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NewPages Blog

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!

The Drum – 2013

If I can say one thing about The Drum it’s this: don’t read it. No, you read that correctly. It’s just a corny joke to say that you can’t read this literary magazine; you listen to it. Your resource for “Literature out Loud,” The Drum publishes fiction, essays, novel excerpts, and interviews in audio form, often in the author’s own voice. Even if you don’t think you’d enjoy audio literature, go to the website, at least to check it out. Continue reading “The Drum – 2013”

Fiddleblack – April 2013

Fiddleblack, an online magazine now on its tenth issue, seeks to find and publish pieces that “eloquently capture what it means to know the finite bounds of self and place.” The editors go on to say that they are “interested in works of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction that make purposeful commitments to figuring out whom one is meant to be, and how it is that one should exist in the space enclosed around him.” And certainly the characters included in this issue are searching through these problems. Continue reading “Fiddleblack – April 2013”

Literal Latte – Winter 2013

The feel and writing of Literal Latte, a magazine that has been “serving up a stimulating brew since 1994,” are authentic. All of the work is quality and well worth the read. And what’s even better is that this issue features contest winners—the best of the best. Continue reading “Literal Latte – Winter 2013”

Absinthe – 2012

Published out of Farmington Hills, Michigan, Absinthe identifies its contributors with the help of more than 40 editorial advisors, including Aleksandar Hemon, Adam J. Sorkin, and Sonja Lehner. These advisors, themselves writers and translators, along with Absinthe’s editors, have selected for this issue a preponderance of Eastern European works, including contributions from Romania, Moldova, the Czech Republic, and Croatia, as well as Spain, France, and Scandinavia. Continue reading “Absinthe – 2012”

Arc Poetry Magazine – 2013

The seventieth issue of Arc, an annual journal published in Ottawa, Canada, features an email interview with poet Elizabeth Bachinsky, in which she writes: “We really are living in hybrid times.” A fitting remark both for the “cultural capital” writers find themselves living with and for this intelligently edited gathering, which takes as its theme “Reuse and Recycle: Finding Poetry in Canada.” Poetry editor Shane Rhodes contributes the titular essay, considering reuse and recycling in the context of found poetry: its background in Canada, its shifting motivations, and its internet-driven permutations. With few exceptions, however, most of the work in Arc considers reuse obliquely and explores material subjects through honed language rather than through the repurposing of archival or computer-generated texts. Continue reading “Arc Poetry Magazine – 2013”

Aufgabe – 2012

Aufgabe is a tome. It weighs 1.5 pounds on my bathroom scale, and that’s a paperback without any glossy pages. The journal publishes once a year, and the 2012 issue contains American poetry, a section of poems by poets from El Salvador in the original and in translation edited by Christian Nagler, other poems in translation, essays, reviews, and “notes.” Continue reading “Aufgabe – 2012”

Big Muddy – 2013

The Mississippi River holds a special place in American literature. Mark Twain wrote extensively about it in his memoir, “Life on the Mississippi”: “The Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable.” Big Muddy, a literary journal published by the Southeast Missouri State University Press, is as remarkable as the mighty river it is named after. This journal delivers stories, poems, and essays related to the Mississippi River Basin and its bordering ten-state area, but you don’t have to live in this area of the United States to enjoy the writings collected in this issue. Continue reading “Big Muddy – 2013”

Fjords Review – 2013

The experience of a minute occurs differently on a train, in sixty parts, rather than the measurable clattering of east coast winter hellos, vowels in mini-seconds through the incisors. Traveling by rail has been the essential inorganic character of thousands of recollections of the Western canon. Like the prospects of vaudeville and print journalism, it was meant to last forever. And thanks to a moving, technically masterful essay by Barbara Hass in the current issue of Fjords, it does. Her essay, “This Wilderness We Can’t Contain,” is imaginative without losing the tight management of its political and philosophical themes, without unraveling the travel narrative in the irresistible surrealism of the setting. In unpacking the 2011 flood of the Missouri River, she captures an essential rail experience—with the expert and shifting lens of the other elements that contribute to environmental disaster. Continue reading “Fjords Review – 2013”

