 2020 In-House Contest winning story “Trash Man” by Jessica Holbert alongside another story, “The Taxidermist,” by Seth Tucker. The poetry in this issue explores the emotional and physical connections to different geographies and technologies, from abandoned lighthouses and frost-covered pastures to half-truth news coverage and Harry Potter. Wrapping up the issue are visual arts and comics by Coz Frimpong, Geoffrey Detrani, Yi-hui Huang, Aimee Cozza, and Jason Hart. Read more at the Driftwood Press website.
After more than ten years of publishing literary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and works in translation for an international readership, MAYDAY Magazine is relaunching with a new format and expanded editorial vision.
To help shape the online magazine’s new identity, MAYDAY is expanding and diversifying its editorial staff to include new backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and points of view. Editors at MAYDAY Magazine work remotely and can live anywhere there’s an internet connection.
We invite applications to be submitted by July 31, 2020 for the following editorial positions:
Please visit our complete Call for Applications to learn more.
The nonfiction in this issue asks difficult questions regarding the nature of power, self-concept, and family story; the stories explore the construction of self against one’s own misperceptions; and the poems callus toward our own inferiorities refracted by multi-layered experiences of loss and death. Read more at the Dogwood website.
The latest issue of The Cape Rock features new poetry by Caroline Mann, Mark Christhilt, Rachel Tramonte, Carol Levin, Diana Becket, Olivia Vittitow, Nathan Graziano, Elian JRF Wiseblatt, Mukund Gnanadesikan, Daisy Bassen, Christine Donat, Barry Peters, Michael Estabrook, Holly Day, Dick Bentley, Liz Bruno, Sandra Sylvia Nelson, Phillip Sterling, Tobi Alfier, Martina Reisz Newberry, Donna Emerson, James K. Zimmerman, Chase Dimock, David M. Taylor, Seward Ward, Judith Cody, Sharon Kennedy-Nolle, Arlene Naganawa, and Simon Perchik.
New on their website: flash by Darcy Casey, Laura Bailey, Anthony Keers, Rimma Kranet, Kate Lunn-Pigula, Yongsoo Park, David Bassano, Dona McCormack, Christian McCulloch, and Cyan James. Find out more at the Brilliant Flash Fiction website.
Club Plum Literary Journal is a new quarterly online literary magazine founded in 2019. They have released three issues to date with a focus on flash fiction, prose poetry, and art from both emerging and established writers. Their aim is to act as a “temporary entrance into a literary world of empathy, art, and sound. A place to take and to give.”
They keep their site clean and free of ads and distracting elements so the reader’s experience is focused on the absorbing tales and imagery unravelling in voices either understated or lyrical, but always powerful. “This is a safe place. Our hearts have been pummeled; our minds have been toyed with. We see clearly now. This is a place for thinkers and doers. A place to turn our pain into wondrous works of art.”
Check out their basic submission information and full publisher’s description at their listing on NewPages.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
In the Summer 2020 issue of The Georgia Review, Bishakh Som finds a creative way to process feelings of longing and isolation in “Shelter in Place.” This graphic poem spans days in May, the images taking readers into a futuristic, sci-fi setting. Calendar dates guide the piece along, moving us from one day to the next as the speaker writes of what and who she misses in this strange state of life. At the end of the piece, we’re met with that now familiar feeling of time becoming unreal and immeasurable as the calendar page reads “May 32.”
While we all process our feelings about sheltering in place, living in a time of a global pandemic, and missing the physical connection with people we were once allotted, I appreciated this different and creative take. The change in setting and the beautiful language make “Shelter in Place” a stand-out among other pieces of writing that are responding to current life in COVID-19.
Book Review by Katy Haas
Readers can look forward to Eileen O’Leary’s Ancestry, winner of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, forthcoming this fall. The characters in this collection’s short stories look back at where and who they’ve come from as they try to discover who they can possibly become.
In “Adam,” the titular character reconnects with his father whom he has never met and finds that the man in front of him is not quite how he imagined. Living together in a dilapidated building, he’s suddenly faced with a change in expectations. Cecile from “Michigan Would Get Beautiful,” is finally getting what she wants as an interior designer, just as the lives of her first clients implode, leaving her to look at where she is and where she’ll end up. In “The Flying Boat,” Vera leaves her family behind to start a new life overseas. On the cusp of war, she returns to her family to find that everything has unexpectedly changed in her absence.
