The newest issue of Merdian (22/May 09) includes the winners of the Editor’s Prize 2009:
Fiction Winner Helen Phillips, “The Eyes of Cecile”
Fiction Finalist Nahal Suzanne Jamir, “In the Middle of Many Mountains”
Poetry Winner: Angus A. Bennett, “Muted with a Line from Someone Else’s Memory”
Also announced in this issue are next year’s editors: Jazzy Danziger, head editor; Jasmine Bailey, poetry editor; Kevin Allardice and Memory Peebles, fiction editors.
From Gloria Jacobs, Feminist Press Executive Director:
Marilyn French, a Feminist Press author and honorary board member, died on May 3. We are very proud to be the publisher of all of Marilyn’s latest works, including her novel, In the Name of Friendship, and her extraordinary 4-volume history of women in the world, From Eve to Dawn. I am especially pleased that Marilyn lived to see that opus published and to see the extensive review that appeared in the New York Review of Books by Hillary Mantel. Marilyn unfortunately did not live to see her latest work, the novel The Love Children, in print. The Press will be publishing it in September.
Marilyn had an indominatable spirit. She faced numerous illnesses over many years and not only kept going but kept producing new work throughout—including the memoir she had been working on and had hoped to finish. She will be deeply missed by her many friends, her adoring readership, and all of us who delighted in her feisty, spirited presence.
Wands at the ready, Professor Richard Dawkins is taking on Harry Potter. Well, not exactly, as he admits he hasn’t read the famous children’s book. Rather, Dawkins next work will focus on children’s fairytale books as being dangerously “anti-scientific,” among other things. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to it!
Wow and holy cow! We’ve got a great batch of lit mag reviews this month!
Alligator Juniper, Bayou, Beloit Fiction Journal, Creative Nonfiction, Cutbank, Gulf Stream, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Hunger Mountain, Iron Horse Literary Review, JMWW, The Ledge, Manoa, Memoir (and), New Orleans Review, PALABRA, Slice, The Sycamore Review, Third Coast, Western Humanities Review, Willow Springs, and Word Riot.
Sarabande Books, an independent, nonprofit, literary press established in 1994, is seeking a Marketing Director/Development Assistant. Looking for an individual with a strong commitment to contemporary poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as superior organizational and public relations skills. Minimum BA, MFA, and /or experience desirable. Candidates must be self-starters and highly attentive to details and deadlines.
Job responsibilities include marketing and publicity for each of ten annual titles, attendance at three annual book conferences, and twice yearly visits to NYC book reviewers. Some fundraising activity is also involved, depending upon need: assisting Editor-in-Chief Sarah Gorham with letter campaigns, tracking donors, and two-to-three small local parties.
The position includes full-time salary, health, dental, and retirement benefits, private office equipped with a Mac, and ample marketing budget.
Sarabande’s work atmosphere is busy, but friendly. Vacations are generous and staff turnover is extremely rare. Louisville is an affordable, culturally rich, medium-sized city.
Please send letter, resume, three phone references, and a list of your top fifteen favorite contemporary poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction titles, by June 15 to:
Sarah Gorham
sgorham[at]sarabandebooks[dot]org
Museum to exhibit Bronte’s depictions of decadence
Clive White
Telegraph & Argus
Wednesday 20th May 2009
Secret sexy drawings by Branwell Bronte will be revealed at the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the Bronte sisters’ wayward brother.
Research for the exhibition has unearthed faintly-drawn indecent pencil sketches of figures on the back of a finished drawing. The exhibition also charts his failed affairs and possible fathering of an illegitimate child.
“Sex, Drugs and Literature – the infernal world of Branwell Bronte” charts the tragic and sometimes scandalous life of the man who died a drunken wreck aged 31. It is to be unveiled on Saturday, May 30, at the Parsonage Museum in Haworth and will run until June 1, 2011. [Read the rest.]
Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention, has released the ballot for the 2009 Hugo Awards. Members of Anticipation can vote online at the convention web site. The deadline for voting is midnight July 3, 2009. See who’s on the ballot.
Happy Birthday Theodore Roethke!
May 25, 1908
Who among our readers isn’t at least familiar with the poetry of this man? I can only imagine of the hundreds who read this now, a high percentage can recite lines from “My Papa’s Waltz,” if not the poem entire. It is amazing the breadth and depth some poets reach in our culture, and yet, how quickly an integral part of someone so important can be forever lost. I’m talking now about the Roethke House in Saginaw Michigan, just a stone’s throw from NewPages World Headquarters.
Yes, it’s still there. The very kitchen in which “My Papa’s Waltz” was undoubtedly romped about the room, and the very bedrooms into which the children crept unto their straw mattresses as “The Storm” bent the trees in the yard halfway to the ground. Still there, for now, thanks to a very recent rally of time and energy from a small handful of supporters in the area. Headed up by JodiAnn Stevenson, the group has made a concerted effort of late to keep the house from falling away from the public. Some previous insider conflicts had stalled the board of trustees and well-meaning supporters from moving forward with plans to refurbish the house, install gardens and greenhouses on the property, and longer-term plans to purchase surrounding properties (one home said to have belonged to Roethke’s mistress).
