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New Lit on the Block :: Buzzard Picnic

In her Editor’s Note, Abby Holcomb writes: “Technological advances have certainly expanded our worldviews, yet they have also managed to diminish our attention spans and cheapen our appreciation of art. Much like Marx described the alienation of the worker from the fruits of his labor, James might identify the disconnect that certain technologies have created between an artist and his art and that art and its audience. This debut issue of Buzzard Picnic will deal thematically with the matter of alienation in all its manifestations.”

Featured in this inaugural issue is an interview with Hannah Tinti, “Bibliophilia,” an essay by Lauren Avirom, a review of E.L. Doctorow’s Homer and Langley by Shelley Huntington, fiction by Ingrid Wenzler, Dominic Preziosi, and Steve Duno, and poetry by Mather Schneider and Gary Leising.

Edited by Abby Holcomb and Lauren Avirom, with web designer Jason Thompson, Buzzard Picnic is open for submissions of short fiction, memoir, essay, criticism, book and story reviews, and author interviews; relevant comic strips, art and/or design will be considered for publication.

The best thing for poetry…

“The best thing that could happen to poetry is to drive it out of the universities with burning pitch forks. Starve the lavish grants. Strangle them all in a barrel of water. Cast them out. The current culture, in which poetry is written for and supported by poets has created a kind of state-sanctioned poetry that resists innovation. When and if poetry is ever made to answer to the broader public, then we may begin to see some great poetry again – the greatness that is the collaboration between audience and artist.” – Patrick Gillespie at PoemShape.

Open Letter to New Publishers

Once again, Writer Beware Blogs!, specifically Richard White, has stolen my heart with this latest post, which begins:

Dear New Publisher:

You may have noticed people discussing your company on various web sites. Normally, this would be a good thing, I mean, free publicity, right? But, when you go to these sites, they may be discussing your company in unflattering terms and asking all kinds of questions about your ability to get books into bookstores.

“But, wait. They can’t say that about my baby.”

Actually, yes they can.

Read the rest, including a comprehensive list of questions that ANYONE thinking about starting up a new press should be able to answer FIRST if they really expect a serious venture to result (and anyone thinking of publishing with a “publisher” should ask of them as well!).

Film :: Wide Screen Journal

“Wide Screen is a peer-reviewed, open access journal. It is devoted to the critical study of cinema from historical, theoretical, political, and aesthetic perspectives. With radical changes in the modes of production, distribution, and exhibition, the journal aims to combine the best of academic and journalistic critique of cinema to inform readers about the various critical vantage points from which to understand cinema in this dynamic environment.”

Currently accepting papers on Cinemas of the Arab World.

2010 Best European Authors

Best European Fiction 2010 is the inaugural installment from Dalkey Archive Press of what will become an annual anthology of stories from across Europe. This year’s edition is edited by acclaimed Bosnian novelist and MacArthur “Genius-Award” winner Aleksandar Hemon. The authors featured include: Ornela Vorpsi, Antonio Fian, Peter Terrin, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Igor Štiks, Georgi Gospodinov, Neven Ušumović, Naja Marie Aidt, Elo Viiding, Juhani Brander, Christine Montalbetti, George Konrád, Steinar Bragi, Julian Gough, Orna Ní Choileáin, Giulio Mozzi (AKA Carlo Dalcielo), Inga Abele, Mathias Ospelt, Giedra Radvilavičiūtė, Goce Smilevski, Stephan Enter, Jon Fosse, Michal Witkowski, Valter Hugo Mãe, Cosmin Manolache, Victor Pelevin, David Albahari, Peter Krištúfek, Andrej Blatnik, Julián Ríos, Josep M. Fonalleras, Peter Stamm, Deborah Levy, Alasdair Gray, and Penny Simpson.

Had Enough Twilight Yet?

Hachette Book Group‘s Yen Press has announced a March 16 publication date for their 350,000-copy run for their first installment of the graphic novel version of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. The book will be divided into two volumes, common for longer works, and will be black-and-white with color interspersed.

