NewPages Blog

theNewerYork, a relatively new print journal, has a great online feature called the Electric Encyclopedia of Experimental Literature (theEEL). To read some great content, all you have to do is go to theEEL, and then filter by Funny/Serious, Visual/Words, Short/Long, and Liked/Disliked. Or you can choose a literary form, or simply click “Random!” to generate some pieces that are, well, randomly selected.

While you’re at it, check out theNewerYork’s Fictional Glossary. “Think of it [as] an Urban Dictionary except not entirely maintained by bros. While at times poetic and stern, the definitions tend to circle around humor and cynicism.”

The summer issue of The Missouri Review includes a special feature on Houdini. “Many fascinating things are known about Houdini,” writes Editor Speer Morgan, “partly because he was an assiduous collector of his own materials and also of rare books and gear concerning the history of magic. There are also so many myths and partial truths about him, which this feature tries to clarify, including stories of his death at age fifty-two and the nature of his relationship with the all-powerful milieu of spiritualism.” The feature, by Kristine Somerville and Morgan, includes history, photographs, and poster/advertisements for his shows.

The issue also includes a piece by Peter Selgin on New York; a piece by Peter LaSalle on Paris; and new work from Aaron Baker, Michael Benedict, Lania Knight, Peter Levine, Nathan Oates, Dan O’Brien, Pamela Painter, Diane Seuss, and more.

In a piece, which rests in a great collection, in Booth‘s current issue, Chuck Klosterman discusses the difference between writing nonfiction and fiction. In the interview with him by Chris Speckman, Klosterman talks about how he started his writing career by writing for the college newspaper, and he only writes pieces that gets published–“If I’m not going to write about something, I’ll just think about it. I don’t need to share it with other people. However,  I think sharing it with people is a great way to live. The process of writing is always pleasant . . The process of publishing is often not . . . But you have to publish in order to keep writing. That’s just the way it works.”

And through his experience of writing, he says that writing novels is much more difficult than writing essays and nonfiction:

“So you’re doing this interview with me right now, and what would be the best thing that could happen from your perspective? It would be if I sad something that made no fucking sense whatsoever, if I said something that was jut crazy and a total non sequitur. Or if I was talking to you and said, ‘Oh, I’m looking out my window right now, and I’m seeing a murder happen.’ THat would be great for your story, because in nonfiction, what you’re looking for are things that make no sense. Those are the moments of tension in a nonfiction piece . . . But in fiction, people hate that. People are always looking for the reality of a fake world that accurately reflects their world. So you’re constantly looking at these problems and saying, What is the most reasonable thing that could happen here? What could happen here that would make somebody say, ‘I could totally see that happening.'”

Get the latest issue to read more of this compelling interview, as well as to access an interview with Charles Simic; lots of new comics, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and “greeting cards”; and an attractive and compactly designed magazine.

The summer 2013 issue of The Georgia Review features a special treat, a long-ish piece by Judith Kitchen titled “Circus Train.” I say “long-ish” because it hasn’t really been defined. Read Editor Stephen Corey’s explanation:

“While reading and rereading Kitchen’s segmented but forcefully interwoven study of memory and mortality, I’ve been led to wonder, briefly, whether a book of nonfiction—which at its exploring and argumentative best is by nature essaying—deserves to be accorded a potently developed but physically diminutive sibling, as the novel has come to have the novella in its family. (Of course, ‘short story’ often wants to claim ‘novella’ as kin, too, by proudly calling it ‘long story.’) Alas, ‘essayla’ is merely cute and ‘long essay’ pedestrian, so I must leave you to your own categorizing as you read this inventive, moving, and all-too-soon ended ‘Circus Train.'”

The rest of the issue features Scott Russell Sanders, David Griffith, Jerry McGahan, Bruce Bond, Todd Boss, Rebecca Cook, Sharon Dolin, Charles FOrt, Al Maginnes, Jack Ridl, and Robert Wrigley, as well as some amazing art and some reviews.

This month’s Broadsided collaborators are poet Robert Wrigley (The Church of Omnivorous Light: Selected Poems and Anatomy of Melancholy & Other Poems), and artists Stacy Isenbarger and Kat Clancy, who each contributed art to create two separate broadsides. Download them and post them around your community.

Cartoonists At Risk and Their Defenders is a special issue published by Sampsonia Way: An Online Magazine on Literature, Free Speech and Social Justice: “Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) was the first cartoon-focused human rights organization when it was founded in 1992. Created by Sri Lankan cartoonist Jiffry Yoonis and development consultant Robert Russell, CRNI collaborates with a network of cartoonists from around the world. These affiliates keep the organization informed on what is happening to their colleagues in their respective countries. Sampsonia Way spoke to co-founder Robert Russell and four of CRNI’s affiliates, located in the most dangerous countries for political artists. In this series we present these affiliates and a slideshow of cartoons from their country.”

THE NEWTOWNER literary magazine has created a special tribute issue dedicated to its hometown: Newtown, CT, where the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting took place last December.

