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Baltimore Review Winter Contest Winners

The editors of The Baltimore Review are pleased to announce the winners of their winter contest:

Brett Foster, 1st place, for “On the Numbness That Will Be Our Future”
Clay Matthews 2nd place, for “An Angel Gets Her Wings”
Roy Bentley, 3rd place, for “O, Kindergarten”

The final judge for the contest was Reginald Harris.

The poems are included in the online issue launched January 31. The issue also features poems, short stories, creative nonfiction, and a video by Kilby Allen, Janette Ayachi, Gaylord Brewer, Daniel Butterworth, Michael Capel, Valerie Cumming, Anne Goodwin, Peter Goodwin, John Goulet, Piotr Gwiazda, Matt Hobson, Michael Derrick Hudson, Amorak Huey, Brian Maxwell, Sheila O’Connor, Rebecca Orchard, and Margaret Stout.

The next submission period for The Baltimore Review is February 1 – May 31.

Poem :: Jonathan Greene

American Life in Poetry: Column 464
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

We human beings think we’re pretty special when compared to the “lower” forms of life, but now and then nature puts us in our place. Here’s an untitled short poem by Jonathan Greene, who lives in the outer Bluegrass region of Kentucky.

Untitled

Honored when
the butterfly lights
on my shoulder.

Next stop:
a rotting log.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2001 by Jonathan Greene, whose most recent book of poems is Distillations and Siphonings, Broadstone Books, 2010. Poem reprinted from blink, September-October 2001, vol. 1, no. 2, by permission of Jonathan Greene and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Literary Citizenship

At Ball State University, Cathy Day is teaching a special class in creative writing called Literary Citizenship. The advice she teaches is something all writers can listen to. Engage in the community, and see what you can do for the literary world, not what it can do for you. “I’ve started thinking that maybe the reason I teach creative writing isn’t just to create writers,” Day writes, “but also to create a populace that cares about reading. There are many ways to lead a literary life, and I try to show my students simple ways that they can practice what I call “literary citizenship.” I wish more aspiring writers would contribute to, not just expect things from, that world they want so much to be a part of.”

Here’s some excerpts from the main blog post on her page:

1.) Write “charming notes” to writers. (I got this phrase from Carolyn See.) Anytime you read something you like, tell the author.

2.) Interview writers. Take charming notes a step farther and ask the writer if you can do an interview.

3.) Talk up (informally) or review (formally) books you like. Start with your personal network. Then say something on Goodreads. Then Amazon.com or B&N. Then try starting a book review blog.

4.) If you want to be published in journals, you must read and support them. Period.

5.) If you want to publish books, buy books

6.) Be passionate about books and writing, because passion is infectious.

She then goes into more detail about these challenges. Follow what the class is doing on the site, literarycitizenship.com, and join in on their challenges.

2013 Editors’ Prize Contest Winners

The Winter 2013 issue of SRPR (Spoon River Poetry Review) features the winners of the 2013 Editors’ Prize Contest:

First Place ($1000): Jesse Nissim, “Fire”

First Runner Up ($100): Dante Di Stefano, “Praying to Ares After Listening to My Father’s Voice Message”

Second Runner Up ($100): Carol Matos, “Goodbye Charlie”

Honorable Mentions:
Leland James, “A Brief History of the Electric Chair”
Susan Charkes, “Conveyance”
Michael Sukach, “Poetry Critic: a Found Pastoral”‘
Arne Weingart, “Parenthetical”

Advice by Dan Gerber

American Life in Poetry: Column 463
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

This touching poem by Dan Gerber, who lives in California, captures the memory of a father’s advice, but beneath the practical surface of that advice we can sense a great deal of emotion, which shows through a little crack at the moment the father clears his voice before continuing.

Advice

You know how, after it rains,
my father told me one August afternoon
when I struggled with something
hurtful my best friend had said,
how worms come out and
crawl all over the sidewalk
and it stays a big mess
a long time after it’s over
if you step on them?

Leave them alone,
he went on to say,
after clearing his throat,
and when the rain stops,
they crawl back into the ground.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2012 by Dan Gerber, from his most recent book of poems, Sailing through Cassiopeia, Copper Canyon Press, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press. Introduction copyright © 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

So it’s been a while since I posted about magazine covers, but don’t worry–I’m not stopping now! The holidays and AWP have put me a little behind with these posts, but there are plenty in store. If only you could see the boxes and boxes of litmags I have to go through! And one of the delights is discovering some amazing artwork and photography and design on the covers:

Room‘s cover features a house with one side removed so that you can see the, what do you know, rooms. The Dollhouse: Blue Night #2 was constructed in 2007 by Heather Benning with wood, plaster, paint, mixed media, and an existing abandoned house.

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Salmagundi Magazine‘s cover just looks like fun. It features Untitled (Hunterdon County, NJ) by Meredith Moody from about 1984.

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 This cover of The Fiddlehead features the work of Deanna Musgrave’s acrylic on canvas, Crown.

Screen Reading is FRESH Online Review!

This month, Editor Kirsten McIlvenna brings a fresh round of online literary magazine reviews to Screen Reading. This unique monthly review column explores great reading online, this month featuring a critical look at Brevity, East Coast Ink, Ghost House Review, Jersey Devil Press, and Really System. Engaged Readers. Creative Writers. Start Here.

