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Change of Editor at South Dakota Review

After 16 years as Editor of South Dakota Review, Brian Bedard is stepping down. He writes in his Editor’s Note (48.4): “I also want to welcome SDR‘s next Editor, Lee Ann Roripaugh, to her new post. I can think of no other person more fitting for this job. Lee Ann will be only the third Editor in the magazine’s 48-year history, and its first female Editor. So this is a bright and noteworthy moment in SDR‘s history.”

Documentary :: Faith and Disability

A Place for All: Faith and Community for Persons with Disabilities is a unique interfaith documentary, produced in conjunction with the New York Board of Rabbis, with the support of an extraordinary range of faith groups including the National Council of Churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ and the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops. A Place for All explores the courageous stories of persons with disabilities as they succeed in making their faith communities truly inclusive.”

Camera Obscura Photo Contest Winners

Regularly packed with amazing images, the Summer-Fall 2011 issue of Camera Obscura features photographs by the winners of the Summer 2011 Photography Competition, judged by Carl Caylor, Carol Andrews Jensen, and Joel Grimes.

Rafal Maleszyk – Outstanding Photo Award, Professional
Bonnie Jones – Editor’s Choice Award, Professional
Kalliope Amorphous – Outstanding Photo Award, Non-Professional
Hugh Jones – Editor’s Choice Award, Non-Professional

Finalists – Professional
Alan Brown, Bonnie Jones , Catherine Martinoff, Chan Kwok Hung, Claudio Allia, Daniel Haeker, Jana Asenbrennerova, Jeremy Fokkens, Juergen Lechner, Marcella Hackbardt, Matt Walford, Nicholas Bardonnay, Patrizia Burra, Peter Ciccariello, Sabato Visconti, Svetlana Batura

Finalists – Non-professional
Daniel Haeker, Daniel L Camacho-Sanchez, Estelle Joannou, Habeeb Ali, Haeker Daniel, Hugh Jones, Jacqueline Langelier, Jenn Verrier, Jörgen Rönn, Louis Staeble, Nitin Budhiraja, Sabato Visconti, Scarlett Rooney, Tom Maciejewski

Call for LGBT Essay Submissions

Paul Fahey is looking for a few more submissions to prepare his anthology for his agent to pitch. The book proposed is THE OTHER MAN: Twenty Writers Uncover the Truth About Sex, Deception, Love and Betrayal. This is a companion volume to Vitoria Zackheim’s THE OTHER WOMAN collection of essays.

THE OTHER MAN anthology is a compendium by and about gay men and their relationships, specifically their either being the other man, suffering the other man or having their lives affected in some way by infidelity.

WHO IS THE OTHER MAN?

He’s a trespasser, an interloper, the peckerwood who gets between you and your lover, partner or mate. The male equivalent of Cleopatra, Mae West and Jessica Rabbit rolled into one threatening package. He charges into a committed relationship without a thought to the pain and misery he inflicts on the injured parties.

Sometimes, the other man is guilty of nothing more than falling in love with the wrong person – or the right person at the wrong time. And sometimes the other man is YOU. We are not all victims in other man scenarios.

In THE OTHER MAN anthology, twenty gay men write candidly about either being the other man, suffering the other man, or in some way having their lives affected by infidelity. Felice Picano, David Pratt, Tom Mendicino, Erik Orriantia, Tom Mournian, T.J. Parsell, and others dig deep to discover the truth about this OTHER MAN phenomenon. In their funny, poignant, and highly memorable pieces, these acclaimed writers explore the terrain of this sexy, yet unpredictable being.

Personal essays ONLY (4,000 words MAX).

Please send an email, expressing your interest in the anthology and a 100-word bio including publications and awards if appropriate, to Paul Fahey: paul1189-at-sbcglobal.net

Deadline: July 31, 2011

UMPress Free Novels for Facebook Friends

Heather Newman, Marketing and Media Manager at The University of Michigan Press writes:

For the first time in its history, the University of Michigan Press is offering two brand-new novels FREE for reading, a chapter at a time, on its Facebook page starting next week.

The two novels are:

Marjorie Kowalski Cole’s A Spell on the Water, about a woman attempting to put her family back together in a small town after her husband’s death. Barbara Kingsolver said, “I couldn’t put it down.”

Becky Thacker’s Faithful Unto Death, a historical whodunit set at the turn of the last century. When a mother of five mysteriously dies, is it illness, murder—or suicide?

Both novels are being serialized free of charge online for all UofM Press Facebook Friends.

The online serialization is free, and will be up until Labor Day weekend.

Poetry + Theology

Seminary Ridge Review is a scholarly journal published twice yearly by the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. Each issue includes a “Poetry + Theology” section, which is “multi-faith and international.” The current issue (13.2/Spring 2011) includes three interviews, an essay on faith and metaphor by Ted Kooser, book recommendations (Rain When You Want Rain by Betsy Johnson-Miller and 67 Mogul Miniatures by Raza Ali Hasan), and poems on faith and/or medicine. Authors in this issue: George Ella Lyon, Raza Ali Hasan, Patricia Kirkpatrick, Maureen Jivani, Steven Schroeder, Mary Anne Morefield, and Will Lane.

The full magazine is available on the LTSG Press website, along with back issues.

