At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!
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!
New nonfiction from The Writing Disorder summer 2013 issue includes Challenging the Myth of Female Frailty in the 21st Century: Insight on coed competition in hardcourt bike polo by Krista Carlson. I have never even heard of hardcourt bike polo, so it was fun to be introduced to it in the context of Carlson’s personal experience playing the game. Her perspective, which includes some history of Title IX and conversations with a number of players, is one to consider for all sports in which there is a gender divide.
Tupelo Press has announce that Kathleen Jesme has selected Chad Parmenter’s Weston’s Unsent Letters to Modotti as winner of the 2012 – 2013 Snowbound Chapbook Award.
Chad Parmenter’s poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, and Harvard Review. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri, and is currently a visiting assistant professor at Niagara University.
Finalists in alphabetical order:
John de Stefano of New York, New York for From: Three-Body Problems
Eric Elshtain of Oak Park, Illinois for When Will We Begin?
Gabriel Jesiolowski of Seattle, Washington for entry for silos
Karen Kevorkian, of Culver City, California for Improbable Proximities
Y. Madrone, of Portland, Oregon for stripe
Matt McBride of Columbus, Ohio for City of Motels
JoAnna Novak of Greenfield, Massachusetts for Secrets
Heather Sellers of Holland, Michigan for The Vine
Page Hill Starzinger of New York, New York for vortex street
Cheryl Clark Vermeulen of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
for Thyroid and Other Matters
Sharon Wang of Queens, New York for Microphones, Bread, and Love
Margaret Young of Beverly, Massachusetts for Blight Summer
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.
“For me, losing the chance to be a writer is worse than being imprisoned. To keep freedom of expression, I have to create. In other words, freeing the words is more important for me than freeing myself.”
From Burmese writer Ma Thida’s keynote speech delivered on June 23 at the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference, Kuala Lumpur. Edited version available on The Nation.
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.
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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| Knock‘s Greed Issue |
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| Subtropics |
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their April Family Matters competition. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories about family of all configurations. The next Family Matters competition will take place in October. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: Ming Holden, of Alameda, CA, wins $1500 for “Keller’s Ranch.” Her story will be published in the Fall 2014 issue of Glimmer Train Stories. [Photo credit: Shyn Midii.]
Second place: Stephen Langlois, of Brooklyn, NY, wins $500 for “Uncle Jerry.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing his prize to $700.
Third place: Shannon O’Neill, of Richmond, VA, wins $300 for “The South End.” Her story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing her prize to $700.
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Volume 62 Number 2 of Room features the winners of the 2012 annual writing contest. The judges were Cathleen With (fiction), Miranda Pearson (poetry), and Kathy Page (creative non-fiction). And you can read the honorable mention pieces on the Room website.
Fiction
1st Place: “Skin” by Menaka Raman-Wilms
2nd Place: “Hoax” by Kate Foster
Honourable Mention: “Miles To Inches” by Lynda Schroeders
Poetry
1st Place: “Wilhelm Roentgen (X-rays, 1895)” by Kelly Cooper
2nd Place: “Early Detection” by Annathea (Tia) McLennan
Honourable Mention: “Lying In Bed In The Morning” by Gillian Wallace
Creative Nonfiction
1st Place: “Marking Time With Murakami” by Alison Frost
2nd Place: “Words” by Marion Agnew
Honourable Mention: “Loving Benjamin” by Gail Marlene Schwartz
July’s book reviews are up! This month’s titles run the gamut from poetry about the Antarctic to zombie fiction to a history of A-bomb and Cold War narratives in popular culture/media. Books covered this month are:
Murder, fiction by Danielle Collobert, from Litmus Press
The Earth Is Not Flat, poetry by Katherine Coles, from Red Hen Press
Door of Thin Skins, poetry by Shira Dentz, from CavanKerry Press
A Questionable Shape, fiction by Bennett Sims, from Two Dollar Radio Press
Black Tulips, poetry by José Maria Hinojosa, from Univ. of New Orleans Press
Burn This House, poetry by Kelly Davio, from Red Hen Press
The Dark Gnu and Other Poems, by Wendy Videlock, from Able Muse Press
Under the Shadow, nonfiction by David Seed, from Kent State Univ. Press
Kiku’s Prayer, fiction by Endō Shūsaku, from Columbia University Press
Check them out for some great summer reading.