Kaleidoscope – Winter/Spring 2013

“Accept the changes, Celebrate the advantages, Find Purposes.” This quote from Mike Shirk, a disabled artist featured in Kaleidoscope, exemplifies the humanity, humility, and honesty you’ll find in the issue. A magazine dedicated to discussing disabilities through art, fiction, poetry, and personal essays, Kaleidoscope is inspiring. This “Significant Relationship” issue (the last print issue before they transition to a digital model) offers comfort to caregivers, understanding to outsiders, and hope to the disabled. Kaleidoscope is different than almost every other literary magazine I’ve read; it is art with a purpose—with a humanitarian agenda and a palpable sense of community. Continue reading “Kaleidoscope – Winter/Spring 2013”

The Long Story – 2013

Reading a long short story is a special process somewhere between starting up slow and circling around for the long haul, as you do for a novel, and nabbing on the fly the conflict and character quirks thrown out by the early paragraphs of a short story which are swiftly brought to some end. So I respect and admire the unique mission of The Long Story: to publish stories of eight to twenty thousand words (most between eight and twelve thousand) and let the reader develop a relationship with the ideas and people unfolding between the first and twenty-thousandth words. Continue reading “The Long Story – 2013”

Manoa – Winter 2012

In the United States, the word freedom is talismanic, introduced from kindergarten as the American creation myth and held up by politicians and news commentators, rightly or not, as the premier American export. We own the idea—so the subtext goes—and the rest of the world struggles to become like us. So when I hold in my hand the Winter 2012 issue of Mānoa, called On Freedom: Spirit, Art, and State, I wonder how each piece and photograph defines freedom: does the definition conform or aspire to the American definition, and is it first and foremost political? Continue reading “Manoa – Winter 2012”

Poetry – April 2013

If any magazine could create a mythology in one edition it would be Poetry. To accomplish this in one issue is next to miraculous, but this is what they have done in the April 2013 issue. Christian Winman and a small cast of editors make their work look effortless, the selections of work by established poets speaking for a larger humanity. Continue reading “Poetry – April 2013”

Potomac Review – Winter 2013

The Potomac Review publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from a wide selection of established and emerging authors. From the homepage of their website: “Our philosophy welcomes variety, and through it, we create an organic flow of ideas to contribute to the literary conversation.” The conversation in this issue is definitely worth checking out. Continue reading “Potomac Review – Winter 2013”

REAL – Fall/Winter 2012

In REAL: Regarding Arts & Letters, Billy Longino interviews Stewart O’Nan and extracts the following prescription: “I found that in a lot of the plotted fiction the plot was getting in the way of what I thought the novel does best: create depth and use time to illuminate character.” The interview explores O’Nan’s literary theory in compelling insight. Hearing the analysis also informs a reading of the rest of the journal, in which writers succeed in illuminating character. Continue reading “REAL – Fall/Winter 2012”

Windhover – Spring 2013

Take note of the subtitle of Windhover. If you’re not a Christian, or if you don’t entertain at least a little curiosity about the claims of the Christian world regarding the salvific message and death-into-life of what Brian Doyle calls “that gaunt rabbi from Jerusalem two thousand years ago,” this may not be the journal for you. Every poem (there are thirty), prose piece (three, and two reviews) and work of art (several color reproductions by each of two impressive visual artists) requires at least some familiarity with the Biblical and cultural roots of Christian thought. Allusions to the life and teachings of Christ and to the tension inherent in faithful living abound in this issue. If you grok these allusions, this journal is an absolute treasure. If you don’t, you might be confused—or you might become a seeker, wandering a step or two toward conversion. Continue reading “Windhover – Spring 2013”

Zymbol – Spring/Summer 2013

Zymbol is steeped in summer. A journal of surrealist fiction and poetry, this issue’s transcendence—occasionally incorporating the grotesque—appears with a tinge of nostalgia for warm days that have slipped away. With this nostalgia comes a feeling of loneliness, and an issue filled with introverted voices trying to find a connection to the world around them. Continue reading “Zymbol – Spring/Summer 2013”

Virtual Author Event: Shirley Reva Vernick & J.L. Powers

Monday May 13 at 6:00 pm EDT, Cinco Puntos Press presents two virtual discussions via Shindig: Remember Dippy: Middle Grade Fiction, Representing Autism with Shirley Reva Vernick and That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone, Talking Children and War with J.L. Powers.

Remember Dippy: Middle Grade Fiction, Representing Autism by Shirley Reva Vernick

Johnny’s summer plans fly out the window when he learns he has to help out with his autistic older cousin, Remember. His premonitions of disaster appear at first to come to cringeworthy fruition, but when the two boys save a bully from drowning, salvage the pizzeria guy’s romance and share girl troubles, Johnny ends up having the summer of his life.

