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Roland Prevost :: Why and How of Poetry

On Writing #15, a regular column on the Ottawa Poetry Newsletter, features Roland Prevost who looks at the Why and How of his poetry writing. In response to “How do I write poetry?” he begins: “I’ve always had this Picture-Mind, or Pixmind as I call it, as far back as I can remember. It provides me with an ability to call up free-flowing pictures, like snippets of movies, if I just get out of the way. I often say it’s like there’s a constant stream of images out there on the horizon. That I can choose to watch or not.” Read the rest here.

Glimmer Train September Fiction Open Winners :: 2013

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their September Fiction Open competition. This competition is held twice a year. Stories generally range from 2000-6000 words, though up to 20,000 is fine. The next Fiction Open will take place in June. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Mark Hitz, of Austin, TX, wins $2500 for “Shadehill.” His story will be published in Issue 92 of Glimmer Train Stories. This will be his first published writing. [Pictured. Photo credit: Ryan Reasor.]

Second place: Elizabeth Kadetsky, of New York, NY, wins $1000 for “What We Saw.” Her story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

Third place: Brenda Peynado, of Tallahassee, FL, wins $600 for “We Work in Miraculous Cages.”

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

Next Deadline: Short Story Award for New Writers: November 30
This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5000. No theme restrictions. Most submissions to this category run 1500-5000 words, but can go up to 12,000. First place prize is $1500. Second/third: $500/$300. Click here for complete guidelines.

Writing Wanted: For/From Typhoon Haiyan

From the Editors of Broadsided Press: “Typhoon Haiyan has been in the news. We have read and watched and want to offer what we can, in poetry and art, in response. When such world events grip us, we put forth a ‘Resposnes’ feature from Broadsided Press. At Broadsided Press, we believe art and literature are as necessary as the news to understanding the world. They demonstrate the vitality of our interconnectedness. Three Broadsided artists, Maura Cunninghamm, Ira Joel Haber, and Cheryl Gross have shared images for you to respond to in words. DEADLINE for writing is December 15, 2013. We will select the final collaborations and publish them in late December. Visit www.broadsidedpress.org to get the full guidelines and images.”

2013 Gulf Coast Prizes

The newest issue of Gulf Coast features the top winners for the 2013 contests in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. In addition to publication, they received $1,500. Honorable mentions received $250. Here is the complete list of winners:

2013 GULF COAST PRIZE IN FICTION
Judged by Maggie Shipstead

WINNER:
Alexander Lumans, “Power and Light”

HONORABLE MENTION:
Syed Ali Haider, “I’ll Take It Neat”
Ravsten Cottle, “The Young Mormon’s Guide to Not Having Sex in the 1980s”

2013 GULF COAST PRIZE IN NONFICTION
Judged by Darin Strauss

WINNER:
JR Fenn, “Where We Went and What We Did There”

HONORABLE MENTION:
Daisy Pitkin, “Scattering Theory”
Alessandra Nolan, “Guilt Letters”

2013 GULF COAST PRIZE IN POETRY
Judged by Stanley Plumly

WINNER:
M.K. Foster, “Fugue for the Sky Burial of Your Father”

HONORABLE MENTION:
Scott Challener, “Maine”
Melissa Barrett, “If I Were the Moon, I Know Where I Would Fall Down”

Giving Thanks: “Call for Submission” by Daniel Bosch

For your holiday reading pleasure, a poem that was gifted to NewPages by writer Daniel Bosch. He shared it with us as a thank you for the work we do here, and I was so impressed and intrigued by it, I asked his permission to publish it here. He agreed and also responded to my request to provide some background on his writing and this piece in particular; his commentary follows the poem. For the kindness and generosity of the many readers and writers who appreciate our work, NewPages gives our thanks!

Call for Submission
by Daniel Bosch

This issue embraces the world of beasts
Through new fiction, poetry, and creative
Nonfiction about the nonhuman creatures
With whom we share the world. The works we publish
Fit various overlapping styles, including
Absurdist, uncanny, fabulist, cross-genre,
Experimental, bizarro, modern fairy tale,
Post-colonial, post-gender, and activist
Writing, new weird, surreal, fantastic, etc.
We want your formally inventive fiction.
Stretch the limits of words and thoughts. We look for
Savvy, sharp, well-polished literature
That captures life in a post-natural world.
The combined terms magic realism +
Slipstream illustrate the range of our stories
Along a spectrum between modern reality
And the imagined. Contact us with interview
Suggestions and other creative goodness.
Send us your spiny, your sharp, your relentless;
We want work coursing with energy and
Able to thrive in the harshest of places,
All while maintaining a vulnerable,
Succulent interior. We are looking for
Elegantly written fiction and poetry
Where the heart of the story lies within
Words shared in conversations between lovers,
Friends, strangers or even enemies.
The guidelines provide submission word lengths
And how to submit by email, but not
How to rotate your head 360 degrees
Or carrot recipes (not yet anyway).
Avoid overt or preachy messages.
Make us swoon. Look, we’ve got eclectic tastes here.
Don’t be afraid to submit works that defy
Form or genre. Show us what it means to exist
In an ecosystem, a biosphere.
The theme of the issue you can interpret
In any way. Review our guidelines where
You can also find details on our anagram
Contest. Submissions may be about artists,
Art genres, the idea of art, the making
Of art, being an artist, creativity,
Inspiration, etc. We cannot
Pay you, but if it makes you feel better,
We’re not getting paid, either. Inspire us.
Our only real requirement: Make our
Souls ache. Give us hope. And we want it now.

“Call for Submission” is a cento. The term comes from the Latin cento, “a cloak made of patches.” The Latin is derived from the Greek κέντρων. In the Greek literary world, centos were mainly composed by verses taken from Homer. In contemporary practice, these patched together poems follow the classical model in that they are usually assembled from poems the cento-maker believes are good, and that his audience might recognize.

