Local public radio station wants to feature poems about radio experiences of any kind and/or fundraising to be read by area poets during the final day of pledge drive, April 4, in the afternoon. Station streams on internet so you can hear your poem. If you have anything, please mail to [mme642-at-yahoo.com] WMUK (Kalamazoo, Michigan) is the station. Humor good. Sentiment good. No cussin’. (Elizabeth Kerlikowske)

The Man Booker International Prize
14 authors from 12 countries make it on to Judges’ List

The Man Booker International Prize differs from the annual Man Booker Prize for Fiction in that it highlights one writer’s continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage. It is awarded every two years.

The winner of this year’s Man Booker International Prize will be announced in May 2009, and the winner will be presented with their award at a ceremony in Dublin on 25 June 2009. Seven of the authors are writers in translation. They are:

Peter Carey (Australia)
Evan S. Connell (USA)
Mahasweta Devi (India)
E.L. Doctorow (USA)
James Kelman (UK)
Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
Arnošt Lustig (Czechoslovakia)
Alice Munro (Canada)
V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad/India)
Joyce Carol Oates (USA)
Antonio Tabucchi (Italy)
Ngugi Wa Thiong’O (Kenya)
Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia)
Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia)

Creative Writing Residency
Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas, a highly selective four-year liberal arts college, seeks a distinguished writer of fiction for its 4th biennial Visiting Fellowship in Creative Writing, a semester-long residency scheduled during the autumn 2009 semester. April 1, 2009 deadline.

Visit NewPages Literary Magazine Reviews to read thoughtful commentaries on the following print publications and online publications – 20×20 :: Amarillo Bay :: Antigonish Review :: Boston Review :: Hudson Review :: Isotope :: Main Street Rag :: MiPOesias :: Ninth Letter :: The Normal School :: One Story :: Underground Voices :: Waccamaw :: Washington Square.

For information on having your publication considered for review, please visit the NewPages FAQ page.

Eating from the skull of the fallen angel
Music, myth and the spiritual in the poetry of Kim Hunter
Detroit Metro Times
By Norene Smith

Detroiter Kim Hunter’s new collection of poems, edge of the time zone, is a winding road lined with imagery, political thought and courageous dreaming. That beautiful stretch of imagination parallels a real-life journey. As much as it represents his own growth as a poet and an advocate of poetry, it charts changes and realities he’s observed in the world around him, especially in the realms of politics, media and race.

“I’m obsessed with the interplay between capitalism and media,” he says. “And the dehumanization that can happen when those two things cross.”

Read the rest.

The Digital Commons @ Providence makes use of Institutional Repositories, which bring together all of a University’s research under one umbrella, with an aim to preserve and provide access to that research. “IRs are an excellent vehicle for working papers or copies of published articles and conference papers. Presentations, senior theses, and other works not published elsewhere can also be published in the IR.”

Currently available: The Prose Poem: An International Journal

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, formed in 1971 by a group of Los Angeles based writers for children, is the only international organization to offer a variety of services to people who write, illustrate, or share a vital interest in children’s literature. The SCBWI acts as a network for the exchange of knowledge between writers, illustrators, editors, publishers, agents, librarians, educators, booksellers and others involved with literature for young people. There are currently more than 19,000 members worldwide, in over 70 regions, making it the largest children’s writing organization in the world.

The SCBWI sponsors two annual International Conferences on Writing and Illustrating for Children as well as dozens of regional conferences and events throughout the world. It also publishes a bi-monthly newsletter, offers awards and grants for works in progress, and provides many informational publications on the art and business of writing and selling written, illustrated, and electronic material. The SCBWI also presents the annual Golden Kite Award for the best fiction and nonfiction books and the Sid Fleischman Humor Award.

Abdel Shakur has some fun and funky, down home talk in his interview with poet Jericho Brown on his blog. Shakur is the former editor of Indiana Review (he did the Funk issue) and is now teaching high school in the Chicago Public schools. Brown’s newest book of poetry, Please, was published by New Issues Poetry & Prose (October 2008).