However, thanks to the efforts of JodiAnn and her cadre of supporters, plans to turn the house over to closed-use have ceased, and the goal now is to continue with the plans to refurbish the home and keep it open to the public. As JodiaAnn has said, “Can you imagine standing in the very kitchen and reading “My Papa’s Waltz”? People should be able to do that.”
A year or so ago, I had the opportunity to visit the final home of Carl Sandburg. I can’t say as I even knew him or his writing that well when I stopped in those North Carolina foothills, but I did come away with a new found appreciation for his life and work. The house was turned over to the national parks, and has been maintained, absolutely intact – right down to a beer can sitting on one of the hundreds of packed book shelves, and an open box of cigars. Our tour guide walked us through the house and stopped at the bed where Sandburg took his final breaths. I stood there at the head of the bed, and looked out the very window he would have looked. I saw the evergreen trees blanket the hills, and the rose-orange sun break through behind the haze of clouds that hung over the mountains. It is an image I will never forget, its meaning intensified by my thinking I was seeing exactly what Carl Sandburg had seen, and I understood why he wanted to move there, why he wanted to die in that very place. I began reading Carl Sandburg.
Can you imagine reading “My Papa’s Waltz” in Theodore Roethke’s childhood kitchen? Can you imagine sitting and writing in the very same backyard garden or on the porch of his childhood home? We can’t always understand how incredibly powerful these moments can be to us until we have them. Yet, so many writing retreats are held in places made famous by authors past, attempting to allow us to know these feelings, make these connections. As writers, we are bound to one another in ways we cannot explain, but we certainly know them when we feel them, and of course, spend our lives trying to write about them in some way better than meager reminiscence.
Theodore Roethke, whose poetry has touched so many lives, and will no doubt continue to do so, deserves a lasting place, not just in our memories, but in the very physical space of his childhood. The home of Theodore Roethke deserves to be preserved, maintained, improved upon, and open to the public. We as writers deserve this. But it won’t be handed to us. We have to be the ones to act to preserve this historic home, this future haven for writers, and where some may first come to discover poetry.
Of course there are many people behind these efforts, and more are always welcome to join in whatever way possible. But there is no doubt that what the effort also needs is money. It would be great if some big, ole’, loaded philanthropist would fall from the sky and just bring in a truckload of cash, but not only is that highly unlikely, it also absolves the rest of us from taking any real responsibility in this. We need to be responsible. We need ownership in this. If you can, donations to the house are welcome.
My great idea is this: anyone who ever wrote a paper on Roethke’s poetry and got a passing grade should donate $20. Those of you who wrote a paper and didn’t get a passing grade should donate $10; it wasn’t his fault you didn’t pass, after all, but I can understand you might still have hard feelings. If you’ve written a published essay about Roethke, donate $50, and a published book, donate $100. I think this alone would allow the house to survive.
Aside from that, membership in the Friends of Theodore Roethke Foundation is open to the general public; consider gifting a membership to others.
Even no money support is helpful: tell others about the house and the work of the people who are bound and determined to save it for the rest of us; drop JodiAnn an e-mail and just say thank you. I can guarantee you, she’s given up enough sleep and time away from her children to deserve at least that from us.
For those of you living near enough, you can participate in the continuation of last year’s Centennial Celebration of Roethke’s birth. Whatever you do, do it now. Be one of the people who can say, “I helped save that house. I helped make it what it is.”
Centennial Celebration
May 30th and May 31st 2009
Made possible in part by National Endowment for the Arts
Saturday , May 30th 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Saginaw Children’s Zoo at Celebration Square – Zoo Amphitheater.
1730 S. Washington Ave., Saginaw
Bay Arenac Reading Council in collaboration with Friends of Theodore Roethke present: Party at the Zoo by Theodore Roethke with children’s activities and Roethke children’s poetry
Saturday, May 30 7:00 pm
First Presbyterian Church
121 S. Harrison Street, Saginaw, Michigan (in back of City Hall)
David Wagoner reads his play, First Class, a play in one act that spotlights Theodore Roethke’s deeply poetic teaching style and creative life.
Sunday, May 31st 1:00 – 5:00 pm
Anderson Enrichment Center
120 Ezra Rust Drive, Saginaw, Michigan
1-3pm Poetry workshop with David Wagoner
Spaces are limited. Please reserve: Gloria Nixon-John – [email protected]
3-4pm Roethke Rouse/ poets read the poet
If you are a Michigan poet interested in reading Roethke’s poems, please contact JodiAnn Stevenson at 989-971-9089 to be placed on the schedule of readers.
