If you haven’t already caught wind of it, the reviews of literary magazines for the month of June are now posted over at NewPages.com. Magazines featured this month include new issues of Alaska Quarterly Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Carve Magazine, Consequence Magazine, Fairy Tale Review, Irish Pages, Lost in Thought, Mandorla, Moon City Review, Pleiades, Poetry South, Radio Silence, and Slice.
New Lit on the Block :: Driftless Review
The name Driftless Review (of a new lit mag) refers to the area in SW Wisconsin, NE Iowa, SE Minnesota, and NW Illinois where the geography was left unharmed after the last ice age, 10,000 years ago. “Think deep river valleys,” says Contest Co-Editor and Assistant Prose Editor Bill Yazbec, “plush forests, and cold water streams carved in limestone bedrock.”
But this new magazine, too, has some history. As Yazbec says, “it’s a resurrection of a previous incarnation spearheaded by Russ Brickey.” Published by Platteville Poets, Writers and Editors, LLC, Driftless Review comes out twice a year, in May and December, and features fiction, poetry, flash fiction, nonfiction, interviews, visual artwork, and book reviews. “While we strive to be a respected national literary publication,” Yazbec says, “we always place a focus on emerging writers in the Driftless area.”
But Yazbec is not alone in this endeavor. Fellow editors include Kara Candito, Teresa Burns, Colin Lessig, Russ Brickey, and Laura Beadling. They aim to grow their readership and “become a ‘staunch character’ in the rich tradition of Midwestern literary magazines and journals.”
The publication is geared toward readers that might read the NYT, Rain Taxi, and The Believer, “but also still get the local newspaper delivered in the mornings.” Yazbec says that Driftless Review is for “a reader that is fascinated by what’s out in the world, but content to appreciate the beauty of the Midwest and the kindness of the people here.”
He says the writing they aim to publish has “well-wrought characters in situations that shed some new light on the human condition. Tight, clean, unassuming prose that mirrors our Midwestern sensibility.” He goes on to say that they don’t care “about the poet’s aesthetic allegiances as much as [they] care about the work’s human urgency.”
The first issue features prose by Bonnie Jo Campbell, Lydia Conklin, Sam Snoek-Brown, Matthew Fiander, Paul Crenshaw, Jen Kerske, and Jacob Reecher; poetry by Fleda Brown, Rita Mae Reese, Matthew Guenette, Sam Amadon, Liz Countryman, Kyle McCord, Rodney Wittwer, Justin Bigos, Matthew Mutiva, and Kaela Mellen; and visual art from Lydia Conklin.
Electronic submissions are accepted year-round, and submission guidelines can be found on their website.
BrainStorm Poetry 2013 Contest Winners
The 11th Annual BrainStorm Poetry Contest pulled in 286 entries this year, and the top three pieces are published in the Spring 2013 issue of Open Minds Quarterly (honorable mentions to be published in the Fall issue). “This contest,” writes the editor, “in preliminary estimates, raised just over $600 for Open Minds Quarterly, and we thank each and every one of our entrants for your support. We thank our judges,too, for their dedication, sensitivity and wisdom in selecting the winners.
The following is a passage from the first place poem, “With My Daughter Comes Autumn” by Kristin Roedell of Lakewood, Washington:
In the front of the house the leaves
of the Japanese maple have fallen;
you rake the last of them into the drain.
The garden is full of you; snails
leave a glistening trail like the slick
feel of your head when it crowned,
the wind separates clumped grass
into smooth strands the way I braid
your hair. . .
Second place goes to Tyler Gabrysh of Victoria, British Columbia for “A Difficult Showering,” and third place goes to Sterling Haynes of West Kelowna, British Columbia for “Down…East Hastings Street – Vancouver, BC.”
Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week
You shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but it doesn’t mean the cover can’t be appealing. Here are a few magazines that came in this week that made me stop to think, say “wow,” or simply announce to my coworkers, “Hey, check out this cover!”
Here’s this week’s picks:
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Iron Horse Literary Review |
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Jubilat |
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Cold Mountain Review |
Mid-American Review’s Contest Winners
The spring issue of Mid-American Review includes the winner and honorable mention for the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award as well as the winner, honorable mention, and finalists for the James Wright Poetry Award.
Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award
Winner
Woody Skinner: “Things in Slow Motion”
Honorable Mention
Robert Long Foreman: “On Brian’s Dreams of Submarines”
James Wright Poetry Award
Winner
Mark Wagenaar: “The Body Distances (Still Life with Everything in the World)”
Honorable Mention
Jennifer Luebbers: “Family History (I)”
Finalists
Jennifer Luebbers: “Patriotics”
Leslie Williams: “In the Second Half of Life”
Marie Thurmer: “Tennessee State Prison, 1977”
Sara Gelston: “One Story”
32 Things We Really Should Apologize For
On the back of the current issue of 32 Poems is a playful list of “32 Things We Really Should Apologize For,” written by Aaron Alford and Lauri Anderson Alford. Here are some of the best lines:
2. Touching the belly of a pregnant woman who was not pregnant
4. Watching so many kitten videos on YouTube [Though if you ask me, you don’t have to apologize]
7. Texting something mean about Liz and accidentally sending it to Liz.
19. That time we got on WebMD and diagnosed you with six different diseases.
23. Telling Liz, “It’s fine. No one can tell you’re not wearing a bra.”
29. Standing too close in the supermarket and judging your groceries.
32. Creating an eHarmony profile for Liz without telling her.
All I have to say is, poor Liz.