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.
Murder is hard to describe. Written in 1964 by Danielle Collobert, it has recently been translated by Nathanaël. Is Murder a series of prose poems? Vignettes strung together? A novella? And who is the story about? Who is the story for? To decode how to read Collobert’s work, examine the first line: “It’s strange this encounter with the internal eye, behind the keyhole, that sees, and finds the external eye, caught in flagrante delicto of vision, curiosity, uncertainty.” Collobert reveals the interior worlds of people through their external motions, their external grasping at memories shared. This story is both in and outside of itself. Continue reading “Murder”
The Earth Is Not Flat, Katharine Coles’s fifth collection of poetry, considers the meaning of discovery in the context of the Antarctic landscape. “If you wanted to be first / You live in the wrong time,” Coles writes in the book’s opening lines (“Self-Portrait in Hiding”). This desire to arrive first, to know first—and a contemporary inclination to question this desire—informs Coles’s wide-reaching poems recording her experience in Antarctica, made possible through the National Science Foundation’s Artists and Writers Program. In The Earth Is Not Flat, Coles invites her reader to undertake the unsettling experience of approaching the vast Antarctic landscape along with her, and to both push against and embrace a deeply-rooted desire to explore and know the world. Continue reading “The Earth Is Not Flat”
Door of Thin Skins by Shira Dentz is more an artistic display of raw emotion than a collection of poems. Part visual art, part narrative story, the book traces the consequential turmoil of a young woman’s life after she was sexually preyed upon and mentally harangued by her therapist. But it is more than simple prose. The poetry is scattered, ripped apart and shoved back together in seemingly fast, nonsensical quips, much in the way a person can’t be fully aware of the firing of neurons in their own brain. It begins with conventional stanzas and solid lines of prose, and opens much in the way a dramatic movie might, centered on a small detail, in this case, the figurine of a woman: Continue reading “Door of Thin Skins”
At last, someone has written a thinking man’s and woman’s book of zombies. Let’s stop here though; you just read the word “zombies,” which, consciously or not, paraded a reflex action of several split-second images across your mind from our collective Jungian zombie attic. Here’s what you probably saw: black-and-white film stills from campy 1960s B-movies, dozens of acting roles for those who can’t act, close-ups of blank-eyed crazies and legions walking as if they’d just overdosed on bath salts. After that trailer you concluded, not interested. Continue reading “A Questionable Shape”
Black Tulips, published by the University of New Orleans Press as part of The Engaged Writers Series, is the first translation available in English of the work of Spanish poet José Maria Hinojosa. Continue reading “Black Tulips”
The title of Kelly Davio’s debut collection establishes an expectation of anger, bitterness, perhaps violence. Burn this house. Burn it down. The book, however, is much more interesting than that simple emotion, although there are moments where anger slices through clearly. Continue reading “Burn This House”
Even from the title, you know you’re getting into something unusual. Wendy Videlock’s The Dark Gnu and Other Poems is a farcical combination of rules and shenanigans, truths and nonsense, stories and impossibilities. These contrasts bounce against each other in the language and poems, and we are given an unexpected experience in contemporary poetry. Videlock acknowledges influences from Mother Goose, Strega Nona, and Mnemosyne, so perhaps we should expect something for children, but these poems, although delightful in that way, are not for children alone. We find blue truths for our adult selves, too. Continue reading “The Dark Gnu and Other Poems”
In history, we look to very broad narrative arcs as explanatory mechanisms. We look toward causal factors and try to make sense of how these components act within their variety of contexts. We look for underlying stories and connections within the past. As such, broad historical narratives can be incredibly general and deeply impersonal—without the right hook or character, readers are left trying to connect fragments of a dry and disconnected set of events. In Under the Shadow: The Atomic Bomb and Cold War Narratives, David Seed uses film, science fiction, and a host of alternative cultural mediums from the early twentieth century onward to highlight very specific Cold War narratives and to pull together characters to highlight various historical trends. He finds personal hooks for his readers in order to invest them in his historical analyses. His collection and analysis of these specific narratives illustrate a variety of tensions that, he argues, permeates the very cultural fabric of the Cold War. While his work does not comprise a historical meta-narrative of its own, it brilliantly illustrates smaller, more specific narratives pertinent to Cold War literati and historical scholarly enthusiasts. Continue reading “Under the Shadow”
End? Sh?saku’s Kiku’s Prayer is not a typical love story. While passionate, it is never romantic. The mysterious village outsider Seikichi and tomboyish Kiku are star-crossed from the start when he rescues her from a tree branch about to snap. Their subsequent, infrequent meetings always end in arguments and tears. The source of their heartbreak is the impact of Japanese law on their lives long before and during the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912), because Seikichi is Catholic—a banned practice that for thousands meant imprisonment, torture, and death. Thus the love here is both personal and spiritual, and never easy. Continue reading “Kiku’s Prayer”
NewPages hits the road today for Chicago to participate in the 2013 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference & Exhibition, held from June 27 – July 2 at McCormick Place.