4-5 pm Poets-in-Residence, Rosie King and David Wagoner will read their poetry.
Throughout the day (1-5pm), at Anderson Enrichment Center, we will also be offering: BOOK FAIR of work by local/ Michigan poets & presses; FILM chronicling the importance of the survival of the Theodore Roethke house as well as the work and mission of the Friends of Theodore Roethke; and RECEPTION for seniors and students who participated in oral history collection project entitled Historic Perspectives of Roethke’s Saginaw made possible by a grant from Michigan Humanities Council.
5-6pm Court Street Bridge Walk: A walk across the Saginaw River while local/Michigan poets conclude the final read of the Roethke Rouse.
6-8pm Dinner Buffet at Jake’s Old City Grill – Old Saginaw City
100 S. Hamilton Street
Michigan poets will read their own work with centennial poets-in-residence, Rosie King and David Wagoner
Cost of the buffet dinner is $30 for non-students and $15 for students. Please call Kathie Bachleda at 989-280-6765 or Annie Ransford at 989-928-0430 for reservations.
For more information about Centennial Celebration events, please call 989-928-0430.
Festival of Italian Contemporary Poetry & Poetics
Presenting Maria Attanasio, Giovanna Frene, Marco Giovenale & Milli Graffi
New York May 26-27 / Chicago May 28-29
Featuring Italy’s foremost experimental and emerging writers–poets, but also critics and translators–the festival inludes readings, panel discussion, symposium and salon to bring an array of new poetic voices to US readers to reveal points of confluence and conflict within Italian and global poetries.
Curated by Aufgabe #7 guest editor Jennifer Scappettone and co-sponsored by Litmus Press, Poets House, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, St. Mark’s Poetry Project, University of Chicago Arts Council and Departments of Romance Languages and Creative Writing, Northwestern University Department of French and Italian, Chicago Poetry Center, and Th!nkArt Gallery.
Lee Gutkind, editor of Creative Nonfiction, has created a blog category of great interest for CNF writers, Ask the Godfather: “A lot of people have a lot of questions about creative nonfiction, but I’ve noticed that a majority of those questions are similar. So, in an attempt to broaden the reach of my answers, I’ve decided to post some of your questions with my answers here on my blog.”
Want to know the truth about creative nonfiction sub-genres? Or the best way to convince people the value of creative nonfiction? Or how to gauge whether or not what your writing is creative nonfiction?
Visit this first of what we can hope will be many great installments from the Godfather of CNF. And, of course, readers are invited to send in questions!
A professed beer aficionado, I have to admit, I’m looking forward to trying one of these this summer while reading the newest issue of Tin House, appropriately themed “Appetites”:
The Tin House Martini was developed for Tin House magazine by Mr. Greg Connolly, bartender at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York City, who has also been known to call it “The Best Martini in the World.” Order the Tin House Martini at the Four Seasons bar, or use this recipe to educate your favorite bartender about this inspired improvement on the standard gin martini.
Pour 1/2 oz of Pernod into a cocktail shaker and swirl until it coats the inside of the shaker, pour off any excess. In countries where it is still legal, such as Portugal and Spain, absinthe can be appropriately substituted for Pernod.
Splash two eye-dropperfuls of Cinzano dry vermouth into the bottom of the shaker, and again swirl it about, then pour off the excess.
Pour 4 to 4 1/2 oz of Tanqueray gin into the shaker, add ice, and with a ridiculously long-handled silver mixing spoon, stir exactly twenty times.
Pour the drink into a very well-chilled martini glass. Then add three small cocktail olives, or two large ones, sans toothpick.
The flavors of olive and Pernod commingle so deliciously, that at least one of the olives should be consumed after the drink is finished. You see, sometimes consolation can be found in the bottom of a martini glass.
Celebrating 20 years of publishing Free Lunch: A Poetry Miscellany, Editor Ron Offen and his staff look forward to many more years to come, as do their readers. Congrats!
Headlands Center for the Arts is seeking applications from artists and arts professionals in all media – visual, literary, performance, interdisciplinary, audio, film and video – for residencies in 2010. Application Deadline is postmarked Friday, June 5, 2009.
Poet Nic Sebastian has started a new weekly feature on the blog, Very Like A Whale: Ten Questions for Poetry Editors – with new posts each Tuesday. Steve Schroeder, editor of Anti- poetry magazine is the first respondent.
The past Ten Questions Series has asked Ten Questions of poets on poetry-related issues (Rob Mackenzie, Scavella, Julie Carter, Sarah Sloat, Tony Williams, Greg Perry, Steven Schroeder, Howard Miller, Paul Stevens, Katy Evans-Bush, C.E. Chaffin, Ron Silliman) and Ten Questions of poets on publication-related issues (Brent Fisk, Carolyn Guinzio, Edward Byrne, Ivy Alvarez, Kristy Bowen, Michaela Gabriel, Nate Pritts, Neil Aitken, Rachel Bunting, Reb Livingston, Reginald Shepherd, Sam Byfield).
