Have you visited the latest issue of Baltimore Review yet? In the Summer 2020 issue, readers can find the latest contest winners.
Flash Fiction
“Telephone” by Cara Lynn Albert
Flash Creative Nonfiction
“Kept Miniature in Size” by Ellie Roscher
Prose Poetry
“Absence Archive” by Anita Olivia Koester
Check out the full new issue, or spend some time just taking in the contest winners. Either way is a great way to spend some of your Sunday.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
In the early days of lockdown, I had friends comment to me that they felt almost a sense of relief. Despite the tragedies reported in the news and the uncertainty of the new world we found ourselves in, they felt like they were able to breathe for the first time—to spend days resting or creating or getting personal work done or fully focusing on their families, none of which they were able to accomplish during the busyness of everyday life.
In the Spring/Summer 2020 issue of Salamander, Anne Kilfoyle’s story “Double-Yolked” reminded me of those conversations and feelings. As narrator Keera and her husband Jesse prepare for an emergency evacuation following an unnamed global threat, she reflects:
The last three days have been good days, some of the best. We have been holding our breath but also our problems got smaller. [ . . . ] Our biggest fear wasn’t mass annihilation, it was that we’d have to go back to how things were, back to our jobs and our lives [ . . . ].
Despite their lack of preparation, she feels okay with what’s coming to them, feels capable knowing they have each other, now somehow stronger together, as they move forward.
The short piece is relatable and timely: empty store shelves, last minute orders from Amazon in an attempt to ease the new worries, the uncertainty that surrounds them, and that strange relief of being released from normal life. It can be difficult to read disaster-themed writing while living through a similar situation, but Kilfoyle manages to cover the topic in a way that’s casual and comforting without adding to the current, similar stresses.
Radar Poetry is an online literary magazine devoted to publishing poems from both established and emerging writers. The journal was founded in 2013 by Rachel Marie Patterson and Dara-Lyn Shrager. Each issue features pairings of poetry and visual art, selected by the editors and contributors. They seek to feature visual art that interprets, reimagines, or responds to the poem with which it appears.
Issues are published quarterly and the founders and editors also host workshops and retreats.
Each year, Radar Poetry hosts the Coniston Prize. This award is open to female-identifying poets writing in English. The prize is currently accepting submissions through September 1. This year’s judge is Ada Limón. The winning poet receives $1,500 and publication. $10 reading fee.
Issue 27, published in July, features poetry and art by Lauren Camp, Walker Evans, Jen Jabaily-Blackburn, Dante DiStefano, Honour Mack, Martha McCollough, Jack Delano, and more.
Deadline: August 31
Got a great short-short story? Win $1,000 for a story of 1,000 words or less in the 12th annual Gemini Magazine Flash Fiction Contest. Second prize: $100. Four honorable mentions: $25 each. Entry fee: $6. Any subject or style. Except for the word limit, we have no rules and are open to your most creative work, whether literary, noir, historical, sci-fi or any other category. All six finalists will be published online in the October 2020 issue of Gemini. Read any of the dozens of previous winners/finalists online to see the wide variety of flash fiction we have published. www.gemini-magazine.com/flashcomp.html
Each month, the editors of Fiction Southeast will select one short-short story (under 1,000 words). The winning story will grace the front page of the website for the entire month and will be listed on the Stories of the Month Page, as well as the Fiction Page. The reading fee is $10, and the winner receives $50. Submit here: fictionsoutheast.submittable.com/submit/163713/story-of-the-month. Read the first Story of the Month winner. Serena Ferrari’s “Zp, Signed with Love.”
Send us your zany, innovative best fiction, poetry, and CNF. We publish bimonthly, and year round. We at Bending Genres also host monthly weekend workshops and retreats. Visit www.bendinggenres.com to check out Issue 15 which features work by Gary Fincke, Ilse Griffin, Max Heinegg, and more.