“Call for Submission,” is made of language I culled from NewPages’ Calls For Submission section on May 8, 2013. I am very grateful for the good service NewPages provides to writers who seek to publish their work; the site makes a difficult task much easier. Yet my writing is so animated by a desire to play—and the work it takes to get poems published is painful “work” by comparison—that I know that when I composed “Call for Submission,” I was to let my impulse to play overtake a much weaker impulse to perform

I take seriously the work I produce when I play. In my cento, I mix “high” forms with “low” content to emphasize irony that inheres in the language of Calls For Submission; for an artist, there is some irony even in any response to the command, “submit.” I made very few alterations to the patches I’ve used, because I wanted my cento to be an accurate record of how writers speak to themselves in a professional organ such as NewPages. This mirror accuracy, I hope, supports how “Call for Submission” functions as satire: too much of the language of Calls For Submission is trite, puffed up, and (I think unintentionally) silly. And part of the point of the poem is its own over-stuffed too-muchness.

Yet I have tried very hard to make audible and legible in “Call for Submission” how that very same language may be pure-hearted in its aspiration to excellence and its enthusiasm for the art and craft of writing. Ancient Greek cento-makers knew that their audience would recall bits of Homer they had culled; I hope that the NewPages writer/reader of my poem will recognize the simultaneity of its twin strands of language—the ridiculous and the sincere. It is to such simultaneity we submit whenever we do the work it takes to send writing to a magazine or press. It is to such simultaneity we submit whenever we take play with language seriously.

Daniel Bosch’s poems, essays, translations, and book reviews appear in many magazines and journals that use NewPages’ Calls For Submission.

Nimrod Literary Awards 2013

Nimrod‘s latest issue features the winners from their Literary Awards for 2013, under the issue theme “Hunger & Thirst.” Winners were selected from among 560 poetry manuscripts and 406 short stories.

The Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry

FIRST PRIZE: Sarah Crossland, “Safranschou” and other poems

SECOND PRIZE: Lynn Shoemaker, “In My Native Home” and other poems

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Don Judson, “Chemo” and other poems
Daniel Lusk, “Weights and Measures” and other poems
Julie Taylor, “Hungry Lake” and other poems

The Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction

FIRST PRIZE: Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, “Boys on the Moskva River”

SECOND PRIZE: Jacob Appel, “Paracosmos”

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Roberta Haas George, “A Small Fortune”
John Haggerty, “The Last Detail”
Alison Moore, “Safe House”

See a list of finalists and semi-finalists here.

Poetry Kanto Goes Digital

Poetry Kanto‘s 2013 issue has just been released, but it won’t look like what you’re used to. They have just gone exclusively online from a print publication. All of the contents from the print editions from 2005-2012 also appear on the website for your reading pleasure.

Book Covers :: Picks of the Week :: November 21, 2013

After a brief hiatus, we’re back with more interesting book covers:

Bite Down Little Whisper, poetry by Don Domanski, Brick Books

 

 From “Ars Magica”:

Quietude is called returning to life Lao Tze says
even on a Tuesday afternoon in Nova Scotia
even with the hood ornaments of chocolate irises
gleaming outward from their arterial darkness
with the unborn standing high up in the trees
                                  like cemetery angels
one finger pointing to heaven    the other to earth

Because I Am the Shore I Want to Be the Sea, poetry by Renee Ashley, Subito Press

 
 

from the book’s title poem:

But you too know this: the wanting to be what you cannot—except by extension—and the bearing of those secrets so immeasurable not even an ocean can conceal them And in the ocean’s failure the mountain shows its hard side its watershed steep with its varied waves of not-sea its gravities and declivities its runnels its hummings and echoes vaulting against the inner ear a passel of unruly birds against a pearled tympan . . .

The Everyday Parade/Alone With Turntable, Old Records, poetry chapbook by Justin Hamm, Crisis Chronicles Press

After reading Justin Hamm’s The Everyday Parade, flip the chapbook over and take in its B side, Alone With Turntable, Old Records. (The image above shows the front and back covers.)

From “The Everyday Parade”:

She helps him swap out
the fuel pump
for one from the junkyard
delivered by goateed uncle
on motorbike,
and all afternoon they sit uptown,
a pair of grease-covered gearheads
in the white sunshine,
watching the long slow procession
of the Everyday Parade.

 
 

We’ll be back with more book covers after Thanksgiving…happy holidays!

NOON Returns Online

Editor Philip Rowland welcomes writers and readers back “to the online continuation of NOON: journal of the short poem. Published in hand-sewn, limited editions between 2004 and 2009, the journal aimed to put some of the most interesting English-language haiku in conversation with other innovative short poetry. Each issue was designed to be read as a sequence of poems, with one per page and the authors’ names given only in an index.” Returning from its hiatus, Rowland writes, “The new series will appear online, two or three times a year, with the journal’s style of presentation being retained as far as possible. A selection of poems from the online issues will be published in printed book form every other year.” Submission are currently being accepted, and we here at NewPages certainly look forward to the return of NOON!

Editorial Changes at The Southern Review

A note in the latest issue of The Southern Review says that Cara Blue Adams announced her leave from the magazine this summer to pursue writing and teaching. “We wish her well in those and all other regards,” the editors write. They also note that she had selected the prose for issues through summer 2014 and should be recognized as having done such. “For this Louisiana-style lagniappe from a Vermont native, then, and for many other things, we thank her even as we bid her farewell.”

Making a Short Story Collection

In her essay, “It Is All Ours to Make,” Laura van den Berg writes about the short story collection. She begins: “In my early days of writing stories, I somehow came to operate under the following assumption: whenever you amassed 200 pages worth of fiction, your work would undergo a miraculous transformation into a book.” And when she is disappointed by the results, she notes, “A big part of my problem was that I was attempting to write a collection without having read very many collections.”