The Creative Capital / Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program will open for submissions on April 27, 2009. Designed to encourage and reward writing about contemporary art that is rigorous, passionate, eloquent and precise, as well as to create a broader audience for arts writing, the program aims to strengthen the field as a whole and to ensure that critical writing remains a valued mode of engaging the visual arts. The program’s renewal signals the continued commitment of Creative Capital and the Warhol Foundation to these goals.

GettingHired.com
“Where people with disabilities gather, network, and find success in the workplace with enlightened employers.”

Recommended by Disability Nation

Well now here’s something to take advantage of from Marginalia: “Nobody likes rejection, but every rejection gets you one step closer to publication—we mean it! For a limited time, Marginalia is offering a Sad Bastard discount: send us ANY 10 of your rejection slips and a dollar, and we’ll mail you an issue of Marginalia for your perusal. Read Marginalia, know Marginalia, get published by Marginalia.”

Earlier, I linked to an article re: the educational shift (perhaps) away from classics such as Milton. Now a recent article, New Curriculum Becomes A SpringBoard For Teacher Criticism, Marilyn Brown reports on one Tampa school district’s shift away from traditional language arts classes (world, American, and Brit lit) to themed studies, such as “Culture” (world lit = Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Soviet Nobel literature prize-winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s writings, “Cinderella” and clips from “I Love Lucy”), “The American Dream” (American Lit = Arthur Miller’s play about witchcraft, “The Crucible,” clips from the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”), and “How Perception Changes Reality” (Brit Lit = media reports of the 1991 Waco massacre, the contemporary novel “My Sister’s Keeper,” and clips from “Forrest Gump”).

This new math and language arts curriculum in middle and high schools is called SpringBoard, and it has met with mixed reviews from educators, especially as it concerns college prep: “All classical literature is gone,” said Lee Rich, a Sickles High School language arts teacher in her 24th year. “They’re going to go to college with no classical literature and limited poetry instruction.”

Is this limitation, or shifting expectations?

Read more here.

In addition to Gerry Canavan’s “Comics as Literature” summer course, there’s a whole list of cool special topics classes being offered through Duke this summer. (Gerry adds: “I’ve recently found out that UNC student can take for UNC tuition. Tell everyone.”)

Check out some of these others (seriously, where were cool classes like this when I was in school?):

Black Feminist Interventions and Black Women Writers
The New Middle Class in China
The Politics of Religion in the Twenty-first Century
Education through Film
Cyberpunk and Technofiction
Inquisition and Society in the Early Modern World
Nostalgia for the 1950s
Fashion, Literature and the Avant-Garde
Contemporary Detective Fiction: The Politics of Writing about “Crime”
Imagined Islands
Human Development in Literature
Mass Media and Mental Illness
Atheists, Libertines and Machiavels
The Extremes of Horror
The Ghost in the Machine: Approaches to Self-Control
Migrant Women

To answer the question raised by Slate writer Paul Collins in his expos

Princeton Poetry Festival, Monday, April 27 and Tuesday, April 28 with readings and panel discussions by the following line-up of writers:

John Ashbery
Seamus Heaney
Troy Jollimore
Sally Van Doren
Tina Chang
Michael Dickman
Matthea Harvey
Jeff Dolven
Kevin Young
C.K. Williams
Durs Gr

‘Oldest English words’ identified
BBC News

Medieval manuscripts give linguists clues about more recent changes
Some of the oldest words in English have been identified, scientists say.

Reading University researchers claim “I”, “we”, “two” and “three” are among the most ancient, dating back tens of thousands of years.

Their computer model analyses the rate of change of words in English and the languages that share a common heritage.

The team says it can predict which words are likely to become extinct – citing “squeeze”, “guts”, “stick” and “bad” as probable first casualties.