The rest of the issue features “Chad Davidson, Anna Journey, Amit Majmudar, Caki Wilkinson and nearly two-dozen other poets as fine as you’ll find anywhere.”
Poster Your Town with Poetry!
Summer is the perfect time to become a Broadsided Vector!
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.
The resulting letter-sized pdf is designed to be downloaded and printed by anyone with a computer and printer. The goal is to create something both gorgeous and cheap, to put words and art on the streets.
The site contains a gallery of past broadsides, a map of cities/state/countries that have been broadsided (and where you can add yours), and links to other broadside sites.
Staple guns and duct tape to the ready – time to get your city on the map!
[Pictured: June 2013 “The Glass Images” – Broadsided’s Official 100th Publication! Poem by Ladan Osman; Art by Meghan Keane.]
New Issue: New Staff at Burnside Review
The twelfth issue of Burnside Review, admits Editor Sid Miller, “marks a departure for the journal,” but this isn’t bad news. “It still feels like a Burnside Review,” Miller writes. “My hope is that it reads like one too.”
So what’s the change? Previous Poetry Editor Bill Bogart transferred to work the new book department, and John Pursley III stepped into the role. “John came into the mix because I like and respect his work,” Miller says. “I suppose John rooted for poems that Bill would not have. I suppose Bill would have rooted for others.” Additionally, this is the first issue with Adam O’Connor Rodriguez as fiction editor. “He too shares our sensibility and has made a big impact on the issue,” Miller says. And in the end, Miller thanks everyone for their hard work, claiming that they are the ones “who make this thing work.”
So what’s in the actual issue? Pieces from Matthew Lippman, Sandra Kohler, Rae Armantrout, Brooklyn Copeland, Melinda Wilson, A.M. O’Malley, Jennifer Chapis, Andrew Michael Roberts, Lauren Hilger, Donald Dunbar, Marlys West, Joseph Mackin, and more.
Landays in Poetry
The June 2013 issue of Poetry is special; it is entirely devoted to landays, “oral folk couplets that have been composed by and circulated among Afghan women for centuries.” In her introduction to the issue, Guest Editor Eliza Griswold writes that a landay is “an oral and often anonymous scrap of song created by and for mostly illiterate people: the more than twenty million Pashtun women who span the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Here is an example, published on the back cover of the issue:
Seperation, you set fire
in the heart and home of every lover.
Griswold explains that landays are made up of twenty-two syllables in two lines, nine syllables on the first and thirteen on the second. “The poem ends with the sound ‘ma’ or ‘na.’ Sometimes they rhyme, but more often not.” She then goes into a deep history of landays and how they are used today. The issue is worth getting if even for the introduction alone. But I wouldn’t stop reading there; the rest of the issue is filled with moving landays and photographs. It is certainly an issue to have in your collection.
Archive of the Now: British Innovative Poetry
The Archive of the Now is a digital collection of over 100 poets performing their own work. Based at Queen Mary University of London, it hosts many specially commissioned recordings unavailable anywhere else, all of which can be downloaded free of charge.
June 2013 Book Reviews
In case you missed them, check out our June issue of book reviews on NewPages. Eleven new books are covered, from poetry and fiction to nonfiction and a poetry/prose cross-genre title. Specific titles include:
- Appetite, poetry from Aaron Smith, University of Pittsburgh Press
- Matters of Record, poetry from Megan Roberts, Finishing Line Press
- Salton Sea, fiction by George McCormick, Noemi Press
- A Palette of Leaves, poetry from Edythe Haendel Schwartz, Mayapple Press
- Work From Memory: In Response to In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, Poetry/Prose by Dan Beachy-Quick and Matthew Goulish, Ahsahta Press
- A Bouquet: of Czech Folktales, poetry by Karel Jarom
New Lit on the Block :: The Atlas Review
The Atlas Review, a new biannual print journal, has a mission “to extend aesthetic qualities/dilemmas beyond a few communities and into the open air of all voices.” Editor Natalie Eilbert says: “It is our hope that through our anonymous submission system, we can graph a new geography of writers and artists, from Idaho to the Philippines.”
Along with Eilbert, Editors Jillian Kuzma and Dolan Morgan publish poetry, fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and art in the issues. Eilbert says that you can expect to find writers that you can both recognize and admire, noting that you can find interviews with the likes of George Saunders, Amelia Gray, and C. D. Wright.
With a desire to engage as many communities as possible, Atlas Review only accepts submission anonymously. They do, however, also solicit pieces from bigger names to draw a wider audience for readership. “We like the energy this creates,” says Eilbert. “We’d like to think of the magazine as one especially for writers (as if there exists a lit mag whose audience is not writers) by writing letters to our accepted authors articulating just why we were drawn to their submission, being active editors in pieces we enjoy, writing letters of encouragement to writers we find striking but whom we are unable to take in a given reading period, and finding as many opportunities to get our writers involved in reading events, their own communities (we ask, for example, in what bookstores our writers would like to see their work featured), and even the magazine itself (we have “guest readers” for each reading period, former contributors interested in vetting submissions).”
