Dharma Publishing sponsors “Adopt a Tibetan Book program to fund the restoration of sacred Tibetan Buddhist texts and art. Annually, at the World Peace Ceremony in Bodh Gaya, India, the books and art are freely distributed to over eight thousand lamas, monks, nuns and lay people and also to over 3300 monasteries and educational institutions. The primary purpose is to rebuild libraries of the educational institutions of the Tibetan refugees in exile in India, Nepal, Bhutan.” The goal is to help reestablish these libraries in Tibet. [more information]
Soylent Green Anyone?
Wishing for What We Already Have
by Robin Nixon
Genewatch, May-June 2007
“This spring, 450 acres of Kansas will be planted with rice that has been modified to contain human genes. It will look much like any normal field of rice, but the biotechnological innovation within each stalk is being sold as if it were magic from the Land of Oz. Essentially, the Kansas field will be a factory. The machinery is the rice plant itself. The inputs are human genes. The outputs are human proteins — lactoferrin and lysozyme — normally found in breast milk and other secretions, such as tears…” [read more]
Out on Stage
Out Came the First Coming Out Play
by Laurence Senelick
The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, May-June 2007
“‘Outing’ in our sense comes on stage with the homosexual law-reform movements. In several German plays of the early twentieth century, characters are ‘outed’ involuntarily. From Ludwig Dilsner’s Jasmine Blossoms (1899) to Reinhart Kluge’s Who Is to Blame? (1923), the exposure of the protagonist’s homosexuality is effected by blackmail or vice-squad raids or the maneuvers of jilted lovers. It is a traumatic and embarrassing experience that blights one’s life. The upshot is almost invariably suicide. Although the goal of these plays was to enlighten the general public as to the sorry lot of those with ‘contrary sexual feelings,’ the effect upon the homosexual individual was probably a determination to stay under wraps.
It is therefore surprising to find a play about coming out, in the current sense, on the Dutch stage shortly after the First World War…” [read more]
Green Reads for Summer
Mommas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Pollute: Quick, Summer Reads
Check out these hot summer reads picked by The Green Guide editors.
New Issue: Big Ugly
It’s not ugly, but it is BIG!
The Big Ugly Review, Issue 6, “The Body Issue” includes:
Fiction by Peter Orner, Mary Kolesnikova, Wendy Van Landingham, Mark MacNamara, Kristina Moriconi, Chad Morgan, Angela Marino, RG McCartney, Sabrina Tom, Michelle Morrison
Non-fiction by Laura Fraser, Joe Loya, Derek Patton Pearcy, Mimi Ghez, Laura Barcella, Andy Raskin
Poetry by John M. Anderson, Amanda Field, Denise Dooley, Grey Held, Edward Smallfield
Music by Audrey Howard, Sez Giulian, Thomas Kilts, Vanessa Peters
Photo essays by Daniel Hernandez, Stephanie Gene Morgan
Film by Kia Simon (*the most absorbingly gorgeous four minutes you could spend staring at the computer today – trust me – open in your own player to watch full screen for best effect)
Whew! Big!
New Issue: Carve Magazine
The Carve Volume 8 Issue 2, Summer 2007
Hybrid
by Stephanie Dickinson
I’m looking at myself in the taxi’s side mirror. You will never get a kiss because you’re invisible, the mirror says, a glare of sun where my face should be…[Read more]
Samurai Bluegrass
by Craig Terlson
Their harmonies teeter on the edge of sweetness and mournful whine. It’s that high lonesome sound. The bluegrass band enraptures the pierced patrons, their ghost-white faces tilt toward the stage…[Read more]
Turning the Bones
by Marcy Campbell
Jillian and I are sitting on the hard-packed earth in front of a large fire, the flames illuminating the faces of the others in the circle. The air is saturated with the smell of spice, strong coffee and sweat…[Read more]
If You Don’t
by Rob Bass
When Ryan is four and Colleen is two, another toddler comes up to her in the sandbox and kicks over the upside down bucket mold she’s just finished patting down to perfection. She throws her hands up in the air and lets loose with a great wail and Ryan stomps over to push the offending party down into the sand…[Read more]
New Issue: Contrary Magazine
The summer 2007 issue of Contrary Magazine features the prose poetry of wildlife biologist Patrick Loafman, whose eye for the natural captures the magical. Poetic prose is Contrary’s specialty, and you’ll find more examples in stories by Thomas King (of McSweeney’s and The Believer), Sarah Layden, and Amy Reed. We also have new poetry by C.E. Chaffin, Derek Pollard, Taylor Graham, and Patrick Reichard.