Arsenal Pulp Press is pleased to introduce Queer Film Classics, a new series of books on classics of LGBT cinema from around the world written by leading LGBT film writers and scholars. Under the new imprint, edited by award-winning Arsenal authors Thomas Waugh (Out/Lines, Lust Unearthed) and Matthew Hays (The View from Here), there will be three new titles per year, beginning in the fall of 2009 with books on Paul Morrissey’s Trash, Pedro Almodovar’s Law of Desire, and Bill Condon’s Gods and Monsters.

Teachers: As we approach National Poetry Month, here are Curriculum and Lesson Plans from the Academy of American Poets. Those of you who have successful plans you use in the classroom, the Academy is looking to add to this resource.

“All the Curricula and Lesson Plans were created by secondary school teachers in New York and Colorado. Each teacher developed their unit over the course of an academic year and has tested his or her lesson plans in the classroom. Many of the units use visiting poets or writers-in-residence. You can see how to bring one to your classroom on our Writers in the Schools section in the Teachers Resource Center. Our hope is to expand this page frequently. We welcome you to share with us your own successful poetry units.” [e-mail address on site]

Here’s another great way to celebrate National Poetry Month, as well as poetry year-round. This site is tirelessly maintained by Andrew Christ of the River Junction Poets, who welcomes you to copy their Poets Birthday Readings where you live:

“Since June 2005 the River Junction Poets have hosted free Poets Birthday Readings at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Saginaw, Michigan to read and discuss life, poetry and the pursuit of happiness. We plan our events around the birthdays of poets; the bookstore mentions our events in its monthly in-store Newsletter. When we send a birthday card to the poet we celebrate, we include the Newsletter that mentions the event. We’ve received Thank You notes from several of these poets.

“The ongoing series of Poets Birthday Readings serves as a reminder that poetry comes from poets. By providing a friendly, non-threatening reading experience, poetry in general can become something for inexperienced readers to engage themselves in more. This blog features lists of poets and their birthdays, titles of their recent works and links to publishers and other pages with information about the poets.”

Read a great deal more about on the Birthday of Poets blog.

The following comes from “The Book of the Ground” by artist Xu Bing. It is a story told in icons that he has been collecting and organizing over the past several years. More than this is the computer program he has written that “translates” the typed message into icons. Visit his website to be even more fully amazed by his visionary art.

Edited by Ash Bowen, Johnathon Williams, Ashley McHugh, and Jennifer Jabaily, “Linebreak is an online journal with a bias for good poetry. We look for poems that we wish we had written and take us somewhere we didn’t even know we wanted to go.”

Linebreak is updated each Tuesday and features a single poem for the entire week. Published poems are archived indefinitely. Linebreak accepts only original, previously unpublished poetry. In addition to text, Linebreak publishes audio recordings of all poems. Each poet’s work is read and recorded by another working poet selected by the editors. To that end, Linebreak is always seeking volunteer readers.

Some of the 59 currently posted poems include such authors as Bob Hicok, Bruce Bond, Barry Ballard, D.A. Powell, Dorianne Laux, Zachary Schomburg, Daniel Nester, Carolyn Guinzio, Richard Siken, Anthony Robinson, C. Dale Young, Seth Abramson, Amanda Auchter, Lola Haskins, Quan Barry, Alison Stine, Heather Christle, David Graham, Sandra Beasley, Christina Davis, Ryan Courtwright, Paul Dickey, Jehanne Dubrow, Adam Clay, and many, many more.

The storySouth The Million Writers Award, which honors the best short stories published each year in online magazines and journals, is now open for nominations. The deadline for nominations is March 31, 2009.

Jason Sanford, founding editor of storySouth writes: “In previous years, the award had a $300 prize for the overall winner. Unfortunately, the economic downturn is affecting everyone and we no longer have a monetary sponsor. To compensate, I am putting up $50 of my own money as prize money, while storySouth’s new publisher, Spring Garden Press, is putting up another $50. However, we’d like to give the winner more, so I hope people will consider a donation to increase the amount of prize money.” Donations can be made using PayPal via the storySouth website.

Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) announces the 2009-2010 T&W Fellowships, awarded to support early-career development for two emerging writers. Applicants for T&W Fellowships must:

Be age 35 or younger at the beginning of the Fellowship period;
Live in New York City or be able to plan an extended stay in the area (T&W cannot assist with finding housing for individuals who do not currently live in New York.);
Show exceptional artistic promise and a commitment to a writing career;
Demonstrate financial need.

The 2009-2010 T&W Fellowship period is September 14, 2009, to June 18, 2010. $20,000 stipend, office space and supplies, Opportunities to meet with experienced professionals. Deadline June 19, 2009.

Bowling Green State University English Department seeks strong applicants for the College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Visiting Writer. The successful candidate will be in residence spring 2010; teach one workshop in the BFA program and one workshop in the MFA program; give a public reading and a lecture; and advise theses.

Qualifications: 1) MA, MFA, or PhD by time of employment; 2) At least one book of poetry and critical recognition consistent with a writer of national reputation; and 3) Evidence of outstanding undergraduate & graduate teaching.

Send letter, c.v., transcripts, three current letters of reference, writing sample (one book), a list of courses taught with brief descriptions of each, and 1-2 sample undergraduate and graduate syllabi to:

Kristine Blair, Chair
English Department
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio 43403-0191

The starting date of employment for this position is January 2010. Screening of applicants will begin March 16, 2009 and continue until the position is filled.

Lynchburg College Thornton Writer Residency, Spring 2010. A fourteen-week residency at Lynchburg College, including a stipend of $12,000, is awarded annually to a poet or creative nonfiction writer for the spring term. The residency also includes housing, some meals, and round trip travel expenses. The writer-in-residence will teach a weekly creative writing workshop, visit classes, and give a public reading.

Submit a copy of a previously published book of poetry or creative nonfiction, a c.v., a cover letter outlining evidence of successful teaching experience, and contact information for three references by March 16. There is no entry fee. These are the complete guidelines.

Lynchburg College
Thornton Writer Residency
School of Humanities & Social Sciences
1501 Lakeside Drive
Lynchburg, VA 24501

Joanna Turner
(434) 544-8690

Dear Office of Homeland Security
Jacob Scheier

It’s my duty to inform you I saw a flag waving suspiciously
outside Grand Central Station.

I held my hands to my ears and opened my mouth
and stood on one leg,
trying to signal the authorities
just like the website told me to,
but was only given quarters by a street mime.

So I bought beer nuts from a guy standing next to a guy selling
watches, because you can’t buy sugar coated nuts on the streets
in Canada and I wanted to know what it meant to be an American.

…

Read the rest on Geist.

English, Assistant Professor of English/Children’s Literature U of Nebraska-Kearney. OUF

Literary House Director for The Rose O’Neill Literary House. March 16

The Creative Writing Program at the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University is seeking distinguished writers for openings in fiction, poetry, translation, autobiography/biography.

The Quarterly Conversation asks readers, in 200 words or less, to tell about the best book they’ve never heard of but need to read. “Make sure it’s something we’ve never seen, and make sure you make us understand why we need to track down a copy.” The winner will receive books and store credit at the online store of Chicago’s Seminary Co-op Bookstore. Prizes for runners-up as well. Details in Issue 15.

Visit NewPages Literary Magazine Reviews to read thoughtful commentaries on the following print publications – Agni :: Alimentum :: Basalt :: Bateau :: Cave Wall :: Freshwater :: High Desert Journal :: Indiana Review :: The Literary Bird Journal :: POOL :: Reed :: Santa Monica Review :: Southern Humanities Review.

For information on having your publication considered for review, please visit the NewPages FAQ page.

Updated today, but won’t post on homepage until tomorrow, so blog readers get an advance peek! Check out NewPages Calls for Submissions page where we list calls from both our sponsors as well as non-sponsors. To have your call listed, e-mail: denisehill-at-newpages.com

PERKASIE, Pa. (AP) — The long-lost handwritten manuscript of Pearl S. Buck’s classic novel “The Good Earth” is set to go on display next month at the late author’s home outside Philadelphia.