Deadline: August 31, 2020
Haunted Waters Press now seeking submissions for consideration in Tin Can Literary Review—our upcoming fiction anthology celebrating the works of new, emerging, and seasoned authors. We seek stories told in as little as 500 words and as many as 12,000. Contributors to be paid $250 per published story. Also seeking works of fiction, poetry, and flash for paid print publication in the 18th issue of From the Depths and for 2020 HWP Awards. Details: www.hauntedwaterspress.com. Visit the HWP Contributor Showcase to learn more about our published authors and poets: www.hauntedwaterspress.com/contributor-showcase.
trampset, an online literary journal of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, seeks new submissions on a rolling basis. They want your best brain, your beating heart. Send that good human stuff their way. They are a paying market and pay $25 per accepted piece. They have 50 free submissions a month through Submittable as well as Tip Jar and Quick Response options. Visit our submissions page: trampset.org/submissions-6e83932b0985.
Visit this month’s Plume featured selection: “From Lewisburg to Syracuse: An interview with Bruce Smith by Chard deNiord.” Sydney Lea, in nonfiction, writes “Inviting the Reader: Narrative Values, Lyric Poems” and Donovan McAbee reviews Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry by John Murillo.
The August issue of The Lake features Rey Armenteros, Robert G. Cowser, Rhienna Renèe Guedry, Stella Hayes, Karen McAferty Morris, Anthony Owen, Fiona Sinclair, Shelby Stephenson, Hannah Stone, Grant Tarbard. Reviews of Oz Hardwick’s The Lithium Codex, Jeffrey McDaniel’s Holiday in the Islands of Grief, and J.R. Solonche’s The Time of Your Life.
The latest issue of Colorado Review features fiction by Jessica Treadway; nonfiction by Jennifer Genest; and poetry by Saretta Morgan, M.A. Cowgill, and Matthew Gellman. See other contributors at the Colorado Review website.
Deadline: September 7, 2020
Award-winning print & online Into the Void is open to submissions of fiction, flash, creative nonfiction, poetry, & visual art for Issue #17 through September 7. Payment is $10 per poem/flash/art or $20 per long-from prose piece, a contributor copy, & a one-year online subscription. No theme, & no reading fees until Submittable monthly limits reached. Send us something that makes us feel alive. Details: intothevoidmagazine.com/submissions/.
Chinese Literature Today Volume 9 Number 1 features short science fiction by Liu Cixin, Isaac (Shuntang) Hsu, and Dung Kai-cheung; an exploration of Xu Zechen’s urban fiction; a novella by Li Jing; and a look at diverse works by Sinologist Michael Berry.
Deadline: October 15
Speckled Trout Review is planning a special print issue on the theme of CRISIS for its Fall 2020 (2.2) publication. In a lifetime we experience crises of the heart, the mind, and the body, as well as global crises—the present COVID-19 pandemic, racial unrest and social injustices, natural catastrophes, and many others that leave indelible impressions. We want to hear from poets whose speakers come out stronger after a crisis. The deadline is Oct. 15. Please read the guidelines carefully before submitting. Specific guidelines can be found here: speckledtroutreview.com/2019/08/04/welcome-to-my-blog/.
The Summer 2020 issue of Baltimore Review features work by Chera Hammons, Anita Olivia Koester, John Haggerty, Seth Grindstaff, Katy Mullins, Cara Lynn Albert, Dennis Cummings, Marlene Olin, Kathleen Melin, Kate Gale, Jehanne Dubrow, and more.
Submissions accepted year-round.
John Updike once said, “Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.” At Driftwood Press, we are actively searching for artists who care about doing it right, or better. We are excited to receive your submissions and will diligently work to bring you the best in full poetry collections, novellas, graphic novels, short fiction, poetry, graphic narrative, photography, art, interviews, and contests. We also offer our submitters a premium option to receive an acceptance or rejection letter within one week of submission; many authors are offered editorships and interviews. To polish your fiction, note our editing services and seminars, too. www.driftwoodpress.net
Rockvale Review was founded in 2017 as an online journal devoted to “bold and vulnerable poetry.” They publish work from new, emerging, and established writers and feature image-driven poems that are hard-edged and finely crafted. They do offer optional print editions of their issues which are released in May and November of each year.