Now, having successfully published two short story collections (and read many, many more), van den Berg comments, “One of the greatest joys of story collections is the way each one can operate entirely on its own terms. . . The stories are micro-worlds but are contained by an overarching fictional universe, the parts inseparable from the whole.”

Read her full essay and others in the most recent issue of Glimmer Train Bulletin (#82), a free publication of craft essays from authors published in Glimmer Train Stories.

Cartography with a Twist

The Antioch Review‘s latest issue boasts a special theme, “Cartography with a Twist.” In an editor’s note, Robert S. Fogarty writes, “Our authors have shown great industry also and even greater imagination in depicting their varied worlds, as they perceive them through others and in travel to places as diverse as India, Dublin, Ireland, Richmond, Virginia, the interior of a therapist’s office (Boston), a college town (Iowa City), or the White House (that is D.C.). involving a planned liaison that ran afoul of a national crisis. There are some great tales here, some memorable characters, and a deep appreciation for the varieties of human experience that are to be found just around the corner or continents away.”

The issue includes work by Ken Bode, Thomas J. Cottle, Bruce Fleming, Patricia Foster, Molly Haskell, James Marcus, Maureen McCoy, Peter Blickle, Kirk Nesset, Keven Ducey, Brandon Krieg, Joseph Harrison, and many more.

The Richard Brautigan Collection from Poet Joanne Kyger

Offered by Granary Books, The Richard Brautigan Collection features “an extraordinary archive of original artwork, inscribed books, rare ephemera and magazines, photographs, typescripts and more” from long-time friend and writer Joanne Kyger. Available on the website is an introduction, selected highlights from the collection with brief notes, and a collection listing. This alone is worth the visit for Brautigan fans. Those interested in the collection can contact Granary Books for more information and a price.

Fellowship for Jewish Scholars and Writers

The Posen Foundation is pleased to announce the Posen Society of Fellows’ second year; an international cohort of emerging scholars whose work deals with Jewish subject matter. Each of the six winning fellows will receive $40,000 over two years, and the opportunity to attend an annual gathering led by prestigious scholars and writers.

The Posen Foundation is now soliciting applications for the 2014-2016 class of Fellows. They welcome applications from doctoral students writing their dissertations on subjects related to modern Jewish history and culture. All applicants should have completed their exams before April 1, 2014 and have an approved dissertation or have already begun writing it and have a remainder of two years.

Deadline: January 15, 2014

Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction

The most recent issue of The Malahat Review includes the winner of the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction, Kerry-Lee Powell for “Palace of the Brine.” The award “celebrates the achievement of emerging writers who have yet to publish their fiction in book form.” It was chosen by Alissa York from among 295 submissions. Congrats to Powell. You can read an interview with Powell about her winning piece on Malahat‘s website.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

This isn’t so much about the cover as it is about the whole design of the book. Being modeled by our two copies above (on my cluttered desk), Garbanzo‘s design includes a dust jacket (you’ll find it’s been stamped on the inside), fold out pages, a ribbon bookmark, and a unique binding. This particular issue goes along with the Halloween feel of fall with die-cut bats (one of which fell out and quickly attached itself to the backside of the cat that likes to roll around on the floor). I appreciate that while it is simple, it makes a unique experience for the reader and has an almost handmade feel (especially since each issue is numbered on the inside jacket).

Cover art for this issue of Boulevard is an acrylic on canvas by Rafal Olbinski called “Permission from Silence,” 2009. This one is a definite favorite of our managing editor: “I just still love that cover,” she keeps saying.

Job: Assistant Professor Transnational Literatures

Assistant Professor of English in Transnational Literatures, Literary Theory and Culture

The Department of Humanities at Michigan Technological University invites applications for an Assistant Professor of English.

Requirements: Ph.D. or equivalent in English by time of appointment; record of teaching excellence; evidence of research and/or scholarly potential. Candidate should have expertise in pre-1800 or Early Modern British literature. Candidates should also be prepared to teach early modern drama, early modern poetry and prose, literary theory and survey on British literature and major authors. Methodological interests may include literary history, cultural studies, materialist approaches (corporeal, economic and technological), and comparative literature. Special interests in global or transnational cultures and approaches to English literature are especially welcome.

The department’s graduate and undergraduate programs afford faculty unique opportunities to teach and engage in research that both shapes and benefits from a rich multi-disciplinary environment. The department offers doctoral and master degrees in the interdisciplinary Rhetoric and Technical Communication program and undergraduate major degrees in English, including English with a concentration in Secondary Education; Liberal Arts; Communication, Culture, and Media; and Scientific and Technical Communication. The usual tenure-track teaching load is 2 courses (6 hrs.) per semester.

Please see our website: http://www.mtu.edu/humanities

Please send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and three confidential letters of recommendation to:

Dr. Kette Thomas
Chair, English Search Committee
Department of Humanities
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive Houghton, MI 49931-1295

Finalists will be asked to send statements of research and teaching interests (single page each), evidence of teaching effectiveness, and a 20-page writing sample. Appointment begins August 2014. Review of applications begins on November 15, 2013, and will continue until the position is filled.

Michigan Technological University is an Equal Opportunity Educational Institution/Equal Opportunity Employer.

Michigan Tech is an internationally renowned doctoral research university, with a diverse community of 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students and cross-disciplinary faculty. Located on Lake Superior in Houghton, MI, its community offers year-round recreational and cultural opportunities.

Michigan Tech is an ADVANCE institution, one of a limited number of universities in receipt of NSF funds in support of our commitment to increase diversity and the participation and advancement of women in STEM.

Michigan Tech acknowledges the importance of supporting dual career partners in attracting and retaining a quality workforce. Michigan Tech is committed to offering career exploration advice and assistance whenever feasible and appropriate at the University and in the local community. See www.dual.mtu.edu for additional information.