All Q&As are available on the blog archives. If you haven’t been keeping up, it’s time to start reading!
Take the long holiday weekend to visit the storySouth Million Writers Award 2009. Voting is open May 17 – June 17. Here’s who you’ll find on the finalist list and the original publications in which their stories first appeared:
“The Whale Hunter” by Steinur Bell (Agni)
“Intertropical Convergence Zone” by Nadia Bulkin (ChiZine)
“No Bullets in the House” by Geronimo Madrid (Drunken Boat)
“Fuckbuddy” by Roderic Crooks (Eyeshot)
“The Fisherman’s Wife” by Jenny Williams (LitNImage)
“Every Earth is Fit for Burial” by Cyn Kitchen (Menda City Review)
“Interview With A Moron” by Elizabeth Stuckey-French (Narrative Magazine)
“The Tale of Junko and Sayuri” by Peter S. Beagle (OSC’s Intergalactic Medicine Show)
“Grief Mongers” by Sefi Atta (Per Contra Fiction)
“Nine Sundays in a Row” by Kris Dikeman (Strange Horizons)
The Massachusetts Review celebrates its 50th year of publishing, surviving, and thriving. Congrats MR!
Marginalia, is now “free of its institutional chains,” as founding Editor Alicita Rodriguez recently left Western State College of Colorado. “Now unaffiliated with any academic institution, this means more editorial freedom (and less money).”
To help encourage support for the publication, the newest issue of Marginalia (v4) includes a beautiful chapbook, Dana Burchfield’s “Habit,” winner of the 2008 Marginalia College Contest.
Noted on the front of the book: “An embellished homophonic translation of Karin Boye’s Swedish poem, ‘Havet,’ from Dikter (Albert Bonniers Forl
Cinereach funds artful narrative and documentary films that depict underrepresented perspectives, cross international boundaries and start meaningful conversations. Film projects that are consistent with Cinereach’s ethos favor good storytelling over didacticism, complexity over traditional duality. Cinereach-supported films demonstrate creativity, visual artistry and take a character-based approach.
In the past, Cinereach has awarded grants from $5,000 to $50,000 per project.
Deadline: June 1, 2009
Two-hundred-year-old logs lie in wait on the ground, a Mount Sterling man is making shingles, and construction of a replica of the fictional Uncle Tom’s Cabin is expected to begin in Lancaster in mid-June.
The cabin will be built on the grounds of the Gov. William Owsley House on U.S. 27 about a mile south of the Public Square, but it won’t be ready for tourists and visitors until summer 2010…[read the rest]
Reported by Art Jester
The Advocate-Messenger
Richmond Register
Rare Audio from Anthology Film Archives (1964-1974)
UbuWeb has announced a new project in their ongoing partnership with Anthology Film Archives in New York City. This is the first in a series of over 1,000 tapes from the Anthology historic audio collection. These recordings feature many years worth of interviews, lectures, question & answer sessions and other amazing discoveries.
The first series includes: P. Adams Sitney Interviews Kenneth Anger on WNYC’s “Arts Forum” (1972); Charles Levine Interviews Robert Breer (July 1970); Jonas Mekas Interviews Emile De Antonio (11/06/1969); Jonas Mekas Interviews Emile De Antonio (11/06/1969); Poetry And The Film: Amos Vogel, Maya Deren, Parker Tyler, Willard Maas & Dylan Thomas Sessions 1 & 2 At Cinema 16 (10/28/ 1953); P. Adams Sitney Interviews Sidney Peterson On WNYC’s “Arts Forum” (1976); P. Adams Sitney Interviews Sidney Peterson On WNYC’s “Arts Forum” (1976); Annette Michelson Interviews Yvonne Rainer On WNYC’s “Arts Forum” (01/25/1974); Pauline Kael And Stan Brakhage (1964); Robert Haller Interviews Carolee Schneemann (11/30/1973); Hollis Frampton At Binghampton University, Part 1 & 2 (03/11/1972); Ken Jacobs, Larry Gottheim, Stan Brakhage: Binghampton Council Of Churches (11/23/1970) defending a Hermann Nitsch action; Harry Smith Interviewed by P. Adams Sitney (1965).
You can also read selections from FILM CULTURE Magazine (1955-1996) including many of the artists featured in the audio archive.
UbuWeb is a completely independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts.
All materials on UbuWeb are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author(s).
UbuWeb is completely free.
Vicotria Strauss of Writers Beware Blogs! shares a comment on one of this weeks’ covers of PW.
