Carve has published their second print edition, this one themed about school. “It’s difficult to capture the range of joys and challenges one may experience in school in just one short story,” writes Editor-in-Chief Matthew Limpede. “We hadn’t planned to do a school-themed issue, but as we looked through the sotires that were drawing us in and receiving cheers from our reading committee, we realized we didn’t have just one story to give us insight into school, teenagers, and classrooms. We had four. Each of them present a different angle from which to view the prism.”

These stories that are included (along with interviews with the authors about writing style and processes) are “Lone Wolf” by Eric Freeze, “Literature Appreciation” by Man Martin, “Firebug” by Katie Cortese, and “Snow Day” by Gary V. Powell. Also in this issue is a Reject! section, which lists pieces rejected from Carve that have gone on to be published elsewhere; it also has a note both from Amber Krieger and the editor about the rejection of her piece “Among the Missing and the Dead” which went on to win the 2009 Fulton Prize and be published in the Adirondack Review.

SPECS { } literary magazine from Rollins College features an interview with Jesse Glass as well as some of his work. Jesse Glass teaches literature and history at Meikai (Bright Sea) University in Japan, is author of The Passion of Phineas Gage and Slected Poems, publisher of Ahadada Press, and is a puppeteer and visual artist. His interview with SPECS covers his living abroad (“outsourcing” is SPECS theme), crossing boundaries of artistic expressions, and his work with the Meikai International Puppet Theater.

Knock magazine is switching from a biannual cycle to an annual cycle, while also publishing 3-4 pieces online each month. The print issue for this year will be released April 2013, after which the issues will be printed in December of each year.

So what happens if you already have a subscription? Instead of receiving two for a year, your subscription is automatically changed to be for two years (so you will still get two issues). “In the end, with this new hybrid of online/print distribution, we will have more consistent contact with our readers–as well as a more artful product,” writes Caitlin Coey, managing editor.

Sou’wester‘s Fall 2012 issue has a new poetry editor: Stacey Lynn Brown. Editor Valerie Vogrin writes that as long as she has been with the journal, she has been learning new ways to think about poetry and how to assemble a publication. “The opportunity to collaborate with Stacey is no exception to this happy furthering of my literary education,” she says.

“The way we work things,” she continues, “I don’t generally see the poems until it’s time to lay out the entire issue. As that day approaches, I work with our talented roster of readers to select a complementary array of stories and essays, my anticipation rising. I am like the co-hostess of an elaborate gala who is forced to wait for months on end for the other half of the invitation list to be revealed. I have a sense of what kind of party it will be based on my accumulating choices, but until we’ve assembled all the guests and finalized the seating arrangement, so to speak, neither of us knows exactly what the season’s bash with bring.”

But now that it’s here, we know that the party guests include Alex Fabrizio, Angie Macri, Cynthia Manick, Nikki Zielinski,Jenna Bazzell, Elyse Fenton, James Ellenberger, Seth Abramson, Thomas Hawks, Scott Weaver, Lance Wilcox, Jon Pearson, Jeff Martin, Randall Brown, Jessica Afshar, Corey Ginsberg, and more. To see the whole guest list, you’ll have to invite yourself to the party, and go get an issue.

Currently in its second issue, The Hare seeks short essays on the poetry, prose, and drama of the English renaissance, and reviews of foundational, seminal, neglected, or overlooked books in the field. The Hare is a peer-reviewed, on-line academic journal.

Ecotone‘s “The Abnormal Issue” announces that Editor Ben George will be leaving the magazine to pursue his career in NYC. Editor-in-Chief David Gessner writes an intro to the magazine, dedicating several pages to recognize his gratitude for Ben and acknowledge Ben’s hard work, ambition, and dedication. Spending a great deal of time editing and developing strong relationships with the writers, Ben, as Gessner says, will be “dearly missed.” Gessner writes, “We wish him luck and many sharpened pencils.

The issue itself features David Shields, Lia Purpura, Darin Strauss, Nicholas Kahn, Richard Selesnick, Lauren Slater, Beth Ann Fennelly, Paul Crenshaw, Jen Percy, Dash Shaw, Olivia Clare, George Makana Clark, Edith Pearlman, Andrew Tonkovich, Douglas Watson, Callan Wink, Geoff Wyss, Gerard Beirne, Marvin Bell, Billy Collins, Adam Giannelli, Mark Halliday, Janet McNally, Christoper Merrill, Donald Platt, Diane Seuss, Bruce Smith, Charles Harper Webb, and Robert Wrigley.

Anderbo.com magazine welcomes three new editors. From Anderbo’s newsletter, here is a description of the new staff members:

Leslie Fields, Associate Editor
Leslie Fields holds an undergraduate degree in English and Theatre from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Graduating in 2011, Leslie studied under the tutelage of award winners’ Mary Morris, Brian Morton and Joan Silber. She is also the author of two plays, “Never Have” and “Hecho in Ecuador,” a compilation of short pieces created for Dramatic Adventure Theatre (DAT). Both plays were performed off-off Broadway in New York City. She is currently working on a collection of interconnected short stories.