Kugelmass :: In Transition

In issue number 4 of Kugelmass, Editor David Holub writes that this is the last edition in association with Firewheel Editions and Kugelmass co-founder Brian Clements. “The support and guidance Brian and Firewheel have provided Kugelmass from its inception has been beyond invaluable and Kugelmass wouldn’t exist without it,” he writes.

On the website itself, it announces that Kugelmass is on hold and is not currently publishing issues. The blog post reads, “there’s a bit of a transition ahead and an uncertain future for Kugelmass.” Let’s hope it’s not done for good.

Here’s some highlights from the current issue, still available through the website as either print or digital copies: essays by Charlie Geer, Tracy Golden, and Daniel Asa Rose; stories by Jenny Allen, Daniel Brauer, John Henry Fleming, Josh Logue, Andrew Nicholls, Joe Plicka, Ryan Shoemaker, George Singleton, and Lisa Wilde; poetry by Laura Ramos and David Galef; comics by Pat McKay; and photos by Pete Duval.

Help Denise @ NewPages

As a reader, writer, teacher, student, publisher, editor, etc. – How do you use NewPages?

I am in the process of having my work with NewPages recognized by my college, and any notes of support from people using NewPages would help!

Teachers/Students – If NewPages is included on your class website or in the class syllabus, please send me a link or a copy.

Send comments and relevant materials to [email protected]

Thank you!

december Revived!

december magazine, around since 1958 who published Raymond Carver’s very first published story along with writing from future U.S. Poets Laureate, state Poets Laureate, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award writers, and more, is making its comeback. And while it lay dormant for a little bit, Gianna Jacobson has purchased the magazine and has big plans for its return.

The revival issue has been published with a variety of work from past contributors as well as new writers. Jacobson writes, “As I sifted through boxes and books and journals, taking stock of all that december had been and meant to the literary world, I felt a circus-performer-like surge of adrenaline and committed myself to upholding december‘s legacy . . . As I settle into my role as ringmaster, I invite you to experience and enjoy a rich array of literary and artistic performances.”

This issue features the work of Jack Anderson, Annette Basalyga, Amy Beeder, Marvin Bell, Stephen Berg, Douglas Blazek, Grace Cavalieri, Kelly Cherry, Jaydn Dewald, Albert Goldbarth, H. L. Hix, Karen Holman, Lawson Fusao Inada, Jesse Lee Kercheval, Michael Lally, Michael Fedo, Gary Gildner, Marge Piercy, Faye Reddecliff, Jay Duret, Gary Fincke, Sherri Hoffman, and more.

Glimmer Train November Short Story Award for New Writers Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their November Short Story Award for New Writers. This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. The next Short Story Award competition will take place in February. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to Natasha Tamate Weiss [Pictured. No photo credit.] of San Francisco, CA. She wins $1500 for “What It Means to Rush” and her story will be published in Issue 93 of Glimmer Train Stories. This is Natasha’s first published fiction.

2nd place goes to Amy Evans Brown of Kalamazoo, MI. She wins $500 for “The Hudson.”

3rd place goes to Gabe Herron of Scappoose, OR. He wins $300 for “Uriah.”

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

Symposium on Poetic “Risk”

The latest issue of Pleiades puts forth a special Symposium on Poetic “Risk” in which poets and critics have been invited to select a recent poem that is “risky” and write a short essay about why. In the introduction to the section, the editors say that 10 or 15 years ago, risk in poetry was a big topic, but now there has been less discussion of it. “We found ourselves wondering: Has the idea of ‘risk’ in poetry been somehow rendered obsolete? Is it now considered a less important poetic value than it once was? Are there new and exciting ways that poets are currently taking risks in their works? Are the risks of poetry actually quite constant and old?”

Contributors to this section include Robert Archambeau, Rae Armantrout, Jaswinder Bolina, Victoria Chang, Heather Christle, martha Collins, Carl Dennis, John Gallaher, Tony Hoagland, Cathy Park Hong, Joan Houlihan, Joy Katz, John Koethe, Randall Mann, Adrian Matejka, and Rusty Morrison.

Sharon Drummond Chapbook Prize

FreeFall‘s latest issue features the poetry of Angela Simmons, winner of the Sharon Drummond Chapbook Prize. This prize was established in 2013 in memory of the Calgary poet Sharon Drummond and honors Alberta-based writers who have never before published a collection of poetry. Angela Simmons received a contract with Rubicon Press to publish her work in an edited chapbook. The issue includes several selections from this chapbook.

2013 Write Prize for Poetry

Able Muse‘s Winter 2013 issue announces and includes the winners of the 2013 Write Prize for Poetry:

Winner
D.R. Goodman: “The Face of Things”

Second Place
Jeanne Wagner: “The Unfaithful Shepherd”

Third Place
Richard Wakefield: “Keepaway”

Finalists
D.R. Goodman: “Our Late in Summer”
Tara Tatum: “The Nut House”
D.R. Goodman: “A Red-Tailed Hawk Patrols”
Anna M. Evans: “Prague Spring”
Melissa Balmain: “Two Julys”

Fractured West’s Final Issue

Fractured West, which announced some time ago that it would be ceasing publication, has come out with their fifth and final issue. Here’s all about it:

“Issue 5 is about endings and beginnings, the world after the world is over. In futuristic stories debris cascades back to earth from outer space while humans and animals run wild together; in personal stories relationships self-destruct and are reborn. Whatever else happens, people slip from life to death with freedom and hope for something more.