The Iowa Review offers a number of works from their most recent issue (v39n1) online, including a link to an audio excerpt of Tom Montgomery-Fate’s Saunter: A Conversation with Henry David Thoreau, and a work by Ron Tanner, “Cats as Tuna” which I will whet your appetite with here: “I filled a pot with housecats. The pot was my biggest. Still, there were a lot of cats. They didn’t seem to mind being in the pot. I knew they weren’t tuna. But I needed to make tuna salad. And all I had were cats. Cats always seem to be around and underfoot, winding through my legs. Cat hair floats through my house like dandelion down.”
The Hodson-Brown Fellowship supports work by academics, independent scholars and writers working on significant projects relating to the literature, history, culture,or art of the Americas before 1830. The fellowship is also open to filmmakers, novelists, creative and performing artists, and others working on projects that draw on this period of history.
The fellowship award supports two months of research and two months of writing. The stipend is $5,000 per month for a total of $20,000, plus housing and university privileges.
Deadline: July 15, 2009
Spring 2009 brings readers the premier annual issue of Arroyo Literary Review (v1n1) from the Department of English at California State University, East Bay. Editors Eric Neuenfeldt, John Gannon (designer) and Scott Goodenow, and advisors Susan Gubernat and Aaron Jason have put together a beautiful-to-touch-and-see publication with even more to read than can be imagined within its eighty-some pages.
This first issue includes an interview with and fiction by Eric Miles Williamson, a Cal State alum, fiction by Patrick Ryan, Richard Peabody, Sara McAulay, and Stephen D. Gutierrez, peotyr by Dan Bellm, Mark Svenvold, Jeremy Halinen, Ilyse Kusnetz, Patty Seyburn, Marvin Bell, Jan Heller Levi, Lucille Lang Day, Trebor Healey, and Nellie Hill, and cover art by James Jean and a unique threadwork portfolio by Lisa Solomon.
Reissued from Simon & Shuster: “When Ernest Hemingway died in 1961 he had nearly completed A Moveable Feast, which eventually was published posthumously in 1964 and edited by his widow Mary Hemingway. This new special edition of Hemingway’s classic memoir of his early years in Paris in the 1920’s presents the original manuscript as the author intended it to be published at the time of his death. This new publication also includes a number of unfinished Paris sketches on writing and experiences that Hemingway had with his son, Jack, his wife Hadley, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford and others. A personal foreword by Patrick Hemingway, Ernest’s sole surviving son, precedes an introduction by the editor, Sean Hemingway, grandson of the author. It is a literary feast, brilliantly evoking the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the youthful spirit, unbridled creativity, and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized.”
As pointed out in this notice from Creative Nonfiction, this is not just a Pennsylvania issue – it’s one that, if your state hasn’t been hit with already, you should be proactive about confronting:
Times are tough, but when your State Senate passes a budget that includes ZERO FUNDING FOR THE ARTS, you know you’re in trouble. And that is exactly what’s happening here in Pennsylvania.
To put this in perspective, the funding CNF receives from the state is equivalent to the yearly amount we spend paying our writers… and paying writers is a good thing, no?
Thankfully, bureaucracy moves slowly, and there’s still time to take action. If you live in Pennsylvania, then the following information is for you. Even if you don’t, you may want to pay attention, this could be a sign of things to come across the nation.
From the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council:
Yesterday afternoon the Pennsylvania Senate passed its version of the FY 2010 state budget (SB 850) with a 30-20 vote. The bill, introduced on May 4, eliminates all arts and culture grants in the state through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA) and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). While this is an unfortunate occurrence, the budget process isn’t complete yet.
Appropriations Chair Dwight Evans introduced the House budget bill (HB 1416) which includes funding for both the PCA and the PHMC. The House will act on this piece of legislation later this month, so it is important for anyone who cares about arts and culture to continue to communicate with their legislators about this issue. The two bills will then go into what will likely be a contentious conference committee before its final passage in the General Assembly…
…Be sure to thank [your representives] when they vote favorably for issues that are of importance to you. At the same time, it is equally important to let them know when they vote in a manner that is not representative of your views… See how your State Senator voted on SB 850.
If you have yet to contact your legislators about ensuring that funding for arts and culture is included in the FY2010 Pennsylvania State budget, we urge you to do so today, before it is too late. To locate your legislators please visit the Citizens for the Arts in Pennsylvania website.
Please, if you’re a PA resident, take a moment to contact your legislators and urge them to support funding for arts and culture in the 2010 budget.
The Creative Capital / Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program supports individual writers whose work addresses contemporary visual art through grants in the following categories: articles; blogs; books; new and alternative media; and short-form writing. Grants range from $3,000 to $50,000 depending on the needs and scope of the project. Application Deadline: Monday, June 8, 2009
Booklist editor Donna Seaman was the guest editor for the most recent issue of TriQuarterly (133). In her introduction, she begins: “My respect for the mystery implicit in creativity runs high, so I decided not to interfere with the process in my role as guest editor for this brimming issue of TriQuarterly. I did not name a theme, or assign a topic. Instead, I sought out writers who see life whole, who are curious about the interconnectivity and complexity of existence, and who care, deeply and unabashedly, about the world. When asked what I was looking for, I simply said, ‘strong medicine.'”