Suzannah Windsor, Associate Editor
Suzannah Windsor is a Canadian writer and editor whose work has appeared in Sou’wester, Grist, Anderbo, Saw Palm, Best of the Sand Hill Review, and others. She studied English Literature at The University of Windsor, and Education at Lakehead University. Currently, she lives in Australia.

Claudine Levy, Associate Editor
Claudine Levy is graduating with an English degree from Bristol University this summer, having regularly written for the student newspaper, Epigram, and online arts forum, Inter:Mission. She has also written for Psychologies Magazine and is currently contributing online editor for Suitcase Magazine. She continues in her endeavors to write a pithy, self-aware novel detailing the dull life of a middle class Jewish girl plagued with pseudo-existentialist crises and an insatiable appetite. Above all things in life she loves analyzing, eating and writing.

Iron Horse Literary Review‘s newest issue is a special issue in honor of Nathaniel Hawthorne. “‘Why Nathaniel Hawthorne?’ you will ask,” writes Editor Leslie Jill Patterson. “For starters, he’s been good to me. My first college composition was a character analysis of Robin in Hawthorne’s story “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,’ and the paper earned me the only A in the class… And getting intimate with Hawthorne’s stories, spending hours and hours with them, taught me something about language. Like all my faovrite classic writers, Hawthorne is an artist who manipulates the mechanical—dense language; winding sentences; dependent clauses; the letters themselves, with hooked tails and antennae—until his paragraphs transform into something surprising: a story that takes flight and fills us with wonder. And because he can do this…I ask, ‘Why, not Hawthorne?'”

In this issue, Gina Ochsner, Toni Jensen, and Edith Pearlman take Hawthorne’s tales and put on their own spin. “I was pleased and surprised to see these writers: a) manipulate geography, moving ‘The Minister’s Black Veil’ to the harsh High North; b) tease out racial as well as gender issues in ‘The Gentle Boy’; and c) even deal with environmental issues in ‘Young Goodman Brown,'” writes Patterson.

Alongside these pieces are the three regular columns: “In the Saddle” (this time featuring the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts where Hawthorne lived with his new bride), “Bits & Pieces” (facts about Hawthorne), and “From the Horse’s Mouth” (“an interview with Nate Hawthorne”).

Fred Hobson is retiring after 23 years from co-editor of Southern Literary Journal. Co-editor Minrose Gwin writes, “In those years, he has shaped the course of southern literary criticism. Consistently open to new approaches and directions and graciously ushering in new scholars and their work in southern studies year after year, he has made the journal what it is today by always insisting on high standards and responsible, meaningful scholarship.” She writes that he will be missed and that this issue is dedicated to him.

Florence Dore will be stepping up to fill the position, starting with the current issue, available now. Gwin writes, “Florence’s interests in post-1945 American literature and southern studies, especially her interest in globalized approaches to southern literature and southern modernism, as well as her editorial experience as co-editor of Stanford University Press’s Post 45 Series will be of great value as we move forward.”

Harriet Pollack is taking over as book review editor (also taking over for Hobson). And finally Patrick Horn is stepping down from the Managing Editor position. “Unflappable and diligent, careful and innovative, Patrick has expanded the function of the Managing Editor in a number of important ways.” Jameela F. Dallis, who served before as his assistant editor, will be filling the position.

The Main Street Rag magazine explains in their current issue that Richard Allen Taylor will be taking over as the magazine’s review editor. “Richard will be retiring from his day job March 31 and going back to school to earn his MFA,” writes Editor M. Scott Douglass. “So, while other students may be working a day job to complete their Masters, he hopes to be a full time student with projects like this on the side.”

In the issue itself, featured is an interview with MSR Poetry Book Award Winner Colin D. Halloran; fiction by Mackenzie Evan Smith, Terresa Haskew, John Christopher Lloyd, and Eric V. Neagu; and poetry by Steve Abbott, Phillip Barron, Llyn Clague, Joan Colby, Lyle Daggett, Davis Enloe, Robert Gamble, Logan C. Jones, Mike Jurkovic, Dan Memmolo, Leland March, Brady Rhoades, Maria Rouphail, Scott Vanya, Travis Venters, and more.

“…equines carry great material, functional, and symbolic value for humans, making them prime subjects for artistic representation; and equines convey extraordinary visual beauty, physical stature, and dynamic movement, making them ideal objects for aesthetic treatment. The status of the equine in literature differs.”

The Horse in Poetry and Prose by Charles Caramello is the fourth in a series of articles that look at horses in paintings, memorial statues, and theatre and film, published online in Horsetalk.

