Exclusive interview with Margaret Atwood
Tom Gatti meets the author to discuss debt in her latest book Payback
Times Online
September 26, 2008

Borrowers and Lenders, winner of the CELJ Best New Journal Award in 2007, is a peer-reviewed, online, multimedia Shakespeare journal (http://www.borrowers.uga.edu). The journal is indexed in the MLA Bibliography, World Shakespeare Bibliography, and other databases. General Editors: Christy Desmet and Sujata Iyengar; Associate Editor: Robert Sawyer; Assistant Editor: David Schiller.

The inaugural issue of grain short/grain long is now available, featuring excellent work by Suzanne Grazyna, Virginia Reeves, Elizabeth Kate Switaj, & C. R. E. Wells in response to the theme “grain short/grain long.” Available online as well as pdf download. The next issue will center around the theme “Collaboration / Stimulus / Response.” Looking for works that collaborate with, are stimulated by, &/or respond to other writers & artists.

From Ren at Protest Poems Org:

“protestpoems.org is a quarterly journal devoted entirely to poetry that tackles human rights issues. It is a politically targeted extension of the online journal Babel Fruit: Writing Under the Influence. Retooled and relaunching in December 2008, the journal will strive to present the best poems of protest written to promote freedom of speech and human rights. Our aim is to raise awareness of general and specific issues, and hopefully inspire activism in the form of written protests.”

The site includes a list of countries and the realted stories where writers are currently under persecution, including:

Nigeria – Reporter receives death threats from church members, asks security service for protection
United States – State Department to issue visas to two Cuban correspondents
France – Two regional newspapers raided
Sri Lanka – Military spokesperson asks newspaper to change photo caption
Burma – Journalist and opposition member Ohn Kyaing arrested again

Volume 1 of Protest Poems will be dedicated to Russian website owner Magomed Yevloyev, who was shot in the head August 31, 2008 while in police custody. Yevloyev maintained an opposition website (ingushetiya.ru) that has been fiercely critical of the Ingushetian leadership.

From NPR: Poet, editor, essayist and novelist Hayden Carruth died this week at the age of 87. Carruth won the National Book Award in 1996 for his collection, “Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey.” He was no stranger to awards, but they don’t often pay the rent, and Carruth spent much of his career poor. He struggled with alcoholism and a nervous breakdown — experiences that were central to his poetry. [via Dawn Potter]

DC’s Olsson’s Books Closes
by Calvin Reid
Publishers Weekly
September 30, 2008

Olsson’s Books and Records has filed for liquidation under the chapter 7 bankruptcy laws and has closed its doors after 36 years selling books in the Washington D.C. area. All five of its current Washington D.C.-area stores have been closed. The firm applied for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July with plans to reorganize and cut costs by closing some of its stores. But a combination of low sales and rising rent was more than the DC metro-area indie chain could overcome…[read the rest here]

Sponsored by the English Department of Columbia College Chicago in conjunction with the Office of the Provost, The Beat Generation Symposium will include academic panel discussions, a lecture and performance titled “Deaf/Def Poets and the Beats,” and readings of poetry by Joanne Kyger (October 10, 7:00 p.m.) and Michael McClure (October 11, 7:00 p.m.).

The symposium is part of a two-month college-wide initiative at Columbia College, during which time the first draft of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road will be on display at the Center for Book and Paper Arts, 1104 South Wabash, on the second floor.

Kerouac typed the draft on a 120-foot-long scroll during a 20-day marathon session in the mid-’50s. The manuscript is a single, continuous scroll of semi-translucent paper that is nine inches wide. Kerouac created the scroll by pasting and taping separate 12-foot-long strips, then feeding them through his typewriter so he could write without interruption.

This event is co-sponsored by Columbia’s Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Illinois State University English Department and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Beat Studies Association. Conference Director: Tony Trigilio, Columbia College Chicago

Narrative Magazine congratulates Alexi Zentner, winner for his story “Trapline” and Michael Dickman, winner for his poem “Returning to Church”. Both can be read online at Narrative Magazine.

Find out, according to Forbes.

University of Northern Colorado Assistant Professor of English: Creative Writing. Nov 1.

University of Northern Colorado Assistant Professor of English, Creative Writing. Nov 1.

University of Pittsburgh. Nonfiction Writing, tenure-track, to teach undergraduate & MFA students. David Bartholomae, Professor & Chair, Department of English. Nov 1.

Loyola University Chicago. The Department of English invites applications for a tenure-track position in English (Creative Writing-Poetry) at the rank of Assistant Professor, beginning fall 2009. Dr. Joyce Wexler, Chair, Department of English. Dec 1.