New Lit on the Block :: Loaded Bicycle

Editor-in-Chief Martin Rock, along with Editors-at-Large Traci Brimhall and Phillip D. Ischy, bring readers and writers Loaded Bicycle, an online journal of poetry, art, and translation by emerging and established writers, translators, and artists, with a special interest in collaborative projects that include comic artists.

The first and second issue include works & translations by Esao Andrews, Alejandro de Acosta, Jorge Carrera Andrade, Johsua Beckman, Ana Božičević, Melissa Broder, Anne Carson, Mrb Chelko, Alan Daniels, Claire Devoogd, Karen Emmerich, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, Matthea Harvey, Madra Hill, Melinda Kosztaczky, F.T. Marinetti, Kate MccGwire, Idra Novey, Elsbeth Pancrazi, Susanne Petermann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Matthew Rohrer, Craig Rubadoux, Glenn Shaheen, Michael Shapcott, Egor Shopavolov, Bianca Stone, Tricia Taaca, Micah Towery, Paul Tunis, Eleni Vakalo, M.A. Vizsolyi, and Jean Zapata.

Though Loaded Bicycle does not accept fiction or non-fiction, the editors are open to short cross-genre work. Loaded Bicycle will publish three issues per year with an on-site archive.

Arabic Poetry in Translation

The newest issue of Pleiades (31.2) includes A Folio of Arabic Poetry in Translation, featuring poems by Adonis, Ashur Etwebi, Ghassan Zaqtan, Amjad Nasser, Asmaa Azaizeh, and Dalia Taha (translations by Fady Joudah, Khaled Mattawa, and Rasheeda Plenty). Amjad Nasser’s work is available on the Pleiades website, along with selections of other content from this issue.

[Cover Image: Rawlings and the Eggs , oil on canvas, 24 ” x 24″, by Ellen Siebers, 2008]

Stunning Covers: WomenArts Quarterly Journal

WomenArts Quarterly Journal Summer 2011 features the paintings of Iceland artist Kristin Halldorsdottir Eyfells (1917-2002). Eyfells painted large color portraits of popular figures in arts, entertainment, and politics. “No one ever sat for a portrait in her studio; instead, Eyfells formulated her interpretation of each subject from knowledge of their lives. She read everything she could find on her subjects and studied endless photographs of them before she began to paint” (Sherryl Brown, “Artist Profile,” WAQR). In addition to the cover, WAQR features a full-color section of portraits by Eyfells, including Mike Tyson, Nancy Reagan, Clint Eastwood, Dwight Eisenhower, Bertrand Russell, Winston Churchill, and Jimmy Durante.

Cover image: “Self Portrait” by Kristin Halldorsdottir Eyfells

Paterson Literary Review Poetry Award Winners

The 2011-2012 issue of Paterson Literary Review (#39) includes the winners, honorable mention and editors choice selections for the 2009 Allen Ginsberg Awards.

FIRST PRIZE
Eileen Moeller, Philadelphia, PA “Milk Time”
José Antonio Rodríguez, Binghamton, NY “Veins Like Maps”

SECOND PRIZE
Josh Humphrey, Kearney, NJ “Catherine Rose at One Week Old”
Sarah Jefferis, Ithaca, NY “Learning to Spell”

THIRD PRIZE
Kevin Carey, Beverly, MA “Loved Hockey

A full list of poets and their winning works can be found on the PLR website, along with information about this and other annual contests.

New Lit on the Block :: Algebra

Scotland’s Tramway writer-in-residence Beatrice Colin is editor of the new online quarterly journal Algebra.

From the publishers website: “Based on the model that A+B = X, Algebra features a range of local and international writers responding, questioning and expanding on specific themes explored in Tramway’s programme. Their contributions range from fiction and memoir to poetry and photography.

“The first issue, inspired by Keith Farquhar show, More Nudes in Colour, Glasgow looked at the nude and nudity and featured writers including novelist, Ellis Avery, playwright, Oliver Emmanuel and short-story writer, Linda Cracknell. The second takes the theme, In the Days of the Comet, from the British Art show as its starting point and will include contributions from Ronald Frame, Nicola White and Helen Sedgewick.”

WLT Features Italian LIterature

Celebrating 85 years of continuous publication, World Literature Today proves once again why it is an invaluable publication with “Voices of Italian Literature” in the July/August 2011 issue. This special sections features an interview with Dacia Maraini*, essays by Antony Shugaar and Jamie Richards, poetry by Andrea Zanzotto, Fernanda Romagnoli, Luciano Erba, Tiziano Scarpa, Maria Luisa Spaziani*, Pier Luigi Bacchini*, Patrizia Cavalli*, Gianni Celati, Antonella Anedda, Valerio Magrelli, and Alessio Zanelli, and fiction by Amara Lakhous and Ermanno Cavazzoni. (Asterisk indicates content also available online.)

WLT also offers exclusive web content: poetry by Ascanio Celestini, Leonardo Sinisgalli and Julian Stannard, and fiction by Ermanno Cavazzoni.

Ruminate Celebrates Five

Ruminate Magazine celebrates five years of publishing with its summer 2011 issue themed: Feasting. The issue also includes winners from Ruminates first annual nonfiction prize, judged by Al Haley. Josh MacIvor-Andersen essay, “Flexing, Texting, Flying,” took first place, with “Van Gogh’s Parable” by A.J. Kandathil taking second.