The first issue features poetry by Eileen Myles, Caitlin Dube, Michael Simon, Christopher DeWeese, Justin Boening, Patrick Gaughan, Anna Journey, Joe Hall, Ken L. Walker, Cori A. Winrock, Marci Vogel, Safiya Sinclair, Robert Ostrom, Kathleen Ossip, Brandon Kreitler, Meg Day, Matthew Zingg, Rachel Carstens, and Russ Woods; fiction by Jacob Mercer, Catherine Lacey, Judy Caldwell-Midero, Jon Steinhagen, and Sam Allingham; art by David Michael Schmidt, Bianca Stone, Jenny Harp, Noah and Nathan Rice, Kristof Didrickson, Roxy Drew, and Brett Rees; and an interview with George Saunders.
Right now, the editors are eagerly working on issue 2 as well as some new developments they can’t quite reveal yet. “We’ve got a whole lot of plans for reading events this summer which we cannot wait to declare—like, seriously big plans ahead there and we’re gripping our seats to tell you but must hold on!” Issue 2 will feature work by Italian writer Gabriella Ambrosio (translated by Alastair McEwan), Mike Meginnis, Camille Rankine, Rachel Glaser, Mr. Fish, and interviews with C. D. Wright and Amelia Gray.
Atlas Review accepts submissions through submittable but asks that you remain completely anonymous. Do not include your name or “identity-revealing information” anywhere in your submission. However, they do not have an open submission period at the moment.
Mississippi Review Contest Winners
The latest Mississippi Review features the winners and finalists of the 2013 Contest:
Fiction Winner
David Armstrong: “Straw Man”
Finalists in Fiction
Emma Duffy-Comparone: “EXUMA”
Tori Malcangio: “Earthlight”
Poetry Winner
Caitlin Cowan: “Half Past”
Finalists in Poetry
Caitlin Cowan: “Cease and Desist”
Lauren Moseley: “A Fine Essence Descending”
Charles Atkinson: “Pleasure, in a Word”
Mike Schneider: “Devil’s Dream”
Audrey Walls: “Unsent Letter to a Young Photographer”
L. S. Klatt: “Amazon”
Chelsea Jennings: “Jennings On the Steps of the Seattle Asian Art Museum”
Elisabeth Murawski: “Light”
Catherine Carter: “Things To Know”
Geffrey Davis: “The Epistemology of Rosemary”
Roger Craik: “Hover Fly”
Charlotte Matthews: “Negative Capability”
Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week
You shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but it doesn’t mean the cover can’t be appealing. Here are a few magazines that came in this week that made me stop to think, say “wow,” or simply announce to my coworkers, “Hey, check out this cover!”
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Mississippi Review‘s Summer 2013 cover |
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Ecotone‘s Issue 15 cover |
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Sterling Number 4 cover |
U.S. 1 Worksheets 40th Anniversary Issue
Volume 58 marks the 40th Anniversary Issue for U.S. 1 Worksheets and is dedicated to Elizabeth Anne Socolow, “a founding member and friend.” In her editor’s note, Nancy Scott revels over the countless hours that volunteers have put in over the last forty years to make U.S. 1 Worksheets the publication it is today.
“Over time we’ve changed the look of the journal,” she writes, “from the early tabloid to the perfect bound edition today. With each issue we welcome the best writing that comes our way from Cooperative members and from other poets across the country and beyond. As the Cooperative has grown so has the number of poets whom we publish. For the first time we have instituted a membership drive in order to raise the necessary funds to continue U.S. 1 Worksheets as a print publication for another 40 years.”
Cactus Heart’s First Print Issue
Cactus Heart, an online magazine reviewed on Screen Reading, has just put out their first print issue, featuring work by Carley Besl, Hannah Baker-Siroty, Erica Bodwell, Merina Canyon, Teresa De La Cruz, Pippa Anais Gaubert, Theodosia Henney, Peycho Kanev, Jay Logan Lance, Victoria G. Martinez, Michael Metivier, Anne Britting Oleson, Jenny Qi, Stephen V. Ramey, Alison Reed, Eboni Sade’, Karissa Knox Sorrell, Yong Takahashi, Sylvain Verstricht, Eric Werner, and Matthew Woodman.
Schlafly Beer Micro-Brew Micro-Fiction Contest Winners
River Styx #89 features the winners of the 2013 River Styx Schlafly Beer Micro-Brew Micro-Fiction Contest. I read several of the pieces, and I think you should definitely look into reading them too:
1st Place Ben Hoffman, “Your Baby’s Mother”
2nd Place Claire Guyton, “High Water”
3rd Place Justin Herrmann, “Blue Star”
Honorable Mentions
Amanda Churchill, “What We Learned While Tending Coop”
Gary Leising, “Heart Scar”
Lee Reilly, “A Fair Exchange”
FreeFall Contest Winners
The new issue of FreeFall magazine features the winners of the 2012 Annual Prose & Poetry Contest:
POETRY
1st Place: blue and white pottery by Ulrike Narwani
2nd Place: Bioluminescent Bay by Laboni Islam
3rd Place: At 15 by dee Hobsbawn-Smith
Honourable Mention: Marguerite by Juleta Severson-Baker
PROSE
1st Place: The Scream by Chase Baird
2nd Place: Hanging Clothes by Beth Everest
3rd Place: Myths of Mutton Busting by Natalie Meisner
Art Education
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Induction (2001-2002) Image courtesy of http://www.stillpointartgallery.com/ |
Artist Julie A. Struck writes, “So, why are you compelled to make art, she asks, and I shock myself by quite honestly answering—because my mother never wanted me to.” She goes on to say that although her mother was an artist herself, she never praised Struck for her artistic skills: “I always felt that art was an avenue forbidden to me because it was exclusively hers.” But this only pushes her forward.