The Adirondack Review is currently offering three to four unpaid college internships in the form of editorial assistant positions for interested students. Applications accepting on a rolling basis.

Bowling Green State University English Department seeks strong applicants for the College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Visiting Writer for 2010. Screening of applicants will begin March 16, 2009 & continue until the position is filled. Kristine Blair, Chair, English Department.

Department of English at Harvard University invites applications for an appointment, to begin July 1, 2009, as Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on Fiction. James Engell, Chair, Department of English. Jan 5, 2009.

Ohio University Assistant Professor Creative Writing: Non-Fiction.

Julie Miller Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong of the Chronicle of Higher Education are back again this year with The CV Doctor. Sample CVs for different disciplines are available on the site with notes linking their feedback to specific areas on each. Worth a look for those prepping to send out CVs – or those still trying to break through the first round.

The 31st annual conference of ALTA, the American Literary Translators Association, will be held at the Radisson University Hotel on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus on October 15 – 18, 2008. The conference will feature panels, readings, a book exhibit, and other events concerned with the art and craft of literary translation.

Announcing the first Woodrow Hall Award, an offshoot of the Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf program. This award will be given to a Wisconsin poet who has actively contributed to Wisconsin’s literary landscape, and will include five-hundred ($500.00) dollars to implement an idea for a new poetry program or project. The winner must execute their idea in 2009. No entry fee. Multiple entries from same poet welcome. Entry deadline: December 15th, 2008

2008 Wellness & Writing Connections Conference
October 10-11, 2008
Atlanta, GA

“Writing about stressful situations is one of the easiest ways for people to take control of their problems and release negative effects of stress from their bodies and their lives. This conference is a call for writers and other professionals to collaborate and to help people find ways to help themselves and their students, clients, and patients.” Dr. James Pennebaker

The 2008 Wellness & Writing Connections Conference attracts people who see therapeutic value in writing memoirs, fiction, creative non fiction, poetry and drama.

Research shows that the heart rate lowers and people are more equipped to fight off infections when they release their worries in writing. In addition to coping better with stressful situations, writing can have positive impact on self-esteem and result in works that can help others overcome their own obstacles.

This first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary conference series brings writers and professionals from different specialties together to explore the connection between overall health and expressive writing as a therapeutic practice.

4000 WORDS 4000 DEAD
street performance by Jennifer Karmin
Friday, October 3rd
Chicago, IL

5pm beginning in front of the Vietnam War Memorial at Wabash and Wacker Avenues along the Chicago River

Jennifer Karmin has been collecting 4000 WORDS for the 4000 DEAD Americans in Iraq. All words are being used to create a public poem. During street performances, she gives away these words to passing pedestrians. Submissions are ongoing as the Iraq War continues and the number of dead grows. Send 1-10 words with subject 4000 WORDS to jkarmin-at-yahoo.com.

“I want to start with the milestone today of 4,000 dead in Iraq. Americans. And just what effect do you think it has on the country?”

— Martha Raddatz,
ABC News’ White House correspondent
to Vice President Dick Cheney

Participants include:
Harold Abramowitz, Amanda Ackerman, Manan Ahmed, Michael Basinski, Charles Bernstein, Anselm Berrigan, Laynie Browne, Teresa Carmody, Maxine Chernoff, Catherine Daly, Patrick Durgin, Arielle Greenberg, Kate Greenstreet, Carla Harryman, David Hernandez, Jen Hofer, Pierre Joris, Matthew Klane, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Joyelle McSweeney, Philip Metres, Vanessa Place, Susan Schultz, Juliana Spahr, Stacy Szymaszek, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Andrew Zawacki, and many more.

Books address racism as it affects daily lives of Indians
By Jodi Rave of the Missoulian
BillingsGazette.com

In this article, English literature professors and teachers Heather Bruce, Anna Baldwin and Christabel Umphrey discuss Alexie’s paradox of “Indians hating Indians” and how they teach his work to students in the classroom.

The book by Alexie referenced in the article:

Sherman Alexie in the Classroom
“This is not a silent movie. Our voices will save our lives.”
Authors: Heather E. Bruce, Anna E. Baldwin, Christabel Umphrey
Published by NCTE, 2008

Chronicle loses its books editors
By Will Harper
Published on September 24, 2008

If you’re one of the few people still reading newspapers, you’ve probably figured out this truism: Print media is screwed. You know this because you’ve read several stories in newspapers about newspapers suffering declining circulation, revenues, and relevance in the Internet age.