River Styx Schlafly Beer Micro-Brew Micro-Fiction Contest Winners

Winners of the River Styx Fifth Annual (2011) Schlafly Beer Micro-Brew Micro-Fiction Contest appear in issue 85

1st Place
Katie Cortese, “Thrill Ride”

2nd Place
Laura Kate Resnik, “Ms. Muffet”

3rd Place
Allison Alsup, “Pioneers”

Honorable Mentions
Jeanne Emmons, “Vinyl”
Kim Henderson, “Girls”
Thomas Israel Hopkins, “When the Immigrant Is Hot”
Hugh Martin, “Three Months Before We Ship to Iraq”
Francine Witte, “Husband Weight”

New Lit on the Block :: The Ides of March

Poets Samuel T. Franklin and K. Lemon are the editorial effort behind The Ides of March Journal, an online monthly blog journal that “specializes in historical/mythological/legend​ ary/folklore-ish poetry.” Their goal is to publish 15 poems of no more than 15 lines each monthly on the 15th of each month.

The publication’s mission is truly unique among literary publications: “At The Ides of March, we think history is anything but boring. It’s fun. It’s interesting. And, depending on the subject, it can be dramatic, barbarous, beautiful, gross, bloody, smutty – pretty much anything . . our shared experiences as a people, as a species, as living creatures . . is something that should be celebrated, studied, and never forgotten. Not that we have such noble purposes here. We just think historical poetry is pretty sweet.”

The table of contents for the first issue is enough to prove they have succeeded in their efforts:

Zann Carter – “The Night John Lennon Died”
Clarence Dearborn – “Vlad Tepes of Wallachia” and “William Howard Taft”
Jenna Kelly – “Apocalypse Now, or Maybe Later: Rapture 2011″
Julie Laws – “Caligula ‘Invades’ England: 40CE” and “Salad for Hilter”
Mike Miller – “Isambard Kingdom Brunel. 1806-1859″
Amit Parmessur – “Lord Shiva”
Annie Perconti – “Uroboros” and “Xochiquetzal”
Megan Peterson – “Henry VIII,” “Socrates, Dear Friend” and “Catherine the Great of Russia (Who am I?)”
Mark Young – “Enola Gay” and “The Wright Brothers, December 17, 1903”

The Ides of March is open for submissions.

New Lit on the Block :: Penduline

Started by Art Director Sarah Horner and Editor Bonnie Ditlevsen, Penduline (pronounced PEN-joo-lyne) is a Portland-based literary and art magazine that seeks to create a presence for emerging as well as established graphic artists and writers of sudden fiction, flash fiction, prose poetry and short stories.

The first issue features writing by Margaret Elysia Garcia, Celeste Auge, Kenna Lee, Mai’a Williams, Jenny Hayes, Jenny Forrester, David Rynne, Rebeca Dunn-Krahn, and art by Verone Flood, Christopher Bibby, and Richard Lishner.

Penduline is accepting online submissions for Issue 2 through September 1, 2011. The theme is “Angst.”

What I’m Reading: This Thing Called the Future

This Thing Called the Future (Cinco Puntos Press, May 2011) is the second young adult novel by J.L. Powers, better known around NewPages as Jessica. Jessica has been connected with NewPages for nearly a decade, writing reviews, feature columns and interviews. She is also editor of The Fertile Source, a literary ezine devoted to fertility-related topics, and publisher of a number of collections with her press, Catalyst Book Press.

Her first young adult novel, The Confessional (Random House/Laurel-Leaf, 2009), endeared her fiction writing to me, especially after it was banned from (and her speaking engagement cancelled with) the Jesuit high school that influenced the setting for the story. I taught the book in my college developmental writing class, and while it was challenging – dealing with issues of drugs, alcohol, homosexuality, immigration, racism, and all starting off with a murder – it was very well received by the students because of its honesty in discussing real-life issues. This Thing Called the Future might be the book to take its place. No less controversial, and no less honest in dealing with difficult subject matter, This Thing Called the Future is the story of 14-year-old Khosi set in HIV-ravaged South Africa.

The story begins –

A drumbeat wakes me. Ba-Boom. Ba Boom. It is beating a funeral dirge.

When I was my little sister Zi’s age, we rarely heard those drums. Now they wake me so many Saturdays. It seems somebody is dying all the time. These drums are calling our next-door neighbor, Umnumzana Dudu, to leave this place and join the ancestors where they live, in the earth, the land of the shadows.

– and follows Khosi through several weeks of her life, living with and caring for her aging grandmother and little sister while their mother works away in the city to help (just barely) support them. The story deals very openly and matter-of-factly about the threat of HIV for young girls in Africa, but does so through the strength of Khosi’s character – providing a clear and level-headed role model for any young adult responding to such challenging life issues. Khosi watches her careless friend Thandi involve herself with older men (who prefer younger girls less likely to have been exposed, and virgins most especially). Khosi cautions Thandi against her reckless behavior, warning her time and again of the dangers of HIV. Thandi’s response is unfortunately typical of so many young people who believe they are infallible. Any young reader will have no trouble identifying with Khosi’s rational and sexually conservative stance of self-preservation.

In addition to this clear front message of the book, Powers includes a great deal of South African Zulu culture as it straddles the generations and struggles to survive. Powers’s own background includes a master’s degree in African History from State University of New York-Albany and Stanford University, a Fulbright-Hayes to study Zulu in South Africa, and serving as a visiting scholar in Stanford’s African Studies Department in 2008 and 2009. Her acknowledgements for the book give credit to a number of people with whom she worked in Africa to gain education and insight into the culture, as well as to live it day in, day out. This becomes fully integrated into the writing with the use of Zulu language throughout the text, and a full glossary of the terminology in the back of the book. This is the best kind of cultural exposure and immersion for young (and old) adults. Because there is repetition of key terms and concepts early on in the writing, readers come to learn this language by the end of the book.