In other news from Contrary:
A poem by Contrary Poetry Editor Shaindel Beers won first place in the Dylan Days Festival, honoring Bob Dylan, in Hibbing Minnesota. Her poem “Rewind” surpassed about 400 poems from 250-300 poets from almost every state and most continents.
Two Contrary contributors have new books out: Mary E. Mitchell’s novel Starting Out Sideways (St. Martin’s Press), and Corey Mesler’s winner of the Southern Hum Chapbook Competition,The Lita Conversation.
Punk Planet Ceases Publication
“Dear Friends,
As much as it breaks our hearts to write these words, the final issue of Punk Planet is in the post, possibly heading toward you right now. Over the last 80 issues and 13 years, we’ve covered every aspect of the financially independent, emotionally autonomous, free culture we refer to as “the underground.” In that time we’ve sounded many alarms from our editorial offices: about threats of co-optation, big-media emulation, and unseen corporate sponsorship. We’ve also done everything in our power to create a support network for independent media, experiment with revenue streams, and correct the distribution issues that have increasingly plagued independent magazines. But now we’ve come to the impossible decision to stop printing, having sounded all the alarms and reenvisioned all the systems we can. Benefit shows are no longer enough to make up for bad distribution deals, disappearing advertisers, and a decreasing audience of subscribers.”
Read more as to why and what next: Punk Planet
Interesting Times for Lit Mags
Interesting indeed, given the number of lit mags currently in editorial and financial flux, as noted in the Virginia Times Quarterly Blog. Magazines mentioned include Ploughshares, Georgia Review, Southern Review, Granta, Paris Review, The Antioch Review, and most notably (for their unique response) McSweeny’s, facing $130,000 debt has turned to an online auction to raise money (a guided tour of the Daily Show with John Hodgman is still availaible – but hurry).
Making Poetry Submissions
From Chris Hamilton-Emery’s 101 Ways to Make Poems Sell: The Salt Guide to Getting and Staying Published
Becoming a Player
The world of poetry is not a world of isolated individual practitioners. Hermits in their caves. If you currently find yourself in this position, you should try to get out more. The world of poetry is a very busy place, filled with a wide range of professionals most of whom are eager to tell you about their talents.
The world of poetry is not filled with gentle suffering creatures (to call upon Eliot). It is not fair, just, or particularly caring. It can be supportive, but it is not a self help group. It is not a world based upon power sharing. In fact, the world of poetry can be a bear pit, and like any industry it is competitive and has moments of confrontation and even dirty tricks. Be prepared to take some knocks along the way.
Read the rest – including “50 dos and don’ts” – on Salt Publishing.
Prose: Sheheryar Sheikh
By one of NewPages contributors, Sheheryar Badar Sheikh:
-struck life
I.
Watch the walk, especially the strut, jingle. Hear the curious tinktink of coins, metallic sound in his pocket like rhythm. He lingers in air, suspended, arced in step suspended still in air suspended like air like substance in air. The god in him set to roast out the truth and go deeper until evaporation, until rain. Broad shoulders, cool expanse swarthy balmy calm sea, his shoulders the morph of a sun’s arc. Hear jingle, see arcs, see strut, see rhythm in flesh, the timing. Sunchoked sun split sunblonde, dancer in walks sunkissed. Almost god, mostly sun, younger brother of the murderer.