“Good writing,” she goes on, “is a tonic. The work of inquisitive, imaginative, unfettered, and courageous observers, thinkers, and dreamers provide succor. Heat and light. Food for thought and balm for pain. Lucid and compassionate literature breaks the isolating fever of the self.”
Seaman has more to say on the parallels of this soul-felt medicine, introducing numerous contributors in the issue and their works, but it was her closing remark on the concept I was most comforted by, as so often, I don’t find what I read so much soothing as jarring, awakening me to feelings unlike any salve should. Seaman addresses this as well: “Strong medicine may make you sick before it makes you better. Here, writers and readers alike face harsh truths about humankind’s diabolical paradoxes and planet-altering endeavors. Strong medicine goads us into asking questions, articulating objections, and fueling the coalescence, let us hope, of new ways of seeing, and new ways of being.”
Will my insurance cover this prescription of TriQuarterly? Oh, heck – the cover price is less than my co-pay, and no nasty side effects!
Founding Editor Valya Dudycz Lupescu and a crew of over two dozen editors and readers have brought forth the premier issue of Conclave: A Journal of Character, an annual print journal of character-focused writing and photography.
The first print issue, including some online content, features:
POETRY by: Jeffrey C. Alfier, Denise Duhamel, Michael S. Glaser, Randall Horton, Lawrence Kessenich, Claire Keyes, Christina Lovin, Mark Neely, Christina Pacosz, K.H. Solomon, Savannah Thorne, Jeffrey Warzecha, Amy Watkins, Andrea L. Watson, Kathleen Dusenbery, Michelle Menting;
NONFICTION by: Jill Christman, Richard Goodman, Lisa Van Orman Hadley, Tom Maremaa, Kendra Ann Thomas;
FICTION by: Kevin Brown, Louisa Howerow, Stephen Johnston, Amanda Leduc, Sarah Maloney, Tara L. Masih, Ryan B. Richey. Lori Romero, Lisa Carl, Christine Beth Reish, Richard Rutherford, Jeremy Adam Smith;
DRAMATIC EXCERPTS by Kathy Coudle King, Anne Phelan, Steven Shutzman;
PHOTOGRAPHY by: Stacey Debono, Michael Epps, Vinayak Garg, Beth Hommel, G
Changing Landscapes is a 6-week residency based on the premise that Southern Louisiana can be seen as a microcosm of the global environment, manifesting both the challenges and possibilities inherent in human interaction with the natural world.
Open to visual, musician/composing, performance, literary, new media, and interdisciplinary artists. Both established and emerging artists are encouraged to apply, but a rigorous work ethic and demonstrated commitment to environmental issues are expected.
Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship is accepting grant applications from practicing professional artists of exceptional talent and demonstrated ability working in crafts, literary arts, media arts, and music in Washington State. The total amount to be awarded is up to $7,500 in unrestricted funds, with $500 payable to artists upon completion of a Meet the Artist event. Deadline: June 12, 2009.
There’s always much being said on the issue of funding and support for literary magazine, whether they are associated with a university, non-profit arts organization, or completely “independent,” but now more than ever, there is a real concern about the survival of the literary magazine. Like the roots of an old oak, those concerns run deep, branching into areas far beyond simple finances.
A two-part manifesto Virginia Quarterly Review blog post brings a great deal of the matter into focus, with plenty of further reading reference:
The Future of University Presses and Journals (A Manifesto)
By Ted Genoways
May 9th, 2009
Whose Woods Are These? (A Manifesto, Part 2)
By Ted Genoways
May 14th, 2009
Via Carolyn Kellogg
Tupelo Press has announced the results of this year’s Dorset Prize. Judge Ilya Kaminsky has selected Joshua Corey of Evanston, IL for the manuscript Severance Songs.
Runner-up:
Geri Doran of Eugene, OR for the manuscript Sanderlings
Honorable Mentions to:
Shane McCrae, Iowa City, IA for Mule
Rusty Morrison, Richmond, CA for Landscape, Not Fable
A full list of other finalists and semi-finalists can be viewed on Tupelo’s website.
At the age of 86, Marion Kingston Stocking died May 12, 2009, after a short illness due to cancer. Our love and support to her family and friends, and to our dear friends at Beloit Poetry Journal, who have indeed lost an integral piece of their communal poetic soul. As have we all.