A theme of ending and renewal is appropriate for what will be our final issue. It has been a wonderful five years, full of unexpected stories and characters that will stay with us for years to come. As we both move on to new stages in our lives we hope the writing that we’ve published in Fractured West will stay with you too, reminding you to catch those glimpses of magic whenever and however they flash by.”

SRPR Contest Winners

SRPR (Spoon River Poetry Review)‘s Editors’ Prize 2013 Contest winners are announced and published in the latest issue:

 First Place ($1000)
Jesse Nissim, “Fire”

First Runner Up ($100)
Dante Di Stefano, “Praying to Ares After Listening to My Father’s Voice Message”

Second Runner Up ($100)
Carol Matos, “Goodbye Charlie”

Honorable Mentions
Leland James, “A Brief History of the Electric Chair”
Susan Charkes, “Conveyance”
Michael Sukach, “Poetry Critic: a Found Pastoral”
Arne Weingart, “Parenthetical”

2013 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction

The Colorado Review‘s latest issue features the winner of the 2013 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction, the prize’s 10th anniversary. Judge Jim Shepard selected Edward Hamlin’s “Night in Erg Chebbi” as the winning piece. Editor Stephanie G’Schwind writes that it is a “hauntingly beautiful story.” And Shepard writes that it “deftly deploys the kind of flyblow and faintly absurd exoticism shot through with menace that was Paul Bowles’s specialty, but the observational intelligence of its portrait of a loving but exhausted couple at the end of their tether is all its own, and both its sense of place and its pained compassion are arresting.” To read more about the prize, click here.

Also featured in this issue are Miki Arndt, Corey Campbell, Molly Patterson, Jen Hirt, Keane Shum, Sarah K. Lenz, Karen Leona Anderson, Mario Chard, Mark Conway, Robert Dannenberg, K.A. Hays, Michael Heller, Nabil Kashyap, and more.

Melville Fans :: Remaking Moby-Dick

“The Re-Making Moby-Dick project is an international multimodal storytelling performance instigated and enacted during 2013 to 2018. Poets, writers, artists, schoolchildren, scholars, dancers, curators, and sailors are invited to engage the project and participate via the means most natural to their expressive practice. The 135 chapters, along with the extracts, inscription, epigraph, and epilogue, of Herman Melville’s 1851 novel serve as prompts for responsive work created in multiple forms, recorded in digital video and exhibited online.”

Curator Trish Harris and Project Director Lissa Holloway-Attaway have completed the compilation and a participatory video screening that took place at the the Blekinge Museum in Karlskrona, Sweden during the Mixing Realities Digital Performance Festival in May 2013: “The festival foregrounded mixed reality works presented by scholars, curators, and International artists working across media (in sound, video, augmented reality, digital and live performance, dance).”  The YouTube channel for the videos is still available, as well as this compilation of the 24 hour MobyReading Marathon.

Trish and Lissa have also repurposed and re-contextualized the project artifacts, offering yet another “text” published online and in print form that can be shared with a wider audience, along with the original work from the festival, as a further extension of the project. The online version includes QR codes for audio/video content.

It doesn’t stop there – Trish and Lissa are collecting and curating new video so to screen a more-complete Remaking Moby in both Europe and the U.S. in 2014.

Although submissions are now closed, you can still participate by responding to “specific to separate chapters or passages in Moby-Dick or critically interpret some aspect of the novel, extending the meaning and significance of Moby-Dick and reflecting on its continued relevance. The full text of Moby-Dick is available at Project Gutenberg. Chapter synopses are available at Novel Guide.”

For more information, visit Re-Making Moby-Dick.

Readers’ Favorites from New Letters

In the latest issue of New Letters, they announce the readers favorites for Volume 19 Issues 1-4, 2012-2013:

Readers Award for Fiction
Douglas Trevor: “Slugger and the Fat Man”

Readers Award for Poetry
Claudia Serea: “My Father’s Quiet Friends in Prison, 1958-1962”

Readers Award for the Essay
Walter Cummins: “Roth’s Complaint”

First Annual Federico Garcia Lorca Poetry Prize Winners

Green Briar Review held its first annual Federico Garcia Lorca Poetry Prize judged by Sean Thomas Dougherty, who notes, “In judging the poems submitted for this contest, I looked foremost at language on the level of the line. This was the difference in deciding which poems were most successful. Then at meaning, then at guts. It was this last one that showed some poems were just braver emotionally than others.”

Dougherty selected the top three poems and then ten Honorable Mentions. Each of the three Green Briar Review editors then selected one poem from those ten for publication.

First Prize
What the Other Eye Sees
Christina Clark

Second Prize
Whiteness
Cary Waterman

Third Prize
Tattoos and Birthmarks
Patrice Melnick

Honorable Mention Editors’ Pick

Spiders and Big Gear Talk
Harlow Crandall

Tearing Down the Horseshoe & Star
Gentris L. Jointe

O Dochartaig, Ar nDutcas
Kevin Dougherty

Honorable Mentions

April Aubade
Richard Foerster

Soledad
Monica Teresa Ortiz

Cake
Trish Harris

Tarke al Yayeb Mohamed Bouazizi
Josh Gage

Lilacs
Mary Golias

Break On Through
Jeanne Sirotkin Haynes

State Park
Abigail Chiaramonte

Ninth Letter in 3D

The only thing not surprising about Ninth Letter is that it is always surprising. The latest issue comes with a pair of disposable 3D glasses. But careful where you put them, you’ll want them to view the cover, design, and artwork throughout (though I’d recommend taking them off for reading purposes). The issue also holds large, foldout portfolios of artwork.

