Literary Magazines :: NewPages Guide
Persimmon Tree
An Online Magazine of the Arts by Women over Sixty
1534 Campus Dr
Berkeley, CA 94708
Email: editor <at> persimmontree <dot> org
Frequency: quarterly Simultaneous submissions: yes Email submissions: yes Reading period: year-round Response time: 12 weeks Payment: no Contests: no
Publisher's Description: Founded in 2007 by former Tikkun Magazine publisher Nan Gefen, Persimmon Tree: An Online Magazine of the Arts by Women Over Sixty serves up a lively mix of stories, articles, art, and poetry by emerging and established women writers and artists. Readers of all ages regularly find their way to the site, where one can troll the Archives for “The Writing Life,” a sparkling conversation between novelists E.M. Broner and Mary Gordon; read Grace Paley’s poetry, as well as the work of Maxine Kumin, Lucille Clifton, and Ruth Stone; admire Faith Ringgold’s painted story quilts, Mayumi Oda’s silk-screens, and Joan Snyder’s paintings; dip into theatrical scripts by Naomi Newman and Martha Boesing; and savor fiction by Marilyn French, Jane Lazarre, Charlotte Painter, and many others.
Persimmon Tree, which is associated with Mills College, is committed to showcasing the talent and creativity of older women. It crumbles stereotypes with its range of subject matter—including a story about tattooing and a stuntwoman’s adventure—and it also imaginatively investigates the experience of aging. Writers explore the landscape of middle and old age with uncompromising courage and high literary standards. As Florida Scott Maxwell says, “We find that as we age, we are more alive than seems likely, convenient, or even bearable. Too often our problem is the fervor of life within us.” Persimmon Tree authors and artists celebrate this heightened life.
Recent issues:
Spring 2009, Issue 9 Most exciting in this issue is the addition of streaming audio to an interview with Scottish-American contemporary composer Thea Musgrave; you can listen to her music while you read her description of its performance. In her nonfiction piece, Lygia Ballantyne deliciously remembers the Brazilian cooking of her grandmother. Short stories view the world through the eyes of a “simple,” traumatized young woman (“An Enormous Child” by Marion Menna) and explore an estranged marriage (“A Breath Away” by Susan Robbins). Feminist artist Judy Chicago offers us her “Hands in Glass,” a stunning visual commentary on the meaning of the human hand. The poetry section, edited in this issue by Lorrie Goldensohn, features a group of West Coast poets: Anne Barrows, Ellen Bass, Gail Rudd Entrekin, Marcia Falk, Cooper Gallegos, Dorothy Gilbert, Muriel Karr, Sally Allen McNeil, Judith Montgomery.