Will Harper on McMahon departs from the ChronicleAnother more subtle manifestation of the print-media-is-screwed trend is the scaling back of book reviews in newspapers. Until recently, our very own San Francisco Chronicle was one of only a handful of dailies in the country to maintain a stand-alone books section. That sorta changed in April, when the Chron made its Sunday books “section” an insert in the Insight section…

[Read the rest on the SFWeekly.com.]

Hey, don’t shoot me, I’m just the blogger, but in his Guardian Unlimited article (8/24/08), “Is e-literature just one big anti-climax?” – Andrew Gallix takes on the rhetorical question with a resounding yes. But not for fault of F-style online reading, or further laments of lack of reading overall; rather, for e-lit’s own delivery: “Technology – the very stuff e-lit is made of – has also turned out to be its Achilles heel. The slow switch to broadband limits its potential audience, e-readers are only adapted to conventional texts – and when was the last time you curled up in bed with a hypertext?”

He doesn’t, however, throw out the computer with the bathwater. Instead, he poses what might be a kind of “skipped generation” of e-lit: “In spite of all this, Amerika may well be on to something when [Chris Meade, director of the thinktank if:book] claims that we are witnessing the emergence of a ‘digitally-processed intermedia art’ in which literature and all the other arts are being ‘remixed into yet other forms still not fully developed’. My feeling is that these ‘other forms’ will have less and less to do with literature. Perhaps e-lit is already dead?”

For full effect, read the rest on Guardian.uk.

The Grand Piano
Saturday, October 4, 3:00 PM
The Wendell W. Anderson, Jr., Auditorium Walter B. Ford II Building College for Creative Studies
John R & Frederick Douglass Streets, Detroit

Steve Benson, Carla Harryman, Lyn Hejinian Tom Mandel, Ted Pearson, Kit Robinson, and Barrett Watten perform an ensemble reading from The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography San Francisco, 1975 – 1980

Followed by a publication party & Grand Piano book display.

The Grand Piano is an experiment in collective autobiography by ten writers identified with the rise of Language poetry in San Francisco. It takes its name from a coffeehouse at 1607 Haight Street in San Francisco where from 1976 to 1979 the authors participated in a reading and performance series.

The Grand Piano Flyer

Free and open to the public

University of North Texas tenure-track assistant professorship in fiction, beginning 9/2009. Prof. David Holdeman, Chair, Department of English. Postmark deadline for applications is October 15.

University of Colorado at Boulder Department of English announces a tenure-track assistant professor position in Creative Writing to begin August 2009. Seeking a poet; especially interested in candidates with a second genre specialty and/or experience in publishing. Review of applications will begin on October 24 & will continue until the position is filled.

The English Department at Washburn University is seeking a poet to join a vital undergraduate writing program with colleagues in fiction and creative nonfiction writing.

Beware the Button Police
by Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Education
Sept. 24

Sporting an Obama or McCain button? Driving a car with one of the campaigns’ bumper stickers? You might need to be careful on University of Illinois campuses.

The university system’s ethics office sent a notice to all employees, including faculty members, telling them that they could not wear political buttons on campus or feature bumper stickers on cars parked in campus lots unless the messages on those buttons and stickers were strictly nonpartisan. In addition, professors were told that they could not attend political rallies on campuses if those rallies express support for a candidate or political party.

Faculty leaders were stunned by the directives. Some wrote to the ethics office to ask if the message was intended to apply to professors; they were told that it was. At Illinois campuses, as elsewhere, many professors do demonstrate their political convictions on buttons, bumper stickers and the like.

Cary Nelson, a professor at the Urbana-Champaign campus and national president of the American Association of University Professors, said that he believes he is now violating campus policy when he drives to work because he has a bumper sticker that proclaims: “MY SAMOYED IS A DEMOCRAT.”

[Read the rest – along with LOTS of reader comments – on Higher Ed Online.]

Narrative‘s Story of the Week feature this week:

Gargoyle
By Joyce Carol Oates

What to make of loneliness. Can you imagine? Three-fifteen a.m. and you lie spread-eagled in bed in your cocoon of a bed in your ripe swollen cocoon of a body while I drive through the snowy drizzle querying myself about life.

Driving along a deserted boulevard. Yellow street lights high atop slender poles. Rain, snow. Mist. Wind. What to make of loneliness. Not anger, not rage, not the wish to die or even the wish to murder. I’m too exhausted for all that. Just loneliness. What to make of it. Aloneness. Can you hear me? Can you guess? Never. You are eight months pregnant now and lie sleepless beside my lover, your spine aching, your stomach bloated, you are a beached bewildered mammalian creature gasping in the air…

[Read the rest on Narrative]

Visit NewPages Literary Magazine Reviews to read thoughtful commentaries on the following print publications – Anti- :: The Aurorean :: Crazyhorse :: decomP :: Keyhole :: The Laurel Review :: Michigan Quarterly Review :: The Midwest Quarterly :: New York Tyrant :: Salamander :: Spinning Jenny :: Superstition Review :: Versal :: Whitefish Review.