Included is the winners of the 2013 Literary Awards:

Poetry winner
R. A. Villanueva, for his poems “Aftermaths” and “Sacrum”

Fiction winner
Caitlin O’Neill, for her story “The Change Over Day”

Creative Nonfiction winner
Jessica Wilbanks, for her essay “On the Far Side of the Fire”

Literature in Translation
Eleanor Goodman, for her translation of excerpts from Shen Wei’s A Dictionary of Xinjiang

Other honors accorded by the judges include:
G. C. Waldrep selected “Three Expressions of El Tio” and “Five Characteristics of the Genus Tragelaphus” by Zoey Farber as the Runner Up entry in poetry

Alexis Levitin selected Olga Nikolova’s translations of “A Birthday Between Two Seas,” “A Formula for Infinity,” and “Toast” by Krasimira Zafirova’s as the Runner Up entry up in translation

Margot Livesey named “Pinprick” by Christie Heinrichs, “Charcoal” by Rachel Unkefer, and “Here Where the World Is Greening” by Rachel May as Honorable Mentions in fiction.

Screen Reading :: Online Lit Mag Reviews!

Exclusive to NewPages, Screen Reading is a regular column of reviews of current online literary magazines. This month, Reviewer Kirstin McIlvenna takes a look at Agave Magazine, Alimentum, Apogee, FictionNow, and The Monogahela Review. Brief but critical, these reviews shine the light on great online reading. NewPages: Good Reading Starts Here!

2013 Kalos Foundation Visual Art Prize

Ruminate‘s 30th issue features the winner of the 2013 Kalos Foundation Visual Art Prize, which was judged by Joel Sheesley and sponsored by the Kalos Foundation. Sheesley writes about the winning piece by Alla Bartoshchuk, “The human body is the empirical core in these paintings. By fixing states of being in deft representation of the body, Alla Bartoshchuk translates ethereal states into physical encounters. Thus psychological and emotional conditions are given an undeniable veracity, we feel them and know them as our own.” Here are the winners:

First Place
Alla Bartoshchuk

Second Place
Steve A. Prince

Honorable Mention
Ashley Norwood Cooper

Finalists
Robyn San Anderson
Jonathan Aumen
Rebecca Calhoun
John Chang
Jenne Giles
Susan Hart
Zacheriah Kramer
Janet McKenzie
Barry Motes
Sydney Sparrow
Krista Steinke
Melissa Weinman
Rachel Yurkovich

The artwork of the top three winners are featured on the cover and throughout the magazine.

Original Artwork on Every Cover

The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review‘s Winter 2013 issue is exciting, right from glancing at the cover. When I received the NewPages copy, I had to look closely. Is that Sharpie on the cover? I flipped right to the editor’s note, and saw this:

“And isn’t this, we could say, ‘uncontrollable’ element of art one of the things that makes it so indispensable? I think so. When we publish the magazine each year, it is no longer, literally, in our hands, but in the hands (and eyes and ears) of our subscribers and readers. To that end, this year’s cover is something rather unusual. Each copy of this issue has an individually illustrated cover. Some may be signed, others may be anonymous. The artists range from professional illustrators and visual artists to college students, to academics, to elementary art school teachers to elementary school students themselves. They’ve all been done in a the simple medium of a permanent marker or two . . .”

Nathaniel Perry goes on to say that just like you can’t control what will be on the cover of your copy, you can’t control how you will read or react to any of the poetry. But here are the writers you can expect to find in this issue: Claudia Emerson, Maria Hummel, Christopher Howell, Robert Wrigley, and more.

Best of Spittoon 2013 Awards

Spittoon is happy to announce their “best of” winners for 2013. For more information about the authors, and to read their selected pieces, click here.

Fiction
Patrick Kelling, “How to Teach Disgorgement”

Poetry
Theresa Sotto, “hippocampus–for etching and retrieving long-term memories”

Creative Nonfiction
Irene Turner, “The Lessons”

Looking for Interns

Sundress Publications is looking to hire two interns, to start immediately. The two options are an editorial intern (to work with the Flaming Giblet Press imprint) or a web development intern (Sundress Publications). To find out more information and to apply, please click here.

New Student-Run Literary Arts Magazine: Howl

Deltona High School’s new online literary arts magazine, Howl, is an after-school organization staffed by students and advised by English teacher Dylan Emerick-Brown. The goal of Howl is two-fold: 1) to teach high school students how to write creatively and clearly in their own voices; analyze, evaluate, and edit others’ work; learn about the writing/editing field as a career option; and overall, expand their minds to the world outside of Deltona and 2) to provide the world with quality selections of literature from which to read and learn.