“The American Library Association, the oldest and largest library association in the world, holds its Annual Conference & Exhibition each summer. The largest such convention in the world is attended by more than 25,000 librarians, library supporters, educators, writers, publishers, Friends of Libraries, trustees and special guests. The conference includes more than 2,000 meetings, discussion groups and programs on various topics affecting libraries and librarians. Approximately 850 exhibiting companies feature the latest in books, online services, automation software, furniture and other materials vital to today’s libraries and librarians. ALA units display professional exhibits highlighting the various aspects of the profession.”
Ruminate‘s Spring 2013 issue features the winners of the 2013 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize, judged by Brian Doyle.
First Place
Craig Reinbold: “The Girl in the Photograph”
Doyle writes, “What seems to be reporting of fact slides ever so deftly into being an essay about love and loss and grace and dignity and memory and how we live and how we are confusions and glories. Just a lovely and moving piece.”
Second Place
Lindsey DeLoach Jones: “Fall in Love, Lourdemie”
Doyle writes, “‘Fall in Love, Lourdemie’ also has a bracing lack of ego and pretense of manneredness–it, too, is about the thorny sea of love, and is written with a clear open honest that was refreshing to read.”
Honorable Mention
Denise Frame Harlan: “Smoke Rings”
Doyle writes, “‘Smoke Rings’ takes a structure . . . and plays with it in creative fashion. A very well-made piece of work.”
Finalists
Caroline Crawford
Kerri Dieffenwierth
Debbie Hagan
Mark Liebenow
Rachel Montany
Emily Rosenbaum
Jeffrey Schneider
Allison Backous Troy
Looking for Oneself: Contributions to the Study of Charles Olson (charlesolson.org) is a website anthology of Ralph Maud’s scholarly journal Minutes of the Charles Olson Society. Website proprietor Peter Grant writes: “Charles Olson (1910-1970) was a prolific poet and scholar with a revolutionary agenda whose outline can be discerned in his seminal manifesto “Projective Verse” (1950). Projective poetics found its fullest expression in Olson’s The Maximus Poems. Ralph Maud, emeritus professor of English at Simon Fraser University, is a dedicated Olson scholar with nine books of and about Olson and 66 issues of the journal under his belt. Looking for Oneself is a stimulating selection of memoirs, essays, transcriptions, reviews and guides to scholarship, with supporting material and an interactive news section designed for the website. Olson is not for everyone. To a few he is a primary thinker for our time. “I would be an historian as Herodotus was, looking/for oneself for the evidence of/what is said.” (“Letter 23,” The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson, copyright 1983, the Regents of the University of California.)”
At the back of each issue of Grain, Jonathan Ball gives us some Haiku Horoscopes. Here are a couple of horoscopes for the staff at NewPages from the new Spring 2013 issue:
Taurus:
Some day your Prince will
Come, and on that great day you
Will be funk-ified
Cancer:
Someone is in the
Kitchen with Dinah–that’s right
She’s cheating on you
The issue itself features new writing by John Barton, Alice Major, and Scott Randall as well as artwork by Zachari Logan.
The Rumpus is now featuring Famous Rapes #1: Old Master Paintings, the first in a series of retrospective collage art by Andrea Baker. The series will focus “on myth, stories, historic events, and cultural attitudes about rape as seen through different time periods.”
The orginal master paintings, Baker comments, show that “rape is the work of heroes, and women swoon before heroes. These women have been fated to suffer the liability of their female form. There is no way out—the only answer is not to be a woman all. Be turned into a tree. Take your own life. Or, if a woman does decide to fight, the only way she can win is by being protected by another man. These paintings document the attitudes of their time, and challenge us to consider how much progress we’ve made.”