Come join us for Cinco Puntos’ debut Author Talk series with award-winning author Shirley Reva Vernick, who will talk about her second novel for young people where laughter and serious issues mix in a lightly humorous novel.

That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone, Talking Children and War by J.L. Powers

In this 2013 Notable Book for a Global Society, seventeen writers from around the world contribute essays about coming of age during a time of war: fighting, dying, surviving. Powers will talk about war, violence, and childhood, and what these writers taught her about exile and belonging after their worlds were destroyed.

Gender Redesigned Book Covers

In the DailyMail (UK) article Female Novelist Sick of Patronising Covers on Women’s Books, Sam Webb explains how author Maureen Johnson claimed publishers pigeonhole books by women. She asked fans to ‘coverflip’ books and was inundated with classics with new ‘girly’ covers as well as a few made more ‘manly.’

Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize Winners

Winners of the 78th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards are:

• Laird Hunt, Kind One, Fiction
• Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds, Fiction
• Eugene Gloria, My Favorite Warlord, Poetry
• Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree, Nonfiction
• Wole Soyinka, Lifetime Achievement

Past winners include five writers who went on to win Nobel prizes – Nadine Gordimer, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott.

The Anisfield-Wolf winners will be honored in Cleveland Sept. 12 at a ceremony at the Ohio Theatre hosted by the Cleveland Foundation and emceed by Jury Chair Henry Louis Gates Jr. Poet Rita Dove, novelist Joyce Carol Oates, psychologist Steven Pinker, and historian Simon Schama also deliberate on the jury. The Cleveland Foundation has administered the book awards since 1963. They remain the only juried American literary competition devoted to recognizing books that have made an important contribution to society’s understanding of racism and the diversity of cultures. For additional information, including a complete list of winners, visit www.Anisfield-Wolf.org.

Haikus in Space

Looking for a wider audience for your work? Consider the stars. NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission is launching late in 2013, and NASA is running a contest for messages, in haiku form, to be sent onboard the craft. The contest is open to “everyone on planet Earth,” though participants must be 18 to sign up for an account and login (minors are encouraged to have a parent or teacher assist them).

Entries are accepted from May 1 to July 1, and from July 15-29, the public will vote to choose the top three messages. The names of all entrants will be written to a DVD that will be sent on the craft as well.

The goal of the MAVEN mission is to understand Mars’s upper atmosphere. The team also promotes education and outreach about science and space with students and the public.

Academy of Arts and Science New Members

Newly elected for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the Humanities and Arts class are novelist Martin Amis; novelist and essayist Wendell Berry; philosopher David Chalmers; director and actor Robert De Niro; Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Annie Dillard and U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey; actor Sally Field; Michael Fishbane, a scholar of Jewish studies; operatic soprano Renée Fleming; jazz musician Herbie Hancock; documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles; French history scholar Sarah Maza; linguist David Perlmutter; artist Judy Pfaff; Stuart Schwartz, a leading historian of colonial slavery; artist Yoshiaki Shimizu; and singer-songwriters Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen.

One of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, the Academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to Academy publications and studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, and the humanities, arts, and education.

“Election to the Academy honors individual accomplishment and calls upon members to serve the public good,” said Academy President Leslie C. Berlowitz. “We look forward to drawing on the knowledge and expertise of these distinguished men and women to advance solutions to the pressing policy challenges of the day.”

Resources for Parents Who Write

“Mother-Writers, Father-Writers and the End of a Literary Stigma” by Tanya Angell Allen, recently published in NewPages, explores the challenges parents who write face in balancing and maintaining both identities. Allen, a parent/writer herself, offers an array of resources for this growing readership who are also writers with their own perspectives to share.

LGBT Writers in Schools Program

Lambda Literary’s LGBT WRITERS IN SCHOOLS connects authors with classrooms via free Skype or in-class visits to discuss the author’s work and LGBT issues. Designed for teachers of high school classes, universities and colleges, and student organizations, the LGBT Writers in Schools program is an opportunity for writers to discuss their work openly with students and to encourage diversity not only in the students’ reading and writing lives, but also in society at large. This initiative will broaden the foundation of experience for students of Literature, Creative Writing, English, and Secondary Education.