In a piece in the current issue of Still Point Arts Quarterly, Struck writes about her struggles with her family and pursuit for an education in art. “My family, especially my mother, continue to function as endless subject matter for my creative productions,” she says. “It is the only support my mother ever gave me, along with passing on her innate artistic talent. However, not one of y eight siblings, let alone my mother, ever asks me about my artwork or my long, difficult career in teaching art at the college level. It doesn’t stop me from making art, or teaching, however. In fact, without the familiar familial opposition, especially my mother’s, I suspect i would never make any art. Or write this.”
Struck’s art also appears in this issue, honoring her with the award for Best Three-Dimensional or Mixed-Media Artwork. Also included in this issue of Still Point are portfolios by Gary Enge, Ronnj Medini, Leslie Parke, and Jill Valliere; features by Monica Nawrocki, Laurie Schreiber, and Christina Tang-Bernas; and poetry by Lilace Mellin Guignard, Margôt Maddison-MacFadyen, and Judith Sornberger.
Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week
You shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but it doesn’t mean the cover can’t be appealing. Here are a few magazines that came in this week that made me stop to think, say “wow,” or simply announce to my coworkers, “Hey, check out this cover!”
I simply had to include both the front and back cover of the volume 10 year of Ninth Letter. The cover perfectly captures the quirky and fun issue, filled with all sorts of goodies. Plus: cat. Meow.
Well, actually I have to include both the front and back of AGNI also. Here are the details: Fabio D’Aroma, Retrochrionica, 2011, oil on canvas, 30″ x 56″
And I guess while I’m at it, I should include the front and back of Beloit Poetry Journal as well. This was actually Casey’s pick, but I have to agree with him here.
Dedicated to Jake Adam York
The current issue of Copper Nickel is being dedicated to Jake Adam York, the founding and managing editor of the magazine that passed away suddenly in December of 2012 at the age of forty. “Copper Nickel was a confluence of Jake’s talents as a poet, teacher, and editor,” write the editors. “As a poet, Jake cherished the persistence of the human voice, especially in times of great duress and crisis. One could say that the journal, for Jake, was a physical manifestation of a chorus of voices, all singing different songs, sometimes in wildly different tempos and styles, but all in the name of literary art. As a teacher, Jake lived to inspire others, and he loved to watch the steady build of enthusiasm as a student discovered the unique gifts and responsibilities of the work of the literary editor. Jake’s own editorial work in particular clearly brought him profound joy. Whenever an issue gradually began to take shape, his excitement at the prospect of bringing a carefully-curated collection of writing into the world was palpable . . . We miss him dearly.”
The issue features the work of Laura Adamczyk, Margaret Bashaar, Sean Thomas Dougherty, James Flaherty, Roxane Gay, Meredith Herndon, W. Todd Kaneko, Sandy Longhorn, Natalie Mesnard, Jason Myers, Rebecca Nison, Kate Reed, Austin Segrest, Siolo Thompson, and many more.
New Podcast :: Tiferet Talk
Tiferet Talk, the blogtalk radio show for TIFERET: A Journal of Spiritual Literature, seeks to aid the journal’s mission of promoting peace in the individual and in the world through writing. Their monthly program interviews writers and religious and spiritual leaders about topics relevant to these goals. The host for this program is Melissa Studdard, contributing editor of TIFERET.
Tiferet Talk interviews of 2013 include Judith Hanson Lasater, Julie Maloney, Natalie Goldberg, Helene Cardona and John FitzGerald, Molly Peacock, and upcoming shows Jane Hirshfield 6/17, Doug Anderson 7/29, Ann Hood 8/19, Andrea Polard 9/30, Alfred Corn 10/21, Jim Hanson 11/25, Kanta Bosniak 12/16.
All episodes are available live (times for each show on the site) and past shows are available for free on iTunes.
Robert Walser’s “dramolets”
Conjunction‘s 60th issue features a special section of three previously untranslated “dramolets” by Robert Walser. “Walter, who personally knew more than most about loss and absence,” writes Bradford Morrow, “is seen here in a fresh light thanks to Daniele Pantano and James Reidel’s deft translations . . . I believe that readers who already admire Walser’s vision and achievement will find his remarkable plays a cause for celebration.”
The issue, titled “In Absentia,” is all about “Things Gone Missing. People vanished or changed beyond recognition. A once-bedrock belief now so alien as not to seem believable anymore. A woman’s threat of suicide. A man’s phantom limb. Another who comes home from prison only to find that home is no longer what it was, friends no longer who they were. Love gained, love lost. A promise forgotten. A couple gone off the grid into the woods and ghost-plagued madness. An exceptionally ill-timed death…”
The issue features the work of Joyce Carol Oates, Lucy Ives, Brian Evenson, Yannick Murphy, G. C. Waldrep, Robert Olen Butler, Miranda Mellis, Robert Coover, and many more.
New Podcast :: All Write Already!
All Write Already! is a “completely unpretentious” literary podcast hosted by Karen Shimmin and Willy Nast, with episodes posted on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month and available free on iTunes.
Each 30-40 minutes episode features a reading and interview with a guest writer. Past guests have included Shannon Cason, Stephen Markley, Alyson Lyon, David Stuart MacLean, Samantha Irby, Adam McOmber, Claire Zulkey, Christine Sneed, Randy Richardson, Jen Bosworth, Patricia Ann McNair, Keith Ecker, James Finn Garner, Amina Gautier, J.W. Basilo, Samula Park, and Rebecca Makkai.