Deltona High School students read, edit, and publish poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and art from submissions gained either from other Deltona High students or from international submissions that come in from across the globe, giving these students real-time, real-world insight into the world in which they live. They also have partnered with Other Press, Chicago Review Press, and other publishers to read advanced copies of books and write real book reviews. Designers in the class have created website content, web banners, t-shirt designs, and more all while learning about the process of graphic designing as part of a staff from beginning to end. Additionally, the students get to interview acclaimed writers and publishers from around the world either via Skype (face-to-face, so to speak) or email. So far, our students have interviewed or are currently slated to interview:

Robert Pinsky – former US Poet Laureate
Diane McWhorter – Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction
Elizabeth Strout – Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction
Paul Harding – Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction
Lois Lowry – author of The Giver
Lauren Kate – author of The Fallen series
David Levithan – author of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
John Maguire – author of Wicked
John Duff – Vice President and Editor for Perigee Books, a division of Penguin Books
Barbara Epler – Editor-in-Chief of New Directions
Yuval Taylor – Editor for the Chicago Review Press

The staff of Howl does everything that a professional literary magazine does, and then some. The experience they gain is valuable for continued success in the classroom as well as for future endeavors in the literary arts. Their passion and drive is what runs the website and new, innovative ideas are always spawning from our weekly meetings. The students look forward to setting new goals, expanding their minds, and contributing to the global literary conversation.

2014 Broadsides Ready for Posting!

Broadsided has completed two poetry/art projects to share:

#1: The Haiku Year-in-Review (HYIR 2013) features four haiku by Beth Feldman Brandt, Michael Rutledge Riley, Catherine R. Cryan, and Ron Levitsky selected by popular vote to illustrate the seasonal broadside art by Caleb Brown.

#2:  Responses to Typhoon Haiyan for which three artists shared work, then writers submitted poems and short prose. Now, three original collaborations are available for download.

Collaborators’ Q&A are also published on the site along with their work.

All of Broadsided’s collaborative art and poetry posters are available for free download and are meant to be freely shared and posted.

December Screen Reading: Online Lit Mag Reviews

The most unique review feature on the web, Screen Reading is a regular column of reviews of current online literary magazines. This month, Reviewer Kirstin McIlvenna takes a look at Ascent, Blue Lyra Review, Chagrin River Review, Compose, and Lines + Stars. Brief but critical, these reviews shine the light on great online reading. NewPages: Good Reading Starts Here!

Last-Minute Stocking Stuffer

A subscription to Fact-Simile’s Poetry Trading Cards is a great gift idea that arrives once each month to the lucky recipient. I’m a huge fan of these cards (you might even say obsessed!). They’re printing on recycled cardboard (though come in a sturdy plastic sleeve) and are modeled after the Topps baseball cards from the 30s, with a photo of the poet on the front, and the poem on the back. Right now, you can subscribe for only $10+s/h for 2014, with past cards available on the web site for 99-cents each. Fun, inexpensive, year-long gift giving of poetry. What could be better?

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

Meaty Gonzales writes in this “bones” issue of Meat for Tea: “This issue will get under your skin and cut through the fat to get to the very bone. Bones. To get to the bare-boned truth, to reveal the skeletons in your closet, to sip a healing broth, bones evoke many conflicting emotions and memories . . .”

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The 2013 issue of The Idaho Review features Bill Carmen’s “The Earialist” which is a 5×7 acrylic on copper made in 2010. It’s slightly creepy, unsettling, but oh-so-interesting to look at!

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Read this about the latest Tin House cover: “This issue’s cover art, Yellow Book, is about connections forged through books. [The artist, Sophie Blackall, says] ‘So many of the missed connections I read [on Craigslist] mention books, ‘You were on the F train, reading As I Lay Dying . . .’ but lots of us have also found friends and lovers through books. The only thing better than a beloved book is a book shared with a beloved.'”

Editorial Changes at North Dakota Quarterly

The editor’s note in the latest issue of North Dakota Quarterly starts, “For the first time in 31 years, our editor Robert Lewis no longer heads our efforts. On August 26, 2013, Bob passed away, leaving behind a remarkable legacy. . . It was Bob’s passions and interests that drove NDQ, and they were many . . . One of his most endearing traits was his sense of humor, which was dry, dry, dry. . . We still feel his presence. In this limited space, it’s impossible to give a sense of such a rich and complex man. We are planning a special tribute issue to him which should be out in summer 2014.”

Sharon Carson is the Interim Editor, and the issue features writing from Dana Salvador, Brad McDuffie, Ted Kooser, Holly Day, Patricia Hooper, Brian Maxwell, Anne Valley-Fox, Fred Cardin, Sharon Chmielarz, Gregory Gagnon, and more.

Western American Literature’s New Home

In the latest issue of Western American Literature, Fall 2013, Editor Melody Graulich writes her last editor’s note. On July 1, 2013 Utah State University ended all funding for the magazine. The magazine will find a new home with new editors at the University of Nebraska Press, “a very natural home for our journal,” she writes. Tom Lynch will take over as the new editor, taking into effect some of the decisions Graulich has already made for the upcoming issues.

“Since 1979, the Western Literature Association has been my professional and emotional safety net and home base,” writes Graulich. “You all are the most supportive, generous, smart, unpretentious, and fun collection of friends I could ever have. I have loved editing our journal . . . I’ll be around WLA for a few more years (at least), but for now, I’m glad to be able to hand WAL off into Tom’s more-than-capable hands.”