This series is excerpted from Baker’s manuscript Famous Rapes.
WASHINGTON – (June 20, 2013) – Despite research on the importance of reading with children from a young age, few parents with kids age eight and younger are engaged in nightly reading, according to a new survey from Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) and Macy’s. The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, finds that only one in three parents (33 percent) read bedtime stories with their children every night, and 50 percent of parents say their children spend more time with TV or video games than with books. More than 1,000 parents across the U.S. completed the survey online in April.
Results of the survey are revealed as Macy’s and RIF enter the 10th year of a partnership that will deliver its 10 millionth book to children in need nationwide. Be Book Smart launches June 21 and invites customers coast-to-coast to give $3 at any Macy’s register in-store to help provide a book for a child in their local community. Macy’s will donate the full amount to RIF, and customers will receive a coupon for $10 off an in-store purchase of $50 or more. The month-long fundraising effort ends July 21. Last year, Macy’s helped to raise $4.8 million to provide 1.6 million books to children who would not get a new book otherwise.
“Bedtime stories build the foundation for future achievement. For a decade, Macy’s and RIF have worked together to get books and literacy resources to children in need, giving children and parents tools they need to dream big,” said Carol H. Rasco, president and CEO of Reading Is Fundamental. “While much news in this survey is encouraging, there is more work to be done – work that Be Book Smart and our partnership with Macy’s will help make possible.”
Full survey results are highlighted in an executive summary by Harris Interactive, and key findings include:
Findings on the amount of time spent reading:
• Eighty-seven percent of parents say they currently read bedtime stories with their children.
• But only one in three parents (33 percent) read bedtime stories daily with their children.
• Children of families with an annual household income below $35,000 are more likely to watch TV (40 percent) than read books (35 percent).
Findings on printed book use:
• Printed books (76 percent) are the format of choice for most parents of children age eight and younger.
• Twice as many children prefer a printed book (20 percent) over an e-book (9 percent), say parents who read both types of books to their children.
• Less than one in five parents (17 percent) use a combination of printed and e-books.
Existing research on literacy shows the importance of starting early:
• Children who don’t read well by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school than proficient readers, according to a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
• Two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders – and more than four-fifths of those from low-income families – are not reading proficiently, according to the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Many literacy studies also show a direct correlation between income level and the number of books in the household, creating even more obstacles to developing children’s literacy. RIF works to help overcome these challenges by delivering free books and literacy resources to children and families who need them most.
“We are proud to join our customers in supporting RIF’s work to help children have better access to books and develop a lifelong love of reading,” said Martine Reardon, chief marketing officer, Macy’s. “In talking about our partnership with RIF, I hear so often about the memories created between a parent and a child through reading bedtime stories. This summer, we are especially excited to be hitting a milestone that will enable our 10 millionth book to be distributed as a result of Macy’s partnership with RIF.”
Since 2004, Macy’s has helped raise more than $25.8 million for RIF. Through customer-supported fundraising campaigns, in-store events and volunteer activities, Macy’s has donated funds and resources to further the important message of literacy for future success. Macy’s longstanding support has enabled RIF to promote literacy at all levels, from buying books for children and training educators to providing resources to parents.
Macy’s customers can take part in supporting children’s reading and bedtime stories by donating to the Be Book Smart campaign from June 21 to July 21, taking part in efforts to contribute the campaign’s 10 millionth book to a child in need.
Facebook Sweepstakes
As part of the Be Book Smart campaign, Macy’s and RIF will host a sweepstakes on Facebook to encourage supporters to share information about the campaign and post images of quotes from favorite authors to their personal timelines via a Facebook app. Each week, one winner will be awarded a $500 Macy’s gift card. For official rules and to enter the sweepstakes, visit facebook.com/macys or rif.org/sweeps. No purchase necessary to enter or win a prize.
Methodology
This Bedtime Story survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Reading Is Fundamental between April 8-15, 2013 among 1,003 parents of kids age 8 or younger. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Olivia Doherty at [email protected] or 301-656-0348.
About RIF
Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) delivers free books and literacy resources to children and families in underserved communities in the United States. By giving children the opportunity to own a book, RIF inspires them to become lifelong readers and achieve their full potential. As the nation’s largest children’s literacy nonprofit, RIF has placed 410 million books in the hands of more than 39 million children since it was established in 1966. Learn more and help RIF provide books to kids who need them most, visit RIF.org.