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

The Poetry Project burns like red hot coal in New York’s snow.– Allen Ginsberg

Since its founding in 1966, the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery has been a forum for public literary events and a resource for writers. Over the past 40 years, hundreds of poets, writers and performers, including Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, John Cage, Sam Shepard, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones), Terri McMillan, Robert Creeley, Alice Notley, Bernadette Mayer, Kenneth Koch, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, Sherman Alexie, and Michael Ondaatje, have shared their work at the Poetry Project.

With three different reading and performance series a week, plus lectures and special events, the Poetry Project is a vital and hospitable hub for the writing community in New York City. The Poetry Project was the scene of the only joint reading by Robert Lowell and Allen Ginsberg and has been the site of historic memorials to poets Paul Blackburn, Robert Duncan, Charles Reznikoff, Frank O’Hara, Ted Berrigan, Edwin Denby and many others. Staffed completely by poets, the Poetry Project consistently achieves an integrity of programming that challenges, informs and inspires working writers, while remaining accessible to the general public.

Now in its 41st season, the Poetry Project continues to furnish encouragement and resources to poets, writers, artists and performers whose work is experimental, innovative and pertinent to writing that proposes fresh aesthetic, cultural, philosophical and political approaches to contemporary society.

The Poetry Project offers:
A Wednesday night reading series, a Monday night reading/performance series, and a Friday late-evening events series
Four weekly writing workshops
The Recluse, an annual literary magazine
A quarterly Newsletter
Membership in the Poetry Project
A biannual four-day Symposium
Tape and document archives
Special events, such as the Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Reading

A syllabus from a a class taught by David Foster Wallace has been posted by a former student on her blog. Interesting to see in combination with all the responses it has received.

Why is punctuation important Jeff Rubin the Punctuation Man and founder of National Punctuation Day explains that without punctuation you would not be able to express your feelings in writing not to mention know when to pause or stop or ask a question or yell at someone and without punctuation you would not be able to separate independent clauses and show an example of how a business lost millions because of an errant comma so dont forget the most important punctuation mark $$$$$$ OK so a dollar signs isnt a punctuation mark but its important dont you agree

(Editor’s note: Without punctuation, you also can’t show that you have quoted material directly from another source.)

A cool feature on Breavity Magazine – great for teachers – “Essays on the Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction.” Newest additions include “Tiny Masters: An Artful Trick to Writing the Personal Essay” by Sherry Simpson, and “On Bridging the Distance Between Therapist and Theorist” by Barrie Jean Borich. Three years of articles are archived and availbe on the site (about a dozen), as well as a link to the blog You Gotta Teach This Essay: A blog for those who teach the essay form.

Want to contribute to this feature? Brevity is accepting submissions of craft essays, author Q&A or podcast interview for upcoming issue of Brevity. See the site for more details.

Read Me a Story, Brad Pitt
When audiobook casting goes terribly wrong.
By Nate DiMeo
Slate Magazine
Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008

“…Audiobooks can be spectacular. But too many fine books are still being turned into bad audiobooks; worse still, their producers are making the same mistakes over and over. What follows are the three most common pitfalls—and how to avoid them.”

An insightful article for those interested in making this still-lasting medium for readers/listeners (esp. with easy access to downloads). I know I still enjoy listening to books when I walk, most recently working my way through A Long Way Gone read by author Ishmael Beah. It doesn’t always work to have authors read their own books, just like not every poet is great at public readings, but when you can find the right combination of reader (whether author or not) and text, audiobooks are their own literary magic.

Read the article here.

Posted on Spalding Universities MFA website – of course with their answers – but a helpful list of questions for those new to the pursuit of MFA programs. Not only are the questions important to ask, but so is being able to compare answers and make the right choice for yourself – for this major investment of both time and money. You might very well be able to find the answers on program websites, but if not, making a contact with the program director or faculty in the program with your questions will help them to know what’s important to prospective students. Check out NewPages to Creative Writing Programs in the US to start – or add to – your research. If you don’t see a program listed there, let us know!

From Narrative Magazine: “We love finding and promoting well-written stories from talented writers. Each week a notable story is selected and featured prominently in the Story of the Week column on our Home Page. An announcement of each new Story of the Week goes out to our readers, and the story is eligible for selection as one of the annual Top Five Stories of the Week. The story is also permanently available in our Archive. We accept fiction and nonfiction manuscripts up to 10,000 words in length, from both published and unpublished writers. We would love to see your stories.”