Khosi’s character and her relationship with the women in her family and the women in her community provide the symbol of the struggle for Zulu cultural survival. Khosi’s grandmother believes in the traditional medicine and healing rituals of the Sangoma (female healer) and engages Khosi in a ritual cleansing with her. Khosi’s mother has abandoned these ‘ancient ways,’ but also is either not accepting of contemporary, Western medicine, or is in denial of needing it. Khosi often finds herself conflicted, growing up in this divide of adults and their beliefs. Through the scope of the novel, she comes to make her own decision about what she will choose to follow – traditional medicine to help heal her AIDS-ravaged community, or the way of the sangoma to maintain the strong connection with her ancestral roots.

While Khosi’s character provides a strong model of coming to “right behavior” in a variety of situations, understanding how scary and difficult it can be to make the right choices is only evident because Powers writes this fearlessly into the novel. Without knowing the truth of what exists and what young people face – in South Africa, in the United States, in ANY country – we cannot have the real and truthful conversations about what is right behavior, what it means to self-preserve, and what it means to honor both the past and the future. This Thing Called the Future does it all through the voice of a South African teen, tiny in stature, but large enough to shadow all we see looming.

Many YA titles deal with controversial subject matter, and I can only imagine many of them do not make it onto school reading lists. I am hopeful, though, that the young adults themselves are still finding access to these books – in libraries, bookstores, or on their personal e-readers. Controversial subject matter is the most difficult to discuss with young people, and all the more why it needs venues – such as books of fiction – that make it accessible for them to find.

The first five chapters of This Thing Called the Future are available on Powers’s website, as well as AIDS & South Africa: A Teacher’s Guide to This Thing Called the Future.

Bellingham Review 2011 Contest Winners

Bellingham Review Spring 2011 includes works by the 2011 first-place contest winners along with judge’s comments on the published pieces. A full list of winners, runner ups and finalists is available on BR website.

The Annie Dillard Award in Creative Nonfiction
Final Judge: Ira Sukrungruang
First Place: Jay Torrence – “Buckshot”

The 49th Parallel Award in Poetry
Final Judge: Lia Purpura
First Place: Jennifer Militello – “A Dictionary of Mechanics, Memory, and Skin in the Voice of Marian Parker”

The Tobias Wolff Award in Fiction
Final Judge: Adrianne Harun
First Place: Lauri M. Anderson – “Hand, Mouth, Ring”

Free E-book from University of Utah Press

Blueprints: Bringing Poetry into Communities
“With essayists ­— including Elizabeth Alexander, Robert Hass, and Patricia Smith — describing how poets and artists have brought poetry into different kinds of communities, and a ‘toolkit’ loaded with experience-based advice, tools, and strategies, Blueprints is a necessity for arts organizers and those in the poetry community.” A copublication with The Poetry Foundation, this book is also available for purchase in print.

Take Part in the BPJ Poetry Forum

The Poetry Forum on the Beloit Poetry Journal website is an online conversation with BPJ poets. During the month of July, join Jenny Johnson in a discussion of the interplay of sounds and (queer) bodies in her crown of sonnets, “Aria.” Audio is available to listen to her read section 1 of the poem.

New Lit on the Block :: trans lit mag

Founding Editor Christina Phelps and Poetry Editor Elana Seplow bring us trans lit mag: a continually-expanding quarterly name-changing online literary magazine. Issue #1, “transmission” was published in Sept 2010, followed by Issue #2 – “transience” and Issue #3 – “Transform.” Issue #4, “Transport,” is still underway.

trans lit mag publishes fiction, poetry, artwork (including cover art), and literary nonfiction, with “special attention given to pieces that play with form in some way, but this should be very loosely translated. Transform comes from the Latin word meaning to change in form, and characters often do undergo a change in appearance or character, but we can also be changed by what we experience – as readers and as artists.”

Contributors to past issues include Eric Sasson, Elana Seplow, Douglas Silver, Denny E. Marshall, Jaime Karnes, Shannon Anthony, Sergio Antonio Ortiz, Mitchell Waldman, Parker Tettleton, Jane Hardwidge, Donal Mahoney, Jim Fuess, Andrew McLinden, Jim Fuess, Anna North, Katherine Don, Edwina Attlee, Elizabeth Tenenbaum, Edwina Attlee, Jacqueline Simonovich, Howie Good, Hubert O’Hearn, Hillary Walker, Chizuco Shophia Yw, Jane Elias, Rigby Bendele, and Hubert O’Hearn.

Job :: Editor/Publisher (Ontario, CA)

NISA is seeking qualified applicants for the job of Editor/Publisher. This position is a full-time, one-year contract (maternity leave placement) beginning early August. The Editor/Pubisher edits and publishes NISA’s literary journal Open Minds Quarterly and The Writer’s Circle Online. NISA seeks someone with the skills and knowledge to do the job, with first-hand experience of mental illness. The position is based in Sudbury, Ontario. Deadline is Wednesday, July 20.

Call for Design Entries

From the New Orleans Review website: Be a part of New Orleans Review redesigned.