Read the rest: Cricket Online Review
New Issue: Raving Dove
Raving Dove is an online literary journal dedicated to sharing thought-provoking writing, photography, and art that opposes the use of violence as conflict resolution, and embraces the intrinsic themes of peace and human rights.
Summer 2007 Contributors: Martha Braniff, Howard Camner, Sharon Carter, DB Cox, Arlene Distler, Michael Estabrook, Joachim Frank, David V. Gibson, Cory Hutcheson, John Kay, Laurel Lundstrom, Caroline Maun, Beverly Mills, Russell Reece, Anthony Santella, Dorit Sasson, Sarah Shaw, Roger Singer, Townsend Walker, Harry Youtt, Changming Yuan
Published in February, June, and October, Raving Dove welcomes original poetry, nonfiction essays, fiction, photography, and art. See submissions guidelines for complete details. Now reviewing work for the winter 2007 edition, which will be online on October 21st.
M. Allen Cunningham’s Newest Novel
A former contributor to NewPages, we’re happy to announce Mark’s second novel published with Unbridled Books: Lost Son about the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke, author of “Letters to a Young Poet” and “The Duino Elegies.”
“Spanning Western Europe from 1875 to 1917, LOST SON brings alive the intellectual and artistic currents that shaped the 20th century and the personalities that made this history their own–from Rainer Maria Rilke himself to the great sculptor Rodin to the fascinating Lou Andreas-Salome, mistress or confidant of Rilke, Freud and Nietzsche. The result is an exploration of the forever imperfect loyalties we face in life and the seemingly immeasurable distances that can separate life and art.”
Beginning Monday June 4, Cunningham will be reading at bookstores in Northern California, Oregon, and Seattle. View the event schedule at his author blog here.
Congrats Mark!
Disability Issues and Responsible Journalism
How the News Media Handicap Those with Disabilities
by Susan M. LoTempio
“It’s a good month when the usual reporting on disability is balanced by even a single good story. Those months are few and far between, but in May The New York Times gave me reason to hope that thoughtful, stereotype-free stories about people with disabilities can actually see the light of day.
But before we get to that, let’s first note a few high-profile media events that took place in May that illustrate the status quo…”
Read the rest and other articles on Poynter Online: Everything You Need to be a Better Journalist.
Poem
From one of NewPages own review writers, Andrew Madigan:
Dale’s faded bluejeans
are getting tighter
so the brass zippertop buckles
and his coconut-hairy beergut
flaps over like a fanny pack
[…]
Read the rest online at Bath House
Happy 10th to The Barcelona Review!
The Barcelona Review, June – August 2007
Books :: Jia by Hyejin Kim
Jia
by Hyejin Kim
“Based on true events, Jia is the first novel about present-day North Korea to appear in English. All but closed to outside visitors, North Korea is among the most opaque nations on earth. While most readers know only the bleak outlines of its politics and history, Hyejin Kim illuminates Korea from within.”
From MIDNIGHT EDITIONS, an imprint of CLEIS PRESS.
The Man Booker International Prize 2007
13 June 2007
Chinua Achebe, the father of modern African writing, wins 2007 Man Booker International Prize.
“The Man Booker International Prize is worth
Poem
Joan Siegel
Getting Ready for Winter
Sunlight hardens like resin.
Squirrels quiver on high branches
stuffing their hoard in hollows.
The cat thickens his fur.
[. . .]
Read the rest on Folio: A Literary Journal at American University
Submissions: Poetry on Girlhood
For an anthology of contemporary poetry on girlhood aimed at high school and college level readers, co-editors Arielle Greenberg and Becca Klaver seek submission of poems on or relevant to any aspect of the experience of girlhood, from childhood to young adulthood by poets with at least one published or forthcoming poetry collection from a nationally-distributed press.
For more information: Switchback Books
Retreat as Activism: David Gessner
On Space
by David Gessner, Ecotone Editor
Ecotone, Volume 2 Issue 2
“I admit that it is a strange and contrary impulse to focus on retreat during times of war, when you can’t help but find a military connotation in the word. But one thing I’ve learned from my reading is that retreat often leads to its opposite…”
Read more: Ecotone.