Each episode also includes topical discussions, such as The Secrets of Successful Blogs, The People Who Actually Read Your Query Letters, The Return of Short Story Collections, The View from the Slush Pile, Your Brain on Paper vs. Screen and lots more.
“All Write Already!” says Nast, “is for writers, readers, or anyone who likes a good story.”
Writers 57 and Over
Nimrod International Journal‘s current issue is dedicated to writers that are ages 57 and older and is called “Lasting Matters.” Francine Ringold writes in her editor’s note, “Good words are always lasting, so are good people. They last in our memory and on the page. But why 57? Amazing as it may seem to those who know the typical history of ‘lit mags’ (2 to 10 years at most), this fall 2013 Nimrod International Journal will be celebrating its 57th year of continuous publication. With the guidance and dedication of our advisory and editorial boards, Nimrod promises to last another 57 years or more.
The issue features poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction by Ted Kooser, Stephen Dunn, Lorna Crozier, Ron Wallace, Jennifer Compton, Ivy Dempsey, Harry Humes, Jean Esteve, Jeff Gundy, Roberta Murphy, CJ Muchhala, Vince Sgambati, Lee Sharkey, Anita Skeen, Lilvia Soto, Mary Lee Wladrom, Jack Wolfteich, and more.
Margaret Atwood Interview
“I believe women are human beings. Pretty radical, that. I don’t believe women are angels, or that every woman is morally superior to every man . . . Women come in as many different varieties as men do, and are as subject to circumstance.” This writes Margaret Atwood in an interview with Elissa Schappell featured in the summer issue of Tin House. This was in response to Shrappell’s question, “Do you consider yourself a feminist writer? Is it possible to be a writer and a feminist, without being a feminist writer?” Atwood says that when using terms such as “Christian writer” or “Communist writer” or “feminist writer,” people often “flounder around” for an answer as to what the terms mean. “So how can you put up your hand for something that is so fuzzy in the minds of those who are asking the question?”
In the interview, Atwood discusses female characters, speculative fiction, political bias, writer’s “moral obligation to society,” and her forthcoming book MaddAdam as the third book in a trilogy.
The Summer Reading issue of Tin House also includes a new story by Stephen King, two new poems by Tom Sleigh, pieces by Katie Arnold-Ratliff, Jennifer Gilmore, and Jodi Angel, and more.
Lust, Lies, & Bad Behavior
“Lust, Lies, & Bad Behavior: True stories of Southern Sin” is the title for the current issue of Creative Nonfiction. The issue includes the winner of the Creative Nonfiction “Southern Sin” Essay Prize, sponsored by Neil White and awarded to Harrison Scott Key for “The Wishbone.” Editor Lee Gutkind writes, “I hope that all of the essays in this special issue will intrigue and titillate you—but Key’s is also wickedly funny.”
In the back of the issue is a list of titles from submissions not published but ones that the editors couldn’t help but share. You’ll need to get the issue to delight in all of them, but here are a couple of our favorites:
“Glory, Glory Hole-elujah” (Lust)
“Yankee Hanky-Panky” (Lust)
“Dr. Sin Learns to Bake Biscuits” (Gluttony)
“Baby Jesus and a Waffle House Drunk” (Gluttony)
“All Tomatoes Are Rotten in My Book” (Wrath)
“Squirrels!” (Wrath)
“Long Mustaches and Decorated Horses” (Wrath)
“Granny’s Little Sinner” (Pride)
“Hell Has an Exit” (Pride)
Carolina Quarterly’s New Look
Because 2013 marks Carolina Quarterly‘s 65th year publishing, the editors decided it was time for a (minor) makeover. With the Spring 2013 issue, the magazine has a “crisp interior layout and sharp new cover.” Instead of an image taking up the whole background of the cover, the new cover features an image in the top third of the cover with a lot more white space on the bottom. It also features a short blurb about “In this issue.” The inside has a new attractive font and some of the masthead and table of contents page vary a little, but the same general layout applies.
In this particular issue you will find “Celestial bodies and infected minds, Mountains and sinkholes, plus Light, lunacy, and possums.” Featured writers include Carolina R. Antich, Rebecca Bagget, Marc Berley, John F. Buckley, Sarah Carey, Jack Christian, Eli Connaughton, Matthew Gavin Frank, Krystin Gollihue, Aaron Hamburger, Suzanne Marie Hopcroft, Mary Karr, Dale Roche-Lebrec, Michael Martin, Amyisla McCombie, Corrina Rosendhal, Elliot Sanders, Russel Swensen, Leonid Tishkov, Gemini Wahhaj, and more.
Sarah McNally “Downright Batty”
Canadian radio reporter David Gutnick has put together both a radio report and web story on 28-year-old Sarah McNally, whose parents founded McNally-Robinson, one of Canada’s largest independent bookstores. Sarah McNally opened The McNally-Jackson Store in New York, a store that supplies home businesses with “Goods for The Study.” This is McNally’s second business venture, her first a bookstore in Soho. Gutnick interviews McNally and a number of customers and employees in his 19-minute radio documentary: Sarah McNally, “Another Hipster In The Business: God Help Me.” It’s wonderful to hear McNally’s perspective on “the reading life,” how she started her bookstore in the wake of many other indie closings, and how she doesn’t feel Amazon is her competitor since what she offers is the human experience we can’t get online. The hipster quote, by the way, is from McNally herself.