They have a unique feature where every poem accepted for publication is paired with a piece of art created by a Featured Artist. A Featured Musician will also craft music to respond to several of the poems in each issue. In doing so, Rockvale Review produces a journal that speaks beyond words, moving into the visual and auditory layers of the human spirit.
Their sixth issue was published in May 2020 and features work by Travis Stephens, Ivo Drury, Kate Deimling, Shannon Wolf, M.G. Hofmann, Wendy Drexler, and more. Stop by their listing at NewPages to learn more.
Black Warrior Review is a biannual print literary magazine that has been publishing exciting established and emerging literary talents since 1974. The journal is published by the students in The University of Alabama’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.
In an effort to do their part and stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, they have gathered donations to launch an effort to provide free contest submissions for up to 400 Black writers to their annual writing contest. This will not be a one-off initiative, but a sustained effort they will continue into the future. In their July 28 announcement, the BWR staff stated “This is part of a much larger effort/wish of the BWR staff to do away with contest fees, but an undertaking such as this has to start somewhere, and in this pivotal moment this is our focus.”
They recognize this effort alone is not enough and are doing their best to continue to prioritize ways in which they can make their journal a more equitable place where all Writers of Color can feel welcomed and supported.
The 2020 contest judges are Paul Tran, Lucy Corin, Mayukh Sen, and C Pam Zhang. Categories are Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, and Flash. The winners of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry will receive $1,000 and publication in the Spring 2021 issue. The Flash winner will receive $500 and publication in the Spring 2021 issue. Deadline to submit is September 1.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
From Issue 38 of Bellevue Literary Review, Kathi Hansen’s “We the Mothers” (honorable mention in the 2020 BLR Prize) imagines the mothers of boys who have been accused of sexual assault. They meet together in book-club-like fashion, able to speak freely with one another when no one else understands.
Hansen writes of them in a collective. They speak of their sons as one being as they look back to their childhoods, their teenage years, and the ways their boys were raised in their homes. Only when one woman begins to question her son’s innocence does the story diverge, separating her from the rest of the group, finally naming her apart from the others. I found this to be a cool, well done device for this piece, and a unique point of view to have on these now familiar stories.
Despite focusing on this side of the story, Hansen does a good job of avoiding too much sentimentality. The mothers tell their collective story without demanding understanding or sympathy from the reader. After all, as they point out, only those in their group can truly understand.
Deadline: Rolling
Grand Little Things is open for submissions! Visit us at grand-little-things.com/submission-information/ for more info! GLT is looking for formal poetry (think sonnets, villanelles, etc.) or blank/free verse that uses traditional poetic techniques. Open to never-been-published-writers and up and comers, as well as established writers. No fee required.
Deadline: August 31, 2020
Tinderbox Poetry Journal is pleased to announce its fourth annual contest, the 2020 Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Prize, judged by torrin a. greathouse! There are no limitations in form or content; we are interested in everything from traditional forms to free verse to lyric essay to flash fiction. The winner will receive $750, and the runner-up will receive $500. All finalists will be published and paid the standard rate of $15/contributor. Semi-finalists will also be considered for publication. Please submit up to three (3) pieces ($15, or $20 with feedback) here: tinderboxpoetryjournal.submittable.com/submit. We look forward to reading your work!
Deadline: August 31
On behalf of Arizona State University and the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Superstition Review is dedicating Issue 26 to work that promotes inclusion and explores new ways to dismantle racial and social inequality. We have chosen this theme in order to magnify voices that have been traditionally undermined by our histories, institutions, policies, laws, and habits of daily life. Our submissions will be open August 1st-31st. We accept art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. superstitionreview.asu.edu
Deadline: Rolling
Storm Cellar, a journal of safety and danger, seeks amazing, adventurous new writing, art, and photography. Indigenous, Black, POC, gender nonconforming, women, LGBTQIA+, disabled, neurodivergent, fat, poor, and border-straddling authors encouraged. Midwest connections a plus. Specific, strong, and strange voices welcome: surprise them! Full guidelines at stormcellar.org/submit and submission manager at stormcellar.submittable.com.