Weed Wars
The War on Dandelions
by John A. Johnson
“The lawn is a symbol that humankind, with its big brains, has fought nature for survival, and won. And because nature got it wrong the first time, we’re re-making it the right way. The idea is that we take nasty, ‘undeveloped’ land, and reshape it, groom it, and reconfigure it into proper, ‘developed’ land, which can be sold for a nice chunk of change. Sans dandelions, of course…”
More serious irreverence can be found at Eat the State! A Forum for Anti-Authoritarian Political Opinion, Research and Humor.
Seeing Celeb in Africa
Bono, I Presume? Covering Africa Through Celebrities
By Julie Hollar
Extra! May/June 2007
“Africa is sexy and people need to know that,” declared U2 singer Bono (New York Times, 3/5/07), promoting his new (RED) line of products that propose to save Africa one iPod at a time.
Celebrity interest in Africa is not particularly new, but today more stars than ever seem to be converging upon the continent, with television crews seldom far behind. But, as Bono clearly understands, what media tend to find sexy about Africa is not Africa itself, but the stars like himself who have taken up causes in the region. In television news in particular, with its typically cursory treatment of subjects and emphasis on the visual, African countries and issues are to a striking degree seen through the prism of celebrity.
Read this and more from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) at Extra! online.
Submissions: Milkweed Editions Seeks Minnesota Writers
Jerome Anthology Call for Submissions
Milkweed Editions seeks works of short fiction for an anthology to be published in fall 2008. The editors hope to solicit work suggestive of the increasingly diverse and multicultural nature of Minnesota, and the volume’s publication is timed to mark the sesquicentennial of the founding of the state. Authors must be residents of Minnesota, and may not have more than one previous book-length publication. Unpublished writers and writers of color are encouraged to submit manuscripts for consideration. All contributors will receive an honorarium of at least $500 (the final amount to be determined according to the number of contributors included).
For more information visit Milkweed Editions.
Load it, crank it! Wax Poetic
Wax Poetic
“This is the first in a three-part series from Nublu founder and band leader Ilhan Ersahin’s Wax Poetic project. On this record, there’s a subdued Northern European energy creeping through the rocky, Garbage-esque tracks. This series will take Ersahin to different countries to collaborate with its musicians. Next up is ‘Wax Poetic Istanbul,’ followed by ‘Wax Poetic Brasil.'”
The online sampler for Copenhagen includes two music videos and two songs, and for Istanbul and Brasil, two songs each. Full album available for purchase via Amazon and iTunes. Worth the Quicktime download to check this smack out!
Common Ground Regained in The Big Easy
Doug: What has the experience of Common Ground taught you about how communities can learn to act together?
Malik: I’m going to tell you, that’s the reason why I continue on. Not only has it taught me what we can do, it has shown me the true greatness of this nation. Yes we are a rich nation; yes we are one of the most powerful nations. But, the greatness of our nation is not in our government—it is in our people. I have seen the essence of that greatness in those who made sacrifices to come down to help us in our time of need.
Read the rest of this interview and more on Yes! Magazine, Summer 2007 Issue: Latin America Rising.
Job Posting: Truman State University, MO
Truman State University, Division of Language and Literature
Two Positions: English/Creative Writing – Temporary Instructor or Temporary Assistant Professor (posted 6/12/07)
Gulf Coast Interview: Bob Hicok and Matthew Siegel
MS: What message, if any, do you have for the several thousand people who are going to graduate this year with MFAs?
BH: Remember that, when I say I want my root beer without ice, I mean it.
Read the full interview in Gulf Coast, Volume 19 Number 2, Summer/Fall 2007, where you’ll find more humor as well as insight in response to questions such as:
MS: So many poets are rushing to get that first book out, spending hundreds of dollars on contests and reading fees. Do you believe this is the best way for young poets to get noticed?
and
MS: Some of your newer poems seem to be much more meditative and less “witty” than your earlier work. Also, I’ve been told that you are trying to turn away from this perception of you being a “funny” poet. Is this true” If so, what do you find troubling about being called a “funny” poet?
