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!
Online literary magazine Gemini has announced that they are extending the deadline of their Short Story Contest. You now have until April 8 to submit your fiction to the contest. Your stories can be on any subject in any style. $8 fee; first prize winner receives $1,000 and publication. Learn more…
Deadline: April 11, 2020
Many parts of the world have shut down under the threats of COVID-19. Schools are suspended, gatherings are discouraged. In this difficult period of time, BALLOONS Lit. Journal is seeking poetry, short stories, and artwork that brings warmth to our young readers. Works may praise the medical officers, mourn for the deceased, encourage the infected, cheer up the children staying home, show support to educators, reflect love and humanity or anything that brings out positive energy, the energy everybody needs now. Visit www.balloons-lit-journal.com for submission details. Stay healthy, stay happy!
Have nothing better to do and want to build up your submissions calendar? Don’t forget to check out our Big List of Writing & Book Contests. We have a whole year’s worth of contests that we work hard to keep updated for you all. April is literally around the corner . . . so why not start there?
“The Everyday” issue celebrates Ruminate‘s focus on finding the sacred within everyday moments and routines. This issue features work from our 2019 Broadside winner Meredith Stricker, as well as the winning pieces from our 2020 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize written by Jasmine V. Bailey, Kelly J. Beard, and Atash Yaghmaian chosen by judge Brianna Van Dyke. Also in this issue: Erin Malone, Chelsea Dingman, Sneha Subramanian Kanta, Nick Yingling, Alyse Bensel, Daniel Seth Kraus, Andrew Huot, Stacy Trautwein Burns, and more.
In this issue of New England Review you’ll find fiction by Maud Casey, David Allan Cates, Nandini Dhar, Elin Hawkinson, Christine Sneed, and Lindsay Starck; poetry by Su Cho, John Freeman, Rodney Gomez, Zach Linge, Vandana Khanna, Joanna Klink, Philip Metres,, Maura Stanton, Emily Jungmin Yoon, and more; nonfiction by Kazim Ali, Jennifer Chang, Ching-In Chen, Julia Cohen, and others; and Max Frisch in translations, translated by Linda Frazee Baker. Plus cover art by Brian Nash.
Event Location: Online Only
Application Deadline: April 30, 2020
Applications are now open for the “Erasure Poetry” seminar! This seminar is offered completely online. The “Erasure Seminar” is perfect for poets looking to explore the history and techniques behind erasure poetry. Deadline to join is April 30th, and all students will be admitted on a first come, first served basis.
Check out the new issue of Gargoyle. Contributors include: Laura Arciniega, Paula Bonnell, Sarah Browning, Michael Casey, Grace Cavalieri, Patrick Chapman, Bonnie Chau, Katie Cortese, celeste doaks, Gabriel Don, Cornelius Eady, Blair Ewing, Abby Frucht, Patricia Henley, George Kalamaras, Louise Wareham Leonard, Trish MacEnulty, Franetta McMillian, Tony Medina, Nancy Mercado, Susan Neville, A.L. Nielsen, Josip Novakovich, James J. Patterson, bart plantenga, Bern Porter, Doug Rice, Jane Satterfield, Davis Schneiderman, Claire Scott, Gregg Shapiro, Rose Solari, Maya Sonenberg, Marilyn Stablein, Susan Tepper, Michael Waters, and many more.
Discover a new issue of The MacGuffin. Volume 36 Number 1 spotlights the winners of our 2019 Poet Hunt Contest as selected by guest judge Richard Tillinghast. Jane Craven’s first place “The Sketchbooks of Hiroshige,” begins on p. 74, followed by our two honorable mention poets, Jill Reid and John Blair. This issue’s prose selections include Lucy Mihajlich’s “When I Infiltrated IKEA, They Greeted Me at the Door” and Teresa Milbrodt’s “Playing Krampus.” Featured artist Alison Devine graces the book’s inside and outside with a stroll through the Hamilton, Ontario countryside.
Deadline: Rolling
Founded in July of 2019, The Revolution (Relaunch) is a creative resurgence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s 1868 publication, The Revolution, which was the official newspaper of the National Women’s Suffrage Association. Like any good 19th century newspaper (or any good 21st century zine), we publish a range of styles—memoir, poetry, cultural criticism, interviews, and profiles featuring activists and grassroots organizations. Our focus is feminism in the broadest sense—in other words, we’re interested in “creative activism” that voices the marginalized and/or criticizes corrupt authority. Submit one piece of prose under 750 words, three poems, or 5 images to [email protected].