Kallie Falandays Poetry

Thumbing through the recent issue of burntdistrict, I came across a collection of four “she said, “he said,” poems by Kallie Falandays. I liked them so much I just had to share a snippet:

She said,
                Conversations from Dovetail

When I woke up it smelled like rain. I held you
like a doorway, in between my beating claws.
I want to hold you like a window, I said.
Like a chair. I want to see your openings. See my metal
beams, my metal rods, see my growling claws?

Haiku Wanted!

Every year, Broadsided hosts the annual Haiku Year-In-Review (henceforth referred to as HYIR). The collective has posted four topics responding to an event that seemed significant in each season of 2013. Now they want your haiku! In December, they’ll post the best entries for each season along with art created on the same subject and ask YOU to vote. January 1, 2014 they’ll be published as our featured broadside. Gorgeous and poignant year after year. Join in this great event!

Broadsided November

November’s Broadsided Press Collaboration, “The Seahorse Motel” features a poem by Rachel Marie Patterson, art by Ira Joel Haber, and design by Debbie Nadolney.

Edited by Elizabeth Bradfield, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Sean Hill, Alexandra Teague, and Mark Temelko, Broadsided has been putting literature in the streets since 2005. Each month, a new broadside is posted both on the website and around the nation.

Writing is chosen through submissions sent to Broadsided. Artists allied with Broadsided are emailed the selected writing. They then “dibs” on what resonates for them and respond visually – sometimes more than one artist will respond offering a selection of broadsides.

Broadsided Vectors can do
wnload the poem in full color or black and white and poster it around town, campus, wherever! Check into becoming a Broadsided Vector today!

South Dakota Review’s 50th Anniversary

The most recent issue of South Dakota Review is volume 50, honoring their 50th year anniversary. Editor-in-chief Lori Ann Roripaugh contributes an opening essay reflecting on the 50 years. In section eight of her essay, she writes, “For the past 50 years, poems, stories, and essays have migrated into the South Dakota Review office by land and by air, and—more recently—along the glittering veins of electronic networks. For the past 50 years, the magazine has come out on a quarterly basis . . . publishing a commemorative sampling of the last half-century’s literary culture.

“This shared exchange of textual aesthetic currency, of textual cultural memory, is truly a gift exchange, functioning within a gift economy, and the exchange of trust implicit in this 50-year legacy of shared gifting is both profoundly humbling, as well as a source of immense pride for all of us who have had the pleasure of working on the magazine.

“I think of this exchange of gifts as a body of work in constant motion and flux, traveling along highways and streets and flyways and networks like an elaborate circulatory system. A breathing organism. This perpetual inhale and exhale of language, art, and memory.”

Poetry Anthology Helps Victims of Boston Marathon Bombings

As Thanksgiving and the season of gratitude approaches, consider purchasing a book that makes a difference with each sale. Like One: Poems for Boston, edited by Deborah Finkelstein, is a recent anthology that brings together pieces from a wide range of poets, from former Jersey City Poet Laureate Aaron Middlepoet Jackson to former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky to Dickinson and Whitman. All proceeds from the book go to The One Fund, created last summer to assist victims of the Boston Marathon bombings and their families.

For a complete list of poets included and their bios, visit the poets page on the website. Like One can be purchased via the website or on Amazon.

Modern Haiku Favorites of the Summer Issue

As always, the latest Modern Haiku reveals awards to the favorite haiku, senryu, and haibun from the previous issue (in this case, the Summer 2013 issue), selected and awarded $50 by an anonymous donor. Winners this time around are as follows:

Favorite haiku: by Jack Barry
last kid
left on the school bus
November rain

Favorite senryu: by Ken Jones
Catching myself
in the ovoid mirror
I try to look interesting

Favorite haibun: by Carol Pearce-Worthington
“In the Book of Dreams Told”

New Book Reviews Posted

New book reviews are up! Check out the latest batch on our book review page. Books covered this month include:

The Forage House, poetry by Tess Taylor, Red Hen Press
War Reporter, poetry by Dan O’Brien, Hanging Loose Press
Paper Dreams: Writers and Editors on the American Literary Magazine, anthology compiled and edited by Travis Kurowski, Atticus Books
New Stories from the Midwest 2012, anthology edited by Jason Lee Brown and Shanie Latham,

Swoop, poetry by Hailey Leithauser, Graywolf Press
The Consummation of Dirk, fiction by James Callahan, Starcherone Books
The Year of What Now, poetry by Brian Russell, Graywolf Press
Scent of Darkness, fiction by Margot Berwin, Pantheon
 
Find some great new books to read this month, and look for more book reviews on Dec. 1.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

“Even in the digital age, the letter exerts a mysterious pull . . . ,” write the editors. “But for the young girls on our cover [of Poet Lore], walking to the mailbox was a serious rural ritual, the day’s post a lifeline linking farm routes and cities, family and friends . . . What kind of lifeline does poetry offer, what kind of ‘news’?”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I found that the colors on this issue of Cutbank are stunning, and if you look closer, you realize it’s a collage of birds. It’s a mixed media painting on canvas titled “The Birds of Wonderland” by Nanuka Tchitchoua in 2009.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Lost in Thought‘s new cover (and the design of the issue as a whole) is definitely eye-catching. Unfortunately, I can’t locate the artist of the cover image, but it does indicate that the issue contains art by Haley Friesen and ink work by Nobuhiro Sato.

Book Covers: Halloween Edition

In honor of Halloween, here’s today’s book cover picks, which have an otherworldly air about them.

Hibernaculum, poetry by Sarah E. Colona, Gold Wake Press

from “Consulting the Winds”:

As any child of winter, she knew
The arts for summoning:
How to grip a knife for swift kills;
To trace runes with blood-slick fingers;
To ring fires with stones—herself with salt.

Vulgar Remedies, poetry by Anna Journey, Louisiana State University Press

from “Dermatographia”:

Somewhere there’s a dress that clings
like a Jackson night, late summer—strapless,

black crepe, a crux where the past
lingers like a Mississippi

vowel drawn out of itself
in my mother, 1963.