Dollars and Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice
Muckraking Around the Globe
“BBC investigative reporter and international gadfly Greg Palast has dug into many critical stories in recent years—particularly those, like the vulture funds saga (see Palast’s article in the current issue of D&S), that lie at the intersection of political decision-making and corporate greed. Dollars & Sense recently interviewed Palast about the sometimes-surprising appraisals that he offers in his latest book, Armed Madhouse, which came out in a revised paperback edition in April.”
Also from the current issue of Dollars and Sense and available online:
The Homeownership Myth by Howard Karger
A contrarian asks whether homeownership really benefits low-income families.
The Real Political Purpose of the ICE Raids by David Bacon
Using immigration raids as a pressure tactic to get Congress to approve new guest worker programs is not a legitimate use of enforcement.
Fidelity and Genocide by Chris Sturr
Activists are calling on Fidelity and other investment houses to divest from Chinese oil companies that help fund the killing in Darfur.
Special Poetry Offer
From April 1 until June 30, 2007, a list of Godine and Black Sparrow poetry titles will be available at up to 75% off the retail price. Great deal for poetry addicts. Visit Black Sparrow Press.
New & Forthcoming from Anhinga Press
My Last Door by Wendy Bishop (2007)
Yellow Jackets by Patti White (2007)
The View from Zero Bridge by Lynn Aarti Chandhok, winner of the Levine Prize in Poetry (2007)
All you have to do is ask by Meredith Walters, winner of the Anhinga Prize for Poetry (2006)
Visit Anhinga Press for more on their publications.
NCAC’s Censorship News, Spring 2007
Check out the National Coalition Against Censorship Newsletter: Censorship News, No. 104. Available online and as PDF, “NCAC’s newsletter, published quarterly, contains information and discussion about freedom of expression issues, including current school censorship controversies, threats to the free flow of information, and obscenity laws.” In this issue:
Reading the Fine Print
A Minor History of Miniature Writing
By Joshua Foer
Cabinet Magazine Online
“Miniature book collector George Salomon of Paris disperses his seven-hundred-title collection, a library that reportedly “could be carried in a moderate-sized portmanteau.” His spirit lives on today in the Miniature Book Society, an organization whose interests extend only to printed works three inches or smaller.”
Read the article and see images of miniature writing through history on Cabinet Magazine Online.
Pinsky Speaks on Music and Literature
Poetry Northwest Web Exclusive
“On March 21, 2007, in Portland, some 400 people crammed the sold-out Wonder Ballroom to hear to hear the former poet laureate speak, read poems, & launch the Music Issue. Robert Pinsky condemned educational administrators who want to break the chain of culture by cutting funding to music, arts, & creative writing programs. ‘Woe unto them,’ said Pinsky, who also read recent & new poems, & closed the night with an electrifying reading of John Keats’s hymn to music & poetry, ‘Ode to a Nightingale.'”
Listen to an excerpt (apprx 45min) of this performance lecture on Poetry Northwest.
How to Sustain Your Labor of Love
Love’s Labour Lost?: Working for a sustainable alternative press
By Nicole Cohen
Briarpatch Magazine
June/July 2007
“I don’t recall the exact moment I became skeptical of the term labour of love, but I do remember the day it began feeling like an inappropriate descriptor for Shameless, the independent, feminist magazine for teens I co-founded in 2003 and edited until recently.
[. . .]
While it is critical for media activists to talk seriously about the business of producing alternative media and to find innovative ways to boost circulation, it is dangerous to believe that the only way to become commercially viable is to make content more mainstream. Alternative media exist to disseminate an oppositional or radical stance, and the development of creative, sustainable business models should centre on strengthening that goal, not abandoning it.”
Read the rest of the article HERE, with Cohen’s assessment as well as advice for small, independents who wish to remain alternative.