The Spring 2020 issue of Black Warrior Review is out. In this issue: Aliza Ali Khan, Sébastien Bernard, Agata Izabela Brewer, Naomi Day, Meg E. Griffitts, Katherine Indermaur, Sara Kachelman, Jasmine Khaliq, Jessica Lanay, M.L. Martin, Cherise Morris, Mónica Ramón Ríos (translated by Robin Myers), Monica Rico, Angie Sijun Lou, Molli Spalter, Qianqian Ye, and more. Chapbook by Seo-Young Chu. Cover art by Dominic Chambers.
Event Location: Online Only
Application Deadline: April 30, 2020
Applications are now open for the “Editors & Writers: The Path to Publication” seminar. This is offered entirely online. The “Editors & Writers: The Path to Publication” seminar is perfect for short fiction writers who are submitting to magazines; come see the process and the craft from an editor’s point of view. Deadline to join the class is April 30th, and all students will be admitted on a first come, first served basis.
Find the newest issue of The Adroit Journal is out. Readers can check out poetry by Bryan Byrdlong, Steven Duong, Garous Abdolmalekian, Emily Lee Luan, John Freeman, Erin Adair-Hodges, Peter Streckfus, Ae Hee Lee, Matthew Gellman, Sara Elkamel, Seth Simons, Imani Davis, Kim Addonizio, Sahar Romani, Zach Linge, Matthew Rohrer, Joanna Klink, and more; prose by Cathy Ulrich, K-Ming Chang, Connor Oswald, and others; plus conversations with Natalie Diaz, Matthew Rohrer, Brian Teare, Deb Olin Unferth, and Matthew Zapruder.
Deadline: April 30, 2020
It may be April, but Christmas is already in the air at Chicken Soup for the Soul. Share your winter holiday memories and traditions with our readers, from the heartwarming to the hilarious. Everything from Thanksgiving, to Hanukkah, to Christmas, to New Year’s. Be sure the stories are “Santa safe” so we don’t spoil the magic for precocious readers! If we publish your piece, you will be paid $200 plus 10 free copies of the book. Writing guidelines and more info at www.chickensoup.com/story-submissions/possible-book-topics.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
Each issue of THEMA invites writers to explore a given theme. The Spring 2020 issue’s theme is “Six Before Eighty,” which Editor Virginia Howard explains in her Editor’s Note, gave writers a run for their money. It “tended to puzzle more authors than usual.”
Despite the challenge, sixteen on-theme pieces made it into the issue. H.B. Salzer in “Her Number Six” writes of a woman’s bucket list—six things to do before she turns eighty. James “Jack” Penha in “Eulogy for My Elder Brother,” writes fondly of his brother who passed away at age seventy-four—six years before turning eighty. In “Written in Gold,” Larry Lefkowitz’s characters try their own hand at translating the theme finding it in a Mayan inscription in a temple. But my two favorite pieces in the issue each interpret the theme as different roads.
In “Mantra” by Lisa Timpf, the numbers are a reminder for a man’s fading memory. Regional Road 6 comes before Sideroad 80 and then he’s home. Readers can feel the anxiety in the piece as he repeats his mantra, trying to get home while admitting he “hasn’t told his wife / how much has slipped away.” But his mantra always gets him back home.
Cherie Bowers’s “Off-Ramp” is a short poem conjuring up Exit 6 as it merges onto 1-80. Here, a memorial with “fading words” reads, “We love you, Jason.” “To see it clearly,” the speaker says, “you must slow down,” a reminder for readers it’s necessary to slow down to truly see everything around us and to give thought to these fading signs we see beside the road.
I’m sure it was a lot of run writing for this issue of THEMA, and it was a lot of run reading what everyone was able to come up with.
Driftwood Press has plenty on the horizon for both readers and writers.
Writers looking to hone their craft can benefit from the two seminars Driftwood Press offers—Editors & Writers: The Path to Publication, and a seminar for Erasure Poetry. These are both conducted online and have plenty of information to help guide writers and editors better their work. The deadline to apply for each of these is April 30.