GOALS
–To bring LGBT writers into high schools, colleges and universities to share their knowledge and experience in order to promote diversity and encourage understanding of the LGBT community.
–To enrich the high school, college and university English curriculum by incorporating and teaching LGBT texts in the classroom which will acknowledge LGBT writers’ contributions to literature.
–To foster an open environment to discuss LGBT issues and their impact on society and the individual through LGBT texts in a vibrant and moderated classroom atmosphere.
–Giving a voice to those who have long been silenced.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
The teacher will state which type of author she would like in one of four genres: Adult Fiction, YA Fiction, Poetry and Nonfiction/Memoir. Once the information is gathered from the teacher,  LGBT Writers in Schools will contact an author who would be a good fit. If they request a specific author, LGBT Writers in Schools will try to contact that author.

WHAT HAPPENS ONCE AN AUTHOR IS CHOSEN FOR THE TEACHER’S CLASS?
Once the author has agreed to do the visit, then an introduction is made between the author and the teacher via LGBT Writers in Schools. After the introduction is made, it is the responsibility of the teacher to work out the specifics of the visit (ie: date of visit, length of visit, in person or via Skype, etc).

WHAT HAPPENS DURING THE VISIT?
Teachers would assign the work of the author and once the class has read it, the author would do a twenty minute (or longer) Skype session with the class. Depending upon what the teacher and author discussed, the session can be as general or as specific as each would like. It is supposed to be fun, lively and educational.

WHY SHOULD I PARTICIPATE?
This is a really exciting venture for Lambda Literary Foundation and for the Gay Straight Educators Alliance. LGBT literature should be represented as one voice among the many in any contemporary curriculum. The way to help counter prejudice and bullying is through educating others and it is vital to support any efforts that would help achieve this goal. Opening up channels of communication definitely begins with understanding and what better way to understand the LGBT community than through literature.

HOW DO I SIGN UP?
Contact Monica Carter, Program Coordinator, LGBT Writers in Schools Program: mcarter[at]lambdaliterary[dot]org

WHAT STUDENTS ARE SAYING
“The lessons learned in the class are universal; they can easily be applied to any setting. The theme of communal acceptance affects everybody.”
“This is a great program. It is beneficial to students.”
“I learned empathy towards LGBT issues and the author exceeded my expectations.”

SOME OF OUR AUTHORS
Nancy Garden, author of Annie on My Mind
Charles Rice-Gonzalez, author of Chulito
Julie Anne Peters, author of several Young Adult books including Luna and By the Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead
Nina Revoyr, author of four novels including Necessary Hunger and The Age of Dreaming
Nick Burd, author of Vast Fields of the Ordinary
Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay It Forward (novel for the basis of movie of same title), Let Me Go, Jumpstart the World, and many other young adult novels
Noel Alumit, author of Talk to the Moon and Letters to Montgomery Cliff

Major Jackson Guest Edits

The Spring 2013 issue is guest edited by Major Jackson who said work with the collection was “restorative and personally nurturing.” The issue features work from Martín Espada, Tony Hoagland, Sharon Olds, Carl Phillips, Tracy K. Smith, Laura Kasischke, and many more.”

In his introduction, Jackson writes, “The authors in this issue entertain, bring the news, and elegantly sing the underlying complexities of our existence. However, maybe even more notably, as Spicer suggests: against all that alienates us from each other, these authors, with their counterpunching visions and imaginative uses of language, render us more a community—flawed beyond belief, yet whose humanity is all the more striking because of our joyous nature to find redemption, to grasp and render all that is sublime, beautiful, and truthful.”

For the rest of the introduction and to see and read snippets from the issue, visit www.pshares.org.

2012 Alice Hoffman Prize Winner

Ploughshares has announced Karl Taro Greenfeld as the recipient of the first annual Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction for his short story, “Strawberries,” which appeared in the Winter 2012 issue of Ploughshares, guest edited by Ladette Randolph and John Skoyles. The $1,000 award, given by acclaimed writer and Ploughshares advisory editor Alice Hoffman, honors the best piece of fiction published in the journal during the previous year.

New Lit on the Block :: A NARROW FELLOW

A NARROW FELLOW is a new biannual, print, poetry magazine that takes its name from an Emily Dickinson poem, later named by publishers “The Snake.” This poem is about “…a narrow fellow in the grass…” After coming up with a list of 40 possible names, Editors Mark Lee Webb and Molly McCormack (husband and wife) sat down to make a final decision: “The name we settled on at the end of the candle and the bottom of the bottle of wine (a Pinot Noir) was A NARROW FELLOW,” says Webb.