Beyond This Point There are Monsters, fiction by Roxanne Carter, Sidebrow Books

Like a gothic teleplay by Gertrude Stein, filmed by Andy Warhol, and transcribed into a stunning lyrical novel by the very voyeuristic monster at its center, lustful in equal measure for the scintilla of soap opera set pieces and the two women—one master, one slave—trapped in an ever-shifting atmosphere of vamp and apprehension.
 
“i look out of the window and watch as the waves suck back, white froth coiling and leavening; suddenly her face appears as if she is here, shining and beautiful. i have never seen her so clearly, so near. my heart, bloodthirsty, beats and i whisper. i whisper her name against the glass. i say her name and i am ungovernable.”
 
Happy Halloween reading! Look for new book reviews to be posted tomorrow, Nov. 1.

Afghan Americans: Diptychs

Andrea Bruce gives photographs with narratives in a special feature in the latest Alaska Quarterly Review called “Afghan Americans: Diptychs.” It’s a beautiful collection of photographs of Afghan Americans with quotes from them about bridging a link between their two cultures. “As an American, when I go to America, I try to get people to think of Afghans in a good way,” says Mina Sherzoy. “And as an Afghan, when I go to Afghanistan, I want the Afghans to think of the Americans in a good way. I’ve always tried to make the connections. I want to be a bridge.”

In the introduction to the selection, Bruce says that, “Each diptych explores a unique and complex connection between two countries and cultures seemingly at war, every day, embodied in individual Afghan Americans.” She emphasizes that she needed “to show that Iraqis weren’t all that different than our readers.” She goes on to say: “I need to show that they, too, love their children. They care about education. They have to deal with traffic, and health care, in surprisingly similar ways that Americans do. Intimacy was my tool.”

It really is an important section within a larger issue of Alaska Quarterly Review that also contains fiction, nonfiction, and poetry selections.

Glimmer Train August Short Story Award Winners

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

1st place goes to Samsun Knight of Brookline MA. He wins $1500 for “Family of Four” and his story will be published in Issue 92 of Glimmer Train Stories. This is Samsun’s first off-campus print publication. [Pictured. Photo credit: Grace Lu.]

2nd place goes to Tamar Jacobs of Akron, OH. She wins $500 for “The Wall Between.” This story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing her prize to $700.

3rd place goes to Julie Zapoli of Ketchum, ID. She wins $300 for “The Last to Know.”

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

Deadline soon approaching for Family Matters: October 31

Glimmer Train hosts this competition twice a year, and first place has been increased to $1500 plus publication in the journal. It’s open to all writers for stories about families of all configurations. Most submissions to this category run 1200-5000 words, but can go up to 12,000. Click here for complete guidelines.

Job: Managing Editor @ Drunken Boat

“Drunken Boat, one of the world’s oldest electronic journals of the arts and the winner of a South by Southwest Web Award, is looking for a new Managing Editor. We have a fabulous staff in place and very clear directions on how to proceed. What we are looking for is someone who is dedicated, meticulous to detail, capable of working collaboratively with many people and helping us keep our editorial deadlines. The position offers the possibility of a modest stipend and we need at least a one-year commitment from someone. The Managing Editor would also have interns to help him/her out with our publishing goals. Applicants with familiarity with working online and working in publishing are preferred. This is a great opportunity to be involved in an independent publisher that publishes books and a highly-acclaimed journal and that reaches over a hundred thousand unique visitors annually worldwide. If you are interested, please send a short cover letter and CV to ravi-at-drunkenboat.com.”

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

Photography for this cover of Image comes from Fritz Liedtke, titled “Swimming Hole Boys” from the series Welcome to Wonderland. There is more of his work inside.

American Letters & Commentary‘s new issue has a special feature on Suspended Animation. The cover features a piece of Matthea Harvey’s ice cube art, with more on the back cover and inside.

Cover art for issue 3 of Phantom Drift is “Hypnagogia” by Chris Mars. It definitely has a creep look; I can’t stare for too long.

Book Covers :: Picks of the Week :: October 24, 2013

Here are some of the book covers I found intriguing while scanning the shelves this week:

The Body Geographic, nonfiction by Barrie Jean Borich, University of Nebraska Press


Between Chicago and Minneapolis Bonnie Jean Borich maps her own Midwest, a true heartland in which she measures the distance between the dreams and realities of her own life, her family’s, and her fellow travelers’ in the endless American migration. Covering rough terrain—from the hardships of her immigrant ancestors to the travails of her often-drunk young self, from the changing demographics of Midwestern cities to the personal transformations of coming out and living as a lesbian—Body Geographic is cartography of high literary order, plotting routes, real and imagined, and putting an alternate landscape on the map.

 
 
Bad Habitats, fiction chapbook by Alisa Slaughter, Gold Line Press
 
 
 
Dana Johnson, judge of the Gold Line Press 2012 Fiction Chapbook Competition, notes: “Good stories destabilize a reader’s view of the world. And when this happens, the experience is exciting and mystifying. Bad Habitats is just such a remarkable read. Startling in its ambition and stunning in its achievements, the amalgamation of the animal and human leaves us with serious questions about who we think we are and who we want to be.”
 
 
 
 

from “Senior Coffee”:

                                                 …I want her to have a life

     like mine, one lived, not for poetry but through poetry.
Everything—a car starting, bird song, the gurgling
     of a coffeepot, the whirr of a fan, the whisper of lovers,

     the silly noises babies make, the wisdom of the books
the mighty dead have written—all of that steps easily into
     poetry and makes itself at home there. Poetry and coffee:

     now there’s a combination for you.

Look for new book reviews on November 1!