New Online Issue: Dark Sky Magazine
The June 2007 issue of Dark Sky Magazine is now online, featuring literature by Jenny Steele, Michael Phillips, Charlie Geer, Meredith Doench, Jack Emery, Martin Brick, Luke Boyd, Richard O’Connell, Richard O’Connell, Louise Snowden, Rupert Fike, John Grey, and artwork by Elizabeth Cadwell, Isabel Barnes, Miranda Clark.
From “Bend” by Meredith Doench:
I.
“No one’s ever loved me before. People have told me they did, like my mom. But she only said so when I’d done something to please her, or after she’d had too much to drink or smoke. So when Alison Rogers said, Nicole, I love you, I cried harder than I’ve ever cried before. And the weird thing was Alison cried too, hugging me close, her tears getting the shoulder of my old t-shirt wet and warm.
Now the staff at Lakeridge Psychiatric Center would have called this inappropriate touch between patients, so we were wedged tight into the cubby hole of a maintenance closet that someone left open while getting a mop. I could hear…”
Read and see much more on Dark Sky Magazine.
The Language of Global Warming
Sustaining Change from the Middle Ground
James Biggar and Michael M’Gonigle
Alternatives Journal Online, April 2007
“‘Climate porn.’ That’s how the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain depicts the portrayal of the climate crisis by media and governments. In the organization’s report, ‘Warm Words,’ the authors claim the apocalyptic and external framing of global warming convinces the public that climate change is inevitable and therefore beyond human control. In the context of that frame, appeals for changes in individual behaviour, such as the Liberals’ One Tonne Challenge and the endless ‘Ten Things you Can Do’ lists, seem pretty lame, even to advocates. After all, how many times can a dutiful bicyclist be squeezed into the curb by a lumbering SUV before she feels there is no point to her action?”
Read the rest of the article at: Alternative Journal Online
Contest Winners: McSweeny’s Convergences
A Convergence of Convergences
“To celebrate the release of Lawrence Weschler’s Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences, we are launching an extravagant new contest: A Convergence of Convergences. Submit your own convergence—an unlikely, striking pair of images, along with a paragraph or three exploring the deeper resonances. The best contributions will be posted on the site, along with responding commentary from Weschler.”
Submissions: Fault Magazine
“FAULT Magazine (www.faultmag.com) is seeking short stories, nonfiction essays, photographs and animated works that deal with human flaws. Each issue of the magazine will focus on a single undesirable characteristic, exploring who is affected by it, the impact it has on individuals, when it can be especially bad (or actually good), and any other aspect of the flaw that is interesting to consider.”
Literature of Martial Arts: Tomiki Sensei’s Writings
Film: Gay Movie Marathon on TBS
From “Movie Marathon” by Alonso Duralde, The Advocate, June 4, 2007:
“Well, it’s June again, and for many cable networks that means it’s time to mark Pride Month with a halfhearted rerun of every notable post-1990 queer film they can get their hands on. But leave it to Turner Classic Movies to dig deeply into its vaults for ‘Screened Out: Gay Images in Film,’ a 44-film series running Mondays and Wednesdays all month long. Based on Richard Barrios’s book Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall, the series offers a varied look at gay characters in American film: from swishy supporting roles (mostly banished from the screen after the Hays Code went into effect) to butch prison matrons to seductive, unscrupulous, exotic inverts of any gender.”
For more on this, see the rest of Alonso Duralde’s article on The Advocate.
Submissions: Ballyhoo
Ballyhoo Stories: 50 States Project
Ballyhoo is currently “accepting submissions for all states except California, New York, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Ohio, and Indiana. Stories should show a strong representation of the people and culture of the particular state. Stories should be no more than 5,000 words and have the state as either the subject or the setting. Please be sure to read one or two of our current stories for an idea of what we are looking for.”