Family ties and inner tensions propel these stories, the characters grappling with the changes happening within them and around them. Even in the small space of short stories, we’re able to see the characters grow and adapt as they learn more about themselves and the people in their lives. A quick read, each story grabs the reader’s attention and holds on tightly until the end.
Ancestry by Eileen O’Leary. University of Iowa Press, October 2020.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
The latest issue of the Missouri Review features the winners of the Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. The nonfiction winner, “The Trailer” by Jennifer Anderson is a powerful piece on self-reflection.
In “The Trailer,” a trailer appears on land Anderson owns. For awhile, it stays empty, and then one day a man and woman appear inside. Anderson then works on getting the inhabitants removed, and the trailer towed from the property.
In doing this, though, she ends up looking inside herself and examining her response to the two people that have begun squatting on her property. As a teen, she drank, did drugs, and engaged in risky behavior and she realizes she easily could have ended up just like the woman she evicts from her property. Later, when one of the women she delivers food to on her Meals on Wheels route must move out from her care facility and is essentially homeless, Anderson is filled with compassion and the desire to help, a response that is much different than her response to the woman in the trailer. After the woman leaves the trailer and the trailer is hauled away, Anderson continues to see her around town, each time having to face her past actions and feeling shame.
The piece is introspective and honest, a good reminder to examine our own actions. Anderson’s writing is compelling and hard to look away from, well-deserving of its placement as the nonfiction Editors’ Prize winner.
The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
― William Shakespeare, King Lear
Editor in Chief of The Weight Journal Matthew E. Henry shared, “At the beginning of my state’s COVID-19 Stay at Home order, it was widely circulated on social media that Shakespeare likely composed some of his greatest works in the midst of the Black Death. This was being shared as an encouragement for writers to continue producing work in the midst of the pandemic. The Weight took its name, in part, from the ending of Lear. But it is a general call for teens to take up writing as a tool to lay down the various things ‘weighing’ on their lives.”
The Weight Journal, publishing online poetry, slam poetry, flash fiction, fiction, creative nonfiction, and hybrid works by writers ages 9-12 grade, “endeavors to showcase the best in teen literature, including works that are not deemed school appropriate.” Matthew adds: “whatever that means.”
“We want work that is honest and says something profound about the human experience as can only be captured by this age group,” he explains. “We want to provide a common, public space, for those who have dared to undertake the challenge of objectifying their experience and imagination in writing.”
Matthew E. Henry knows this challenging experience, having been nominated twice for Pushcart and a Best of the Net for his poetry. He has been publishing poetry and fiction since 2003, and his first collection, Teaching While Black was published by Main Street Rag in February. Joining Matthew are six editors, current or former high school English/creative writing teachers, each with at least one MFA or MA. They are all writers themselves with a varied background of interests and publications.
Given this level of expertise and experience, writers who submit to The Weight Journal can expect their writing will undergo a rigorous process. “All submissions receive a first pass from the editor in chief,” Matthew explains, “to see if they are a potential fit for the general vibe of The Weight. After this, submissions are sent to the content editors, who pass their acceptance (sometimes with suggested changes), recommendation for resubmission, or rejection back to the editor. The editor then makes the final decision. Submitters are welcome (and encouraged!) to send in revised pieces or new ones in the future. Sometimes we’ve been able to provide one-on-one support through the revision process. We’re teachers and can’t help ourselves.”
The caliber of reading content available for the public is a standard Matthew defines clearly: “We aren’t publishing writers who are ‘good for their age.’ We’re publishing ‘good writing,’ period. So readers will find honesty and maturity from a diverse set of voices and experiences. Some works may be triggering for readers. Others will fill them with joy. All of them will make readers think, and rethink, and come back for more.”
Recent content published in The Weight includes “a conversation between what is alive, and what only pretends to be” hybrid by Anne Fu; “Broken Sanctuary” poetry by Sarah Street; “The Stages of Falling in Love with Her” poetry by Charlotte Edwards; “The Met” creative nonfiction by Alexandra Carpenter; and “Colors” creative nonfiction by Emma Kilbride.