Alimentum – The Literature of Food is now officially an online monthly magazine. They were close to this ever since they became online, but they have now announced that during the first week of each month, a new issue will be published: “a new roster of food works. Tasty fiction. Juicy poetry. Tantalizing essays. Mouth-watering mutlimedia. Cozy-smart book reviews.” February’s issue should be out shortly.

I came across works by Dan-ah Kim while doing some googling and was swept up by her images. Born in Seoul and residing in Brooklyn, NY, Kim is a graduate of Pratt Institute, and currently “makes art” and works in film and television. Her works are prints of original, multi-media composition. She has very reasonably priced prints for sale on Etsy, including these two here that I thought writers and readers might appreciate. Her works have appeared on and in the Washington Post Fiction Issue (how appropriate!) as well as on the cover of How to Paint a Dead Man by Man Booker Finalist Sarah Hall.

Bateau magazine, with volume 5, now offers color not just on the cover but also inside on the pages. This allows for some creative color art to pop out. The editors say, “Volume 5 is a kind of breath. A pining and permitting. A thing that gives you patience when you can’t come up with it. A gift that eases a gift.”

Featured writers include Maria Adelmann, Benny Anderson, Glen Armstrong, Julie Babcock, Caitlin Bailey, Josh Bettinger, Caroline Cabrera, Megan Garr, James Heflin, RIch Ives, Timothy Kercher, Sara Lefsyk, George Looney, Lisa Allen Ortiz, Eliza Rotterman, Leona Sevick, D.E. Steward, Chelsa Whitton, and many more.

Editor-in-Chief James B. M. Schick announces in the new issue of The Midwest Quarterly that it is last issue in that position. Having served as editor since the autumn issue of 1981, he has been with the magazine for 31 years. “Over that span the journal has changed in many ways,” he writes. “What has not changed is the inspiration countless academics have displayed in their submissions, not all of which have been accepted, and their dedication , as revealed in their willingness to undertake revisions, often of a substantial nature, that I have asked of them.”

He ends his note with a thank you to the readers: “I must express my appreciation for your loyalty. To all of you, thank you for making my task more easily accomplished and profoundly more satisfying. I now being a period of phased retirement after teaching forty-five years at Pittsburg State University, a winding-down that will, if taken full term, finish with a half-century of service to this institution.

The newest issue of Prairie Schooner introduces a special Native American section, edited by Sherman Alexie. In his introductory note he says, “I don’t know what happened to Native American fiction. When I started my writing career in 1989, there were at least thirty Native fiction writers prolifically publishing with large commercial publishers, prestigious small presses, and esteemed university journals. . . . There was an abundance of Indian stories. But now those old-school writers aren’t publishing much, if at all, and the new Indian fiction writers either can’t find a foothold in mainstream publishing or they don’t exist.”

However, he claims that “the poetry has never slowed down. Never stopped. In these pages, you’ll find some new and amazing young poets (and two fiction writers) and a few old-school bards.”

The section contains poetry and prose from Adrian C. Louis, dg okpik, Erin Bad Hand, Esther Belin, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Joan Kane, Laura Da’, Santee Frazier, Sara Marie Ortiz, Stephen Graham Jones, and Tacey M. Atsitty.

Vine Leaves Literary Journal is now hiring dedicated editors to join their team. Here is a message from their current editors:

“Hurray! Our inboxes are overflowing with YOUR work. Poetry, prose, pictures and more – powerful vignettes that inspire us, excite us, and yeah, sometimes overwhelm us. Trust us, we’re not complaining. But as the journal continues to grow, we recognize we can’t do it all on our own, not while keeping our mandate of giving each submission the consideration it deserves. So, we’re hiring.

Well, kind of. As you know, Vine Leaves is a labour of love and our work is volunteer. For us, it’s more important that our contributors get paid (as minor as that is). But, quite frankly, what we don’t take in cash reward, YOU give back in immeasurable riches – your support.

We’re looking for a couple of passionate, dedicated and vignette-loving volunteer editors to help us navigate our impressive inbox. Interested? Great. We don’t need a formal resume, but please email — vineleaves (dot) editors (at) gmail (dot) com — your expression of interest along with a paragraph telling us WHY you want to join the Vine Leaves team and WHAT you think you could bring to the journal. We’ll take it from there.”

The deadline is February 28, 2013.

“The Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands is an Internet monument dedicated to preserving the memory of all the men, women and children who were persecuted as Jews during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and did not survive the Shoah. Every person in the Monument has a separate page commemorating his or her life. This ‘personal page’ gives the person’s most basic personal details. Where possible, it also contains a reconstruction of his or her family relationships. The basic aim is to try to show the circumstances of each individual life. What emerges is a snapshot of the household in 1941 or 1942. Addresses are added, enabling visitors to take a virtual walk through streets and towns. The Digital Monument also contains a good deal of other information. These notes explain how the site has been set up and how it can be used.”