The “Issues” Issue
Gulf Coast’s newest issue is all about issues, as cleverly illustrated on the cover with an image of a table lined with books with different titles: Scary Smells, Essay Tests, Regularity, Morning People, Control Issues, God Complex, Drug Issues, and in the middle as the tallest book, Mom Issues. “Most literary journals announce their themes in advance,” write the editors. “Here at Gulf Coast we’re partial to themes that announce themselves gradually. Such was the case with the ‘Issues’ Issue. The cover was what clinched it.”
And on top of the revealed themes in the fiction, nonfiction, and poetry sections, the issue also contains the winning pieces from the 2012 Barthelme Prizes:
Winner
Josie Sigler: “The Compartment”
Honorable Mentions
John Longo: “The Only Thing We Argue About Is Time Travel”
Emma Copley Eisenberg: “There Was”
Veterans Award
The Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans, hosted by The Iowa Review and made possible by a donation from the family of Jeff Sharlet (1942-69), placed $1000 into the hands of Hugh Martin, winner for his poems “Foot Patrol,” “Intravenous,” “Nocturne with IED,” “Ares,” “Winter, Kurdistan,” “The Neck in Front of You,” “Test Fire,” “The Tunnel at Red Creek,” “Memorial Day,” “Lieutenant Graves at La Bourse,” and “Operation New Dawn.” All of these poems are included in the Spring 2013 issue of The Iowa Review, as are selected poems from finalists Cole Becher, Nathan Bradley, Terry Hertzler, Brock Michael Jones, O.A. Lindsey, Philip Tate, Jonathan Travelstead, S. Brady Tucker, Lindsey Waterman, and Michael White. The magazine thanks the judge, Robert Olen Butler, and the family for donating the prize money.
Lit Mag Covers: Picks of the Week
You shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but it doesn’t mean the cover can’t be appealing. Here are a few magazines that came in this week that made me stop to think, say “wow,” or simply announce to my coworkers, “Hey, check out this cover!”
Main Street Rag‘s new cover features a hallway, and at the end, there is an exit sign, pointing left and a sign below indicating poetry is to the right (pointing, of course, to where you must open the journal). Which way will you choose?
Gulf Coast‘s “Issues” cover features a selection of books of issues: Oversharing, Essay Tests, Abandonment Issues, God Complex, Drug Issues, Control Issues, and, largest and dead center, Mom Issues.
The Southern Review‘s cover features a library, taken over by disaster, with the dome of the ceiling ripped out to reveal a beautiful skyline.
The Body Parts of Sheepshead Review
The current issue of Sheepshead Review features an illustration of a liver on its cover. In the editor’s note, Kelsey DuQuaine explains that, “This semester’s theme reflects the process the journal goes through in choosing these pieces.” The layout editor, Jake Jenkins, brought the idea of body parts to the table. The kidney on the cover represents the way in which the staff filters the writing for selection in the magazine. Then, each section inside features a different body part: lungs for Prose (“that breathe life into the stories we tell”), a beating heart for Poetry (“symbolizes the emotion and passion”), an eye for Visual Arts, and a stomach for the special Eat Up! section.
This issue also features the two winning poems for the Rising Phoenix Award, selected by Sarah Busse and Wendy Vardaman. In the judges comments, they write, “When you ask two poets to judge a contest, you may well end up with two poems selected. In our case, this is not because we each championed one and refused to compromise, but because we agreed that the two poems featured here represent very different voices and choices. By selecting them both as winners, we can highlight their comparative strengths and more clearly demonstrate through contrast what tools we poets have at our disposal, and what decisions go int o writing a poem.” The two winners are Mitchell Sabez with “You See the Hut Yet You Ask ‘Where Shall I Go for Shelter?'” and Jake Jenkins for “Kentucky Chase.”
Steel Toe Review Print Volume
The online magazine Steel Toe Review has just put out volume 2 of their print series. Some of the best work they published online in 2012 is featured in this issue. It also features never-before-published illustrations. “Our mission has evolved over time, and it may seem contradictory to an outsider,” writes M. David Hornbuckle in the editor’s note. “We call ourselves a journal of contemporary Southern arts and literature, but what we publish often extends well beyond the Mason-Dixon line. Ideally, we think of ourselves as a bridge to connect the established with the new, the traditional with the experimental, and the Southern with (not just the Northern, but) the world without borders. Our home is Birmingham, Alabama, in a sense, but it is also the internet, and in every literal and metaphorical sense, the internet is about making connections. And so that is what we do.”
Interview with Jake Adam York
The current issue of Hayden’s Ferry Review contains a short interview with Jake Adam York, author of Persons Unknown which contributes “to the dialogue surrounding the development, and launch, of the Civil Rights Movement.” Jake Adler had interviewed in in November 2012 as part of a class assignment through email. And in his introduction to the interview, Adler states, “Dr. York commemorates, and pays homage to, the tragic lives which suffered at the hands of ignorance and oppression by highlighting the simple and preposterous cause for all of the hate and violence that has endured: race. It doesn’t matter who writes this poetry, I learned, but that they write it in the first place. . . Dr. York was one of those rare, champion poets who knew what his voice was, what it needed to say and how it needed [to] say it. . . He deserves the utmost recognition and marked celebration.” In five questions, the interview discusses York’s writings, his choices in writing, and his inspirations for beginning work on Persons Unknown.
