The Greensboro Review Editor Terry L. Kennedy writes in his introduction to issue #104 about trying to determine what makes “a good story” and the idea of creating a checklist for submissions:
“A checklist for ‘a good story’ might make my editorial deliberations easier, but it wouldn’t be good for my staff or for the magazine. And I’m not so sure readers really want exact restrictions on a story, not anymore. What if a story has a memorable setting but there’s no plot, nothing happens? A la Seinfeld. Where does that leave us? There are too many intangible aspects with which to blur the lines. . . I guess what I’m working my way around to is this: it’s not that I’m incapable of creating a checklist as that I don’t really believe, in my editorial heart of hearts, that I should. In the end, the best stories might just be the ones that do the things we thing a short story writer shouldn’t attempt. But by doing them well, they win our hearts and make us shout, ‘This one; this is the one!'”
After twenty-six years as editor-in-chief of Salamander, Suffolk University’s literary journal, Jennifer Barber has announced she is “stepping down to pursue other projects.”
With each new issue of its online poetry journal, Under a Warm Green Linden issues one of the poems as their featured broadside, signed by the author, available for purchase.
With each new quarterly issue, Asymptote online publication of poetry, fiction, drama, nonfiction, interviews, and translations offers “an educator’s guide for those wanting to teach pieces from that issue. Each guide offers a thematic breakdown of that issue’s content, relevant information about the context of various pieces, and possible discussion questions and exercises.”
Approached by Canada’s Arc Poetry Magazine, with a grant from the Community Foundation, rob mclennan created four, hour-long literary walks – Arc Poetry Walks – that take participants on a tour of several Ottawa neighborhoods, each featuring poetry-related sites. Following each IRL event, mclennan posted the text from the walk on his blog along with photos and related links. Above/Ground Press created a broadside “poem handout” for each event. A great resource for those interested in learning more about Ottawa literary culture/history, and a helpful blueprint for others who might be interested in replicating this kind of event. [Photo by Chris Johnson]
. . . I wonder if
The December issue of Rattle features the winner of their 2018 Poetry Prize: “Turbulence” by Dave Harris [pictured].
In her editorial to The Fiddlehead‘s Autumn 2018 issue, “Whatever We Need It To Be,” Creative Nonfiction Editor Alicia Elliott opens the publication’s first “all creative nonfiction issue” with a story about presenting on a panel with three other CNF writers. Asked the opening question: What is Creative Nonfiction?, “All four of us exchanged a look. I laughed nervously, as I tend to do when I’m not sure how to answer a question. The seconds passed.”
In collaboration with Louisville Literary Arts, the Fall 2018 (#84) issue of The Louisville Review features the winner of the 2018 Writer’s Block Prize in Poetry: “Nine Minutes in June” by Carolyn Oliver.
Issue 204 of The Malahat Review features the Far Horizons Award for Poetry winner “Venn diagrams” by Emily Osborne as selected by Carolyn Smart.
From Speer Morgan’s “Forward: Practical Living,” which opens the Fall 2018 (41.3) issue of The Missouri Review:
The Fall 2018 issue of Carve Magazine features prize-winning entries from the 2018 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest selected by guest judge Susan Perabo.
A Broadsided Press recent call for “Multilingual Writing” resulted in In Praise of Polyphony, 2018, a folio of six broadsides from writers and artists who “think/feel/see in English, Spanish, Finnish, Yiddish, Chinese, Italian, Polish, and Russian. In narrative, metaphor, sound, ink, photograph, shape, and color.”
The Fall/Winter 2018 issue of Colorado Review features “Aisha and the Good for Nothing Cat” (also available to read online) by Shannon Sweetnam, winner of the 2018 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction selected by Margot Livesey.
Heading down its home stretch, Glimmer Train Bulletin continues to offer writers and readers the inside scoop from authors. December’s bulletin features “Go Small to Go Big” by Jane Delury [pictured], which advises writers who feel “overwhelmed with your novel or story draft” to set it aside and go back to basics: the sentence. And Matthew Vollmer’s essay, “The Literary Masquerade: Writing Stories Disguised As Other Forms of Writing,” encourages that “this interplay that results from a story and the particular form it appropriates can be exciting for both writer and reader.” 
The November/December 2018 issue of Kenyon Review includes the winners of the Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers, as selected by Natalie Shapero:
Mary A. Johnson’s “Staurozoanastic Cavity” (2017) is featured on the cover of the Summer 2018 Cimarron Review. This unique work is composed of Emperor rice dye, logwood/bloodwood dyed paper, aerosol paint, inkjet prints on rice paper, rhinestones, aluminum shavings, acrylic medium, and pen, on paper. See more of her work here.
The December 2018 issue of Poetry Magazine features the 2018 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship recipients: Safia Elhillo, Hieu Minh Nguyen, sam sax, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, and Paul Tran.
Until November 29, The Common Foundation is holding its annual Author Postcard Auction: “Bid for a chance to win a postcard from your favorite author, handwritten for you or a person of your choice. A wonderful keepsake, just in time for the holidays. Author postcards make great gifts! All proceeds will go toward The Common’s programs. These include publishing emerging writers, mentoring students in our Literary Publishing Internship program, and connecting with students around the world through The Common in the Classroom.”
Winner of the Poetry Award
“Cadets are keen observers of social cues from their professors, retracting behind the protective formalities of rank at the first whiff of ‘agenda,’ regardless of its political stripe. It’s easy enough, and they have little social capital invested in the humanities. Nor do they know many people who do. . . . Unlike most of us, though, Cadets will flat-out ask in public how reading poems matters to future practitioners of their trade.
“A Writer-Photographer’s Poignant Essay about Smelter Town” by William Crawford
Bellevue Literary Review Editor-in-Chief Danielle Ofri welcome readers to the 35th issue with a newly redesigned journal, “a remarkable collaboration with students at the Parsons School of Design, under the direction of their teacher, the incomparable Minda Gralnek. The students were given free rein” to change the seventeen-year-old design that has been slowly morphing over the past few years: “. . . we moved from archival photos on the cover to contemporary art, in order to broaden our reach.”
WINNER
“The Literature, Arts and Medicine Database (LitMed) is a collection of literature, fine art, visual art and performing art annotations created as a dynamic, comprehensive resource for scholars, educators, students, patients, and others interested in medical humanities. It was created by faculty of the New York University School of Medicine in 1993. The annotations are written by an invited editorial board of scholars from all over North America. The site also includes a blog and resource section. Readers are also invited to join a LitMed list serve for those interested in posting resources related to the field.”
In his introduction the the Fall 2018 issue of Creative Nonfiction, Editor Lee Gutkind writes on the theme Risk as it relates to a writer’s life: “. . . although we may be safe from physical harm, all of us who write know that every hour we devote to our notepad or keyboard, every moment we stop and think and dwell on the thoughts and ideas that will, in one way or another, find life on a page or computer display, involves monumental risk.”
“And the question is why are people so numb? I think they are awakening, and I’m very happy about that. But awakening has been so slow. And that’s the dark age. People are having a hard time gaining knowledge and wisdom. The educational systems are completely unreliable and full of land mines for most people. So, yes, it is a dark age, and you can only hope people will come out of it, but they have to turn off gadgets and start to talk to people. And the time is very short.”
Today is the day. 
The Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry