“Thoughts on Bill O’Reilly and Squeaky the Chicago Mouse” is a letter from Roger Ebert to Bill O’Reilly – apparently in response to O’Reilly listing the Chicago Sun Times on his ‘Wall of Shame.’ I don’t keep up with O’Reilly tit-for-tats outside of Olbermann, but this one ends with such a fitting parable that I had never heard before, it seems worth passing along. Squeaky the Chicago Mouse, indeed.

“Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) is a program that began in Massachusetts in response to a growing need within our criminal justice system to find alternatives to incarceration. Burdened by expense and repeat offenders, our prisons can rarely give adequate attention to the needs of inmates and, thus, do little else than warehouse our criminals. Disturbed by the lack of real success by prisons to reform offenders and affect their patterns of behavior, Professor Robert Waxler and Judge Robert Kane discussed using literature as a way of reaching hardened criminals.”

Started in Massachusetts, programs have also started in Texas, Arizona, Kansas, Maine, New York, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. An adaptation of CLTL is also running strong in England. California and Illinois are interested in starting programs, and one is almost underway in Canada.

The CLTL website includes information about starting and running a similar program in your state, with sample syllabi from men’s, women’s, and juvenile programs.

A Celebration of the Chapbook festival calls attention to the rich history of the chapbook and highlights its essential place in poetry publishing today as a vehicle for alternative poetry projects and for emerging authors and editors to gain entry into the literary marketplace. The festival will forge a new platform for the study of the chapbook inside and outside the academy and celebrate the importance of chapbooks to America’s cultural heritage and future.

Thursday April 23rd, 2009 – Saturday April 25th, 2009
The Graduate Center, CUNY

The English Program of Penn State Altoona is taking applications for a one-semester teaching residency in creative non-fiction writing. The residence, designed to offer an emerging writer substantial time to write, offers a $5,000 stipend & an additional $5,000 allowance to cover room & board in return for teaching one sophomore-level creative non-fiction writing workshop during the Fall 2009 semester (August 24-December 17).

The resident writer will also give two readings & work informally with our English majors. Benefits are not included. We are looking for a writer with publications in literary or commercial magazines. Emphasis will be placed on the quality of the work submitted. We may consider a preference for work focused on environmental studies. A Master’s degree in Creative Writing or English is required. Teaching experience is preferred. The application should consist of a writing sample (one essay or ten pages from a book); a c.v., including publishing history; & one or more letters of recommendation.

Send to: Emerging Writer Residency, Dr. Thomas Liszka, Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts, Pos #: B-29761, Penn State Altoona, 3000 Ivyside Park, Altoona, PA 16601-3760.

Review of applications will begin May 18, & continue until the position is filled.

NYT Joyce Hor-Chung Lau “chats” with Margaret Atwood.

Centenary College seeks application for an instructor for 2-credit poetry writing course for the fall semester (September through December, 2009) at, Hackettstown, NJ. MFA required. The course meets once a week for approximately two hours. Salary $900. Centenary College is in the process of developing a creative writing minor and anticipates ongoing teaching opportunities. Please send c.v. and/or inquiries to: Mary Newell: newellm-AT-centenarycollege-DOT-edu

Savannah College of Art and Design, Atlanta is accepting applications for a part-time faculty position in the Professional Writing department to teach creative writing.

Central Michigan University seeks qualified part-time temporary instructors to teach Technical Writing (Metro Detroit, Michigan), Fantasy and Science Fiction (Michigan and Online), The Literary Dimensions of Film (Michigan and Online). Amy Courter, Off-Campus Programs. June 30

The program in Creative Writing at Hollins University invites applications for a one-year, endowed distinguished professorship to begin August, 2009.

The University of Mississippi Department of English invites applications for the position of half-time Instructor.

Grinnell College‘s Center for the Humanities seeks to appoint a visiting scholar actively engaged in research on Place and Memory. Daniel Reynolds, Director, Center for the Humanities. April 25

Yep. We’ll give it a shot. But you have to show us the love if you want us to keep at it. Follow us on Twitter, and/or be a fan on the NewPages Facebook page. Be patient as we learn the ropes, or, uh… the jargon. That’s a Big Ten-Four Big Buddy?

Swing by and check out this great lineup of book reviews for April:

Vienna Triangle
A Novel by Brenda Webster
Wings Press, January 2009
Review by Jason Hinkley

First Execution
Novel by Domenico Starnone
Translated from the Italian by Antony Shugaar
Europa Editions, March 2009
Review by Laura Di Giovine

The Bathroom
Novel by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Translated from the French by Nancy Amphoux and Paul De Angelis
Dalkey Archive, November 2008
Review by Josh Maday

Camera
Novel by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Translated from the French by Matthew B. Smith
Dalkey Archive, November 2008
Review by Josh Maday

Last Night in Montreal
Novel by Emily St. John Mandel
Unbridled Books, June 2009
Review by Christina Hall

The Adventures of Cancer Bitch
Memoir by S.L. Wisenberg
University of Iowa Press, February 2009
Review by Cyan James

First We Read, Then We Write:
Emerson on the Creative Process
By Robert D. Richardson
University of Iowa Press, February 2009
Review by John Madera

Bending the Notes
Poetry by Paul Hostovsky
Main Street Rag, December 2008
Review by Jason Tandon

The Suburban Swindle
Short Stories by Jackie Corley
So New Publishing, October 2008
Review by Josh Maday

Morning in a Different Place
YA novel by Mary Ann McGuigan
Front Street Press, February 2009
Review by Jessica Powers

At or Near the Surface
Short stories by Jenny Pritchett
Fourteen Hills Press, November 2008
Review by Josh Maday

Light Boxes
Fiction by Shane Jones
Publishing Genius, February 2009
Review by Brian Allen Carr

Comfort
YA novel by Joyce Moyer Hostetter
Calkins Creek Books, April 2009
Review by Jessica Powers

Shuck
Fiction by Daniel Allen Cox
Arsenal Pulp Press, April 2009
Review by Brian Allen Carr

Me As Her Again
Memoir by Nancy Agabian
Aunt Lute Books, October 2008
Review by Ryan Call

Here’s a lovely short piece by Joy Fielding from the National Post, The germ of an idea: What is fiction but a reimagining and restructuring of reality?

“People are always asking, ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ It’s a little like asking a doctor where she gets her diagnostic or surgical skills, or a gardener where he gets his green thumb…”

Okay, so don’t feel so bad about that next rejection letter, since you’ll find yourself in the company of George Orwell, whose work Animal Farm was turned down by TS Eliot. Apparently, when Eliot was director of the publisher Faber & Faber, he rejected Orwell’s work as “good” but “not convincing.” Does that sound familiar?

Of course, this is from our state here, but I’m sure you’ve got some cool kids in your state too:

The Michigan Center for the Book announced the three state winners of Letters About Literature, a national writing contest in which young readers wrote letters to authors, living or dead, describing how the authors’ work changed the students’ way of thinking. One of the state winners also received recognition at the competition’s national level.

“We received many thoughtful, heartfelt letters that demonstrate the power of books to touch the lives and engage the minds of young people,” said Michigan Center for the Book Coordinator Karren Reish. “Each year we welcome this opportunity to help foster Michigan students’ interest in literature and encourage them to cultivate the reading and writing skills that are key to academic success.”
The Michigan winners are:

Level 1 (grades 4-6) – Valerie Reeves of Mancelona who wrote to author Erin Hunter about the book Warriors: Dawn.

Reeves reflected on how the book taught her about the value of teamwork and leadership, writing: “When I was younger, I sometimes felt like I was a loner at school. I always wanted my mom to go to school with me because I didn’t want to be alone. I felt just like the rogue cat, Yellow Fang, who was without a clan. After reading your book, Warriors: Dawn, I found I wanted to be a warrior, too.”

Level 2 (grades 7-8) – Daniel Harrison of Kalamazoo who wrote to author Ben Mikaelsen about the book Touching Spirit Bear.

In his letter, Harrison expressed how the book inspired him to change his negative behavior: “About two years ago, I had been a real bully. I used to pick on kids and call them names and not even realize how much of a jerk I was. I had been in trouble a couple times, and ended up in detention. It was there, ironically, where I read your book, Touching Spirit Bear. It transformed my life.”

Level 3 (grades 9-12) – Nilesh Raval of Saginaw who wrote to author Jhumpa Lahiri about the book The Namesake. Raval also was named one of 12 Letters About Literature national honorable mention winners (four per level of competition) and will receive an additional $100 Target gift card and an additional $1,000 grant for the selected library.

Raval’s letter described lessons learned about pride in our unique cultural heritage and identity: “After reading your culturally enlightening novel, The Namesake, I have realized the importance of my name in Indian culture and that I am not alone when it comes to possessing an unusual one. … The Namesake has compelled me to understand that a name has an inherently profound power to shape its bearer. It has bestowed upon me a newfound respect for names in our culture.”

Do-It-Yourself Magazines, Cheaply Slick
By ASHLEE VANCE
The New York Times
Published: March 29, 2009

PALO ALTO, Calif. — For anyone who has dreamed of creating his own glossy color magazine dedicated to a hobby like photography or travel, the high cost and hassle of printing has loomed as a big barrier. Traditional printing companies charge thousands of dollars upfront to fire up a press and produce a few hundred copies of a bound magazine.

With a new Web service called MagCloud, Hewlett-Packard hopes to make it easier and cheaper to crank out a magazine than running photocopies at the local copy shop.

Charging 20 cents a page, paid only when a customer orders a copy, H.P. dreams of turning MagCloud into vanity publishing’s equivalent of YouTube. The company, a leading maker of computers and printers, envisions people using their PCs to develop quick magazines commemorating their daughter’s volleyball season or chronicling the intricacies of the Arizona cactus business.

Read the rest on NYT.

Our English division just got done discussing ideas for integrating “Math Across the Curriculum.” Since English had asked for the same oh so many years ago, we felt it was our place to step up to the plate on this one and consider how we might be using or could be using math in our English classes. Thanks to Gerry Canavan, here’s an insightful collection of work by Craig Damrauer entitled, New Math. I’ll certainly be working this into my classes soon.

In case you’re not all over it yet, MLA has come out with updates. Finally! Until the new publication is available, Purdue OWL has a quickie page that’s helpful. And those new editions of handbooks that just came out this year? Students will be thrilled to find there to be “no buy back” as the even newer editions are ordered for next year. Now, who planned that?

ErikaJ on Disability Nation offers her response to Autism: The Musical, an Emmy-award-winning HBO documentary: “I don’t know what I was expecting from a film called ‘Autism: The Musical.’ It was just a title that attracted my attention, even as a dark-humored part of me wanted to suggest that it should be a rock opera to better accommodate all the head-banging…” [read the rest]

“In the epic Odyssey, one of the cornerstones of Western literature, the legendary Greek hero Odysseus returns to his queen Penelope after enduring 10 years of sailing the wine dark sea. Now scientists have pinned down his return to April 16, 1178 B.C., close to noon local time, according to astronomical references in the epic poem that seem to pinpoint the total eclipse of the sun on the day that Odysseus supposedly returned on.” Read the rest on MSNBC

Deadline June 15: The winning writer will receive seven nights accommodation at Fulton’s Landing Guest House on the Mississippi River, plus travel and meal stipends, as well as an invitation to read at the Midwest Writing Center. A spouse or partner may accompany the writer on retreat.

Great River Writers Retreat
Oct. 17-24, 2009
Fulton’s Landing
Davenport, Iowa

Slash Pine Press is pleased to announce the first annual Slash Pine Poetry Festival, to be held in five distinct locations in the greater Tuscaloosa, AL area on April 24th and 25th. With 40 readers, the festival draws from local and national writers, from first year graduate student poets to National Poetry Series winners, from the traditional writer to the highly experimental one. The festival aims to show that poetry at its best is an inclusive, community-building endeavor, and that such an endeavor is well and alive in one of many small cities in the Deep South.

ArtsEdge Residencies
University of Pennsylvania

The ArtsEdge Residency project is designed to encourage and support the careers of emerging artists and writers. rtsEdge Residencies offers two one-year residencies in a live/work space near Penn’s campus. ArtsEdge aims to support the creative work of young artists and writers, and create a live/work environment that will inspire interdisciplinary exploration. Deadline April 15.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Teacher & Program Coordinator in Writing for UW-Madison Liberal Studies & the Arts. Tom Boll, Writing Area Search. April 15

Ever look at the “born on this day” sections in papers/magazines to see who shares your birthday? Well, here’s a somber twist on that: Dead at Your Age matches your birthday and current date with people you’ve outlived: “Congratulations! You’ve just outlived some interesting people. Tell us your date of birth, and we’ll tell you who they were.” Includes biographical information on each person, and you can subscribe to receive daily updates to keep track of who else you have outlived. Cheery stuff!

The third annual Ann Arbor Book Festival, May 15-17, 2009, includes a full-day Writer’s Conference where attendees can hone their skills in sessions led by visiting Festival authors. The conference will be held on the University of Michigan central campus in Palmer Commons. Over the years, this campus has been home to many well-known writers from Arthur Miller to Elizabeth Kostova.

Last week I posted a newslink re: Oxford academic and Austen authority Professor Kathryn Sutherland claims that Claire Harman (award-winning biographer) copied some of her ideas for a new book.

I said this should be interesting, and sure enough, not what I was expecting, but the post received a response from Claire Harman herself, which you can now read on the entry page.