Readers can now order copies of Helli Fang’s new chapbook Village of Knives from the press. Chen Chen says of the collection, “The poems here listen to immigrant life and dream, to gendered expectation and subversion, to desire, to the body’s surging, briny rhythms.”
If you’re interested in having your own poetry read by the editors, consider submitting your full-length manuscript. Submissions are currently open for the rest of the month, so act fast! If you do end up missing this submission period, there are still two contests currently open until July.
Whether you’re looking to learn, read, or submit, Driftwood Press has you covered!
Guest Post by Robert Bensen
We can go to Margot Farrington’s The Blue Canoe of Longing (as Seamus Heaney wrote of poetry at large) “to be forwarded within ourselves,” to conceive “a new scope for our mind’s activity”—and that of the heart, as Farrington’s art draws desire out to longing, from the familiar to the exotic, lowly to lofty, in Catskill country poems and Brooklyn city poems.
The pleasure begins in effortless, exacting metaphors that create (for instance) space for the “orchestral silence” of heat lightning, the “rogue shapes” of clouds, the “buffed dominos” of Holstein cows,” the “starlight / beading like solder on a running brook.” Her imaging steadies our gaze on what we seldom glimpse of bird or bush or hill or people, for that matter. Her heart is in the right place, which helps ours get there too.
The poems take on large ecological, cultural, personal and other issues in playing out their dramas. Consider Robbie (“Counterweight”), a farmer pressed by his wife to kill a fox that had taken two of his Bantam roosters to feed her kits. He should kill the fox, but the fox is old, he knows, probably on her last litter. He resolves the small war in him, coming down on the side of the angels: “Pardon was Robbie’s province. / Sharpening, silvering, the old mother would persist / as long as rough gods bid before her fade into the mists / the island made.” And he’d be rewarded with “hatchings and crowings since.”
There should be plenty of crowing and hosanna-singing over Margot Farrington’s The Blue Canoe of Longing. Or maybe better would be paying quiet attention and being forwarded within ourselves, with new ranges for the mind’s activity.
The Blue Canoe of Longing by Margot Farrington. Dos Madres, October 2019.
About the reviewer: Robert Bensen’s Before (2019) is his sixth book of poems. He taught at Hartwick College (1978-2017), now conducts the poetry workshop at Bright Hill Press.
Did you know online literary magazine High Desert Journal features an exclusive podcast interview with Native American writer CMarie Fuhrman? If not, definitely go check it out. You may need to really crank the volume so you can hear her responses to the interviewer’s questions.
And I think that says something, too, about our culture not wanting to face death.
Listen to the the full interview here: www.highdesertjournal.com/podcast.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
bioStories invites readers into the daily lives of those around us. Ann S. Epstein’s “My Name Could Be Toby Gardner” explores a topic that follows all of us daily: our names.
Born to a family of immigrants, Epstein begins by breaking down her parents’, grandparents’, sibling’s, and aunt’s name, each of them going by one that was not given to them at birth. Once she makes it to her own name, Epstein considers the ways which we tie identity to the name people call us. But she’s never felt connected to neither her first nor last names.
There is something almost comical about the way Epstein rights about this. The constant back and forth and corrections of the names of the people she’s mentioning in her piece are handled with levity, but she concludes on a more serious tone, wondering if names can be lost if they don’t make their mark on their person when they’re young.
Whether you want to spend some time thinking about what names mean to identity, or you just want to learn about the intricacies of the names of Epstein’s family, this is a quick and interesting read.
About the reviewer: Katy Haas is Assistant Editor at NewPages. Recent poetry can be found in Taco Bell Quarterly, petrichor, and other journals. She regularly blogs at: newpages.com/blog.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
The thumbnails of the Fall 2019 of Court Green mostly show silhouetted scenes of courtship—men playing musical instruments or bowing on knees before women, scenes of dancing and kissing. In her two poems, Maureen Thorson writes of a different sort of relationships and intimacy, instead focusing on family. Continue reading “Maureen Thorson Taps into Tenderness & Family”
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Magazine Review by Katy Haas
The writers in Volume 6 of Runestone Journal have questions. In poetry, Lex Chilson asks, “Why Am I Always Sadder During the Summer?” and in fiction, Gabraella Wescott narrator wants to know “Would God Have a Beach House?” while Holley Ziemba’s character wonders “Do I Miss Myself?” Continue reading “Runestone Journal Has Questions”
Book Review by Ken Brosky
Galaxy “Alex” Stern has been given a free ride to Yale, despite a shady past and nonexistent high school grades. Why? Because she can see ghosts, and one of Yale’s secret societies has use of her unique gift. If that’s not enough to get you interested, how about this: in the first 20 pages, the society Skull and Bones has already opened up a living man’s body to perform a ritual designed to pick winning stocks. That’s just a taste of the incredible creativity that awaits readers as Alex investigates the strange goings-on of the secret societies, searching for answers to a suspicious murder.