Creating a new publication comes with joys and frustrations. Matthew focuses on what has worked well for The Weight: “Thus far, the greatest joy has been encouraging some amazing young writers. In some cases, we’ve been able to send the first acceptance letter to someone with a bright career ahead of them. We have already published pieces that I am jealous of and hope this will continue long into the future.”
In terms of the future for The Weight, “I want to see how this naturally evolves,” Henry muses. “The old man in me is thinking about a print publication or at least a ‘best of’ anthology in the future. But who knows? At this stage I am content to help usher these young authors into the literary scene.”
The Weight accepts submissions on a rolling basis, with a goal to publish new work every other Friday depending on the number of submissions. Matthew adds, “In light of our current realities, while submissions are still open for all students and on all topics, we are interested in works that are focused on matters of racial identity, especially from students of color. These works do not have to be centered on our current racial tensions, but they very well can be.”
While at times it absolutely feels like the weight of the world is upon us, how wonderful to have such a supportive and encouraging venue for young writers and readers of all ages to come together and share in the experience.
Guest Post by Chang Shih Yen
Flight or Fright is an anthology with one theme: scary things that can happen while flying. This anthology is edited by the king of horror writing, Stephen King. This seemed like a good book to read in lockdown when international air travel is almost impossible.
There are 16 short stories and one poem in this anthology. There are old stories by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) and Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) written before air travel even became a thing. There are two new stories written specifically for this anthology. One by Stephen King is a story about air turbulence. The second new story is by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King) whose story is about passengers in a plane while a nuclear war starts on earth mid-flight. There are also classic short stories by the likes of Ray Bradbury and Roald Dahl. Dahl draws on his own experience as a fighter pilot in World War II. Some stories tell the reader its content in the title, like “Zombies on a Plane” by Bev Vincent and “Murder in the air” by Peter Tremayne. There are all sorts of terrifying tales in this collection, with topics ranging from monsters, time travel, war, and murder, to falling out of the sky.
This was a satisfying read if you’re looking for something scary. There are stories like “The Fifth Category” by Tom Bissell, which haunts you and gets in your head and stays with you long after the last page is turned.
Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales edited by Stephen King and Bev Vincent. Cemetery Dance Publications, September 2018.
Reviewer bio: Chang Shih Yen is a writer from Malaysia, seeing through the pandemic in New Zealand. She writes a blog at https://shihyenshoes.wordpress.com/
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Deadline: August 1, 2020
The 2020 Orison Anthology Awards in Fiction, Nonfiction, & Poetry offer $500 and publication by Orison Books in The Orison Anthology for a single work in each genre. This year’s judges are Blair Hurley (fiction), E. J. Koh (nonfiction), and Joy Ladin (poetry). Entry fee: $15. Submission Period: May 1-August 1. There is now one month left to submit. Find complete details at www.orisonbooks.submittable.com.
trampset, an online literary journal of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, is seeking new submissions on a rolling basis. We want your best brain, your beating heart. Send that good human stuff our way. After focusing on black and queer writers for June, we are now back open to work from all writers. We pay $25 per accepted piece. We have 50 free submissions available a month through Submittable as well as Tip Jar and Quick Response options. Visit our submissions page: trampset.org/submissions-6e83932b0985.
Guest Post by Lauren Mead
ST is concerned about his owner Big Jim when his eyeball falls out and lands in the grass. He should be, considering that Big Jim has just turned into a zombie thanks to a mysterious virus that travels through screens. When it becomes clear that cheering Big Jim up with his favourite beer and a bag of Cheetos isn’t going to help, ST (a domesticated crow) and Dennis (a dog) set out across the wilds of post-apocalyptic Seattle to find a cure.
On his journey, ST encounters hordes of vicious humans who are suffering from the same malady as Big Jim. He braves a deadly market (for doughnuts), the aquarium (for answers) and follows cryptic rumours of the one remaining human who can save them all. ST must set aside his fears to find a way forward in this new, and often frightening world.
I read Hollow Kingdom before COVID-19 was a phrase in my everyday life. I can remember thinking that I was glad there wasn’t some deadly virus on the loose, because gosh, wouldn’t that be awful? At the time, it kind of felt like it would be the end of the world. I’m a germaphobe, so I don’t handle sickness very well on a good day. Throw in a worldwide pandemic and you’ve got a recipe for this girl to never leave her house again. I didn’t, for awhile.