Stop by Ballyhoo for more info: http://www.ballyhoostories.com/
Submissions: New Magazine Feature
War and the Environment: Cause and Effect
The literary anthology, North Atlantic Review, is open to submissions on war and its effect on the environment or the environment and its effects on war. We invite you to write an essay, short story, poem, song, or journal based on personal experience or philosophy. Please keep submissions under 5,000 words. This is a new section of the journal and will be included in future issues.
For more information: North Atlantic Review Submissions
Photography: New Orleans After the Flood
Photography After the Flood
By Nicolaus Mills
Dissent Magazine, Spring 2007
A review and commentary on the photography of Robert Polidori:
“Robert Polidori’s photographs of New Orleans challenge our sense of how the world is supposed to look. Cars stand upside down. Uprooted trees rest on houses. In contrast to the familiar photos of bombed-out Hiroshima, where everything but the walls of a few buildings lies flattened on the ground, Polidori’s post-flood New Orleans is a collage of random disorder. Nothing is where it should be.”
Read the review/commentary and view the photos at Dissent Magazine.
Submissions: Appalachia
“Founded in 1876, Appalachia is the Appalachian Mountain Club’s mountaineering and conservation journal, published twice a year in June and December.
Appalachia welcomes nonfiction submissions on the following topics: hiking; trekking; rock climbing; canoeing and kayaking; nature; mountain history and lore; and conservation. We recommend reading a sample issue before submitting materials.
Writers should submit unsolicited material by December 1 for the June issue, and by June 1 for the December issue.
Original poems about the above topics are also welcome. Shorter poems are preferred. Only eight poems are published per issue, which makes this the most competitive section of the journal; on average, one in 50 submissions is accepted.”
For more information, visit Appalachia online.
Imprisoned Journalist Awarded Golden Pen of Freedom
HRIC Supports Campaign to Free Golden Pen of Freedom Recipient Shi Tao
June 05, 2007
“Human Rights in China (HRIC) congratulates imprisoned Chinese journalist Shi Tao and his family on his receiving the 2007 Golden Pen of Freedom on June 4 at the opening ceremony of the World Newspaper Congress (WNC) and World Editors Forum (WEF).
The Golden Pen of Freedom, established in 1961 and awarded by the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers, is an annual award recognizing individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the defense and promotion of press freedom.
Shi Tao’s mother, Gao Qinsheng, accepted the award on her son’s behalf, thanking everyone for not forgetting Shi Tao, and stating that her son had ‘only done what a courageous journalist should do.'”
Read the full article at HRIC.
Artistry & Activism: The Poetry of Irena Klepfisz
Call for Submissions: Current Events Poetry
THE NEW VERSE NEWS covers the news and public affairs with poems on issues, large and small, international and local. It relies on the submission of poems (especially those of a politically progressive bent) by writers from all over the world.
The editors update the website every day or two with the best work received.
See the website at http://www.newversenews.com for guidelines and for examples of the kinds of poems THE NEW VERSE NEWS publishes.
New Lit on the Block
Greatcoat – A biannual publishing poetry, creative non-fiction, interviews, and photography, the editors of Greatcoat, “being of relatively sound mind and possessed of radically different literary tastes, do hereby relinquish any claim to rational thought, free time, and dreams of profit; in short, we have no illusions about what makes a literary journal successful.”
Nano Fiction: A Journal of Short Fiction from the University of Houston, “NANO Fiction is a non-profit literary journal run entirely by undergraduate students at the University of Houston. We plan to publish twice a year, with issues appearing each spring and fall. Our purpose is to share undergraduate work with others in a form that can be easily digested in a short amount of time.”
Poetry in Movies
Thought you recognized those lines tucked into Million Dollar Baby? Now you can know for sure!
Poetry in Movies: A Partial List
Created/Edited by Stacey Harwood
Michigan Quarterly Review is featuring this list “of the appearance of recognizable, often canonical, poems, or excerpts from poems, in mainly American and British sound films. The catalog is necessarily incomplete; readers are invited to submit new entries to the journal at [email protected] or to Stacey Harwood at [email protected]. The filmography will be revised and updated regularly.”