About Macy’s
Macy’s, the largest retail brand of Macy’s, Inc., delivers fashion and affordable luxury to customers at approximately 800 locations in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam, as well as to customers in the U.S. and more than 100 international destinations through its leading online store at macys.com. Via its stores, e-commerce site, mobile and social platforms, Macy’s offers distinctive assortments including the most desired family of exclusive and fashion brands for him, her and home. Macy’s is known for such epic events as Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks® and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade®, as well as spectacular fashion shows, culinary events, flower shows and celebrity appearances. Macy’s flagship stores — including Herald Square in New York City, Union Square in San Francisco, State Street in Chicago, Dadeland in Miami and South Coast Plaza in southern California — are known internationally and leading destinations for visitors. Building on a more than 150-year tradition, and with the collective support of customers, employees and Macy’s Foundation, Macy’s helps strengthen communities by supporting local and national charities giving more than $70 million each year to help make a difference in the lives of our customers.
About Harris Interactive
Harris Interactive is one of the world’s leading market research firms, leveraging research, technology, and business acumen to transform relevant insight into actionable foresight. Known widely for the Harris Poll® and for pioneering innovative research methodologies, Harris offers proprietary solutions in the areas of market and customer insight, corporate brand and reputation strategy, and marketing, advertising, public relations and communications research. Harris possesses expertise in a wide range of industries including health care, technology, public affairs, energy, telecommunications, financial services, insurance, media, retail, restaurant, and consumer package goods. Additionally, Harris has a portfolio of multi-client offerings that complement our custom solutions while maximizing our client’s research investment. Serving clients in more than 196 countries and territories through our North American and European offices, Harris specializes in delivering research solutions that help us – and our clients-stay ahead of what’s next. For more information, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com.
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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| Parcel |
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| Indiana Review |
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| The Chattahoochee Review |
South Florida Arts Journal has a special Virtual Museum site where you can imagine stepping inside a museum, pulling poetry, nonfiction, and fiction off the bookshelves, and gazing at the art on the walls. Vincent Caruso describes it as “a two dimensional space, like a retro point and click video game.” Check it out here.
The new issue of Modern Haiku includes the favorites from the winter-spring 2013 issue:
Haiku
on the rim
of a soap bubble
all this
-Mark Brager
Senryu
math class
the odds of her
going out with him
-Gregory Hopkins
Haibun
“In Pieces” by Ignatius Fay
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.
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.
“Literature in literature happens more often than we might think, and it’s an effective device. We get a sense of a character’s tastes, which helps open a window into her or his psyche and intellect. Heck, people who love books are usually smart and curious.”
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.”
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 |
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”
ONandOnScreen publishes poems alongside videos, incorporating the “conversation between moving words and moving images, on and on.” This issue contains a variety of poetry styles as well as ways in which the “moving images” enhance the poems. It holds Looney Toons, dancing Goths, a videodrawing, a news clip, Jiujitsu, several artistic videos, and, of course, excellent poetry. Continue reading “ONandOnScreen – Spring 2013”
Gris-Gris is a new online journal featuring poetry, fiction, and art. “We see the gris-gris as a rich symbol of creative cultural borrowing and blending,” write the editors, “an emblem of the unique mix of cultures that have shaped southern Louisiana. The gris-gris shares the root inspiration of the creative arts: the casting and the breaking of the spell.” Continue reading “Gris-Gris – Spring 2013”
The writing in Split Lip pulls the reader in, immediately. All the pieces seem to have that attention-grabbing first line(s). Take these for example: “Jude discharges liquid through her mouth all morning. She suffers from the opposite of motion sickness—she can’t handle the stillness” (Genevieve Hudson’s “Even Wild Horses”). “It happens in a Hong Kong hooker hotel, / off Nathan Road. A round bed under mirrors, / girlie pinups gazing from candy-pink walls” (Lauren Tivey’s “The Breakdown Atlas). And: “You wake up on the toilet staring at your dick” (Sean Davis’s “Sudsy Penguins”). But, of course, first lines are the only part of the story. After each of these lines come excellent fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Continue reading “Split Lip – May/June 2013”