But if ST can face his fears in a zombie-infested world, I can sure as heck set foot outside. It’s funny how horror stories can have the opposite effect of real fear. Instead of making us want to hide, it makes us bolder to know that even if the worst, most terrifying thing were to happen, there would be a way forward. Horror gives us hope.
Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton. Grand Central Publishing, August 2019.
Reviewer bio: Lauren Mead has been published in The Danforth Review, The MacGuffin, Soliloquies and Forest for the Trees. She also writes for her blog, www.novelshrink.com.
Buy this book at our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Deadline: Rolling
Read Issue Fifteen of Bending Genres released on June 9. Then send us your zany, innovative best fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. We publish bimonthly, and year round. We at Bending Genres also host writing retreats as well as online writing workshops. Check out our website for submission guidelines and current workshop and retreat offerings: www.bendinggenres.com.
Deadline: September 1, 2020
Don’t forget biannual print journal Black Warrior Review is open to 2020 contest submissions until September 1. Winners will receive publication and cash prizes ($500 for flash and $1,000 for poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction). Judges are Mayukh Sen (nonfiction), Paul Tran (poetry), C Pam Zhang (flash), and Lucy Corin (fiction). Submission fee is reduced to $15 for fiction/nonfiction/poetry. $6 fee for flash. Complete information available at bwr.ua.edu.
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. We believe girls’ voices transform the world for the better. We accept poetry, prose, and visual art of any style or theme. We 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.
Deadline: July 31
Member-run Slate Roof Press is pleased to announce the 2020 Elyse Wolf Prize for our annual poetry chapbook contest. The winner receives $500, becomes an active member of the press, and will have their chapbook published by Slate Roof. We publish limited edition, art-quality chapbooks with letterpress covers. Winners make a 3-year commitment to the press, including monthly meetings, and share work responsibilities for many aspects of publishing. Submit no more than 28 pages of poetry. $10 reading fee; sliding scale available. Deadline July 31. Full guidelines at www.slateroofpress.com.
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 us! Full guidelines at stormcellar.org/submit and submission manager at stormcellar.submittable.com.
Deadline: August 30
We’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 our cage-rattling upcoming Issue 7. If we like what you submit we’ll be all over you; if we don’t we promise to be gentle, especially if it’s your first time. See our Guidelines for details: fleasonthedog.com. Runs July 1–August 30.
Deadline: Halloween 2020 at Midnight
We with Raleigh Review believe that great literature inspires empathy by allowing us to see through the eyes of our neighbors, whether across the street or across the globe. We 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 our general submission categories as this helps to defray the costs associated with operating via the Submittable platform, a necessary resource for us as our staff is located across the country and at times the world. We encourage you to check out our free full-issue online archive to find out more about us: www.raleighreview.org.
Deadline: July 31, 2020
July 1 is tomorrow which means Crazyhorse‘s annual Crazyshorts! competition will be officially open to submissions. From July 1st to July 31st, Crazyhorse will accept entries for our annual short-short fiction contest. Submit 3 short-shorts of up to 500 words each through our website: crazyhorse.cofc.edu. First place wins $1,000 and publication; 3 runners-up will be announced. All entries will be considered for publication; the $15 entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Crazyhorse. For more information, visit: crazyhorse.cofc.edu/crazyshorts.
Don’t forget that Main Street Rag seeks poetry and prose (fiction/nonfiction) for an anthology with a mental health recovery theme; uplifting stories of overcoming mental health challenges and trauma from writers who have experienced a mental illness or love someone who has. Length: up to 6,000 words (prose) or 5 poems. Reading Period: May1-August 1. Simultaneous submissions and previously published considered, however, authors must own the rights (no third-party permissions). Questions may be directed to editor Erika Nichols-Frazer at [email protected]. Submissions should be sent to: mentalhealth.submittable.com/submit.
Writing contests and calls for submissions you want to know about delivered to your inbox every week. Plus, book and magazine review updates, new issues and title announcements, creative writing program deadlines and announcements, upcoming writing conferences and events, and more. Subscribe to the NewPages Newsletter here: npofficespace.com/newpages-newsletter/. You will also be signed up to receive our monthly eLitPak newsletter.