Graduate Poet Readers Wanted

For SAMLA’s conference in 2010, four graduate students in poetry will have the opportunity to read at the Graduate Student Poetry Circle. Since the focus of the 2010 SAMLA Convention is “The Interplay of Text and Image,” poets will read from their work that embraces this sense of interplay. Poets selected will read for fifteen minutes and will also speak for approximately five minutes on how their work or another contemporary poet’s work plays with text and image. The conference will take place in Atlanta, Georgia from November 5th-7th.

Please send a bio, a sample of three poems, and a brief paragraph that describes how your work or how a contemporary poet’s work merges text and image by February 15th to Charlotte Pence: cpence1-AT-utk-DOT-edu). Travel funds are available on a competitive basis through SAMLA.

Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers :: January 2010

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their November Short Story Award for New Writers competition. This competition is held quarterly and is open to any writers whose fiction hasn’t appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. No theme restrictions. Word count should not exceed 12,000. (All shorter lengths welcome.) The next Short Story Award for New Writers competition will be held in February. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: D.M. Gordon of Leeds, MA, wins $1200 for “The Work of Hunters Is Another Thing.” Her story will be published in the Spring 2011 issue of Glimmer Train Stories, out in February 2011. [Photo credit: Ellen Augarten.]

Second place: Amanda Korman of Williamstown, MA, wins $500 for “From the Needle of Gwen.”

Third place: Tara Stillions of La Mesa, CA, wins $300 for “General, After the Tornado.”

A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.

Also: Very Short Fiction competition (deadline soon approaching! January 31)

Glimmer Train hosts this competition twice a year, and first place is $1200 plus publication in the journal. It’s open to all writers, no theme restrictions, and the word count must not exceed 3000. Click here for complete guidelines.

Jobs & Fellowships

The Brown International Writers Project is currently seeking nominations and applications for its one-year fellowship with residency. Deadline: Feb 15

The English Department at Quinnipiac University accepting applications for Assistant Professor beginning in Fall 2010. Feb 28

St. Lawrence University invites Fiction or creative non-fiction writers with significant publications and teaching experience to apply for the position of Viebranz Visiting Professor of Creative Writing for the academic year 2010-2011. Dr. Sidney Sondergard, English

Monmouth University Assistant Professor, Creative Writing (Fiction) and Literature. Feb 28

New Lit on the Block :: Bananafish

Bananafish Magazine is “an online venue for exceptional, short-form literature with a focus on wit, originality, and innovation,” with Founding Editor Daniel McDermott and Assistant Editor Elaine Strome.

The inaugural issue, January 2010, features works by Teri Carter, Nathan Leslie, Kenneth Pobo, Anne Wagener, William Farrant, Eirik Gumeny, Nick Chambers, and Lindsay Champion.

Bananafish is open for submissions of fiction and memoir.

New Lit on the Block :: Eclectic Flash

Eclectic Flash editors Brad Nelson, Sheila Smith, Grandpa Fitz, Jason Smith, and Deborah Dalcin, have released the first issue, available online as PDF and also in print format. EF is pen to all styles and genre of poetry, prose, fiction, nonfiction, short script, essay, experimental, literary, horror, sci fi, etc. – as long as it’s fewer than 1000 words. The first issue is packed with works from fifty writers, and submissions are being accepted for the next issue.

Eclectic Flash is currently running a flash fiction and poetry contest. To enter, write a FF story or poem based on some element in a video posted on their site (and make a $1 donation).

[Re-posted with corrections.]

New Lit on the Block :: Atonal Poetry Review

“There is new voice for avant-garde and experimental poetry that can now be heard. An electronic journal that showcases unconventional writers and subject matter far from the main stream featuring beat, postmodern, jazz, and free verse poetry from all over the world.” Published by J.P. Farrell and edited by Michelle Garvey, Dominick Montalto, Atonal Poetry Review has launched its inaugural issue.