Ekphrastic Issue of The Nassau Review

The current issue of The Nassau Review is a special ekphrastic themed issue. “One art is all art: all art is one art,” writes Editor Christina M. Rau. “In keeping with this mantra, I wondered if other poets would agree that ekphrasis could relate to more than writing a description about one piece of art. I wondered how prose writers would approach this idea. What I found was simple. Artists find inspiration in all forms of creativity.” The issue also features the winners of the 2013 Writer Award for Prose and Poetry: Wayne Scheer’s “The Love Song of Langley Moran” and Jennifer Woodworth’s “Crows Over Wheatfield” (after Vincent Van Gogh’s last painting).

Join the Freedom of Expression Wall

Join Sampsonia Way’s Freedom of Expression Wall:

“What does free speech mean to you? Join writers, journalists, activists and people from around the world in creating a public freedom of expression wall. Get on the wall! Make a hand-written sign, take a picture, and post it on the wall by submitting to [email protected] with the subject line Freedom of Expression Wall. Please include your name and location, and make sure your picture shows a printed or hand-written sign.”

Sampsonia Way is a free online magazine on literature, free speech and social justice.

Light Back On

Light Quarterly, “it’s been America’s only journal of light verse for more than 20 years,” has returned! After announcing their final print issue in September of 2012, Light Quarterly has resurfaced as Light, an online journal publishing twice yearly. Founded by John Mella (December 12, 1941 – April 16, 2012), the publication continues in the tradition to “restore humor, clarity, and pleasure to the reading of poems” under the guidance of Editor Melissa Balmain and Managing Editor Kevin Durkin. The publication is available free online with an archive of links to past issue sample pages. Light can also be found on Facebook where readers can keep up with the Poem of the Week. Welcome back Light!

Job: Asst Prof Writing in New Media (CT)

Institution: Eastern Connecticut State University
Position: Assistant Professor: Writing in New Media
Tenure Track
Qualifications: Ph.D. or ABD in English

The successful candidate must have awareness of and sensitivity to the educational goals of a multicultural/first generation student population and a strong interest in teaching both discipline-specific and liberal arts core courses at all levels. *Position Description:* Responsibilities will include teaching existing introductory and advanced courses in rhetoric, composition, literary studies, and/or creative writing and to develop new courses in line with teaching and research interests. These may include (but are not limited to) new media writing, new media criticism, and electronic publishing. Practical experience working with web-based applications and genres is essential, as is up-to-date knowledge of Internet culture. Additional expectations include student advising, service to the department and university committees, as well as an active research agenda.

Please send letter of application, CV, teaching philosophy and three letters of recommendation as email attachments (PDF or Word) to englishsearch-at-easternct.edu

Review of applications will begin November 15, 2013.

To learn more about posted positions and application procedures at Eastern Connecticut State University, please go to:

http://www.easternct.edu/humanresources.html

Eastern Connecticut State University, the state’s public liberal arts university serving approximately 5,400 students, offers a wide range of undergraduate majors in the arts and sciences and professional studies, as well as selected graduate programs. Located in historic Windham County in the heart of eastern Connecticut, the University is midway between New York City and Boston, and only a short drive from Hartford, the state capital. Eastern Connecticut State University is an AA/EEO employer. Women, members of protected classes, and people with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

Job :: CW at EMU

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing

The Department of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Creative Writing. The Creative Writing Program emphasizes interdisciplinarity and includes both undergraduate and MA studies. We are seeking a literary writer who works in new media and/or digital arts and is capable of teaching courses that address contemporary aesthetic practices engaged with digital environments in multi-discipline contexts. Candidates must hold a graduate degree, and demonstrate a significant publication record, evidence of excellence in teaching, and promise of continuing literary engagement. Teaching load is three courses per semester, with possible course reductions.

The Department is searching for someone who demonstrates collegiality among faculty, support staff, and students and who works well within a climate of shared governance. The successful candidate will demonstrate a commitment to teaching; facilitate and value student development; generate both literary and scholarly work; and participate in professional and community organizations.

Known for its congenial and collaborative English Department, EMU is located in the Ann Arbor-Detroit area. The school is a culturally diverse learning and teaching community set in a small city environment, amidst a major metropolitan area, that attracts students from Metro Detroit, across the state, nationally, and internationally. Internal grant opportunities are available.

To apply, go to https://www.emujobs.com and click on the “View/Apply for Faculty and Administrative Positions.” As a part of the application, all applicants must provide a cover letter and CV. Additional materials only upon request. Questions about this position may be sent to the Chair of the Search Committee rhalpern-at-emich.edu.

Screening of candidates will begin on October 25, with priority given to applications received by that date.
Interviews will be conducted at the MLA Convention in Chicago in 2014.

DVQ Seeks Editor

The online lit mag Diverse Voices Quarterly is looking for a first-round reader.

Position requirements:

–BA in English or similar field (or you’re currently enrolled in college for this degree)
–Interest in creative writing (poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction)
–Interest in publishing field

Read some sample issues. Send your resume with a cover letter, stating three favorite pieces (one from each genre) and the author’s name of each piece and why you like them.

Once they go over resumes/cover letters, a follow-up conversation either by phone and/or in person (New Jersey) will take place with those they see most fit.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

The Stinging Fly, from Dublin, puts forth this special translation issue, listing the names of the pieces in their original language, all spanning out in a web from the fly logo in the middle. Included are translations from French, Dutch, Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, German, Greek, and more.

Gargoyle Magazine‘s second issue for 2013 features cover photography by Cassia Beck and includes almost 500 pages of nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and artwork.

The Georgia Review‘s cover definitely had me staring for a while. Celeste Rapone’s Blue Dress is a painting done by oil on canvas, and she has more art, too, featured on the back cover and inside.