Currently in the story archives are works by Elizabeth Bloom Albert, Tom Grimes, Yuvi Zalkow, and Heather Brittain Bergstrom.

There will also be a “Poem of the Week” feature open for submissions soon!

The Village Voice is taking applications for the fall 2008 Mary Wright Minority Fellowship. The Mary Wright fellowship is a fulltime, three-month writing job with the Voice that provides an opportunity to work alongside veteran Voice journalists. For recent college graduates with impressive clip files who can demonstrate that they have unique story ideas, excellent writing skills and a desire to do non-intuitive, deeply reported stories about New York City.

Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind
Slow reading counterbalances Web skimming
By Mark Bauerlein
The Chronicle of Higher Educaiton
September 19, 2008

“…Those and other trials by Nielsen amount to an important research project that helps explain one of the great disappointments of education in our time. I mean the huge investment schools have made in technology, and the meager returns such funds have earned. Ever since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, money has poured into public-school classrooms. At the same time, colleges have raced to out-technologize one another. But while enthusiasm swells, e-bills are passed, smart classrooms multiply, and students cheer — the results keep coming back negative.”

New Zealand author Patricia Grace has been awarded the 2008 Neustadt International Prize for Literature at the University of Oklahoma. Grace is the fourth woman to win the prestigious prize, which is given every two years by OU and its magazine World Literature Today.

She has written six novels, five short-story collections and a number of children’s books since the mid-1970s. Her works often describe the everyday life and traditions of Maoris, the indigenous people of New Zealand. Grace received $50,000, a silver eagle feather and a certificate at a ceremony yesterday on campus.

Pending budgetary approval, the English department at the University of Colorado Denver seeks applications for a tenure-track position in creative writing, specialization in poetry. Search committee chairL Dr. Jake York. Initial screening of applications will commence on October 1, 2008.

Northwest Missouri State University seeks to hire a tenure-track assistant professor of English, specializing in creative writing: fiction, with a secondary interest in creative nonfiction, to teach at the beginning, intermediate, & advanced levels, as well as general education classes. Dr. Michael Hobbs, Chair, Department of English. Screening will begin November 1 & will continue until position is filled.

Emory University two-year Creative Writing Fellowship in fiction in lively undergraduate English/Creative Writing Program, beginning fall 2009. Load 2-1, all workshops; $26,000 salary, and health benefits. November 14, 2008 deadline.

Ohio State University Department of English invites applications for a tenure-eligible assistant professor or an early associate professor in creative writing. Valerie Lee, Chair, Department of English. Review of applications will begin on November 3 & continue until the position is filled.

University of Wyoming English Department invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in nonfiction to join the MFA faculty, appointment to begin in Fall 2009. Beth Loffreda, Director, MFA in Creative Writing. Review of applications will begin November 1.

University of Missouri English Department seeks applications from senior poets for the Miller Family Endowed Chair in Literature & Writing. Patricia Okker, Chair, English Department. Review of applications will begin November 14 & will continue until the position is filled.

Susquehanna University Creative Writing: Assistant Professor of English & Creative Writing, concentration in fiction. Gary Fincke, Director, Writers Institute.

New Mexico State University Assistant Professor of Creative Writing – Poetry. Dr. M

Well, here’s a unique call for submissions: Holly Rose Review is looking for poetry and tattoo photos for its premier issue due up in December. For now it’s a blog site, but will have a website for the actual publication. Believe it or not, Editor Theresa Edwards says it has been difficult getting any tattoo photo submissions. Seriously? Alright ye poets, give a shout out to your neighborhood tattoo artists and get them in on this. More poetry is also welcome, Theresa says, so you can do your part there as well.

Literature Prize, it’s new writers’ turn
By Gregory Austin Nwakunor
Excerpted from Guardian Newspaper

The new generation of Nigerian writers has never had it so good. Since 2004, when the Nigerian Literature Prize was instituted, this is the first time a new writer will mount the podium to receive the country’s most prized literary award.

Only last Thursday, September 4, after months of intensive scrutiny by eminent judges, the Nigeria Prize for Literature committee announced a shortlist of two books, Kaine Agary’s Yellow-Yellow and Jude Dibia’s Unbridled, as potential winners of this year’s Prize.

Both Kaine and Dibia are not only new writers, they were equally born in the 70s. If one of them emerges winner of this year’s award, he or she will walk away with a $50,000 prize money, an increase from last year’s $30,000. [read the rest]