Contributors come from Canada, Ireland, The United States, India, Norway, England and Germany. Featuring poet Dr. Lorne Foster, other authors include Ben Velazquez, J.R. Slonche, Joe Wetteroth, Rebecca Singh, Jason Joyce, Daniel Klawitter, Devika Menon, Catherine Frazer – and many more for a total of 30 poets.

Atonal Poetry Review is currently accepting submissions of poetry and certain essays, reviews and interviews – see their website for specific information.

eBooks Required by Law

A new state law, effective January 1, 2020, will require that all textbooks used in public and private postsecondary institutions be made available in electronic form “to the extent practicable” either “in whole or in part.” Senate Bill 48 states that “the electronic version of any textbook shall contain the same content as the printed version and may be copy-protected.” [The Chronicle of Higher Ed]

New Lit on the Block :: Fractions

Founded in Wichita, KS in the summer of 2009, Fractions is are a bimonthly independent arts publication that features visual artists, writers, musicians, film makers, craftspeople, culinary artists and other individuals engaging in creative pursuits. It presents work from individuals, local to international, amateur to professional. Fractions is available via Issu on their website as well as in print. It is supported by contributions from the community.

New Lit on the Block :: 5×5

5×5 is radio terminology used to signify that the signal has excellent strength and perfect clarity. And 5×5 is also a “nascent, printed literary magazine” publishing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, comics & visual arts in a palm-sized (5″x5″), saddle-stiched format. The most recent issue includes works by James Hannibal, Jory M. Mickelson, Ian Denning, Jonathan W. Sodt, Ryler Dustin, R.M. Hanson, Nathan Burgoine, and Jenni B. Baker. Each issue is themed, but as the editors point out, “themes are meant to be suggestions only…play with our themes…tell us your leaps of imagination and wordplay…we don’t want to box you in.”

Submission are open to high school and beyond, with free subscriptions offered to high school students.

TMR William Peden Prize

Each fall, The Missouri Review selects the best fiction published in TMR during the previous volume year as the William Peden Prize in fiction. This year, James A. McLaughlin was named for his story, “Bearskin,” which appeared in volume 31 number 2. This year’s judge was Greg Michalson, co-publisher of Unbridled Books.

New Lit on the Block :: Leveler

Edited by Jennifer H. Fortin, P.J. Gallo, Evan Glasson, and Yotam Hadass, Leveler offers a new approach to publishing poetry online. Each week, the editors publish one poem, alongside which they offer their comments about the work: “To assure our readers we are being responsible editors and to increase the transparency of our editorial process as a whole, each poem published by LEVELER will be accompanied by a brief note on our selection entitled ‘levelheaded.’ Here we will look at what a poem conveys and how. In no way do we claim ‘levelheaded’ is a final, authoritative take on any corresponding poem. Instead, we hope to provide readers with another way into the poem, thereby encouraging closer readings, and ultimately, challenges to our findings.”

The editors also offer their readers an opportunity to respond to each poem as well: “we encourage thoughtful responses to individual poems and challenges to our own observations and interpretations.”

While Leveler has the next month of poems planned, they are open for submissions.

Currently published or waiting in the wings are poems by Priyadarshi Patnaik, Karen Neuberg, Gerald Yelle, Nate Pritts, Jay Snodgrass, Mark Jackley, Heather McNaugher, Stephen Danos, Ron Green, Chris Caldemeyer, Nancy Devine, Tom McCauley, and Rob Schlegel.

Frederick Douglass on Haiti

From his Lecture on Haiti by Frederick Douglass, delivered in Chicago at the Dedication Ceremonies at the World’s Fair, in Jackson Park, January 2, 1893:

“Haiti is a rich country. She has many things which we need and we have many things which she needs. Intercourse between us is easy. Measuring distance by time and improved steam navigation, Haiti will one day be only three days from New York and thirty-six hours from Florida; in fact our next door neighbor. On this account, as well as others equally important, friendly and helpful relations should subsist between the two countries. Though we have a thousand years of civilization behind us, and Haiti only a century behind her; though we are large and Haiti is small; though we are strong and Haiti is weak; though we are a continent and Haiti is bounded on all sides by the sea, there may come a time when even in the weakness of Haiti there may be strength to the United States.”