Call for Design Entries

Each issue will be illuminated by designers whose work reflects and responds to contemporary culture. We believe that good design encompasses art, typography, motion, photography, and illustration, and welcome it as an element that both complements and enhances the quality writing that has always been at the heart of the magazine.

Call for design submissions that explore text and image in a dynamic way. We believe that good design encompasses art, typography, motion, photography, and illustration, and welcome it as an element that both complements and enhances the quality writing that has always been at the heart of the magazine.

Work will be selected by our design editors and a guest designer. Please enter unpublished original designs. Each designer is allowed up to 5 submissions. Winners will be featured in the first redesigned issue of New Orleans Review due out in early 2012.

Open to all designers with the exception of current students, or employees, or others affiliated with New Orleans Review or Loyola University of New Orleans.

Deadline October 1, 2011. Please label files accordingly: Smith_John_01.jpeg (or other acceptable formats), Smith_John_02.jpeg (or other acceptable formats), etc. Winners will be contacted by October 15, 2011 for print-ready files.

Unfinished Novels

Self-proclaimed “six-time failed novelist” Steve Wilson began My Unfinished Novels to give writers a place to “publish” or at least place those pages of what once started with great hope and enthusiasm, and that have ended up – for whatever reason – unfinished.

Wilson accepts submissions of unfinished works, then publishes them on the site with the book’s title, author’s name, the number of pages or words completed, a short summary of the work, and a reason for not finishing novel. This information appears on the front page for the site (blog entries) with a link to a PDF of the first ten pages of the novel. Readers can leave comments.

The site is still in beta, and the blog format allows for easy scrolling through the newest entries, but there are no other ways to search through the content other than by the monthly entries.

After a few visits to the site, I admit I haven’t gone into any serious reading beyond the front page. I’ve actually enjoyed reading the “Reason Abandoned” for each story, some are humorous, some painful, and some, so common with reasons we tend to “abandon” anything in our lives. And some of the writers, while unsuccessful in completing their novels, profess success in other areas. Realizing novel writing wasn’t their thing, they pursued other genres with better success. It’s entertaining, affirming, and insightful to read these comments – for writers of any genre or length.

Wilson himself actually has been successful in publishing the nonfiction book, The Boys From Little Mexico: A Season Chasing The American Dream (Beacon Press, 2010). Still, he writes, “My Unfinished Novels exists to explore that idea: why was this novel abandoned? The answers, hopefully, will elucidate and entertain.” In this, I do say, Wilson is successful yet again.

WLA Syllabus Exchange Online

The Western Literature Association has launched an online Syllabus Exchange.

“The site is a gold mine of information, with well over 100 syllabi and a fascinating range of courses. Some syllabi include extensive bibliographies.”

The WLA welcomes suggestions for improving the site, including courses not already listed, or recommending contacts for requesting syllabi. WLA plans to update the syllabus exchange about every six months, so welcomes syllabi and encourages spreading the word about this generous resource.

Guidelines to Watch Out For

From Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware Blogs: Submission Guidelines to Beware of: Midwest Literary Magazine. In addition to discussing “anonymous” lit mag staff, this is a helpful read for writers who either aren’t reading guidelines carefully or aren’t quite sure of what some of the language means when it comes to who owns what with your writing. Writing Beware is an excellent professional/educational resource that every writer who submits work or is hoping to be published should read.

Fundraiser Anthology: Stories for Sendai

Edited by J.C. Martin and Michelle Davidson Argyle, Stories for Sendai is “an anthology of inspirational short stories loosely themed around the strength of the human spirit…in honor of the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Sendai, Japan.”

All proceeds will be donated to GlobalGiving in aid of victims of the earthquake and tsunami. GlobalGiving will disburse the funds to relief organisations and emergency services on the ground, including International Medical Corps and Save the Children.

Stories for Sendai is available for only $7.99 on Amazon. Send in a copy of your receipt to the editors, and you can be entered in a prize drawing for a number of fun prizes. See Stories for Sendai website for details.

New Lit on the Block :: Dublin Poetry Review

Dublin Poetry Review publishes Heroes Congress, an annual online collection of poems with a print anthology every four years showcasing “the vitality and range of current writing.” Once every year, poetry magazines and press editors may nominate from their publications, a poet who has made a significant contribution to poetry for inclusion in an upcoming Heroes Congress. Annual deadline: May 15.

Poets who write in languages other than Irish or English are welcome as are translations of their work into English or other International languages. The review first issue contains the work of sixty-seven poets who have contributed work from the five continents. The poets have contributed work in a range of languages including English, Finnish, French, German, Irish, Japanese, Malay and Spanish.

The review contains work by well-known poets, such as Niyi Osundare one of Africa’s best poets, Kimiko Hahn from Japan, Lorna Goodison from Jamaica, Biddy Jenkinson from Ireland, Regina Derieva from Russia, Gerardo Gambolini from Argentina, Rae Armantrout, 2010 Pulitzer Prize Winner from the US with Paul Muldoon, Andrew Motion from the UK, National Literary Laureate Muhammad Haji Salleh from Malaysia, Tom Dawe from Newfoundland and Jennifer Maiden from Australia.

New writers are also included, such as Liz Bachinsky from Canada and D

Documentary :: A Road Not Taken

A Road Not Taken is a book/DVD project by two Swiss artists and film makers, Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller, about the story of the Jimmy Carter White House Solar Installation.

Publisher Synopsis:

You may not remember this but in 1979, President Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the roof of the White House West Wing.