COVID LIT is a monthly online lit mag that mobilizes writers to combat the world’s ills by not only providing a platform for urgent poetry and prose, but by directing money to regional, national, and international nonprofits. Instead of paying a submission fee, writers must donate at least $3 to a nonprofit of their choice. In our first two months, our writers have donated over $4000 to various causes related to COVID-19, racial injustice, homelessness, mental health, and others. Visit www.covidlit.org and send us your best work today!
Sleet Magazine‘s slim Summer Edition has arrived! We promise you will not be disappointed; the pieces have heart and guts. Proud to showcase work by poets B. Baumgart, L. Castle, M. Dillon, J. Palen, O. Umukoro; Fiction by E. Ferrell, P. Sterling, SF Wright, K. Skiles Law; and CNF by A. Schur and W. Thornton.
Submissions accepted year-round.
Don’t forget The CHILLFILTR Review is striving to bring the best new art to a worldwide audience by leveraging best-in-class technology to create a seamless and immersive web experience. They welcome submissions from all walks of life, and all perspectives and are committed to inclusivity and kindly welcome work from marginalized voices. All featured works will receive an honorarium of $20 per 1000 words and will be published online at The CHILLFILTR Review as well as on their Apple News Channel. Readers can vote for their favorites, and year-end “Best Of” winners will receive an additional $100 cash prize.
The “Elemental Force” issue of Missouri Review is out. Inside: The 2019 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize winners, and Stephanie Carpenter on Little Women and Louisa May Alcott. Featuring John Balaban, Nathan Greenberg, Daniel Hornsby, Melissa Studdard, Diana Xin, Javier Zamora, and many more.
Deadline: September 1, 2020
Don’t forget that The Hunger Journal has now expanded to include The Hunger Press, starting with their Tiny Fork Chapbook Series. They believe art and literature is eternally important, and want to use this opportunity to welcome new writers and readers into The Hunger community by producing well-designed, dynamic, hand-bound chapbooks. They will be accepting submissions from June 1–September 1. They welcome poetry, prose, and hybrid manuscripts of 15–40 pages. For more details on the Tiny Fork Chapbook Series and submission process, please go to www.thehungerjournal.com/tiny-fork-chapbooks.
The latest issue of The Iowa Review is out. In this issue: birthday cake, auctioneering school, the 2018 Hawaii false missile alert, a male masseuse in Kanagawa Prefecture, a love performance, the winner of the 2019 David Hamilton Prize for Iowa Review Alumni, and tributes to Connie Brothers.
Tolsun Books is looking to expand our small, collaborative, remote team of volunteers. If you are passionate about energetic works of literature, and have experience in aspects of literary publishing, especially copy-editing and/or proofreading, please send us an email at [email protected].
The Georgia Review‘s latest issue features new writing from Garrett Hongo, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Laura van den Berg, A. E. Stallings, and many other exciting voices! Original translations of poetic works by Hisham Bustani and Shuzo Takiguchi. Illustrated features on the theme “Shelter in Place,” by Lindsey Bailey, Kaytea Petro, and Bishakh Som. Cover art and portfolio by Doron Langberg. This issue is not to be missed—read selected online features today!
Deadline: Rolling
We want to publish your voices and experiences. Let your perspectives be heard. Send us your poetry, prose, and personal essays. We accept written work from writers of all ages. For more information please visit www.wordsandwhispers.org.
Mayday Magazine‘s website has a had a makeover! The new set-up has different genres in the header so readers can choose their favorites there, and the homepage displays new, featured work. The newly designed site looks modern and is easy to navigate. Who doesn’t like to experience some change once in awhile? Check it out for yourself and sign up for the magazines newsletter while you’re there for even more updates from Mayday.
Guest Post by Karabi Mitra
Julia Phillips’s Disappearing Earth opens on the shores of a sea lapping at the edges of the Siberian Peninsula. Two young sisters are playing on the beach. It’s a simple enough setting. The older one is trying to get the younger one to come home. You don’t yet know why, but you’re starting to feel unsettled and you can almost feel the oncoming danger. By the end of the chapter, the girls have disappeared.