The 2013 Knickerbocker Prize

Big Fiction‘s latest issue features the first and second place winners for the 2013 Knickerbocker Prize, which is awarded to two novellas. “There were plenty of wonderful stories in the bunch, ” writes Lauren Groff, the final judge, “. . . but I was waiting for the ineffable, the flare in the gut that told me I was in expert hands. I found this lightning pulse in both [Steve Yates’s] ‘Sandy and Wayne’ and [Sandra Gail Lambert’s] ‘ Half-Boy’ . . . These stories thrilled and moved me; in both cases, at tense moments in the stories, I had to stand and walk around the room in agitation, in order to clam myself enough to go on. Though they could not be more different—’Sandy and Wayne’ a love story on an Arkansas road-building crew, and ‘Half-Boy’ taking place in the humid Florida of the last century—the authors of both of these stories won me over with their dedication to the precise detail, the perfect description, and the largeness of their characters’ longing.”

Book Covers :: Picks of the Week :: October 17, 2013

Like lit mag review editor Kirsten McIlvenna, I’m going to join in the fun and start selecting some of the best covers of all the books that come in for review at NewPages. Since only a small portion of the books we receive end up getting reviewed, it’s also an opportunity to give some books from independent presses a little more love. Just keep in mind, of course, that I’m completely judging books by their covers here…it’s up to you to read the content and decide its quality.

Here are some of my recent favorites, with short descriptions (from the book cover or publisher’s site) of each title:

Needs Improvement, poetry by Jon Paul Fiorentino, Coach House Books


Whether misreading sixth-grade pedagogical materials or offering visual schematics for reading Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, Jon Paul Fiorentino’s sixth poetry collection asks us to reconsider our engagement with received information — but does so with a wink during detention.

The Short Fall, fiction by Marek Waldorf, Turtle Point Press

Shot during a botched assassination, a speechwriter starts recovering his powers of speech, along with memories of the campaign he served. But the more he remembers, the more he suspects that he—and not the candidate he helped make president—was the intended target. Set at the dawn of the internet era, The Short Fall is personal tragedy ventriloquized as political farce.

When This World Comes to an End, poetry by Kate Cayley, Brick Books

from “The Later Auden”:

In the evening, wine, then vodka. Auden, grievously mathematical,
lays his head down at the end of each apportioned day. The guests
must be gone by nine thirty. Timetabled, ticking off
the flyblown minutes, he gets hungry
only when the clock strikes the appropriate hour, lonely
only between nightfall and morning.

Check out these new titles, and see more books that have come in for review on our Book Stand page. And as always, look for in-depth book reviews on the first of each month.

New Literary Locator

Poecology magazine releases a new feature: the Literary Locator. This virtual map has a pin for each piece published in Poecology where the author lives. You can see literature written from around the world; simply click on the pin to start reading. They are currently partnering with other online literary magazines (such as Terrain.org) to get more literature on the map. In 2014, the map will be open to submissions and nominations of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that are published online.

Gigantic Phone

With the latest issue of Gigantic, we got a letter telling us about the special Gigantic Phone feature, “both a throwback—part answering machine, part hotline—and a move toward the future.” Call (917) 719-2166 to hear audio pieces from the writers and artists of the magazine, including Marie-Helene Bertino, Joe Wenderoth, Thomas Pierce, Mitchell S. Jackson, Martin Roth, Andrea, McGinty, and Ashley Farmer. I have to say; I tried it out, and it’s pretty cool.

Call for Papers: J-SAPS’ Special Issue on Teachers and Teacher Education

From the Journal of Social and Policy Sciences: Teachers are central to education systems across the world. While good teaching has been a focus of scholarly reflection for a long time, the universalization of education has also turned it into a public policy issue. Introduction of free universal primary education (UPE), as set out in the first Education for All (EFA) framework in 1990, has increased the demand for trained teachers in response to huge and rapid increases in the student enrollment. The gaps between teacher demand and supply have resulted in severe shortages of qualified teachers in developing countries. Teacher shortages plague many education systems often undermine the effectiveness of interventions aiming to improve student access to quality education. These problems call for a scholarly effort to develop insights about teaching and teacher education in different contexts.

To critically understand the role of teachers in the modern educational systems, many questions are worthy of exploration by the researchers and educationists. Who are the individuals who predominantly make up the teaching cadre? Who are the individuals engaged in preparing teachers, namely the teacher educators, and what qualifies them to do such work? What influences the practices of teachers? What shapes the practices of teacher educators? How do organisational contexts matter in the ways teachers learn and develop? That is to say, are there any differences in the ways teachers develop over time in public and private schools and/or at different levels of schooling? How do organisational contexts matter in the ways teachers educators learn and develop?

Looking specifically at teacher education, what practices characterize the work of teacher educators in Pakistan? How do teacher educators learn to do their work? What forms of knowledge do teacher educators’ use that differ from those used by teachers in general, and how do these forms of knowledge develop? And what might high-quality preparation of teacher educators entail?

How might accountability policies influence the work of teachers and teacher educators? What are relationships between research and practice related to the development of teacher educators? What Policy Interventions may contribute positively to the improvement in Teachers Education/Performance?

For the upcoming issue of Journal of Social and Policy Sciences, we invite research and/or conceptual articles and case studies that will address some of the questions mentioned above, particularly in Pakistan/South Asia.

Submission of Full Papers: November 15, 2013

Feature on Sean Thomas Dougherty

In a special feature in the newest issue of The Bitter Oleander, Sean Thomas Dougherty is both interviewed and shares some of his poetry. Even in his interview, he responds to questions with clear, crisp, and inviting writing. Here’s an excerpt from a question about his childhood: “As a teenager I lived in Manchester, NH. My father sold things. He sold candy. He sold chemicals for restaurants. He drove every day with samples. My mother had gone to law school and was blacklisted for her politics. She worked at a radio station. She moved up. She became a DJ.

“Driving I could hear my mother’s voice curling through the white mountains and the red brick mills.
I spent the days at my friend Garry’s house. He was Haitian and I’d sit over there listening to them speak Patois, his mother always pushing a plate of plaintain and rice in front of me, eat eat eat she’d say, you must get strong. His father never said much. Once he took me by the hand and led me downstairs and showed me the rabbits, he lifted one and in a flash slit its throat. Blood on the damp concrete. The basement floor sticky with blood.