The panels, which were used to heat water for the staff eating area, were a symbol of a new solar strategy that Carter had said was going to “move our Nation toward true energy security and abundant, readily available, energy supplies.”

But in 1986, President Ronald Reagan removed the solar panels while the White House roof was being repaired. They were never reinstalled.

In 1991, the panels were retrieved from government storage and brought to the environmentally-minded Unity College about an hour southeast of Bangor, Maine. There, with help of Academy Award winning actress Glenn Close, the panels were refurbished and used to heat water in the cafeteria up until 2005. They are still there, although they no longer function.

Swiss directors Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller follow the route the panels took, using them as a backdrop to explore American oil dependency and the lack of political will to pursue alternative energy sources.

In the movie A Road Not Taken, the filmmakers took two solar panels from Unity, placed them in the back of two students’ 1990 Dodge Ram pick-up truck (which had been retrofitted to run on vegetable oil) and delivered one of them to the Jimmy Carter Library & Museum in Atlanta and the other to the National Museum of American History in Washington.

In 1979, Carter warned, “a generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people – harnessing the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”

It turns out Carter’s warning was at least partially correct: two of his solar panels are museum pieces now.

Request for Small Press Display Books

A letter from Natalija & Ognjen, curators of an upcoming small press book exhibit in Croatia seeking U.S. participation:

Dear colleagues,

we would like to invite you and your press to participate in an exhibition that would present independent US presses and their editions to the literary public, but also to translators, editors, critics, and literary scholars of Croatia and the neighboring region.

This exhibition (IamN – Izlozba americkih nakladnika / Exhibition of American Independent Presses) will be organized under the auspices of ZVONA i NARI (Bells & Pomegranates) Library and Literary Retreat, and curated by us, Natalija Grgorinic & Ognjen Raden.

ZVONA i NARI is a recently founded non-profit organization based in Liznjan, Croatia with a goal of promoting literary communication across the geographical borders (more information, albeit still only in Croatian, is available at www.zvonainari.hr). The two of us are writers, writing and publishing both in Croatian and English, graduates of Otis College’s MFA Writing Program (Los Angeles, CA), who have just earned a PhD in Literature at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH.

Having spent the better part of the past eight years in the US, we have become well acquainted with its literary scene, especially the independent one, and have for some time been aware of how little of that scene is noticed outside of the US borders. Unfortunately, the only literature that ever gets registered on an international scale is the one that gets picked up by commercial, corporate publishers, which, in our view, accounts for a very bland picture of what American literature is about.

Hence, by organizing this exhibition, we hope to offer local Croatian translators and publishers a deeper insight into current US literary trends and potentially establish new routes for literary dialogue and exchange. To participate in this exhibition all you have to do is send us at least one copy of each title you would like us to present. We encourage you to send primarily poetry and prose (meaning fiction and literature-oriented essays) of American writers. Please, accompany your books with any information you find relevant, either in regards to the authors or your press.

Depending on the number of books we receive for the exhibition, by October 2011 we will compile both digital and print catalogues, we will present the exhibition to the general public in participating public libraries in Croatia as well as the region, and will keep the books at our library in Liznjan making them permanently accessible to translators, publishers, and literary scholars who will stay at our literary retreat.

Here we need to emphasize that programs organized by ZVONA i NARI are absolutely free to the public: writers, translators, editors, critics, indeed all active participants in the world of literature. In fact, should you or any of your authors want to visit us, we would be more than happy to present your press and your work. Unfortunately, at this time, we still have no means of covering our guests’ travel expenses – our retreat offers free accommodation and logistical support to visiting writers.

For further information, regarding the exhibition, our literary retreat, or any other matter, contact us at: [email protected] or + 385 52 540 642.

You can send your entries for the exhibition to:

ZVONA i NARI

(for IamN)

Liznjan 840 B

52204 Liznjan

Croatia – Hrvatska

Should you decide to participate, do inform us of your decision by email so that we are aware of your entry, and that we are able to better organize our activities regarding the exhibition.

If, however, you find you have no interest in presenting your titles in this way or at this time, but have other projects we could help you with, please, remain in contact.

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,

Natalija Grgorinic & Ognjen Raden

www.zvonainari.hr

Think Symposium on Forum

The most recent issue of Think Journal (3.4) is dedicated to the Symposium: What We Talk About When We Talk About Form. “This is a round-table discussion conducted between March and May, 2011, among Ernest Hilbert, Julie Kane, Kate Northrop, David J. Rothman (co-moderator), David Sanders, Timothy Steele, Marilyn Taylor, Deborah Warren, James Matthew Wilson, with Christine Yurick as the moderator. Simon Jarvis and Tom Cable were asked to comment on the discussion in its entirety and their responses are included as an epilogue.”

New Lit on the Block :: Inlandia

In an effort to spotlight the Inland Southern California region’s rich literary heritage, Inlandia: A Literary Journey features regionally-focused poems, stories, essays, memoir, novel excerpts, book reviews, interviews, and a rotating feature of work produced by participants from the Inlandia Creative Writing Workshops series.

The editorial staff is made up of: Cati Porter, Editor-in-Chief; Maureen Alsop, Associate Editor, Poetry; Jo Scott-Coe, Associate Editor, Nonfiction; Gayle Brandeis, Associate Editor, Fiction; and Ruth Nolan, Associate Editor, Fiction.