The chapters that follow are not an investigation into the disappearance. Instead they are stories of various inhabitants located in and around the Kamchatka Peninsula. The disappearance of the girls hangs over each of them, but the stories are about their own lives. A new mother struggling to come to terms with staying at home and giving up her career. A mother whose child similarly disappeared three years ago. And that’s when the patterns start emerging. The complexity of relationships, the underlying beliefs and mistrust towards certain groups of people. Natives are treated in a slightly different way. There is a distrust towards the so-called new people who have migrated to the region. There are superstitions and practices. And you realize that ultimately people are the same, no matter where they are. We’re all dealing with the same issues.
The setting of Disappearing Earth makes you feel as though you’ve dipped your fingers into a faraway world. The descriptions of the volcanoes and open tundras and thermal springs and open fields add an allure to the overall story. You sometimes feel as though you really are at the end of the world. The ending is stunning, and Julia Phillips ties up at the loose ends in a way that makes you close the book with a satisfied hush.
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips. Penguin Random House, April 2020.
Reviewer bio: Karabi Mitra is an avid reader, based in Toronto. She also enjoys writing and has been published in various literary magazines such as Litro Magazine and Volney Road Review.
Carve annually hosts the Prose & Poetry Contest for submissions in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. There is one winner in each genre category, each awarded a $1000 prize.
Readers can find the winners of the 2019 contest in the Spring 2020 issue.
Fiction
“A Simple Case” by Nancy Lundmerer
Nonfiction
“From the Book on Pit Firing Pottery” by Sarah Sousa
Poetry
“Cleft” by Jason M. Glover
The judges for this past year’s contest were Lydia Kiesling in fiction, Analicia Sotelo in nonfiction, and Benjamin Busch in poetry. Submissions for this year’s contest will reopen at the beginning of October.
Submissions 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 survival. Songs save the soul. Their goal is to preserve and promote lives told well through prose, poetry, music, and the visual arts. The editors read year-round with an eye out for work with homespun and international appeal. They’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. www.southerncollectiveexperience.com/submission-guidelines/
Able Muse‘s annual Write Prize awards $500 for the best submitted poem, $500 for the best submitted flash fiction, and publication in the print journal. The Winter 2019 issue of Able Muse features the winners of the 2019 contest.
Poetry Winner
“Waiting for the Angel” by David MacRae Landon
Poetry Finalists
“Dear Sonnet” by Amy Bagan
“Paradox” by Beth Paulson
“Postcard, Vermont” by Miriam O’Neal
Fiction Winner
“To the Bottleneck Fiction” by Erin Russell
Stay tuned for the winners of the 2020 contest, which closed this past March.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
In Cave Wall Number 16, Maggie Smith writes a poem to America. “Tender Age” focuses on the reality of the country, which is decidedly “not what I learned / in grade school.” Instead, this America “caged / even the babies.”
She questions who our laws serve, questions where the country’s conscience lives, or where it’s been removed from. Reminiscing on the past, Smith writes of the street she grew up on and the church she attended, as well as the handbells played there. These memories are unburied again as she wonders whether there will be “neighborhoods / named for this undeclared war” like we’ve named ones “Lexington, / Bunker Hill, Valley Forge.” Finally, the piece ends on the images of the handbells again ins sobering stanza:
America, when we want to silence
the bells, we extinguish
their open mouths
on our chests.
This poem is unfortunately continuously timely and relevant with the continued practice of caging migrant children and following the recent news that another 1,500 have been “lost.” Smith’s poem encourages readers to join in as she speaks to America and against the horrific, harmful systems we’ve created.
Guest Post by Natasha Djordjevic
Natalie Jenner’s debut novel, The Jane Austen Society, is a delightful, insightful tribute to the author who brought us so many memorable characters. The story is set at the end of WWII in Chawton, where Jane Austen spent the last part of her life and where she wrote her final three novels. A group of unlikely people become friends and form a society that has a mutual love for Jane Austen. They want to use their love to save her home and make it a museum with items of the era she resided in.