Deadline: September 1
The Coniston Prize from Radar Poetry recognizes an exceptional group of poems by a woman writing in English. This year’s judge is Ada Limón. The winner will receive $1,500 and publication. Up to 10 finalists will also be awarded publication in the contest issue. Coniston Prize entries will be accepted through Submittable until the deadline of September 1, 2020. The reading fee is $20. Visit www.radarpoetry.com/contest to review the guidelines and read the work of past winners.
Deadline: Halloween 2020 at Midnight
The Raleigh Review believes that great literature inspires empathy by allowing us to see through the eyes of our neighbors, whether across the street or across the globe. They are currently open to general submissions for poetry and flash fiction through Halloween 2020 at Midnight. There is a small convenience fee to submit to their general submission categories as this helps to defray the costs associated with operating via the Submittable platform, a necessary resource for them as their staff is located across the country and at times the world. They encourage you to check out their free full-issue online archive to find out more about them: www.raleighreview.org.
Deadline: August 30
They’re the site your teacher warned you about! The no frills brown bag in your face thumb your nose online psychotropolis for the literarily insane. Get committed today! The infamous dude sextet is bustlin’, hustlin’, itchin’ and twitchin’ for QUALITY short fiction, nonfiction, poetry, plays and screenplays that smell ripe and kick ass for their cage-rattling upcoming Issue 7. If they like what you submit they’ll be all over you; if they don’t they promise to be gentle, especially if it’s your first time. See our Guidelines for details: fleasonthedog.com. Runs July 1-August 30. Check out Issue 6 released this past May for a taste of what they like.
Deadline: December 31, 2020
Girls Right the World is a literary journal inviting young, female-identified writers and artists, ages 14–21, to submit work for consideration for the fifth annual issue. They believe girls’ voices transform the world for the better. They accept poetry, prose, and visual art of any style or theme. They ask to be the first to publish your work in North America; after publication, the rights return to you. Send your best work, in English or English translation, to [email protected] by December 31, 2020. Please include a note mentioning your age, where you’re from, and a bit about your submission.
Submissions accepted year-round.
The CHILLFILTR Review strives to bring the best new art to a worldwide audience by leveraging best-in-class technology to create a seamless and immersive web experience. We welcome submissions from all walks of life, and all perspectives. We are committed to inclusivity and kindly welcome work from marginalized voices. All featured works will receive an honorarium of $20 per 1,000 words and will be published online at The CHILLFILTR Review as well as on our Apple News Channel. Readers can vote for their favorites, and year-end “Best Of” winners will receive an additional $100 cash prize. Recent works published include “Washrooms” by Cat Hubka, “Holy Mile at Walsingham” by Sarah Law, and “An Outrageous Proposal” by Tim Tomlinson.
New in July on Terrain.org, find poety by Kim Parko, Anna B. Sutton, Dean Rader, and Andrea Cohen; nonfiction by Meg Mills-Novoa, Jason BreMiller, Samantha Scibelli, and Lucy Bryan; and fiction by Susan M. Gaines. Plus, Matthew Cooperman reviews Joshua McKinney’s Small Sillion.
In this issue find nonfiction by Charlotte Taylor Fryar and A. Molotkov; fiction by Kim Bradley, Judith Dancoff, Janis Hubschman, Jeff McLaughlin, and Ann Russell; and poetry by Joseph Bathanti, James Ciano, Bryce Lillmars, Esther Lin, Derek Mong, Christina Olson, Lee Peterson, L. Renée, Kristin Robertson, Mara Adamitz Scrupe, Wesley Sexton, and Annie Wodford. Find more info at the Southern Humanities Review website.
Submissions accepted year-round.