The first issues available online include fiction by Kate Anger, Rebecca K. O’Connor, Samantha Lamph, Rayme Waters, E.J. Jones, and Valerie Henderson; poetry by Nicelle Davis, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, Stephanie Barbé Hammer, Gregory Liffick, Louise Mathias, Jeff Mays, Shin Yu Pai, Jean Waggoner, Cynthia Anderson, Nancy Scott Campbell, Marcyn Clements, Mike Cluff, Rachelle Cruz, Sheela Free, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, Cindy Rinne, and Ash Russell; nonfiction by Judy Kronenfeld, as well as Inlandia Creative Writing Workshop Features.

Inlandia reads submissions year-round.

New Lit on the Block :: Adanna

Adanna: A Journal for Women, about Women was created by Editor Christine Redman-Waldeyer as a way that she, a mother of three with a teaching career, could “pursue the writing life without traveling.” Her lifetime of wanting “to be utterly female and to do what the boys could do” is also in the philosophy of creating a magazine open to all, but that specifically “celebrate[s] the lives and writing of women.” Redman-Waldeyer hopes that Adanna will “offer women a new opportunity to publish in a publishing world where the gender scales are too often unfavorably tilted.”

The next submission period for Issue #2 is January 31-April 30, 2012, but Adanna is currently accepting “love poetry” for a contest. The 50 poems selected will be published in a perfect-bound print edition.

The inaugural issue of Adanna is guest edited by Diane Lockward, and includes the following contributors:

POETRY
Jennifer Arin, Janet A. Baker, Carol Berg, Kristin Berkey-Abbott, Pam Bernard, Debra Bruce, Sarah Busse, Laura Cherry, Laura E. Davis, Jessica G. de Koninck, Erika Dreifus, George Drew, Lois Parker Edstrom, Susan V. Facknitz, Patricia Fargnoli, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Alice B. Fogel, Ruth Foley, Maria Gillan, Maryanne Hannan, Penny Harter, Ann Hostetler, Adele Kenny, Claire Keyes, Kathleen Kirk, Jacqueline Kolosov, Judy Kronenfeld, Michelle Lerner, Robin Lim, Diane Lockward, Sandy Longhorn, Angie Macri, Marjorie Maddox, Greg McBride, Judith H. Montgomery, Julie L. Moore, Jim O’Rourke, Connie Post, Susanna Rich, Helen Ruggieri, Judith Skillman, Sarah J. Sloat, Molly Spencer, Christine Stewart-Nunez, Madeline Tiger, Ingrid Wendt, Laura S. Whalen, TJ Wiley, Lisa Zimmerman

SHORT STORIES
Margo Berdeshevsky, Colleen S. Harris, Liesl Jobson, Lani Friend, Nwamaka Osakwe, Pramila Venkateswaran

CREATIVE NON‐FICTION
Jessica McCaughey, Yelizaveta P. Renfro

ESSAY
Beatrice M. Hogg

Memoir (and) Prize Winners

The Memoir (and) Prizes for Memoir in Prose or Poetry are awarded to the most outstanding prose or poetry memoirs—traditional, nontraditional or experimental—drawn from the submission period.

Issue 8 (2011) of Memoir (and) awarded Grand Prize to David Norman, “Flight Patterns”; Second Prize to Charles Atkinson, “Passing Bell for Kobun Chino, Sensie”; and Third Prize to William Caverlee, “Longleaf Parish.” Each contributor receives a cash award in addition to publication.

The submission period for Issue 10 is now open and will close at noon Pacific time, August 16, 2011.

Michael Redhill Steps Down

Michael Redhill will step down as proprietor and publisher of Brick effective with the publication of the current issue (87). In his introduction to the issue, Redhill explains that he will still be with the magazine as part of an editorial/ownership collective which also includes Michael Helm, Michael Ondaatje, Esta Spalding, Linda Spalding, and Rebecca Silver Slayter.

Redhill imparts some of what he has learned from his having “been involved with Brick, in one form or another, for much of [his] adult life.” He writes:

This is the eighty-seventh issue of Brick, a small Canadian literary journal that has existed for thirty-three years and, at any given time, has never had more than 2.5 employees. As a business model, Brick could be in MBA textbooks as an example of what not to do. A small cultural concern is about the worst kind of business you could have: humans may begin to die from the moment they’re born, but arts businesses need daily resuscitation from the moment of inception. Innovation, legwork, networking, enthusiasm, and a refusal to be surprised by disaster are just a few things you need to make a go of it. And success is not expressed in profit, or even survival. Success for something like Brick is simply being able to play a meaningful role in a time and place, be part of a conversation, and stick around at least long enough to be taken seriously. In that regard, Brick has been a smashing success and all signs point to it continuing to succeed for many years to come.

Cooking in Rome with Alimentum

Cook & Tour in Rome, Italy w/ Alimentum Publisher Paulette Licitra
October 11-17, 2011

Shop at the outdoor food markets, small food shops, Roman supermarkets and bring the bounty back to a fabulous apartment in the historic center of Rome to cook and dine.

Tour Rome’s best of best places: Piazza Navona, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Capitoline Hill, Coliseum, St. Peter’s, Teatro Marcellus, Bocca di Verita, and more, plus great neighborhoods for shopping: boutiques, flea markets, and department stores.

The Good Books

Issue #14 of PEN America features The Good Books, in which over fifty writers — including Yiyun Li, Anne Fadiman, Karen Russell, Gary Shteyngart, David Shields, and many more — choose the works in translation they’d bring to a great global book swap. Several contributions are available for reading online.