Emerging Writer’s Contest

Ploughshares‘s latest issue features the winners of the Emerging Writer’s Contest:

Fiction Winner
Memory Blake Peebles: “The Sugar Bowl”

Nonfiction Winner
Mary Winsor: “Rock-a-bye, Ute”

Poetry Winner
Josephine Yu: “Never Trust a Poem that Begins with a Dream”
“Narcissist Revises Tidal Theory”

You can read all of these pieces as well as info about the authors in the winter 2013 issue.

The Kenyon Review Turns 75

The latest issue of The Kenyon Review marks its 75th anniversary, celebrating with “Ellen Priest’s brush strokes swooshing colors across the cover” and “the table of contents adazzle with talented authors, old friends and new.”  But, as David H. Lynn points out in the editor’s note, “There is much to celebrate beyond mere longevity.” As with most publications, there have been many ups and downs. “Thanks to some creative leadership by trustees of Kenyon College and later by the newly formed trustees of The Kenyon Review,” Lynn writes, “our finances today are more stable—are truly secure—in a way that John Crow Ransom might only have dreamed.”

In honor of Ransom, the journal plans to present “a contemporary reimagining of one of his boldest editorial initiatives: the Kenyon Review Credos. In the early 1950s some of the most celebrated public intellectuals of the day, among them Northrop Frye, William Empson, and Leslie Fiedler, contributed to The Kenyon (as it was known) their personal credos, not confessing spiritual faith so much as the core of their professional philosophies and aspirations. These essays, still fascinating, will be reprised in KROnline in coming months.”

They have also asked 16 active writers in the creative arts to offer their own “latter-day credos.” Four will appear in print and twelve online. This issue features that of Carl Phillips. This issue also features Katharine Weber, Heather Monley, Wes Holtermann, Clarke Clayton, Amit Majmudar, Charles Baxter, Joyce Carol Oates, Roger Rosenblatt, John Kinsella, and more.

Rain Taxi Online Auction Ends Dec. 18!

RAIN TAXI Review of Books is holding its annual benefit auction until December 18. You’ll find an eBay auction filled with great literary presents for yourself or (perfectly timed with the holidays) to give to someone else. There are signed books, rare items, and more! This is a great way to support Rain Taxi – a nonprofit publication – and get great collectibles for yourself or others.

Broadsided Wants Votes & Submissions!

From December 12 – 22 the Broadsided polls are open! Decide which of the haiku finalists their editoral staff has chosen will be paired with Caleb Brown’s art in January. Broadsided has posted Caleb Brown’s art for the chosen events of spring, summer, fall and winter of 2013 alongside the finalists. Now they need your editorial input! Voting is free, easy, and fun… you can even see how the polls stand once you’ve weighed in.

ALSO, this is the last weekend for you to submit writing for Broadsided’s Responses feature. Three artists have shared work responding to Typhoon Haiyan. Broadsided ask you to widen the conversation by submitting poems and short prose. They will publish selected collaborations as a “Responses” feature. Deadline: December 15. Help show how art and poetry can offer solidarity, hope and vision.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

This cover of The Missouri Review‘s Fall 2013 issue is a photo by Beth Hoeckel titled “Tip Toe.” This is a special “transcendence” issue, featuring Nick Arvin, Claudia Emerson, Jane Gillette, Jason Koo, Dorothea Lasky, and more.

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In general, I just love The Common‘s cover designs; they always feature a common object. And just as they aim to “find the extraordinary in the common” for their writing, they follow the same example with their covers. It just makes sense.

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And speaking of covers that just make sense, check out the recent cover of Iron Horse Literary Review. Does it really need any explanation? The artwork is metal sculptures located at Landmark Bank, N.A. in Kingston, Oklahoma, constructed and designed by Doug Owen.

Subscribe to the NewPages Newsletter

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Atlanta Review :: Poetry 2013

Each year, Atlanta Review hosts a poetry competition in which the grand prize winner earns $1,000. For 2013, it goes to Dane Cervine. The Fall/Winter 2013 issue features his poetry as well as that of the other winners.

Poetry 2013
International Publication Prizes

Judith Barrington
Susan Browne
Lucas Carpenter
Susan Cohen
Patricia Davis
Keith Eisner
Rose Gottlieb
Pauletta Hansel
Margaret Hoehn
Carol Stevens Kner
Robert Koban
Lisa C. Krueger
Steve Lautermilch
Roy Mash
Ellen Peckham
Eve Powers
Caroline Sposto
Jeanne Wagner
Scott Williamson
James K. Zimmerman

To view the winners of the International Merit Awards, go to Atlanta Review‘s website.

Cry Baby

In the editor’s note to the “Cry Baby” issue of The Literary Review, Minna Proctor writes about how she has always had a thick skin: “It was a philosophical position: crying was for babies. Crying made you weak. My calculated clear-eyed aspiration was to be strong. And so I was doctrinaire, even a little pathological, about not crying.” She goes on to say that putting out that front means that everyone assumes you are okay, and nobody comes in to help. She writes that she was ambivalent about the theme, but the titled was “accidentally included in [the] roster two years about by an intern, and before [she] had the chance to erase it, there was a ticker-tape swell of enthusiasm from the rest of the editorial staff,” that she let it stand. And now, the issue embodies that ambivalence: “Like a love song that calls you names because you are a terrible, inexperienced, transparently manipulative cry-er, but loves you anyway.”