The Blue Mountain Review launched from Athens, Georgia in 2015 with the mantra, “We’re all south of somewhere.” As a journal of culture the BMR strives to represent life through its stories. Stories are vital to our survival. Songs save the soul. Our goal is to preserve and promote lives told well through prose, poetry, music, and the visual arts. Our editors read year-round with an eye out for work with homespun and international appeal. Issue 18 of BMR features poetry by Paul Lomax, Charleene Hurtubise, and Jack Stewart; fiction by Sofia Romero, Guinotte Wise, and Michael Hardin; an essay by Oisin Breen; interviews with Christopher Moore, Tyree Day, Blood Orange Review, and Tim Gautreaux; plus special features. www.southerncollectiveexperience.com/submission-guidelines/
The latest issue of Radar Poetry features new poetry by Patrick Deeley, Dante DiStefano, Sarah Dravec, Maggie Graber, Strummer Hoffston, and more. Artwork by Michael Boehnker, Danielle Kerese, Honour Mack, Karyna McGlynn, and others.
Issue 38 of the Bellevue Literary Review (BLR) came together just as NYC and Bellevue Hospital were in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the BLR staff were alternating N95 masks with red pens, balancing patient-care with literary work. But the issue made it to the presses and is packed with good reads. It features the winners of the 2020 BLR Literary Prizes. The poems, essays, and stories in this issue travel from China to Texas to Tehran, from small town to big city, from World War I-era to the present. Stay tuned for Issue 39, coming in the fall, whose theme is “Reading the Body.” Read more at the Bellevue Literary Review website.
Poetica Magazine is looking for works centered on the Jewish experience—open to all writers, of any affiliation, or any level of writing. All accepted works will be published on the website with author’s BIO and photo. This is an open edition until we have enough material to release a 120 page print edition. No fee to submit. Visit the website to submit via SUBMITTABLE form: www.PoeticaMagazine.com.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
Emily Steinberg takes a walk “In the Woods” with her dog, Gus, in her visual narrative found in the Midsummer 2020 issue of Cleaver. During her walk, she focuses on Gus and her surroundings, reflecting on the way the real world and its real problems seem far away. In the woods, “All human makings disappear . . .” and there is only the sounds of the wind in the trees and the creek and Gus’s paws around her. This moment doesn’t last forever, though. She has to cross the threshold back into the real world where everything “comes sweeping back. Crowding my brain. Not letting me breathe.” But for a moment there is peace.
This short visual narrative gives readers a moment of peace as well as we soak in the quiet moment of respite along with Steinberg. Each panel features only Gus, a fluffy scribble of a dog padding through the woods, a dog always good comfort when it’s needed. The piece works as a good reminder to take a moment to find calm and quiet in the midst of the tragedies and turmoil swirling around us. By taking these moments, we’re able to recharge as we head back into the real world to face everything once more.
That’s right! Literary magazine Creative Nonfiction‘s Fall 2020 online writing courses are open to enrollment. They offer courses for writers of all levels from those just starting out to the more advanced. All courses will begin on September 7. If you sign up by August 15, you will save $50. If you have a buddy you want to do these courses with, you could save an additional $25.
Courses include a Creative Nonfiction Boot Camp, Introduction to Audio Podcasting & Storytelling, Magazine Writing, The Building Blocks of the Personal Essay, Writing for Change: The Study & Craft of Environmental Writing, Advanced Memoir: From First Sentence to Resolution, Advanced Personal Essay: Finding a Way Through, and Advanced Science Writing.
Learn more about all their courses and how to sign up at their website.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
Say, “I see dead people,” to just about anyone, and they’ll likely be able to name the movie it came from. But unlike Haley Joel Osment’s character in The Sixth Sense, attempting to help the dead find peace, Jasmine, the narrator in Catherine Stansfield’s “I See Dead People and Other Gags” uses the concept to help herself.
Jasmine tells people she can speak to their dead loved ones, and uses social media to glean information that she later uses in her sessions. Having lost her own mother at a young age and never really speaking about it again gives her a detachment from death and the sentimental feelings surrounding it, so she profits off other people’s pain and grief. However, at the end of the story, she’s hit with a surprise that may make her change her mind about her career path.