[Thanks to Gabriel Gudding for the link.]

Yale Open Courses

Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.

Under English: Milton with John Rogers; The American Novel Since 1945 with Amy Hungerford; Introduction to Theory of Literature with Paul H. Fry; and Modern Poetry with Langdon Hammer (pictured).

These are full-semester courses with separate video segments for each session and a syllabus with reading list.

New Lit on the Block :: Palimpsest

Palimpsest is edited and published by the CU Humanities Club and the CU Literaria Society, and though the majority of the contributors to this first issue have Colorado connections, the publication also includes and welcomes non-Colorado contributors.

More inclusive in terms of content, Palimpsest seeks “engaging work in all genres of the Humanities, including literary fiction and poetry, film and theater scripts, creative nonfiction, visual art (including painting, drawing, segments of graphic novels, photography, film stills, and documentation of installation or performance work), audiovisual submissions including film, music, and electronic text (for publication on Palimpsest website), librettos and musical scores, handwritten work and text-art, artistic and philosophical manifestos, literary theory, scholarly essays, and new translations into English of work in all applicable genres.”

Distribution of the print publication seem limited, but complimentary copies will be sent to those who inquire.

New Lit on the Block :: Dark Lady Poetry

Founding Editor Amber Victoria Tudor and Web Designer Kevin Jobe bring Dark Lady Poetry to the web on a monthly basis. Already in its forth issue since late 2009, Dark Lady Poetry has featured such writers as A.P. Chambers, Louie Crew , Joseph Fonseca, Jennifer A. Hudson, Lola Nation, Benjamin Neal, Michael Padilla, Ivy Peterson, Judith Skillman, Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, Broadie Thornton, Ivy Torres, Clifford K. Watkins, Jr., and Brandon Whitehead.

Dark Lady Poetry accepts all forms of poetry, and is open for submissions.

New Lit on the Block :: Jelly Bucket

Jelly Bucket – once the term used for a coal miner’s lunch pail – has become something quite different at the hands of the Eastern Kentucky University Creative Writing Program. An annual of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and artwork, the publication is unique in providing an eight-page color insert in each issue dedicated to visual art that incorporates text and/or features an aspect of the book arts. This first issue highlights the poetry and handmade journals of poet/artist Hank Lazer. Also included in this issue are works by Mary Molinary, Dan Sociu as translated by Adam Sorkin, Roger Pincus, Tony Crunk, Gaylord Brewer, Heather van Deest, and many more.

Jelly Bucket is open for submission from February 1 through June 1, accepting only original, unpublished works.

New Lit on the Block :: Scarab iMag

Editors Brian Wilson and Ian Terrell are touting Scarab as the first literary magazine for your iPhone. The publication promises to deliver eleven new works of poetry and prose and one interview per issue – only for your iPhone and iPod touch. There is a fee for per use of the app, but Wilson and Terrell note that “22% of the purchase price for each issue goes directly to the artists involved.”

The first issue includes authors Isris Goodwin, Dan Rosenberg, Bryan Parys, Sarah Stickney, Major Jackson, Hannah Larrabee, Sean Bishop, Leah Williams, Alicia Ostriker, and Michael Venditozzi.

Passings :: David Franks

Baltimore poet David Franks was found dead in his home on Thursday, January 14,2010. He had been battling cancer and other health issues, though a cause of death has not yet been released. Joe Wall – “David’s web guy, collaborator, friend” – has posted a note asking for comments, stories, etc. to help rebuild David’s web site, which had lost content due to a server error. Visit the site here.

Closings :: Bodhi Tree, CA

Phil Thompson and Stan Madson, owners of Bodhi Tree Bookstore (Los Angeles), reportedly told their staff last week that the store will be shutting its doors in a year’s time after almost 40 years in business. With both owners in their 70s, they decided to sell the building on Melrose Avenue to a real estate developer. Read more on WEHONews.com.