Swing by and check out the NewPages Calls for Submissions page. Sponsored listings at the top of the page, but many others if you’ll just scroll on down. If you know of a CFS you’d like considered for listing, drop me a line: denisehill-at-newpages-dot-com
Vermont Studio Center
Full Fellowships
Deadline: June 15
The Vermont Studio Center is an international residency program open to all artists and writers. Year-round, VSC hosts 50 artists and writers per month, each of whom receives an individual studio, private room, and all meals. Residencies last from 2-12 weeks and provide uninterrupted time to work, a community of creative peers, and a beautiful village setting in northern Vermont. In addition, VSC’s program includes a roster of Visiting Artists and Writers (2 painters, 2 sculptors and 2 writers per month) who offer slide talks/readings and individual studio visits/conferences.
John Darnielle (Mountain Goats) and Tobias Wolff: Woke Up New at Herbst Theatre in SF (Feb 24)
Free Verse: Poetry in the Wild
Inspired by the 2009 National Poetry Month poster design, the Academy of American Poets invites you to capture and share your own ephemeral bits of verse. Write lines from a favorite poem on a sandy beach, assemble twigs on a hillside, or chalk the sidewalk. Take a photo before it disappears and post it to the Free Verse group page on Flickr. Include the source of your lines in the photo caption.
All photos posted by April 15 were automatically entered in a contest to win the new Poem in Your Pocket Anthology and a commemorative piece of hand-engraved jewelry by San Francisco designer Jeanine Payer.
Selected entries to the Free Verse Photo Project will be featured in the ongoing gallery on Poets.org.
Worth a visit!
(Image submitted by Amy T. from San Luis Obispo, CA)
Agni has long been providing exclusive online content, unique and separate from the print publication, with the content of each carefully selected for the delivery mechanism. The newest print issue of Agni (69) indeed offers something not only unique to print, but wholly unique to Agni among literary magazines: an exceptionally well reproduced, two-sided, trifold foldout of the collage “Where Were You When the Moon Was Full” by Aldwyth. This is in addition to several other color and black and white images to accompany Rosamond Purcell’s art feature on Aldwyth, “In Her Hand: The Art World Goes to War.”
Also included in this issue, the Editor’s Note by Sven Birkerts, “What Remains,” honors the lives of David Foster Wallace and John Updike through a thoughtful remembrance of their writing. As only Birkerts can, these comments truly honor without gushing, and say a great deal more about the place of writers in our memories. Worth a read regardless of your fan status with either author.
Canadian lit mags are still putting a call out for support. According to Managing Editor Rosalynn Tyo of The New Quarterly, “the Department of Canadian Heritage plans to eliminate funding for magazines with less than 5000 in annual ciculation as of April 2010…All that would remain on the table, of what’s on my table anyway, is Geist and Canadian Living.”
Like so many other quality, small literary publications, TNQ and other Canadian magazines could probably get by for a short period of time without this support, but more to the point is demanding the arts continue to be recognized for their cultural value and importance and supported as such. Not, as Tyo points out, forcing profitability and commercial viability as the marker of survival. Some things we just know are good for us, even if they don’t make us rich.
Speaking from a state (Michigan) where we’ve seen massive funding cuts for arts and historical organizations, it’s a sad, sad existence. And once it’s taken away, don’t think you’re going to see it back any time soon. Fight while you still can, Canada, and for those of you with any say in this, visit TNQ‘s website for information on how to participate. Of course, purchasing subscriptions always helps.
Fixed the Links!
From the editors of SPS: “Housed a the University of Alabama, Slash Pine Press is currently seeking poetry or mixed-genre chapbook manuscripts, with the aim of publishing two of them in the coming year. The press locates itself as an intellectual space where forms and intuitions make writing a process of risk and otherness—a space where the high stakes of creative inquiry make self-effacement impossible. Neither cynical nor rhetorically meek, the work is concerned with but not limited by the map; its logic is global, written against the grain of history and biography. And where there is a cut, a thick sap flows. For more information, please visit our website or join our Facebook group (type in Slash Pine Press).”
According to Editor Robert Fogarty, the Antioch Review Spring 2009 issue introduces the new feature From Our Archives: “Beginning with this issue we will reprint a famous piece from our archives (essays, stories, poems).”
I’ve previously heard some controversy about publications doing this, as reprinting already published works takes up valuable real estate that hungry new writers are ever eager to fill. However, Antioch‘s approach to this, simply stated, is intriguing: “Read it and see how it stood the test of time. Is it gold or pyrite?”
Regardless of the hungry masses, this is a great question to ask and have the opportunity to explore. As often as I run across “old” lit mags and am thrilled to find some of the first works of now-famous authors, there are far more where-are-they-now authors. Granted, we can’t all be famous, or even a recognized name, but probably more the issue: is what was written for the time, or for all time? And does its having been the former rather than the latter render it “pyrite”? I’ll be interested to see what Antioch discovers with their new feature and some feedback from their readers.
Editors David Bowen, Okla Elliott, Jared Schickling, and Art Consultant Dave Myers have unveiled MAYDAY Magazine, a biannual of nonfiction, microfiction, poetry, political/cultural commentary, translation, and visual art. An annual print edition will feature the best work published in the last two online issues as well as longer prose and other work more appropriate for a print medium.