Vote: Million Writers Award 2011

The storySouth Million Writers Award is for any fictional short story of at least a 1,000 words first published in an online publication during 2010. “Publication” means any magazine or journal with an editorial process (so self-published stories are not eligible). The deadline for nominations was March 15, 2011. The list of notable stories of the year was released on April 17, 2011, and the top ten stories were released on June 6.

NewPages Reviewer Henry Tonn offered his own take on the selections before they went to Sanford and two other judges to choose the final ten.

Voting on the top stories of the year will last for one month after the top ten stories are released, so the rest is up to you! Visit storySouth Million Writers Award page by July 6 to read and vote on the following top ten online stories of 2011:

“Hell Dogs” by Daphne Buter (FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry)
“Arvies” by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine)
“The Green Book” by Amal El-Mohtar (Apex Magazine)
“Do You Have a Place for Me” by Roxane Gay (Spork Press)
“Here is David, the Greatest of Descendants” by Spencer Kealamakia (Anderbo)
“The Incorrupt Body of Carlo Busso” by Eric Maroney (Eclectica)
“Cancer Party” by Nicola Mason (Blackbird)
“Arthur Arellano” by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Narrative Magazine)
“Elegy for a Young Elk” by Hannu Rajaniemi (Subterranean Magazine)
“Most of Them Would Follow Wandering Fires” by Amber Sparks (Barrelhouse)

EdgePiece Promises to Work With You

Just when I thought I’d heard it all (sometimes over and over), along comes a whole new and ambitiously innovative new publication. Still in the submission stage for its inaugural issue, EdgePiece is a collective of “emerging editors launching emerging writers.”

The editors include Head Editor Sarah Lindsay, Readers and Developmental Editors Sarah Lucas, Dakota Morgan, Pamela S. Wall, Katie Damphousse, Max Pickering, and Copy Editor Pamela S. Wall.

The editorial process, and the use of “developmental editors” means the editors will work with authors to help them polish their work to prepare them for publication: “We edit for spelling, grammar and in some cases, clarity/strength of arguments/purpose. We do NOT touch the author/artist’s voice, vision, or personal style, and we never fully reject a piece. We suggest improvements and encourage the author/artist to resubmit, for we are capable of seeing the potential in all submissions we receive.”

EdgePiece is currently “hungry” for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, with consideration for book/essay/poetry/film reviews, photography and other graphic/visual art for their first tri-annual issue.

Interviews: Amy Chua and Jessica Hagedorn

Kartika Review, a national Asian American literary arts journal, recently published Issue 9 for Spring 2011. The issue features two author interviews, with Amy Chua on her memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Jessica Hagedorn on her novel Toxicology. Kartika Review is available in print as well as online.

New Lit on the Block :: Fjords

Editors John Gosslee and Sarah Gallagher, along with a full staff, bring forth Fjords, a full-color, print annual “comprised of new cultural developments in art and literature,” featuring fiction, poetry, photography, visual art, new voices, authoritative figures, occasional biographies, interviews and film reviews.

The editors both solicit works from writers and artists, but maintain an open submission policy, “which creates a diverse collection of regional and international works from different eras, movements, and languages.” In addition to the print publication, Fjords also publishes some of its authors in a strictly audio format, which can be found on their website.

Included in the first print edition: poems by Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Corey Mesler, Olympia Sibley, Juliana Kocsis, J. J. Steinfeld, and 20th Century Ukrainian Poet Pavlo Tychyna translated by Stephen Komarnyckyj; the article “Ecclesiastic: a Font Orphan: Typographer Ed Edman restores a Font” by John Gosslee; prose by Judy Light Ayyildiz, Stephen Wade; art by Clay Witt and Suzun Hughes.

Fjords‘s next deadline for submissions is August 1, 2011

Publications :: Public Knowledge

Public Knowledge Journal is a multidisciplinary, graduate student-run, electronic journal hosted by the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture at Virginia Tech (ISSN 1948-3511). The journal incorporates a variety of communication technologies to sustain a conversation about the topics and questions raised in each issue. The journal welcomes contributions of articles for peer review, as well as book reviews, essays, interviews, and other works using a variety of media.

Public Knowledge Journal seeks articles, book reviews, essays, interviews, and multimedia submissions for Volume 3, Issue 2, on Academic Research. The deadline for scholarly articles and book reviews is September 1, 2011. Non-peer-reviewed and multimedia work will be considered throughout the lifespan of the issue.

April Family Matters Contest Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their April Family Matters competition. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories about family. The next Family Matters competition will take place in October. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here. First place: Rebecca Podos, of Brookline, MA, wins $1200 for “The Fourth.” Her story will be published in the Fall 2012 issue of Glimmer Train Stories. [Photo credit: Holli Downs.]Second place: Marjorie Celona, of Madison, NY, wins $500 for “Gladstone.” Her story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing her prize to $700.

Third place: Clark Knowles of Portsmouth, NH, wins $300 for “Each Other’s Business.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing his prize to $700.A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.Deadline soon approaching for the Fiction Open: June 30Glimmer Train hosts this competition quarterly, and first place is $2000 plus publication in the journal. It’s open to all writers and there are no theme restrictions. The word count generally ranges from 3000 – 8000, though up to 20,000 is fine. Click here for complete guidelines.