Leigh Bardugo’s writing style shifts perspective with ease, moving between two main characters whose fates are intertwined. But what sets this book apart is the incredible creativity. Each secret society in Yale practices a form of magic, with consequences that go beyond the campus. It’s difficult to come up with something new in the fantasy genre, but Bardugo’s twisted imagination succeeds so well that this book is impossible to put down.
The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. Flatiron Books, October 2019.
About the reviewer: Ken Brosky teaches English, plays guitar, and works in his woodshop when he’s not busy writing. He is short stories have been published in The Portland Review, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, among others. He’s currently represented by agent Sandra Sawicka, and they’re working on a mystery novel.
Southeast Missouri State University Press may have their orders closed at the moment, but you can still learn about their forthcoming titles. In October 2020, they’ll publish Weird Pig by Robert Long Foreman, winner of the 2018 Nilsen Prize for a First Novel.
Although it’s his first novel, Foreman has made his mark by winning Pleiades Press’s Robert C. Jones Prize for Short Prize with his collection of essays Among Other Things and by winning a Pushcart Prize for fiction.
Find out more about the 2018 competition at SEMO Press’s website. And if you’re interested at trying your own luck at entering the Nilsen Prize for a First Novel, you have plenty of time—submissions close in November.
A new issue of The Shore features poetry by: Julia Bouwsma, Charlie M. Brown, Nicholas Samaras, Sarah Marquez, Nicholas Holt, Rachel Small, Noah Stetzer, Kathryn de Lancellotti, Molly Tenenbaum, Kathryn Merwin, Jenny Irish, Nicholas Molbert, Alicia Hoffman, TW Selvey, Anna Sandy-Elrod, Clifford Brooks, Stephen Furlong, and many more. It also features stunning photography by Melissa Marsh.
The Spring 2020 issue of Sheila-Na-Gig Online features the Spring Poetry Contest Winner and honorable mentions as well as poetry by T-M Baird, Rose Mary Boehm, Doug Bolling,R.T. Castleberry, Alan Catlin, Susan Darlington, Kelly Dolejsi, Tyler Dunston, Rob Hunter, Glenn Ingersoll, Stephanie Kendrick, Mercedes Lawry, Betsy Mars, Tom Montag, John Palen, Robert Strickland, Laura Grace Weldon, and more.
The Spring 2020 of Leaping Clear is out. This issue encourages readers to find balance in troubling times. Essays by Amy Sugeno, Dorian Rolston, and more; fiction by Anita Feng; mixed media by Barbara Parmet and Deborah Kennedy; music by Jon Tho; poetry by Ben Gallagher, Kathleen Hellen, Stephen Fulder, Yasmin Kloth, and more; video by Zangmo Alexander; and visual art by Denise Susanne Townsend, Michele Giulvezan-Tanner, and Stephanie Peek.
A beautiful new issue of Jewish Fiction .net is out. We’re sharing our journal with you earlier than usual in the hope that the power of great literature will provide you with comfort and pleasure now. Find 16 excellent stories, originally written in English, Hungarian, and Hebrew. And in honour of the upcoming holiday, two stories are about Passover: The Trade” by Mendele Mokher Seforim and “The Guest” by Remy Maisel. Enjoy this fabulous new issue and we wish you and yours continued good health.
The Spring 2020 issue of Witness features the winners of their latest Witness Literary Awards.