I would’ve enjoyed reading more about Jasmine and her work, getting to know more about her clients and her grandmother who casts a shadow over her mother’s death. Stansfield’s writing style is matter of fact and straight forward, fitting for Jasmine’s no-nonsense character. But what we are given is a fun read, a peak behind the medium’s curtain.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
March and the beginning of lockdowns in the United States somehow seems like it was years ago and just days ago. Time continues to slip by in strange ways. Emma Moran touches upon this in her nonfiction piece “What I Will Say” found in the Summer 2020 issue of Sky Island Journal: “Times had changed. The quality of time had changed. Hours extended and compressed. Two hours talking to your sister passed in ten minutes. Ten minutes extended into days, as you listened to the clock counting out the seconds you couldn’t sleep through.”
In this piece, she reflects on her dad’s instruction to “Remember this. One day your grandchildren will ask what it was like, living through this. Remember it all, so you can tell them.” In the following four paragraphs she explains the way life changed during the first few months of the pandemic, and she does so poetically and eloquently: “People built fortresses out of plans. I will write those letters, I will train the dog, I will learn to speak French, I will learn to knit, I will learn, I will learn. We would try to learn.”
Time continues to pass and the push to return to the normal life we used to know is insistent, but Moran remembers and gives a reminder of what we did for others and how we “learned; how we changed” during those first few weeks and months, writing with a thoughtful and sympathetic voice.
Deadline: Rolling
Volume 9 is now available to read online. Now reading for Volume Ten, the Winter/Spring 2021 issue. Please visit the site read previous volumes filled with poems from poets the world over, from the first-published to the most acclaimed in literature. A unique voice is highly prized. Be bold, uncensored, take risks. Their hallmark is “STRONG Rx MEDICINE.” They are the home of the long poem! No restrictions as to subject matter, style, or length. Published biannually online. Submissions accepted through their online submission manager, Submittable; a submission fee is charged. theamericanjournalofpoetry.com
Add November 30 to your deadline reminders! BLUELINE: A Literary Magazine Dedicated to the Spirit of the Adirondacks seeks poems, stories, and essays about the Adirondacks and regions similar in geography and spirit, focusing on nature’s shaping influence. Submissions window open until November 30. Decisions mid-February. Payment in copies. Simultaneous submissions accepted if identified as such. Please notify if your submission is placed elsewhere. Electronic submissions encouraged, as Word files, to [email protected]. Please identify the genre in the subject line. Further information at bluelineadkmagazine.org.
The Society of Classical Poets, a non-profit organization formed in 2012, publishes an annual literary magazine called The Society of Classical Poets Journal. They are dedicated to the continuation of Beauty, Goodness, Truth, and excellent poetry. They believe good, new poetry cherishes and builds on the perennial techniques like meter and rhyme as such poetry carries a message and is infused with the profound insights and character of the poet.
The latest issue of the journal contains more than 300 pages of work by James A. Tweedie, Adam Sedia, Joe Tessitore, Leo Zoutewelle, Theresa Rodriguez, Peter Hartley, C.B. Anderson, Randal A. Burd, Jr., T.M. Moore, Martin Rizley, David Watt, Joseph Charles MacKenzie, Gleb Zavlanov, Michael Curtis, Joseph S. Salemi, Martin Hill Ortiz, Sally Cook, Daniel Galef, Susan Jarvis Bryant, Ron L. Hodges, and many more.
They also post essays and poems online as well has hosting poetry contests and offering a forum for writers to workshop their poems. They are open to submissions year-round. Stop by their listing on NewPages to learn more.
Don’t forget that online literary magazine Fiction Southeast seeks articles about writing, interviews, and essays from MFA students as well as emerging and established writers year-round. There is no fee to submit to this category. Check out past features for a taste of what they look for. fictionsoutheast.com
Sky Island Journal’s stunning 13th issue features poetry, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction from contributors around the globe. Accomplished, well-established authors are published—side by side—with fresh, emerging voices. Readers are provided with a powerful, focused literary experience that transports them: one that challenges them intellectually and moves them emotionally. Always free to access, and always free from advertising, discover what over 70,000 readers in 145 countries already know; the finest new writing is here, at your fingertips.