Editor Georgia Monahan writes: “The Newtowner is a one-of-a-kind arts and literary magazine that showcases the work of emerging and established literary, visual, and performing artists from the local area and across the nation. The publication’s mission is to celebrate creative community and the life-affirming power of literature and the arts. In light of the events of 12/14/12, this mission has never been more relevant and important. The upcoming issue will be a special tribute issue offered as a healing gift to the town of Newtown. By its very nature it will be a publication of historic significance.

Call for sponsorship: Our hearts’ desire is to provide complimentary copies to the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School, as well as the greater Newtown community. We are looking for individual and corporate sponsor funding to achieve this goal. Please contact [email protected] to express your interest.

Our aims for this issue are to:

Celebrate the people, beauty, culture, and community spirit of Newtown, CT
Remember those we love and lost
Recognize and give artistic expression to the grief we have experienced
Highlight the role of the arts in healing and the arts’ ability to nurture our humanity
Focus on our love, faith, and hope for the future

Featuring contributions from:

Nationally acclaimed authors and illustrators such as: Wally Lamb, Lois Lowry, Katherine Paterson, and Steven Kellogg
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa
Sesame Street’s Alan Muraoka
National leaders such as Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy
Newtown’s First Selectwoman Pat Llodra
Newtown faith leaders such as Rabbi Shaul Praver
Newtown educators such as Newtown High School Principal Chip Dumais and Reed Intermediate teacher Gael Lynch
Newtown High School students
Sandy Hook Elementary School parents David Wheeler and Sophfronia Scott
Sandy Hook Elementary School staff member Cindy Carlson
Sandy Hook Elementary School student artists Chase Kowalski, Jessica Rekos, and Avielle Richman

Thank you in advance for whatever help you can offer in creating this healing gift to Newtown.”

To learn more about The Newtowner please visit:

www.thenewtownermagazine.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheNewtowner
Twitter: @TheNewtowner

Founded in 2009 by Sally Molini, Karen Rigby, and Fiona Sze-Lorrain Cerise Press was an international online journal based in the United States and France “with an aim to build cross-cultural bridges by featuring artists and writers in English and translations.” After four years, Cerise Press has published their final issue with Summer 2013, Volume 5 Issue 13. Filled with poetry, works in translation, art, reviews, and essays, the website will remains as an archive. Our thanks to the editors for all their work helping writers contribute to and readers benefit from this broad literary landscape. Please enjoy their final issue!

World Literature Today’s July/August issue features our four-legged friends, dogs to be more exact. Esther Tusquets, Mark Tredinnick, Jean Rolin, and Jacques Roubaud each contribute a piece about dogs. The section is titled “Four-Legged Fictions: Writers and Their Canine Characters.” Here is a small sampling from Tredinnick’s “On Hamock Hill”:

This is my devotion, then: to walk sometimes
                                     with the dog through the sclerophyll
Cathedral of the morning. To let myself
Off my lead and follow a half-made track,
                                                 thinking a dilapidated liturgy,
Through bracken fern and native raspberry, three kinds
Of gum and a hundred kinds of weed,
                                                 toward nowhere in particular.

Poetry fans! Postcard fans! This is your dream come true! The 2013 August Poetry Postcard Festival!

Sign up! It’s simple, fun, and inexpensive. The premise: You get a list of names and addresses. You start with the person below your name and go through the list. One per day. You write a poem on a postcard and send it to the recipient, and then you also start getting poetry postcards sent to you.

Rules? Well, one biggie that some argue the doability of: You sit and write without revision directly on the card. No pre-written poems. No recycled works. No multiple drafts. Just write and send.

It is a tough exercise, to be sure, and as noted, not everyone does it this way. I’ve gotten postcards that have the poem typed and taped – some writers claiming poor penmanship, to which I agree – some are really tough to read, but then, some of the taped paper gets ripped off in the mail machines resulting in blank postcards. I’ll take a tough read over a blank postcard! Some writers say they want to think through the poem “just a little” before sending. Well…there are no poetry postcard police as far as I know.

I do understand the value of the exercise, and now in my sixth year of participation, I can honestly say I’ve gotten better at it. But, as a recipient, I’ll take whatever is sent my way – revised or not, scribbles or not, hard to read or clear as day. I LOVE the Poetry Postcard Festival and hope you’ll try it out too!

Huge thanks to Brendan McBreen of the Striped Water Poets for hosting the festival again this year. See his blog post for full guidelines, how to sign up, and a PDF of a poetry postcard writing exercise handout for your writing groups, workshops, or just for your own personal use.

Aufgabe 12 features a special section edited by Oana Avasilichioaei of poetry translated from the Quebecois French. Avasilichioaei starts her/his? forward by saying, “What does it matter now? What matters now? What is the matter now? What is now’s matter? All possible transversions of Jean-Marc Desgent’s questioning title Qu’importe maintenant? The following work of fourteen writers, presented in American and Canadian English translations from the Quebecois French by twelve translators, are possible responses.”

Read more about the editor and see the table of contents for the issue here.