Poetry Winner:
“Future Ruins” by Andrew Collard
Poetry Runner-up:
“You Will See It Coming & You Won’t Run” by Emmy Newman
Fiction Winner:
“Delivery” by Emily Greenberg
Poetry Runner-up:
“The Dramatic Haircut” by Kristina Ten
Nonfiction Winner:
“When a Child Offends” by Michele Sharpe
Nonfiction Runner-up:
“Ani-la and Anne-la: On Everything I Knew and Didn’t Know” by Anne Liu Kellor
Poetry was selected by Heather Lang-Cassera, fiction was selected by Kristen Arnett, and nonfiction was selected by José Roach-Orduña. The rest of the issue is “magic” themed, so grab a copy and discover the magic inside.
Deadline: May 15, 2020
The Voices Project is taking submissions of poetry or prose in response to the current global health crisis. We believe self expression can be therapeutic for many people and promote empathy during uncertain times. We are interested in hearing your perspective, your reality, and also writings of hope. What did people do to help you or others? What acts of compassion have you witnessed? Prose, no longer than 350 words. Include a short thoughtful bio (160 words or less) with your submission. Multiple submissions welcome, no more than 2. We do not take anonymous submissions. Submit through our website:
www.thevoicesproject.org/submit.html.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
The October 2019 issue of About Place Journal takes readers on a journey from north (truth) to south (courage) to east (rebirth) to west (mourning). I immediately connected with a poem found in the north: “Flint” by Kendra Preston Leonard.
It would be hard to find someone who hasn’t heard about Flint, Michigan at this point. In early 2014, the city (which is only about a forty-five-minute drive from my home and is home to a handful of my friends) was in the news for their water crisis. After changing water sources to save money, residents were left with lead-poisoned water, an on-going issue in the city and the state.
Leonard writes about this in “Flint,” the speaker asking readers to “Come and drink,” “this acid” and “the sweet sweet leaded water,” to “Drink / and drink / and drink/ down this styx.” She invites those with distance to “Find out what it is to stand you here,” “where the river / adds children to the cemetery.” This lessens the distance between watching the information on the news and leading readers to really considering the humans that have been harmed by water, something that’s necessary to live.
Leonard’s imagery is enjoyable to read, despite the gravity of the poem’s message. The piece reads smoothly, flowing like a river. “Flint” is a great place to start your journey into this issue of About Place.
Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, publisher of online lit mag Sheila-Na-Gig online, is not just celebrating the release of two new titles Robert DeMott’s collection of prose poems, Up Late Reading Birds of America, and Barbara Sabol’s Imagine a Town) but also two new titles in the hopper.
First they have their first-ever fiction title. This will be a re-release of John Bullock’s novel Mark Small: This is Your Life. It was previously titled Making Faces. This is a coming-of-age story set at the British seaside.
The winner of their Spring Poetry Contest, Kari Gunter-Seymour, has agreed to let them publish her forthcoming chapbook A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen. Stay tuned for more information on these titles and grab a copy of their current releases.
Oh, and don’t forget their Poetry Manuscript Contest is open through July 1 annually.
Did you know Zizzle Literary has a blog known as “The Zizzling Pan”? There you can find some great articles about writing and reading…for adults and children.
Melissa Ostrom contributed “One Measure at a Time” to this last June and this would be something great to do to help channel your children’s energy into something creative and possibly fun. Flash fiction is a genre that has definitely seen a rise in recent years. I think the shortest pieces I ever read or studied in school were honest short stories. It was more so after college that I came around myself to see flash fiction.
This is something Ostrom also recalls in her article: “Though I write flash fiction regularly these days, a decade ago, I didn’t even know the form existed. I regret this. Had I been familiar with flash when I was still teaching high school English, I would have incorporated the reading and writing of it into my instruction.” I especially like how Ostrom says she used to believe more was better in terms of writing, but how flash could have suited her teaching purposes just as well.
Ostrom talks about 500 words being an average length for flash fiction. How about setting that as a challenge for your child? Read some great flash pieces for inspiration and have them try their own hand at writing and editing their own attempt down. A fun exercise to do over time to help them learn and grow “measure by measure.”
In Southeast Review‘s special Online content, John Sibley Williams interviews José Angel Araguz, a CantoMundo fellow, author of several chapbooks and collections, and the Editor-in-Chief of Salamander.
Araguz talks about how place, specifically Corpus Christi, Texas and Matamoros, Tamaulipas, has defined him, his work, and his politics.
Not only is my family’s story scattered across these two places, but some of the essential issues of our times play out on this border: immigration from a variety of countries (not just Mexico), narcotraffico, and the ensuing violence against women, children, and the poor. There is no memory that isn’t tinged with darkness, with threat and danger.
Since Araguz’s work does feature a lot of his own culture, he is asked how he approaches work to make it universal to readers of all cultures and his response is great: “I tread carefully around the word “universal.” There’s so much instability to language that to count on a poem alone, the mere words on the page, to be universal, is to invite failure.”
Learn more about José Angel Araguz, how he crafts his poetry, and how his experiences helped form his work.
Looking for something to do with the kids while you are stuck at home? Literary magazine Zizzle has a discounted bundle of their first 3 issues. These hardcover volumes are illustrated and feature fiction both parents and children can enjoy together. These are great keepsakes for families and meant to help bring parents and children together.
You can also subscribe to their newsletter to get free access to their new audio editions.
Zizzle is also transitioning into a press and hopes to be offering fiction for teens soon, too.
Mark your calendars! The Best Microfiction 2020 anthology is slated for release this April from Pelekinesis Press. The series is edited by Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke. The guest editor this year was Michael Martone.
Featured in this edition is work originally published in Cherry Tree, E. Kristin Anderson’s “Ted Cruz Attends a Goldfish Funeral” and Catherine Edmunds’ “Her Wing”; Apple Valley Review, “Teeth” by Tim Fitts; Kenyon Review Online, “Thaddeus Gunn’s “An inventory of the possessions of William Kevin Thompson, Jr., age 19, upon his expulsion from the family residence on October 20, 1971”; Anomaly, “This Is A Comb” by Leila Ortiz; Into the Void, JJ Peña’s “the summer heat feels just like love”; The Sonder Review, CC Russell’s “Caught”; and much more.
Pre-order yourcopy today and support the awesome journals these pieces were originally published in.
Need something to keep your mind busy? Try a literary magazine. Our Guide to Literary Magazines includes hundreds of options for you to delve into.
Subscribe or order an issue of your favorite print magazine, or filter by online magazines to get quick and easy access to quality writing right on your phone or computer. This is a great way to familiarize yourself with what their editors are looking for, so see who’s currently open for submissions, or make a note of reading periods for those who aren’t accepting work currently.
And if you read something you loved, let the writer know! Drop a note on social media or send them an appreciative email. Stay connected and show support while the world feels a little wild at the moment.
Pembroke Magazine is a literary journal from the University of North Carolina Pembroke. They publish new issues annually. Grab a copy of their 2019 issue featuring poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction by writers living in eighteen states and abroad while you still can. You can also subscribe today to get your hands on the 2020 issue when it is officially released.
Muhammad Ali’s greatness dances across the page, witnessed from multiple perspectives; a frustrated writer begins receiving mysterious bars of chocolate that may or may not be driving him crazy; a long-separated couple makes love as the Twin Towers fall on TV; a vulture does its terrible and necessary work; a young man and woman enjoy the romantic machinations of fate—or something else—in Venice; a man considers the many useless skills he’s accumulated in life; a college student risks her safety by hitchhiking back to campus with a mysterious trucker; and much more. Cover art by Alexander Grigoriev.
They are currently open to submissions of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry through April 30. You even have the option of purchasing their latest issue when you submit.
There have been plenty of great resources shared around the web recently for keeping your kids occupied while schools are currently closed, and we’ve got another one to throw your way.
Our Young Writers Guide to Publications and our Young Writers Guide to Contests are great ways to get the creativity flowing and imaginations stimulated, and they may even secure a little bit of quiet time for your own working or writing.
There are a handful of contests deadlines left this month, which is a good place to start. Plus, you can find plenty of publications by young writers to read in between writing and submitting.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
The latest issue of Still Point Arts Quarterly is dedicated to “Grandparents and Other Wise Ancestors.” The art centers on this theme and the featured writers share stories of the family who came before them. Of these, Anna Leigh Morrow’s “Home-Canned Magic” really jumped out at me.