The Summer 2020 issue of Salamander features poetry by Rajiv Mohabir, Emily O’Neill, Rose McLarney, Sebastián Hasani Páramo, and many more; translations by Martha Collins, Nguyen Ba Chung, and Sergey Gerasimov; fiction by Anne Kilfoyle, Matthew Wamser, Olivia Wolfgang-Smith, and Joanna Pearson; creative nonfiction by Kathryn Nuernberger; artwork by Emily Forbes; and reviews by Joseph Holt, Mike Good, Katie Sticca, and Brandel France de Bravo.
Evan D. Williams’ Escape Risk on the cover of The MacGuffin’s Volume 36.2 charts a vivid route out via literature of whatever quarantine situation you may find yourself trapped in. Journey to a new home and a new job in Mark Halpern’s “Would You Like Fries with That?” or head out on a cinematic cross-country trek with grandma in Jordan J.A. Hill’s “Marching Towards Golgotha.” Matthew Olzmann—guest judge of this year’s Poet Hunt contest—is highlighted in a short feature that begins on p. 101, while Erin Schalk’s gouache, ink, and wax form a vibrant mid-volume oasis.
The latest issue of bioStories introduces readers to the survivors of wars and the survivors of accidents, transports them to homeless shelters and hospitals, onto urban campuses and within rural farmhouses, and invites them to live briefly alongside occupants of cramped Brooklyn apartments and Southwest desert trailer parks. Work by Steven Beckwith, J. Malcolm Garcia, Jay Bush, Gary Fincke, and more.
Don’t forget that international literary magazine Palooka is is open to chapbook and journal submissions year-round. For a decade they’ve featured up-and-coming, established, and brand-new writers, artists, and photographers from all around the world. They’re open to diverse forms and styles and are always seeking unique chapbooks, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, artwork, photography, graphic narratives, and comic strips. Give them your best shot! palookamag.com
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
Who didn’t have an embarrassing crush growing up? For thirteen-year-old Chava in “I Love You, Dr. Rudnitsky” by Avigayl Sharp, her new crush is her titular dentist.
Chava, deep in the throes of the brutality of puberty, falls in love with her dentist one day. Her newfound crush with its accompanying fantasies serves as a respite from her real life: being Jewish and bullied at her Catholic school, a disconnect with her distant mother, and disgust at her own body—her weight, her body hair, her budding sexuality.
Sharp gives Chava a voice that’s somehow both humorous and tragic, bringing me back to those awkward days of adolescence and the torturous process of puberty. She’s upfront and honest, telling us truths she doesn’t admit to others, while simultaneously wrapping us up in one lie after the other. By the end of the story, it feels like we’re reading her Dr. Rudnitsky fanfiction she’s posting on some secret blog. One can’t help feeling sympathy for Chava, for wanting to sit her down and give her a hug and some advice, and we can thank Sharp for creating such a cringe-worthy yet completely loveable character.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
There’s a fine selection of short fiction in the Spring/Summer 2020 issue of Concho River Review. Among them is the five-page “Tacos Callejeros” by Kenneth Hinegardner.
In this story, Steven observes a mother and her two children at a restaurant. The children misbehave as he eats and watches their behavior, and he ends up taking a liking to their mother, Melanie. Between these observations are passages about watching a dog fight on a past trip to Tijuana. As we read, it becomes clear Steven is not a caring and concerned individual, but is closer to a dog, its teeth around another dog’s throat.
Hinegardner writes with a slow build to the end, writing with precision and subtlety. The final character in this story, Ruben, acts the reader’s place, recognizing this part of Steven that is slowly revealed across the pages in this chilling, short piece.
Gival Press is hosting three contests in 2020: the Gival Press Novel Award, the Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award, and the Gival Press Short Story Award. The Novel Award deadline was May 30. The prize was $3k and book publication in 2021. The Oscar Wilde Award for the best LGBTQ poem deadline was June 27. The prize was $500 and online publication. The Short Story Award deadline is August 8. The Prize is $1,000 and online publication. For complete details on each contest, visit: www.Givalpress.Submittable.com.