“We wanted to connect more with ‘The Tribe,’ make contacts with established voices,” he says. “We also recognized the difficulty new voices have getting published . . . It’s often a very closed clique . . .” Knowing this frustration, they wanted to make a place for these new voices to shine.

The magazine features mostly poems that fit on one page and that “tell engaging stories, that use vivid images, and that sing melodies that beg you to come back for more.” Web says that they don’t publish experiment, but they also don’t publish traditional forms with measured meter and end-rhymes. “We publish innovators (which is different than experimenters, to a degree). Webb really knows the kinds of poetry they want, and the kind they don’t want: “We publish lots of metaphor. We publish poems that tell a unique story in a unique way. We don’t publish poems about writing poetry. We don’t publish poems about the meaning of the universe. We publish mysterious poems that are not confusing. They don’t tie a bow around their endings, and they make the reader work a bit. But they are not un-solvable puzzles.”

Each author that they feature has at least two poems, “so the reader can get a better sense of their voice.” Webb says that they event rejected some excellent poets because they only sent one poem, or only one remarkable poem in the set.

The first issue features well-known poets Jeffrey Skinner, Mark Brazaitis, Fred Smock, James Harms, and Lynnell Edwards. The issue also includes Karen Schubert, who recently won an Ohio Arts Council grant and teaches at Youngstown State. Webb says, “Her poem ‘Toby Tyler’ is remarkable.” Webb says they are excited to be one of the first magazines to publish the work of Jerriod Avant, an MFA student “that you’ll be hearing a lot about in the next few years.” The issue also features the work of emerging voice such as Caitlin Thomson and Valentina Cano. Webb says that the next issue will feature double the amount of poets that were published in the inaugural issue, which was seventeen.

In the future, A NARROW FELLOW plans to publish a theme issue that will pair pieces of artwork with poems written about the art. Webb says that in addition to publishing the issue, they will hang the art and poems for a show at a gallery.

For information on submitting or subscribing to the magazine, please visit their website.

Beard of Bees Offers Chandler Lewis Chapbook

Beard of Bees offers a free download of their newest publication Pixel’s Minutiae by Chandler Lewis.

Beard of Bees is an independent, free press based in Oak Park, Illinois and Paris, France, that makes all of its publications available for free download and free redistribution, “since the alleged ownership of language and thought is a revolting legal fiction.”

Beard of Bees is “committed to publishing quality chapbooks by liberated poets from Anywhere.” They “do not discriminate against non-human or post-human artists,” and feature works of Gnoetry: “an on-going experiment in human/computer collaborative poetry composition.”

New Fandom and Neomedia Studies Journal

The Phoenix Papers is a free, online, peer-reviewed, open-access journal of fandom and neomedia studies from Fandom and Neomedia Studies (FANS) Association.

The editors welcome articles on fandom and media topics as well as reviews of anime, manga, books, movies, video games, TV series, web series, musical albums, performances, and other pop culture media products. They encourage scholars at all levels of achievement, whether affiliated with an institution or independent, to contribute to our journal. Submissions are accepted throughout the year with quarterly publication (January, April, July which also includes their conference proceedings, and October).

The FANS Conference is hosted and sponsored by A-Kon, the longest continually running anime and manga convention in North America.

The Phoenix Papers
Vol 1 No 1
Table of Contents

“Film Review The Runaways” by Penny Spirou

“Game Review DrawSomething” by Amanda Murphyao

“Book Review Fandom at the Crossroads” by Margo Collins

“Distinctive Language of Animation” by Hiren Solanki

“The Evolution of Gaming and How It Affected Society” by Donovan Cape

“The Evolution of Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming” by Gregory Dugger

“Are Pokemon Slaves or Willing Companions” by Andrew Tague

“Collaboration beyond the Game” by Diana Hubbard

“Gender, Sexuality, and Cosplay” by Rachel Leng

“Transnational Television, International Anxieties” by Jessica Julia McGill Peters

“Bringing Smexy Back” by Elizabeth Birmingham

Snail Mail Review includes a Review

With the Spring 2013 issue of Snail Mail Review, the editors are happy to announce a new section of their magazine: reviews. This issue features a review of John F. Buckley’s first solo collection of poetry, Sky Sandwiches.