Morrow focuses on her grandmother’s house and the magic that seemed to be conjured there. Morrow states that while it’s both her grandparents’ house, calling it “Nana’s house” makes more sense: “Nana is so completely the queen of her domestic domain that I often use only her name when I talk about their home.” I found this piece so easy to relate to, especially now as my family has been cleaning out my grandparents’ house (though I, too, have always called it “grandma’s house”) after my grandpa’s passing in January. Climbing the precarious ladder up to the attic for the first time in years and poking through my grandmother’s old belongings in the rafters brought back my own memories of childhood magic at my own “Nana’s house.”
Morrow reveres her grandmother in the ways she has sacrificed for her family and continues to love and support them throughout the years. She details moments of magic—her green thumb, her ability to create through cooking for her grandchildren, her ability to show others where to find their own magic.
Simple and straight forward, Morrow lets readers into her Nana’s kitchen for a visit, letting us get to know the woman who encouraged and inspired her as she grew up. This piece is welcoming and full of love, a nice thing to read as a reminder of the good that surrounds us during the chaos of current events.
Online literary magazine Blood Orange Review hosts an annual literary contest. The winners for the 2019 contest were Benjamin Bartu for his poem “Do You Love Her”; Austin Maas for his nonfiction piece “Trigger Finger”; and Joel Streicker for his story “For the Bounty Provided Us.” Read these and more in their latest issue.
Submissions are currently open through April 30 for the 2020 contest.
Indie bookstores give back to their communities in numerous ways: hosting events, providing safe spaces, offering places to gather with like-minded people, introducing readers to writers. With pandemic-caused closures and lock-downs across the country, bookstores and the authors they support could currently use some help from the community in return.
Visit our Guide to Independent Bookstores to see the stores in your area and check in on how they’re doing. Some have shortened hours or have limited the amount of people allowed in the store at one time, some have completely transitioned to online sales, some will package up a book and run it out to you at the curb.
If you’re able, pick up or order a book to keep you company while you’re holed up at home. And don’t forget to keep washing your hands!
Calling poets & fiction writers from D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (and all those who have links to these areas), The Washington Writers’ Publishing House’s first anthology in 25 years is open for submissions—This is What America Looks Like—and we want your poetry and short fiction. We are a 47-year old nonprofit, cooperative, all-volunteer press. We are looking for new and established writers, a cross-section of diverse voices, to write on America today. Be provocative, be personal or political (or both), we are looking for writing that helps us see and reflect on this moment we are living in. More information at www.washingtonwriters.org. Submit at wwph.submittable.com/submit. Deadline: June 1.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
True Story veers away from their usual issues in publishing Issue 35. “Not Your Ordinary Experience of Desire” is a collaborative piece between Susannah Borysthen-Tkacz and Justin Chen. When I saw this was written by two writers, I expected the nonfiction piece inside to jump back and forth between their points of view, and I suppose it does, but it does so in a more unique way than what we usually see. The entire issue is printed horizontally, Borysthen-Tkacz’s narration on the left side of the page, and Chen’s on the right.
The joint piece is broken up into three parts. The first focuses on each writer’s childhood: Borysten-Tkacz’s early history as a gymnast and the beginning of an eating disorder, and Chen’s unfamiliarity with American pop culture and intimacy. In part two, they each identify the ways their relationship begins to deteriorate; he focuses on sacrifice and giving up parts of one’s self, while she begins to realize she’s queer. In part three, the two start to shape themselves outside of their relationship, finding out who they truly are apart from each other.
By writing together, they fill in gaps the other leaves behind. We’re able to see both sides of the same story, neatly arranged next to each other on the page. Both write with a sincerity I found touching and easy to connect with. Despite the tumultuous events, they manage to bare their true story with honesty and grace.
About the reviewer: Katy Haas is Assistant Editor at NewPages. Recent poetry can be found in Taco Bell Quarterly, petrichor, and other journals. She regularly blogs at: https://www.newpages.com/.
The March eLitPak was mailed to our newsletter subscribers yesterday afternoon. Not a subscriber yet? Sign up today to get not only our monthly eLitPak, but also our weekly newsletter full of updates on great lit mags, books, events, and more. Plus, you get early access to calls for submissions and writing contests before they are posted to our site.
View the March 2020 eLitPak Newsletter. Continue reading “NewPages March 2020 Digital eLitPak”
The March 2020 Book Stand is now up at NewPages! Support small and university presses, authors, and indie bookstores now by checking out new and forthcoming titles to keep you company at home. This month, we bring you featured titles from five different presses.