The premier issue features work by writers and translators including David R. Slavitt, Abdellatif La
Yes, we did it. NewPages bought a Kindle – or Kindle 2, as I am corrected by Kindle snobs. Yeah, “whatever” is what I would have thought, until Kindle 3 was just announced this week. With its nearly $500 price tag, it will certainly make us the Kindle users on the other side of the tracks.
Kindle this, Kindle that. I put off making the purchase of this yet-another-have-to-have piece of technology mainly because of the cost. I think it’s ridiculously overpriced. Holding one in my hands hasn’t changed my mind. It certainly is all it’s hyped up to be when it comes to a couple features. The first I noticed is ease on the eyes for reading. After several days of Kindle reading, I went back to a book (the word sounds so antiquated now…), and I could immediately feel a slight eye strain. Okay, so Kindle is good for aging/old people like me. And the other cool feature that holds true is being able to read the Kindle in bright sunlight. I hate to say it, but even better than a book in that I didn’t get the page glare.
Other than these two features, niceties include being able to get the New York Times (as we have always lived in a non-delivery area), Slate, and other mags delivered and portable for ease of reading access. I also appreciate being able to purchase a book and download it in seconds – literally. Again, living in an area with limited access to book sources (libraries and bookstores), when each time I go to the bookstore, I’m sure to hear, “We can order it for you,” it’s dandy to be able to find the book and begin reading it immediately. I also like being able to read a sample of the book before ordering it. A true “bookstore” style feature.
The documents download is also a great feature. I can send documents in myself, Amazon will convert them, then I can load them into the Kindle, all for free. I can also send documents and Amazon will convert them and wirelessly load them, but for that there is a fee, and a growing one. Still, worth it in a pinch. I’ve sent a couple PDFs through, and the formatting does come back a bit screwy, but it’s not terrible. Pictures are what mess it up, not so much just plain text.
My biggest Kindle mistake? Downloading a cookbook. Had it not been free through Amazon, I wouldn’t have loaded it, but for free, what the heck. The mistake? I’m not setting my Kindle on the cupboard next to a pan popping hot oil, not to mention the other open ingredients: flour, tomato sauce, wine (that’s for the cook, not the recipe). One look at my cookbooks will tell you favorite recipes by the spills and spatters on the pages. Adds character to the book. Would kill the Kindle. That said, reading in the bathtub is also out of the question.
Other irritations include thumb strain. No kidding. The ultraslim design is nice, but I find myself having to pinch it more closely than I would a book, so my thumbs hurt after reading on it for extended periods of time. It’s also odd in that I think I have pretty large hands, but the Kindle feels just a bit too wide for me to hold comfortably. So, I’m thinking it’s better designed for even larger “guy” hands. But, the keyboard is definitely more easily accessed by smaller thumbs. So, if we evolve to this technology, we’ll have larger hands and thinner thumbs. Kindle 3, however, with its newspaper reading screen – well, its beyond me how that could be comfortable.
Overall, the Kindle is cute but not a necessity. I can see how schools would be interested in using them for textbook delivery, though there need to be some modifications made in saving and organizing clippings/notes to make student use more effective. And, ultimately, I come back to the price. In keeping with the Matthew principle: those who already have will be able to afford it and continue to benefit. The have-nots will continue to be left in the dust. Not only at the cost of the device, but imagine no more cheaper, used textbooks. A level price field on books – which should all be cheaper with no paper, right? Certainly, no more borrowing textbooks from a roommate (since you can’t share Kindle files – and it’s unlikely roomies will loan you their $300+ reader with all their other books and notes on it).
A fun tech tool, but not worth the cover price. Had I not been able to consider it a tax write-off, I wouldn’t have considered it at all.
The Kite Runner finds itself adapted to stage by Actor Sorab Wadia, who performs selected scenes from The Kite Runner verbatim with very little set or music, produced by the American Place Theatre as part of its Literature to Life program.
“Backed by a cheering section of his family and friends, 18-year-old William Farley of Arlington, Virginia captivated both judges and audience with his poetry recitations to gain the title of 2009 Poetry Out Loud National Champion. Farley was among 12 finalists and 53 state champions from around the country who participated in the fourth national poetry recitation contest, sponsored by the National Arts Endowment and the Poetry Foundation.”
Gorgeous. From designer Jordi Mila.
May is Short Story Month. What are you doing to celebrate this fantastic form of literature?
It’s heeee-eeere… Well, almost. ARCs are out in reviewer corners, and pre-orders are being taken at Dzanc Books as well as at your local booksellers: Dzanc Books Best of the Web 2009 with Guest Editor Lee K. Abbot and Series Editor Nathan Leslie. Including stories, flashes, poems and essays, this year’s list of authors and publications is HUGE, so visit Dzanc Books for a preview, and to order your copy.