The issue features writing from Jody Azzouni, Elizabeth Cantwell, Cynthia Cruz, Dan Gutstein, Heather Hartley, David Luoma, Carrie Messenger, Jerry Whitus, Alex Cigale, Heather Higle, H.L. Hix, and more.

So to Speak’s Fall 2013 Fiction Contest

So to Speak‘s latest issue features the winners of the Fall 2013 Fiction Contest, judged by Asali Solomon. Taking first place is Rebecca McKanna’s “Watch Out for Lions,” and Tamar Altebarmakian takes the honorable mention with “Sit Still and I’ll Weave.”

About McKanna’s piece, Solomon writes, “There’s not a false moment in this story of Delia, a middle schooler who must wrestle with changes in her body win the absence of the mother who abandoned her and her father. . . . I was also thrilled by the surprising but emotionally authentic climax of the story. I think, however, what I loved best about this story was McKanna’s incorporation of sinister background detail, which gives the story unusual texture.”

And Solomon writes that Altebarmakian’s piece “is fresh in its exploration of heritage, history, generation gaps, and genocide. Altebarmakian’s matte-of-fact and lucid prose style and the deadpan humor of the story work extremely well with the tragic and dramatic subject matter.”

The issue also features nonfiction by Jane Eaton Hamilton and Stephanie Dickinson and poetry by Alice Notley, Jenifer Browne Lawrence, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Danielle Pafunda, Laura Davis, and more.

Arcadia’s First Guest-Edited Issue

Arcadia‘s “The Post-Traumatic Issue” is guest-edited by Benjamin Reed, the magazine’s first guest editor. He writes, “I didn’t choose ‘The Post-Traumatic’ as the theme for this issue of Arcadia in order to navigate the reader to some topical tropic, some tangential island just off the known continent of literature. I did not ask writers to submit stories of aftermath, loss, and recovery in order to explore the cognitive and literary backwaters of how life becomes art, or vice versa, but rather to draw the reader even closer to the art of defragmentation, which is always at the very center of the many means and motives at play when we sit down to write.”

For the issue, Reed selected work by Joe Amaral, Erika Anderson, Martin Barkley, Catherine Campbell, Tanya Chernov, Aubrey Edwards, Tessa Fontaine, Lindsay Illich, John Liles, Peter Mason, Katherine Menjivar, Don Peteroy, Amber Rambharose, Jordan Rossen, Joe Scott, Hali Fuailelagi Sofala, Dan Szymczak, and Bradford Tice.

Rattle Poetry Prize Winners

The latest issue of Rattle features the winner and finalists of the Rattle Poetry Prize. Robert Ascalon of Seattle, WA took the prize for “The Fire This Time’ and was awarded $5,000. The editors write, “With blazing language and a pounding rhythm, ‘The Fire This Time’ poses hard questions—and leaves us longing for answers.”

Winner
Roberto Ascalon

Finalists
Chanel Brenner
Rebecca Gayle Howell
Courtney Kampa
Stephen Kampa
Bea Opengart
Michelle Ornat
Jack Powers
Danez Smith
Patricia Smith
Wendy Videlock

Safety Pin Review Poetry Contest

A unique concept to start, Safety Pin Review pushes the boundaries further with its first ever contest. To begin, understand that SPR is a biweekly that ‘publishes’ works of 30 words or less by hand painting them on a cloth patch and having them worn by a poetry operative (a collective network of authors, punks, thieves, and anarchists) everywhere they go for one week.

For their contest, they will accept poems of up to 75 characters. SPR writes: “The winning piece will be painted onto a patch, which will then be distributed to 4-5 operatives around the country/world, who will wear it simultaneously for a week. The patch will be designed in a form very different from all of our past issues. I can assure you: it won’t be anything like we’ve done before. In addition, the work will be published digitally as an issue of the Safety Pin Review, with accompanying action photos and commentary by the operatives. Finally, later on down the line, it will be made into a t-shirt, which will be given free to the winning author and be available to all for purchase.”

For more information, see the SPR website, and if you’re concerned about the submission fee, rest assured, “There is no entry fee, because that’s not punk at all.”

Sunday Poem

American Life in Poetry: Column 454
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

I once wrote a not-so-very-good poem called “Picking Up After the Dead,” about the putting-in-order we feel compelled to do when a family member has passed on. In this poem Sherod Santos, who lives in Chicago, writes what I wished I could have written.

Out of the World There Passed a Soul

The day of my mother’s funeral I spend clearing out
her overgrown flower beds, down on my knees
in the leaf rot, nut shells, tiny grains of sandlot sand
spilling from the runoff gullies. The hot work was to see
not feel what had to be done, not to go on asking,
not to wonder anymore. Full from scraps I’d found
at the back of the refrigerator, her mongrel dog
lay curled on a stone and watched me work.
It was Sunday. The telephone rang, then stopped,
then rang again. By the end of the day, I’d done
what I could. I swept the walk, put away the tools,
switched on the indoor safety lamps, and then
(it hardly matters what I think I felt) I closed
the gate on a house where no one lived anymore.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2012 by Sherod Santos, whose most recent book of poems is The Intricated Soul: New and Selected Poems, W. W. Norton & Co., 2010. Poem reprinted from The Kenyon Review, Vol. XXXIV, no. 4, by permission of Sherod Santos and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

This cover of Gulf Coast is part of a collection by Mary Reid Kelley called The Syphilis of Sisyphus. Jenni Sorkin writes in the introduction to the pieces, “Shot by collaborator Patrick Kelley in high-definition video in a stark palette of black and white, there is a mournful quality to the hand-drawn stage sets and highly stylized actors. Reid Kelley herself takes on the role of Sisyphus, yet all the characters are only recognizable as archetypes, hidden by bulging golf balls for eyes.”