“Like the lost relatives the Tonton Macout took. The sepia’d photos of faces in the big album we would flip through to see the children playing on the high cliff.

“Once years later me and his brother robbed a pharmacy.”

Fractured Ecologies: Call for contributions

Fractured Ecologies: Call for contributions to an edited collection on environmental criticism and radical experimental writing

Since the 1990s, ecocriticism has influenced the ways we study literature, but fractures remain. If environmental scholars are to continue to challenge conventional approaches to literary study, inventive methods must be continually developed and improved. British scholar Harriet Tarlo has made a call for environmental engagement with experimental writing, and reminds us that “very few eco-critics engage with innovative or experimental writing.” Franca Bellarsi agrees, and emphasizes the real need to research “green ethics in different avant-garde practices.”

And while there has been some preliminary ecocritical work on what can be called experimental nature-writing, so far the most radical writing forms have largely been overlooked. Wild avant-garde writing is a limit case of sorts, and the difficulties in studying such forms are impossible to really avoid. But the lack of ecological perspectives on experimental writing justifies and demands more attention. Moreover, conventional academic publishing outlets have promoted a rather homogenous and monocultural understanding of scholarship that excludes inventive fringe observations. Therefore, Fractured Ecologies welcomes rigorous and irreverent papers that address radical experimental writing and other borderline manifestations in an environmental context. The fundamental question that Fractured Ecologies will attempt to address is: How does radical experimental writing contribute to the ways we think about ecology? Suggested topics may include but are not limited to discussions of ecology in a wide sense and:

Aleatory writing
Altar Poetry
Assemblage
ASCII art
Bizzaro fiction
Comic jam
Caligram
Chance procedures
Concrete poetry
Cut-up/fold-in
Dada writing
Dictionaraoke
Digital poetry
Exquisite Corpse
Fax art
Fluxus poetry
Found text
Fragments and remnants
Glorious plagiarism
Graffiti and wildstyle
Guerrilla semiotics
Haptic poetry
Imagism
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry
Mechanical narrative agency
Pictography
Psychography
Round-robin texts
Runes
Sound poetry
Surrealist writing
Visual poetry
Words in Freedom

This project is under contract with an independent academic publisher. Contributors will receive a free copy of the book. Please send paper abstracts of 500 words and a working title to Chad Weidner at c.weidner-ucr-dot-nl before 1 January 2014. Final essays will be between 7,000-9,000 words in length and should conform to the MLA documentation style. Final papers will be due before 1 July 2014. Please email with questions.

Dr. Chad Weidner
Assistant Professor, English and Film
UCR Utrecht University
Lange Noordstraat 1
4331 CB Middelburg
The Netherlands

CFP Special Issue: Teaching Creative Writing

The teaching of music, dance, painting and other arts is well-respected in the academy, but in creative writing a myth lingers in the minds of many: you either have “it” or you don’t. As instructors much of our time is spent attempting to dispel this myth; indeed, Kelly Ritter and Stephanie Vanderslice go so far as to title their anthology of creative writing pedagogy essays Can It Really Be Taught?

For those of us who believe that creative writing can and should be taught, the more pertinent and relevant question is how to do so. For a special issue on creative writing pedagogy, Modern Language Studies invites essays that attempt to address the nuts and bolts of teaching creative writing in inventive, contemporary, and stimulating ways. Papers should seek not merely to identify flaws within current methods of instruction in creative writing, but instead address how to correct those flaws and/or to consider in their stead effective and rewarding teaching methods for both students and instructors.

Essays need not be limited solely to the academy itself; essays regarding pedagogy in nontraditional classrooms are also welcome. Topics need not be limited to traditional workshop models, either. Essays that argue for alternative methods of formal (or informal) instruction are especially welcome.

Other possible topics include:

• Utilization of digital media in the classroom and the potential benefits and risks of incorporating technology into the classroom; especially in regards to MOOCs and their potential influence on current methods of instruction
• The role of publication in the creation of a text; when and how to incorporate discussion of and practice in publishing in a creative writing education
• The specific merits of cross-genre (poetry, fiction, etc.) instruction in a student’s development as a writer
• Discussion of instruction in “genre” fiction versus “literary” fiction in general fiction writing workshops; the merits of genre-specific (fantasy, horror, etc.) classes
• The management of workshop dynamics
• The place of literary theory and formal analysis in the creative writing classroom; especially when considering the rise of MFA and undergraduate degree programs in creative writing as a potential response to the decrease in attendance in traditional English programs
• The merits and potential drawbacks of nontraditional methods of instruction incorporated into a traditional workshop structure (or those that abandon the traditional workshop altogether)
• The management and encouragement of a student’s development in long-term programs of study versus their development in a single course
• The role of cultural politics in the selection of class readings; the relationship between creative writing instruction and diversity/multicultural studies; how creative writing’s relationship to diversity may differ from that of other degree programs

Queries, Clarifications and Completed Papers to: Lewis Land, Bucknell University (lewis.land-at-bucknell-dot-edu)

Deadline: March 31, 2014

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

We got these issues in a couple of weeks ago, actually, but they are still totally worth seeing:

Pacifica Literary Review‘s second issue features a moose at an old drive-in theater, Pacifica Drive-In Theater, to be exact. Cover art is by Andrew Belanger.

Salt Hill‘s issue 31 features cover art by Hollie Chastain: “Community Chorus” and “Adalyn’s Party Trick I.”

The Intentional, a brand new print mag, features a sort of connect-the-dots over top of their cover image, but this person isn’t quite filled out yet–the perfect imagery for this magazine that aims to “capture the twenty-something experience and explore innovations that might augment quality of life for millennials.”