The Pearl S. Buck House, in Hilltown Township, will display the 400 hand-edited pages for six months, beginning March 3.

It will be the first time since May 1930 that the manuscript will be reunited with the desk, chair and typewriter that Buck used when she wrote the novel, said Donna Rhodes, a curator at Buck’s home.

The manuscript had been missing for about 40 years when it was found in June 2007. The daughter of Buck’s longtime secretary said she found the pages in a suitcase in her basement and took them to a Philadelphia auction house, which called the FBI.

The manuscript has spawned a legal fight involving Buck’s heirs and foundations with links to her. A lawyer representing Buck’s birthplace in Hillsboro, W.Va., also staked a claim for ownership based on a notarized “bill of sale” that Buck signed in 1970, three years before she died.

Janet Mintzer, president of Pearl S. Buck International, said a will filed in Vermont, where the author died, gave the Buck family estate rights to her literary works, but that the family didn’t want to lend out the manuscript until the matter was settled.

The Buck family trust has formed an agreement with Pearl S. Buck International to display the manuscript for six months. The foundation maintains Buck’s home and manages its international adoptions program.

“We’ve been waiting literally a year and a half for it,” Mintzer said. “We’re very excited. It’s a great piece of history.”

“The Good Earth,” Buck’s most famous book, follows the life of a peasant farmer in pre-Revolutionary China as he marries, accumulates wealth and experiences both success and heartache. Buck, the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries, lived mostly in China from infancy through age 40.

The novel won the Pulitzer Price in 1932 and helped earn Buck the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.

Swing by the NewPages Book Review page to read great reviews on the following small/indie press books:

Secret of Breath
Poetry by Isabelle Baladine Howald
Translated from French by Elena Rivera
Burning Deck Press, October 2008
Review by Joseph P. Wood

Irresponsibility
Poetry by Chris Vitiello
Ahsahta Press, February 2008
Review by Karyna McGlynn

A Fixed, Formal Arrangement
Prose by Allison Carter
Les Figues Press, November 2008
Review by Sarah Sala

Big World
Stories by Mary Miller
Short Flight/Long Drive Books, February 2009
Review by Ryan Call

Circulation
Novella by Tim Horvath
sunnyoutside, March 2009
Reviewed by Jason Hinkley

The Islands of Divine Music
Novel by John Addiego
Unbridled Books, October 2008
Review by Laura Di Giovine

The White Space Between
Novel by Ami Sands Brodoff
Second Story Press, October 2008
Review by Christina Hall

Family Secret
Poetry by Rich Murphy
Finishing Line Press, 2008
Review by Roy Wang

Tomorrowland
Flash Fiction by Howie Good
Paper Hero Press, Achilles Chapbook Series,
December 2008
Review by Ryan Call

When You Come Home
Novel by Nora Eisenberg
Curbstone Press, November 2008
Review by Jessica Powers

Dzanc Books is looking for an individual to provide strategic direction and coordination for all fundraising efforts. The candidate will be an experienced person able to help create fundraising strategies that increase donations to Dzanc from individuals, corporations, agencies and foundations. Position will develop / implement a major gifts fundraising program, and solicitation strategies. Experience with grant writing a plus but not necessary. Send resume to [email protected] For further information about Dzanc, check their website.

Feminism, a Dirty Word
Nanna Árnadóttir
From Iceland Review

Feminism has become something of a taboo I’ve noticed. It’s beginning to annoy me a little actually.

It’s like some dirty word now. Feminist. Like saying you’re a feminist equates you with standing on the steps of City Hall and setting your bra on fire. I cherish my bra, anything that can support these puppies is alright in my book, and I still call myself a feminist…Now some might argue that feminism has always been taboo because any attempt by women to create equality is taboo, but I’m not of that opinion. I think feminism in the Nordic countries (Iceland included) has become taboo because most women think they evened the playing field already…And yet women in countries like Iceland are being abused by stuff that—if feminism were more integrated into people’s lives—might not actually be happening…[read the rest]