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A storm-trooper clone doing ballet. I’m sorry, but what is there not to love about this? The cover art for The Literary Review is titled “Corps de Clone” by Rebecca Ashley. “The work in this exhibit brings my worlds of dance, parenting, and photography into one sphere where, like a dancer on stage, belief is often suspended and being in the moment is all,” she writes.

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The latest cover of Graze, a literary magazine centered around food,  features different items of food hanging out in a library. An ice cream sandwich lays in the middle of the floor reading a book. And on the back, there is also a melting popsicle, a book-reading piece of pizza, and other assorted foods. The art is by Kyle Fewell.

Call for Book and Lit Mag Reviewers

NewPages is looking to take on a few more reviewers for our book reviews and literary magazine reviews pages. If interested, please follow this link to review the guidelines.

Those interested in reviewing books should contact Book Review Editor Holly Zemsta at hollyzemsta[at]newpageswork[dot]com.

Those interested in reviewing literary magazines should contact Literary Magazine Review Editor Kirsten McIlvenna at kirstenmcilvenna[at]newpageswork[dot]com.

Book Covers :: Picks of the Week :: December 5, 2013

This week’s selections include poetry, Mexican fiction, and the memoir of a lost Holocaust childhood.

Out of Their Minds, fiction by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, Cinco Puntos Press

“Hey, what’s up, come a little closer, I have something to tell you,” God said to Cornelio. The deal was simple: God would be the silent partner in the norteño band that Cornelio had started with his best friend Ramon. Cornelio would sing and play the bajo sexto, Ramon the accordion, and God would write the songs. Cornelio agreed; he would sell his soul to God.

Success and disaster followed. The band went from playing bars in Tijuana to playing the biggest stadiums in Mexico. Women started fan clubs and motorcycle gangs dedicated to their heroes, Ramon and Cornelio. It seemed to Cornelio and Ramon that they had everything, but fame was a cruel mistress.

“Of course, what good is a novel about music without music?” Cinco Puntos notes. They have created a Spotify playlist of music from the novel; the playlist can be accessed at the book’s page on the Cinco Puntos site. Turn up the volume while you read.

Looking for Strangers: The True Story of My Hidden Wartime Childhood, nonfiction by Dori Katz, University of Chicago Press

Dori Katz is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who thought that her lost memories of her childhood years in Belgium were irrecoverable. But after a chance viewing of a documentary about hidden children in German-occupied Belgium, she realized that she might, in fact, be able to unearth those years. Looking for Strangers is the deeply honest record of her attempt to do so, a detective story that unfolds through one of the most horrifying periods in history in an attempt to understand one’s place within it. A story at once about self-discovery, the transformation of memory, a fraught mother-daughter relationship, and the oppression of millions, Looking for Strangers is a book of both historical insight and imaginative grasp. In it, the past becomes alive, immediate, and of the most urgent importance.

Obedience, poetry by Chris Vitiello, Ahsahta Press

Obedience features dual-sided printing: begin with either cover (pictured above) and flip the book over and continue reading after you finish one side…or at any point, actually, as Ahsahta notes that the book can be read “forwards, backwards, and laterally.” From its dedication (“for the word ‘THIS’”) to its cascading sentences that demand “Explain yourself to this dot • ” or observe “The first word was a command,” Chris Vitiello’s unique book creates a reading experience of poetry that borders on the compulsive. “The title of this book should be the entirety of the text of this book over again,” the author suggests before urging the reader: “Go on.”

(And for those who are curious after seeing the book’s covers–the ISBN and bar code are on the spine.)

There are no poem titles or page numbers; this can be found about seven pages in, starting with the pink cover:

A tree performs a function: to itself grow
Tear out this page and cut a paper snowflake from it
Don’t read the rest of this book; cut the remaining pages into snowflakes
A photograph of a tree is
That someone created the concept of closure is disappointing

[flip the book over and read the following next to that passage]

That someone created the concept of closure is embarrassing
This line says that it is a photograph of a tree
Mulch this page and germinate a tree with it
Don’t read the rest of this book; mulch the remaining pages
The living really only replicate themselves

Check out more great reads in our latest batch of book reviews, posted last Monday.

Ahadada Books Relocated

Ahadada Books website is no longer available, but publisher/editor/writer Jesse Glass assures us that “e-books, web-texts, and editions of Ekleksographia are safe and sound at Archive-it.org thanks to the great folks at the University of Maryland Digital Collections. Please access our content accordingly: Ahadada Books@ Archive-it.org You may call up all our e-books, including The Witness, and all copies of Eklekso using the search function on the Ahadada page. Please continue to order Ahadada Books via SPD. Amazon and Barnes & Noble also continue to offer our books.”