Five titles are forthcoming from Diode Editions this spring: The Last Human Heart by Allison Joseph; Good Timing & Gertrude Stein: Inside Snoopy’s snout maggots feats upon my blood by Julia Cohen; Prismatics: Larry Levis & Contemporary American Poetry: Interviews from the Documentary Film A Late Style of Fire edited by Gregory Donovan and Michele Poulos; Wider Than the Sky from Nancy Chen Long; and The Minister of Disturbances from Zeeshan Khan Pathan. Visit our LitPak for more information.
Before the Fevered Snow by Megan Merchant explores themes of love and loss by using the landscape of the changing seasons.
Cifford Garstang’s House of the Ancients & Other Stories looks at some of the consequences of common human failings.
One Summer on Cutthroat Lake by Owen Duffy focuses on escalating tensions as outsiders come to revitalize Cutthroat Lake Lodge as a famous photographer shows up for a magazine shoot.
Sixteen interviews with some of the most iconic eco-warriors make up Wrenched from the Land: Activists Inspired by Edward Abbey. Edited by ML Lincoln and Diane Sward Rapaport.
You can learn more about each of these featured titles at our website, and find out how to place your book in our New & Noteworthy section here: https://npofficespace.com/classified-advertising/new-title-issue-ad-reservation/.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
The March 2020 issue of Poetry includes a LatiNext folio with selections from The Breakbeat Poets Volume 4 forthcoming from Haymarket Books. This anthology “opposes silence and re-mixes the soundtrack of the Latinx diaspora across diverse poetic traditions” and the selection included in Poetry gives a good sampling of what to expect in this anthology releasing in April.
My favorites include “My Uncle’s Killer” by J. Estanislao Lopez, “Rules at the Juan Marcos Huelga School (Even the Unspoken Ones)” by Lupe Mendez, and “Lady Fine Is for Sugar” by Stephanie Roberts. Continue reading “See What’s Coming “LatiNext” in Poetry”
Deadline: Friday, May 15
Adanna Literary Journal is a women focused print publication. We are seeking essay, poetry, and creative nonfiction that speaks towards the experience of mothering in a time of crisis—caring for children, especially those with children in college returning from affected areas, those with younger children exposed to media and the anxiety of school shut-downs, as well as women who are caring for elderly relatives or those in the medical profession. To submit, please go to adannajournal.blogspot.com/p/submission-guidelines.html. The subject line should read “Special Issue” to distinguish this from our annual issue.
With the uncertainty around the world and each country doing their best to respond to COVID-19 and stop the spread of the virus, many events are being postponed or cancelled. I have compiled a list of events that have updated their sites or social media with this information. I will update this post along with our Guide to Writing Conferences & Events when I find new ones. Know of any that need to be added to the list? Please contact us.
Tucson Festival of Books – Cancelled, 2021 dates TBA
University of Arizona Poetry Center – Cancelling events through May 15
The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing – Events postponed or cancelled through April 8
Six Bridges Book Festival – Postponed until fall, dates TBA Continue reading “2020 Writing & Literary Event Updates”
Deadline: April 15, 2020
What is this thing, hope, the tenacious part of us that makes us rise not only to the occasion, but out of bed? Dickinson acknowledges its perseverance (“never stops at all”), but sees it as a separate entity (“Yet, never, in extremity/ it asked a crumb of me”) exempt from the human element, perhaps divine. For the spring edition of The Compassion Anthology, we are looking for work that inspires this universal and at the same time intensely personal attribute without being sentimental or cliché. Hope and the Human Spirit Deadline: April 15. Details at www.compassionanthology.com/submission-guidelines.html.
The “Magic” issue of Witness features new work by: Eric Tran, Mary Lane Potter, Pamela Yenser, Alex Berge, Nina Sudhakar, Andrea Eberly, Miranda Dennis, and more. Plus, the second annual Witness Literary Awards: Andrew Collard (poetry winner), Emmy Newman (poetry runner-up), Emily Greenberg (fiction winner), Kristina Ten (fiction runner-up), Michele Sharpe (nonfiction winner), and Anne Liu Kellor (nonfiction runner-up).