This issue also announces that they now have an official website (instead of just their Facebook page): http://snailmailreview.com

May 3 World Press Freedom Day

World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2013. It was first officially proclaimed during the United Nations General Assembly in 1993. Ever since then, UNESCO as the UN agency with the mandate to promote freedom of expression and its corollary, freedom of the press, has been promoting these fundamental rights in every region of the world.

New Lit on the Block :: Radio Silence

Radio Silence is a new print magazine that focuses on literature and rock & roll. Two to three issues come out a year, including essays, interviews, fiction, poetry, and illustrations. Run as a nonprofit, the publication raises money to help buy books and musical instruments for kids.

The editors include Dan Stone, editor-in-chief; Kim Gooden, copy editor; Casey Burns, art director; and Brandon Herring, design director.

The first issue runs about 150 pages and includes fiction by Daniel Handler and F. Scott Fitzgerald; poetry by David Mason and Edna St. Vincent Millay; essays by Kim Addonizio, Geoff Dyer, Ted Gioia, Adam Haslett, Blake Hazard, Sam Lipsyte, Adrian McKinty, Jon Mooallem, Kyle Morton, Zach Rogue, A. E. Stallings, Jim White, and Tobias Wolff; and an interview between Rick Moody and Tanya Donelly.

Issue 02 runs 224 pages and features Bruce Springsteen, Robert Pinsky, Ray Bradbury, Edith Wharton, Dana Gioia, Don Carpenter, Andrew Beaujon, Jennie Fields, Adrian McKinty, Myla Goldberg, Zach Rogue, Benjamin Hedin, Tift Merritt, Rick Moody, Thao Nguyen, David Remnick, Tim Riley, Siegfried Sassoon, and Jim White.

They also put on live events with writers and musicians including a new live series in San Francisco. Issue 3 will appear in Fall 2013.

Radio Silence does not accept unsolicited submissions. For more information about subscribing or purchasing an issue, please visit their website.

2013 Tusculum Review Prizes

The most recent issue of The Tusculum Review features the winners of the 2013 Fiction and Poetry Prizes. Fiction was judged by Kate Bernheimer, and poetry was judged by Nate Pritts.

Fiction
Winner
Lynn Stegner: “Rogue”
Finalists
Jessica Alexander: “Psychopathia Sexualis: A Coming of Age Story”
Judith E. Johnson: “The Horse on the Skyscraper”

Poetry
Winner
Caroline Crew: “I Am Not Against Ambience”
Finalists
Ashley Seitz Kramer: “The Better to See You My Dear”
Erin L. Miller: “Aubade”
Nate Pillman: “Physics”
Leslie Williams: “Safe in the Ground”

Read more about the contest and the winners by clicking here.

Rustbelt Moves to Woodstock

What happens when the director of a writer’s workshop moves to a new state and takes the workshop with her? A simple name change, but the same great workshop! Formerly the Rustbelt Roethke Writers’ Retreat in Michigan, Judy Kerman, owner/publisher of Mayapple Press, has made the move to upstate New York and renamed the event The Woodstock Mayapple Writers’ Retreat. Promoted as a workshop “designed for the ‘mid-career’ literary writer,” the retreat took place at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan from 2003 to 2011. Now located in Byrdcliffe Guild in Woodstock, NY, a historic arts colony and former home of Edna St. Vincent Millay, in the beautiful Catskill Mountains, the format remains the same: “a professional-level writers’ retreat and peer workshop with a comfortable, egalitarian atmosphere at a modest cost.” The workshop runs from June 30 – August 5, 2013. For more information, visit the Mayapple Press website.

Let Me Clear My Throat

“Once the Voyager was loaded with its telemetry modulation units and spectrometers and radioisotope thermoelectric generators,” writes Elena Passarello in Let Me Clear My Throat, “we then made the decision to affix human voices to the contraption’s flanks.” This image of singing voices rocketed beyond the edges of our solar system vivifies Passarello’s major concerns in her debut essay collection. Here, she examines the human voice, what it represents and communicates, and the global cultures and historical periods that have highly valued it. In these lively, memorable essays, Passarello describes the voice in different settings, explains what the voice communicates, and awakens her readers to the voices surrounding them. Continue reading “Let Me Clear My Throat”