Muse-Pie Press’s new magazine (they also publish Shot Glass Poetry and the fib review) puts out video and sound files of spoken word poetry. While this often includes slam poetry, it isn’t exclusively so: “Bent Ear Review is about giving a voice to poets, enabling them to express their work with their own emotions and passion in the form of the spoken word.” Continue reading “Bent Ear Review – 2013”
The first step into the third issue of Apeiron Review is Jenny Taylor Moodie’s poem “I Am,” which speaks to not being the “perfect” looking woman, the one “dipped / in smooth cold plaster / filling all [her] cracks and hiding every insolent flaw.” Instead: Continue reading “Apeiron Review – May 2013”
Alaska Quarterly Review (AQR) is “a journal devoted to contemporary literary art.” This double issue is indeed artful, and reading through the selections is like wandering through a museum one has loved since childhood, from school trips through failed first dates and on into the future of adult wanderings, each stage of life a visitation filled with misgivings, missteps, and misunderstanding. Continue reading “Alaska Quarterly Review – Spring/Summer 2013”
This issue of Bellevue Literary Review starts with eyewitness descriptions on the effects of last October’s Hurricane Sandy on New York’s Bellevue Hospital. The piece, titled “The Night of the Hurricane,” archives recollections from resident physicians of NYU’s Department of Medicine and is a tribute to the brave staff members who had evacuated Bellevue Hospital, hauling patients and equipment down stairs and through halls one by one to safety in the midst of enormous devastation rendering the building silent for the first time in more than 275 years. In her foreword, Editor-in-Chief Danielle Ofri writes, “Dollars, hours, gallons, and acreage can seem almost flimsy when trying to understand the effects on a human level—the patient who was carried down seventeen flights of stairs, the administrator who never left the hospital for a week, the employee whose home was destroyed . . .” We are relieved to hear that though “there still remain many displaced elements,” there is hope that “the hospital community will be fully restored soon.” Continue reading “Bellevue Literary Review – Spring 2013”
The cover of this issue of Carve Magazine depicts a fractured two-story home engulfed in flames, and the image is appropriate for at least two reasons. The journal’s title and its ethos are inspired by the works of Raymond Carver, who certainly knew how to depict households in disarray. Further, the stories in this issue each relate to some kind of disaster, whether natural or personal. Continue reading “Carve Magazine – Spring 2013”
As George Kovach points out in his editor’s note, “the standard definition of war, one society imposing its will on another by militant force, fails the test for full disclosure.” Consequence Magazine adeptly fills the many gaps left open by such a clinical conception of what war really means to those who endure it, soldier and civilian alike. The issue offers a wide range of literature that both forces and invites the reader to confront some of mankind’s more unpleasant tendencies. Continue reading “Consequence – 2013”
Like all cherished fairy tales from childhood, the Yellow Issue of Fairy Tale Review invites its readers on a journey with memorable characters and promises treasure. The typical reward of the fairy tale as we know it, though, is more elusive in the selections in this issue, and we are asked to listen carefully. Guest Editor Lily Hoang says to “tiptoe forth with caution or come with sword drawn.” Sage advice, for some of these modern fairy tales come equipped with evil, real and imaginary. Continue reading “Fairy Tale Review – 2013”
“For me the main motivator in my practice is, quite simply, communication—and a communication that is as unambiguous as possible. I am not looking for novelty but a straightforward way to express an essence or idea, which I hope will be accessible to most people,” writes Jim Maginn in “Modus Operandi,” a sort of afterword to his photographs of traditional Irish musicians printed in this issue of Irish Pages. Maginn apprentices himself to “the humanist tradition,” where photography is “a continuing and compassionate engagement with people.” That just about sums up this issue of the journal for me; only just about, because I would add that it is also a gorgeous experience. Continue reading “Irish Pages – 2013”
In the foreword to the first issue of Lost in Thought, published in July 2011, Editor-in-Chief Kyle Schruder explains that his modus operandi was to contact writers and visual artists, solicit either previously completed or new work, and pair images with fiction of 1500 words or less. If a writer submitted a finished story, Schruder approached an interested artist with the option to make a new work based on that story; if an artist submitted a completed photograph or drawing, Schruder approached an interested writer with the option to write a story based on that image. The pairings should “create something entirely new,” according to the current website. They should inspire the imagination. They should lead you, or permit you, to lose yourself in thought. Continue reading “Lost in Thought – March 2013”