RHINO Editors’ Prizes 2013
RHINO‘s 2013 issue features the winners of the Editors’ Prizes for 2013:
First Prize: Rodney Gomez – “Drag Racer”
Second Prize: Kristin Robertson – “Hyoid Bone”
Honorable Mention: Claudia Cortese – “Lucy tells the boy to suck”
The issue also features work from Anne Barngrover, Kathleen Boyle, Jeff Burt, Sean Howard, Liz Kay, Sophie Klahr, Gail Martin, Adam McGee, Matthew Murrey, Jeff Oaks, Rikki Santer, Sara Talpos, Sidney Thompson, Bill Yarrow, and many more. To see the full Table of Contents, please visit RHINO‘s website.
Fiddlehead Contest Winners
The Fiddlehead‘s Spring 2013 issue includes the winners and pieces of their 22nd Annual Contest:
Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize:
Kim Trainor, Cradle Song: Six Variations
Poetry Honourable Mention: Sue Chenette, Inscription
Poetry Honourable Mention: Samantha Bernstein, Eulogy for Finn
Short Ficiton First Prize:
Rhonda Collis, The Halter
Fiction Honourable Mention: Jennifer Manuel, Seilent E
Fiction Honourable Mention: Vin Fielding, All Bones Recovered
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize Portfolio
In an introduction to a portfolio showcasing the poet Marie Ponsot who won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, Poetry Editor Christian Wiman starts, “Marie Ponsot wrote many of the poems for which she will be remembered while raising seven children all by herself.” He goes on to say that, “If that sentence alone doesn’t cause you to pause in awe for a moment, then I’d wager you haven’t experienced the demands and decibels of the little darlings. Ponsot herself knew all to well the cost . . . The wonder is that she knew . . . the wonder.”
Here is a sampling, the first stanza of Ponsot’s “A Visit”:
Come for duty’s sake (as girls do) we watch
The sly very old woman wile away from her pious
And stagger-blind friend, their daily split of gin.
She pours big drinks. We think of what
Has crumpled, folded, slumped her flesh in
And muddied her once tumbling blood that, young,
Sped her, threaded with brave power: a Tower,
Now Babel, then of ivory, of the Shulamite,
Collapsed to this keen dame moving among
Herself. She hums, she plays with used bright
Ghosts, makes real dolls, and drinking sings Come here
My child, and feel it, dear. A crooking finger
Shows how hot the oven is.
Read the full poem and portfolio in Poetry‘s May 2013 issue.
Life in Prison
A recent BBC article, “Five Things Prisoners’ Books Show About Life in Prison” by Ed Lowther examines works by Miguel de Cervantes, Roman philosopher Boethius, Oscar Wilde, Martin Luther King, and several others.
Interview: Dr. Vosk, Asylum Seekers Medical Examiner
From the Sampsonia Way online:
A volunteer for the Physicians for Human Rights Asylum Network, Dr. Vosk assists asylum seekers through medical evaluation. He remembers first getting involved with the program in 2009 when he saw a notice for an asylum examiners’ training course in Washington D.C. and decided to attend. Since then, he has been a volunteer for Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). Before seeing the notice, however, Dr. Vosk had been involved with political causes since the 1950s and practiced medicine since the 1970s—Physicians for Human Rights seemed like a great way to combine both of his passions.
In this interview Dr. Vosk discusses the role coincidence plays in keeping asylum seekers alive, his method of assessing trauma via an individual’s scars, and the difficulties people face when seeking refuge in the United States, where “fearfulness and rejection of immigrants have become an accepted part of national policy.”
Read the full interview here.
CFP: Basic Writing and Community Engagement
For the Fall 2014 issue of Basic Writing, Community Engagement, and Interdisciplinarity (BWe), the editors seek articles that investigate the uses and effects of community engagement in basic writing coursework. Their concept of “community engagement” is conceived very broadly, and includes concepts covered by umbrella terms such as service-learning, community based learning, and community literacy. In addition, BWe is interested in interdisciplinary collaborations from any perspective. How has your basic writing course worked with the library, the writing center, or other disciplines? BWe welcomes submissions not only from basic writing faculty, but also faculty from other disciplines or from community partners who have collaborated with basic writing classes.
Article submissions will be accepted through December 28, 2013. BWe submissions will be responded to by March 1, 2014. If revision is requested, a final revision from a BWe author must be submitted by May 31, 2014.
BWe is a peer-reviewed online journal that welcomes both traditional and multi-modal texts. Submission guidelines for formatting print essays and webtexts appear on the BWe Web site.
CFP: Postgraduate Ecology Articles
Dandelion editors seek submissions on the theme of ecology for their next issue. Topics might include, but are not limited to:
• Ecocriticism
• Political ecology
• Eco-poetics and nature writing
• The pastoral
• Urban/rural space and/or wildness and civilization
• Ecology and interdisciplinarity
• Romantic ecology and its legacy
• Biotechnologies
• Cybernetics and ecology
• Art and eco-activism
• Ecology and the military-industrial complex
• Nuclear criticism
• Ecofeminism
• Ecology and modernity/postmodernity
This issue is inspired by Silent Spring: Chemical, Biological and Technological Visions of the Post-1945 Environment, a collaborative workshop series taking place at Birkbeck School of Arts and the Centre for Modern Studies at York University.* Rachel Carson’s classic polemic Silent Spring celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2012: it still stands as one of the most influential texts on the damage caused to the natural environment by chemicals and nuclear fallout in the twentieth century. In line with the workshop series, this issue takes the anniversary of Carson’s text as a starting point for exploring how biological, chemical and technological changes to the environment have shaped cultural explorations of nature and landscape across the humanities.