Additionally, in a follow-up e-mail from Harman, she notes: “I was getting intensely frustrated by the end of last week that I couldn’t get ‘my side of the story’ heard at all, but now the Bookseller has quoted part of the same letter I sent you and I’ve been told (by my publisher) that another blog called Book Brunch might put it up in full. Also there’s an interview coming along on The Book Depository and a guest blog on a university site, both of which allude to Prof Sutherland’s horrible attack, and perhaps that’s enough. I have no desire to prolong the row unduly.”

Nor do we, though as an educator, topics own “intellectual ownership” are always of interest to me. Unfortunately, what’s of interest to one person is often the result of many sleepless nights to those living the story. So, for their sake, I hope this dwindles to downright dull, soon.

From the MLA Office of Research. Probably not much you didn’t already know:

“Through 20 February, the English edition of the MLA Job Information List (JIL) has carried 322 (21.9%) fewer ads this year (2008–09) than last; the foreign language edition is down 270 ads (21.2%). On the basis of the number of jobs announced in the JIL through the April print issue, we project that this year’s totals will drop by 26.1%, to about 1,350 jobs, in the JIL’s English edition and by 27.4%, to about 1,220 jobs, in the foreign language edition. The declines follow a period when the number of jobs advertised in both English and foreign languages increased from fewer than 1,100 in the mid-1990s to 1,826 in English and 1,680 in foreign languages this past year, 2007–08. We are projecting an estimated 480 fewer jobs in English in 2008–09 than a year ago and 460 fewer in foreign languages. These declines mark the biggest one-year drops in the thirty-four-year history of the JIL, both numerically and in percentage terms. Even so, this year’s projected totals are still higher than the historic low numbers to date—1,075 jobs in English and 1,047 jobs in foreign languages—recorded in 1993–94.”

Having graduated with my MA in 1992, I can sympathize with the plight for many graduating into this low swing. I got my first, full-time teaching job in 1999 – yes, that’s seven years of pieced-together part-time teaching and working in jobs not at all related to my degree. So, no whining until you’ve got me beat on that.

From the like it or not pile:

ITO EN (North America), INC., the world’s leading purveyor of green tea products and beverages, today announced its call-for-entries for “Haiku Project 2009.” Inspired by the spirit of change in our country today, participants can enter a haiku around the themes of “Change,” “Hope” and “Progress”. ITO EN representatives will evaluate all submissions and select 3 winners of the 2009 Haiku Project on July 20, 2009. The winning contestants will be notified by ITO EN and may be required to sign and return a Submission Release form and their haiku will be printed on bottles of TEA’S TEA in 2010. Submissions will be accepted from March 6, 2009 to July 6, 2009.

Editor-in-Chief Cynthia Reeser writes that Prick of the Spindle is looking for a new assistant poetry editor. Interested individuals can contact Reeser directly: pseditor-at-prickofthespindle-dot-com.

Sana Krasikov, author of the short story collection One More Year, has won the $100,000 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for emerging writers of Jewish literature. “The characters who populate Krasikov’s stories are mostly women–some are new to America; some still live in the former Soviet Union, in Georgia or Russia; and some have returned to Russia to find a country they barely recognize and people they no longer understand. Mothers leave children behind; children abandon their parents. Almost all of them look to love to repair their lives, and when love isn’t really there, they attempt to make do with relationships that substitute for love.”

Dalia Sofer, author of The Septembers of Shiraz, won the $25,000 Sami Rohr Prize Choice Award.

The Sami Rohr Prize is the largest monetary prize for Jewish literature, as well as one of the largest literary prizes globally, with fiction and nonfiction considered in alternating years.

The 2009 Birmingham SHOUT Gay + Lesbian Film Festival has announced its Call For Entries for feature-length narratives, documentaries and short film entries. Now in its 4th year, the festival has expanded to include a juried competition! Narrative features, documentary features, and short films will compete in their respective categories for the coveted Best Film and Audience Choice awards.

REGULAR DEADLINE: March 30, 2009

LATE DEADLINE: April 7, 2009

From Jonathan Stray’s blog:

The Fifth Annual Equivocality Writer’s Travel Scholarship

This is is a short-form writing contest where the winner gets a round-trip ticket to anywhere in the world. Really.

Naturally, I do see a lot of travel writing submissions, but I’d like to reiterate that this is not about travel writing: it’s about writers traveling. Anything is fair game, as long as it’s prose under 10,000 words. Fiction, non-fiction, memoir, porn, whatever… just make it a good read.

“Why do you do this?” is a frequently-asked-question. So I will repeat (say it with me this time):

I think travel is good. I think writing is good. I think it is important that writers travel.