Passings :: Laura Hruska

Laura Hruska, co-founder of the Soho Press in 1986 (along with her husband, Alan Hruska, and their friend Juris Jurjevics) died January 9, 2010 at her home in Manhattan. Hruska is noted for helping launch the careers of many prominent writers, including Edwidge Danticat, Dan Fesperman, Robert Hellenga, Susan Richards, Garth Stein, and Jacqueline Winspear. As of January 1, Hruska’s daughter Bronwen Hruska took over as publisher of Soho Press. Memorial services were held on January 15.

Mrs. P Writing Contest Winner

Announced today, the winners of the Mrs. P National Writing contest: Gabrielle Fuller, 8,from NC with her comic fairy tale, “Pretty Princess and Funky Frog” and Isabella Penola, 12, from NY with her poignant tale of an elderly gardener, “Spattered Mud and Crushed Petals.”

Mrs. P’s website is a free interactive digital storybook destination that has begun to receive award recognition for its kid-friendly content. Classic children’s stories are brought to life in the Magic Library by TV star Kathy Kinney as Mrs. P.

Puritan Lives

After a sixteen-month hiatus, Editors Spencer Gordon and Tyler Willis have brought back
The Puritan in a new online format. This inaugural online issue includes poetry by Angela Hibbs, Nathaniel G. Moore, Andrew Faulkner, Catriona Wright, Mike Spry, Pearl Pirie, Monty Reid, fiction by John Lavery, John Goldbach, Eva Moran, Michael Bryson, Sarah Dearing, Michael Blouin, Rebecca Rosenblum, and interviews with Sheila Heti and Jan Zwicky.

The Puritan is also accepting submissions of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, interviews, and reviews, as well as art for covers related to the publication content.

Black Holes and Creative Comments

Brief, but refreshing to see such creative writing in a post comment string:

Anekanta – Go Play!
Wha da fuh…??? Matter flows away from the black hole, and thus the galaxy doesn’t swallow itself?

This makes me happy! Now I can establish my galactic empire without fear of it imploding due to natural forces! Tremble, mortals!

Bill-Lee
@Anekanta – Go Play!: Do you have a chief minion yet? Cause I’ve been looking for an evil overlord to boss me around…

Read the rest here.

Wallace Stevens Walk

The Friends & Enemies of Wallace Stevens in Hartford, CT, dedicated the Wallace Stevens Walk this past summer: thirteen granite makers, each etched with a stanza from his poem “Thirteen Ways to Look at a Blackbird.” The walk retraces WS’s steps from his workplace, The Hartford building at 690 Asylum Avenue, to his former home at 118 Westerly Terrace. If you can’t make it there in person, the organization’s website includes an aerial map and photos from each of the thirteen marker locations.

New Lit on the Block :: Southern Women’s Review

Edited by Alicia K. Clavell, the Southern Women’s Review is a newly established on-line literary journal that allows others access to artistic excellence through Southern Literature and Photography. The second issue features over 100 pages of creative works from poets, fiction and creative non-fiction writers, photographers, and more. The next reading period for the publication begins March 1, 2010.

Dominican Republic Women’s Poetry

Upcoming on The Moe Green Poetry Discussion on BlogTalk Radio – January 13 at 6:00 PM – Join Rafael and Brett as they talk to Judith Kerman the translator of Praises & Offenses: Three Women Poets from the Dominican Republic. While the three poets presented in this bilingual collection present a rich contrast of linguistic and stylistic elements, each of them addresses shared political and cultural issues, illuminating what it means to be a woman living in the modern day Dominican Republic. Judith Kerman, who has translated a number of female poets from the Caribbean, notes that “contemporary women poets from the Dominican Republic are the most under-served group when it comes to English-language translation, in particular full-length collections or anthologies.” Thus, this exciting new anthology from BOA contains much that was previously unavailable to the English reader.