So Recently Rent a World

Andrei Codrescu is a grown-up punk kid who cherishes the pleasures of life. Reading his poems is to enter into the mind of a brilliant classroom prankster (and at least part-time sex junkie). There’s a lot going on, and he has a lot to say about all of it. Zany, off-the-wall goofiness finds its place alongside serious astute reflection. This New and Selected is all the more cherished for exhibiting the range of the poet’s self-transformation over the course of his lifetime. This remarkable range is significantly reflected by way of the mini-introductions Codrescu offers before each book selection presented here, ranging from bibliographic comments to personal memoir of the particular time and place of the original composition-specific poems. As a result, this volume comes to represent Codrescu’s shot at a tour-de-force performance. Continue reading “So Recently Rent a World”

Ex-Boyfriend on Aisle 6

In the nineteen stories from Ex-Boyfriend on Aisle 6, Susan Jackson Rodgers creates strategically placed portals for readers to enter the private world of her characters as they embark on the difficult work of being human. This may sound like the ordinary job of short fiction, but often Rodgers imposes intriguing acts of karmic justice to waken her characters out of any chance of going about business as usual. Continue reading “Ex-Boyfriend on Aisle 6”

Beat Poetry

Any collection of poetry and prose tells a particular story. It speaks to the influences, the narrative threads, and the aesthetic focus of the collector. The collection—the set of prosaic curios—provides the reader with the story the collector (the anthologizer) has pulled together to display. Beat Poetry is a particularly interesting collection of poetry—one part encyclopedia, one part timeline, one part showcase for the poetry itself, and one part literary critique. Beat Poetry is an assortment of moments from the Beat movement, carefully arranged by poet and songwriter Larry Beckett. Beckett’s collection celebrates the classic (from “Howl” to Jack Kerouac) and then moves on to Gregory Corso’s “BOMB,” John Wieners, and others. Although it is difficult to follow a single or specific narrative thread of the anthology, what is unambiguously clear from the collection is the diversity and freedom in poetic form that Beckett highlights. Continue reading “Beat Poetry”

The Heroin Chronicles

If President Obama created a cabinet position for a Department of Heroin, he would no doubt appoint Jerry Stahl to run it. Chances of this happening are slim, so instead we have Stahl editing this wide-ranging anthology of pieces that, as the title suggests, chronicles the joys, pitfalls, and harrowing nature of the American narcotic experience. Continue reading “The Heroin Chronicles”

Last Friends

If you have not read Jane Gardam, you’re in for a treat. Her fans will be delighted that this British writer—the only two-time Whitbread Award winner—has a third novel in her Old Filth trilogy, Last Friend. Old Filth is Sir Edward Feathers’s nickname, an acronym for “Failed in London, Try Hong Kong.” Feathers is a judge for engineering and industrial suits in said city. His by-gone era, the Empire’s end, is represented by old people, his friends, and his memories, which are unsentimental although nostalgic. The characters are Dickensian quirky, some even with actual Dickens names. Readers will get more out of Last Friends having first read Old Filth and Man in the Wooden Hat, though all are companion pieces rather than sequels. The center of the trilogy is Old Filth and his marriage to Betty; the first book is told from his point of view, the second from Betty’s, and this new book from that of Veneering, Old Filth’s professional and romantic rival. Continue reading “Last Friends”

Elizabeth Bishop in Brazil and After

George Monteiro’s series of critical essays investigating Elizabeth Bishop’s work during and outside of her time living in Brazil is geared toward readers already familiar with Bishop. Divided into two sections, “Brazil” and “Elsewhere,” Monteiro’s essays range from a few pages that briefly analyze a single poem or event to larger works that encompass multiple poems, collected letters and correspondence, and Bishop’s biography. Astonishingly comprehensive, Elizabeth Bishop in Brazil and After manages a thorough undertaking of situating Bishop’s life to her work through careful close readings and archival research in order for the already well-equipped Bishop reader to better understand her work. Continue reading “Elizabeth Bishop in Brazil and After”

The Dervish

Turkey is in turmoil. World War I has just ended and the mighty Ottoman Empire is on the brink of collapse. The empire is being carved up as Allied protectorates. In a world of foggy truths, mistrust, deceit, and the weariness of war enters a young American widow, who is fleeing from memories of a distant past and wounds still raw from the death of a loved one. Continue reading “The Dervish”

Bite

In the editor’s note, Katey Schultz points out that to her, the best flash fiction “mark[s] a moment in the story with such vivid texture, the reader has no choice but to feel it right between the eyes.” And that is a great description of all of the pieces included in this collection. In each one, you can pinpoint the exact moment where it twists, revealing a deeper meaning, a hidden truth, or a surprising plot change. Continue reading “Bite”