Dandelion welcomes both long (5000-8000 words) and short (under 5000 words) articles. The editors also encourage conference and event reports, blog posts, book, film and exhibition reviews, podcasts and artwork. They welcome submissions from doctoral students, early career researchers, established academics and independent practioners, working in all disciplines.
Deadline: 31 July 2013.
Dandelion is an online postgraduate journal and research network, supported by Roberts Funding and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It aims to bring together a diversity of works from researchers in the arts, to offer collaborative research and training possibilities, and to promote an independent, cross-institutional space for professional development.
Publication Identity Theft
Aurora Antonovic, Editor-in-Chief of Magnapoets was surprised to come back from a year-long hiatus to find that Magnapoets had been running in her absence by someone she had once trusted who had stolen her identity. Antonovic wants to set the record right in her May 7 post about the incident, assuring writers and readers that she maintains claim to Magnapoets, past and future. NewPages has updated all of our links and contacts to this publication and urge our readers who may have had prior contact to do the same.
Coleman Barks Interview
Assistant to The Georgia Review editors C. J. Bartunek had the opportunity to talk with Coleman Barks in his home in Athens in January 2013. The Georgia Review offers Bartunek’s comments on the experience as well as two audio recordings – one of the interview and one of Barks reading from his own work as well as Christopher Smart’s Jubilate Agno, lines from which Barks included in his long poem “The VOICE inside WATER.” Bartunek notes that this reading is a rare opportunity for listeners “because in one of the poem’s copious footnotes [Barks] writes that ‘Most likely. . . I will never bring this poem and its notes to a reading. Too long, too willful in its wandering.'”
The interview begins with Barks: “I’ve never tried to think systematically about these long poems that I write or to justify them with any kind of poetic or rationale. Steve keeps trying to make me think more consciously about what I’m doing, but I don’t like that. I resist that. I just finished this poem and felt that it was a whole thing, somehow, and I felt good about it. But now I’ve been rereading it and justify it, and see what questions you might ask, and I wrote down nine purposes that I have in this poem, if I were going to teach it, I guess.”
Writers on Writing
The Glimmer Train Bulletin (available free) features craft and commentary essays by writers whose works have recently been published in Glimmer Train Stories. The most recent monthly issue (#76) includes Ella Mei Yon [pictured], Finding a Way In; Benjamin Percy, Method Writing; Michelle Richmond, On the Joys of Not Finishing What You Started; Daniel Wallace, Notes Toward Future Works; and Lance Weller, Gut. Or, Never Knowing the Next Word.
Virtual Author Event: Shirley Reva Vernick & J.L. Powers
Monday May 13 at 6:00 pm EDT, Cinco Puntos Press presents two virtual discussions via Shindig: Remember Dippy: Middle Grade Fiction, Representing Autism with Shirley Reva Vernick and That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone, Talking Children and War with J.L. Powers.
Remember Dippy: Middle Grade Fiction, Representing Autism by Shirley Reva Vernick
Johnny’s summer plans fly out the window when he learns he has to help out with his autistic older cousin, Remember. His premonitions of disaster appear at first to come to cringeworthy fruition, but when the two boys save a bully from drowning, salvage the pizzeria guy’s romance and share girl troubles, Johnny ends up having the summer of his life.
Come join us for Cinco Puntos’ debut Author Talk series with award-winning author Shirley Reva Vernick, who will talk about her second novel for young people where laughter and serious issues mix in a lightly humorous novel.
That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone, Talking Children and War by J.L. Powers
In this 2013 Notable Book for a Global Society, seventeen writers from around the world contribute essays about coming of age during a time of war: fighting, dying, surviving. Powers will talk about war, violence, and childhood, and what these writers taught her about exile and belonging after their worlds were destroyed.
Gender Redesigned Book Covers
In the DailyMail (UK) article Female Novelist Sick of Patronising Covers on Women’s Books, Sam Webb explains how author Maureen Johnson claimed publishers pigeonhole books by women. She asked fans to ‘coverflip’ books and was inundated with classics with new ‘girly’ covers as well as a few made more ‘manly.’
Job :: Processing Archivist
The University at Buffalo seeks a full-time Processing Archivist – Poetry, University Libraries – Music and Special Collections. Application deadline: May 31, 2013.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize Winners
Winners of the 78th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards are:
• Laird Hunt, Kind One, Fiction
• Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds, Fiction
• Eugene Gloria, My Favorite Warlord, Poetry
• Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree, Nonfiction
• Wole Soyinka, Lifetime Achievement
Past winners include five writers who went on to win Nobel prizes – Nadine Gordimer, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott.
The Anisfield-Wolf winners will be honored in Cleveland Sept. 12 at a ceremony at the Ohio Theatre hosted by the Cleveland Foundation and emceed by Jury Chair Henry Louis Gates Jr. Poet Rita Dove, novelist Joyce Carol Oates, psychologist Steven Pinker, and historian Simon Schama also deliberate on the jury. The Cleveland Foundation has administered the book awards since 1963. They remain the only juried American literary competition devoted to recognizing books that have made an important contribution to society’s understanding of racism and the diversity of cultures. For additional information, including a complete list of winners, visit www.Anisfield-Wolf.org.