We’re introduced to Adam Berwick, a farmer who is the character we meet first, upon meeting with a stranger looking for Austen, develops an affection of Austen’s works; Dr. Gray, who is grieving over the loss of his wife; Mimi Harrison a Hollywood actress with a soft spot for Austen; Frances Knight, a descendant of Jane Austen’s brother; Evie Snow a housemaid working at the estate and who secretly catalogs the library; Adeline Lewis, an English teacher who has experienced a series of losses; Andrew Forrester, a lawyer handling the estate’s affairs; and Yardley Sinclair, an estate sales expert of Sotheby’s in London.
With an easy pace, a well-executed plot, and its ability to explore themes of grief, loss, identity, love, this is a novel that is sure to delight both Austen fans and newcomers to the author.
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner. St. Martin’s Press, May 2020.
Reviewer bio: My name is Natasha Djordjevic. My favorite genre to read is Historical Fiction, especially books set in the Tudor times. You can find my blog at poetryofreading.blogspot.com.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
This month’s Book Stand is now up at our website. Visit for new and forthcoming book titles, including five featured books.
I’ll Be Here For You: Diary of a Town by Robert McKean is made up of interconnected stories and takes readers to the hardscrabble western Pennsylvania mill town of Ganaego.
In Johnny Cash International: How and Why Fans Love the Man in Black, Michael Hinds and Jonathan Silverman examine Cash’s fan communities and the individuals who comprise them, revealing new insights about music, fandom, and the United States.
Eric Pankey’s Alias: Prose Poems investigates the flexibility and possibility of the prose poem.
Demon Barber by Ruth Bardon explores the grace notes we celebrate in life, and the absences that makes those celebrations ache.
Kari Gunter-Seymour’s A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen explores beyond the boundaries of feminism, science, and spirituality, and renews a sense of understanding and discovery of today’s Appalachian woman.
You can learn more about each of these New & Noteworthy books at our website. Our featured titles can also be found at our our affiliate Bookshop.org. You can find out how to place your book in our New & Noteworthy section here: https://npofficespace.com/classified-advertising/new-title-issue-ad-reservation/.
Deadline: Rolling
Submissions open for flash fiction of no more than 800 words and prose poems. Send powerful yet subtle pieces. Send strong voices. Send dreamy words that don’t gush. Skate on the edge of realities. Club Plum also seeks art: Please send one image only of pen-and-ink line art, watercolor, bold colors, experimental work, collage, impressionistic or abstract pieces. Tell the editor about your piece. The editor will pass on photography. See clubplumliteraryjournal.com for details. Volume 1 Issue 3 features work from William L. Alton, Ron Burch, Barry Jay Kaplan, James McAdams, Scott Ragland, Emelia Steenekemp, Jake Stimmel, Mary Buchinger, Jason Kahler, Natalie Eleanor Patterson, Katie Anderson, Ann-Marie Brown, Clara Choi, Tim Stuemke, and Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad.
Palooka is an international literary magazine. For a decade we’ve featured up-and-coming, established, and brand-new writers, artists, and photographers from all around the world. We’re open to diverse forms and styles and are always seeking unique chapbooks, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, artwork, photography, graphic narratives, and comic strips. Issue 11 featured work by Paul Luikart, Duke Stewart, Nils Blondon, Khalilah Okeke, Tim Chapman, Mark Halpern, Clark Merrefield, Leanne Hoppe, Donald Illich, and Malia Nahinu. Give us your best shot! Submissions open year-round. palookamag.com
Deadline: Rolling
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. The deadline for the 2022 Prize is September 30, 2020. For more information visit uapress.com. The 2020 prize winner was Jayson Iwen’s Roze & Blud which was released in March 2020.
Deadline: Rolling
We are currently seeking submissions for the second issue of Second Revolution. All forms of written and visual work are accepted, and poetry especially is encouraged; most submissions will be given personalized feedback. We seek to publish vivid work that is emotionally potent and history, socially, or culturally significant. Investigative blog articles are also encouraged. More details about the publication may be found www.secondrevolutionmag.com, and submissions may be emailed to [email protected].
For the Summer 2020 issue of THEMA, writers and artists explore the theme “The Clumsy Gardener.” See how Sarah Gramelspacher, Charlotte Stacey, John Delaney, Madonna Dries Christensen, Virginia McGee Butler, Donna Aycock Meares, and others interpret the theme.