Applications are open from now until midnight April 30th, 2009. The winner will be announced May 15th.

Sentence has announced Catherine Sasanov the winner of the inaugural Sentence Book Award. Her winning poetry collection Had Slaves will be out in 2009.

The semi-finalists for the Sentence Book Awards are:

WoO, by Renee Angle
Let Me Open You a Swan, by Deborah Bogen
Backwards Rapture, by Cindy Carlson
They Say This is How Death Came Into the World, by Paul Dickey
I am going to clone myself then kill the clone and eat it, by Sam Pink
Post Moxie, by Julia Story
The finalists are:

Some Odd Afternoon, by Sally Ashton
All of Us, by Elisabeth Frost
The Clem System, by Andrew Neuendorf
Dear Editor, by Amy Newman
Aqueduct, by Leanne Tonkin
The Infinite War, by Tom Whalen

Daily Immediacy is an online exhibition of mobile media images: “A diary is a daily record of events and experiences. Because of the accessibility and instantaneous nature of camera phones, people are turning into spontaneous photojournalists. They are becoming more aware of their surroundings and more apt to capture aspects of everyday life. From the mundane to the spectacular, images are being inconspicuously captured and transmitted through the wireless infrastructure. These versatile images are an immediate document of daily life and have a unique aesthetic because of their lo-fi/low-resolution quality.”

You are invited to participate in this new online gallery. Please submit your daily mobile images to [email protected]. You can email them directly from your phone as a multimedia message (mms) or email them as jpegs. Selected images will be featured weekly on this site.

ALL image submissions can be viewed on Flickr.

Inspired by live translation slams that proved to be audience favorites at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival, and again at PEN World Voices, PEN’s online Translation Slam aims to showcase the art of translation by juxtaposing in a public forum two “competing” translations of a single work.

For the inaugural installment, they asked translators to test their linguistic mettle on 暮色, a poem by Chinese writer Xi Chuan.

At the live slams, audience members were invited to discuss the choices made by each of the translators and the resulting shifts of emphasis in the translated text. Readers of the online slam are encouraged to participate in the discussion by leaving comments on the site. PEN encourages you to cheer for your favorite translation, compare the two, talk about the poem.

From The Observer, Sunday 15 March 2009, by Vanessa Thorpe, arts and media correspondent:

Oxford academic and Austen authority Professor Kathryn Sutherland is claiming that a new book by award-winning biographer Claire Harman has copied her own radical ideas about the novelist, pulled together over 10 years of research and published by her in 2005…According to Sutherland, the two former friends met in her home shortly after the publication of her own book, Jane Austen’s Textual Lives, from Aeschylus to Bollywood, in 2005. She says she let Harman read the book and was distressed to learn later that her friend was working on a popular version of its theories…Nick Davies, Harman’s editor at pub

Ozone Park is a biannual online journal (also available PDF) of new writing publishing Fiction, Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, Plays and Translation from emerging and established writers. Ozone Park is edited and designed by graduate students in the Queens College MFA program in Creative Writing and Translation. Ozone Park accepts online submissions from October 15th through June 15th.

Contributors to the first issue include: Oscar Bermeo, Donna Brook, Robert Calero, Christie Casher, Cyrus Cassells, Eric Darton, Mary Christine Delea, Deborah Di Bari, Judy Gerbin, Robert Hershon, Ry Kincaid, Cathy McArthur, Lynne Martens, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Michael Morical, Mihaela Moscaliuc, Rena J. Mosteirin, Susan O’Doherty, Lisa Romeo, Thaddeus Rutkowski, and Diane Shakar.

In 1964, Professor A. McA. Miller founded New CollAge magazine, housed on the New College of Florida campus, and welcomed “submissions of poetry from anyone, anywhere.” When Professor Miller retired in 2005, so did New CollAge.

Today, a group of New College undergraduates plunge headfirst into the literary conversation to resurrect a magazine and discover – to steal a line from Mark Strand – “the blaze of promise everywhere.”

The reborn New CollAge magazine is seeking your poetry submissions for a late spring printing and a spiffy new website! Deadline April 15

Hirsh Sawhney is not only hopeful for the survival of independent publishing in these trying times, he’s practical in his understanding of just how independents may be the ones to save literature: “Could literary culture really be breathing its last? Should readers and writers be running for cover? Of course not. But what, then, will save literature from economic disaster? Simple: independent publishing. Yes, independents – the ones who struggle to sell enough books to make payroll – will ensure that engaging, challenging books continue to be produced and consumed. It’s they who’ll safeguard literature through the dark economic days ahead.” [read the rest here]