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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!

Pongo Writing Resources for Teachers & Teens

The Pongo Teen Writing Project mentors personal poetry by teens who’ve suffered childhood traumas, such as abuse and neglect. The writers work with youth inside jails, shelters, psychiatric hospitals, and other sites. They help youth worldwide through the interactive writing activities on our web site. Their primary purpose is to help our authors understand their feelings, build self-esteem, and take better control of their lives.

Pongo’s latest blog, “Being Pretty on the Inside,” shares some great teen poems – the latest winners of the Pongo Poetry Prize – on themes of struggling to be ourselves and also please others as well as the vulnerability we feel in doing so.

In “If My Fist Could Speak” (January 2013) a young woman, age 13, speaks intensely and courageously to a bully. She writes: “You should eat diamonds so you can be pretty on the inside.”

In “If God Were Looking at My Life” (October 2012), a young woman, age 14, writes: “If God opened a new door for me…I’d change who I was, and I would try to find the real me. The me who isn’t afraid.

Pongo has expanded its effort to help distressed youth through poetry, not only with their ongoing projects inside juvenile detention and the state psychiatric hospital, but by mentoring “duckling” projects on the Pongo model. Pongo is currently consulting with five start-ups, including projects in Seattle, Sacramento, and Ann Arbor. These programs are helping homeless youth, youth in psychiatric care, youth in detention, and youth in foster care.

The New Classics: Emoji Dick

Funded through Kickstarter in 2009, Fred Beneson’s Emoji Dick is now available for purchase. It is copyrighted through Creative Commons with some permissions built in and was recently accepted into the Library of Congress. The Kickstarter video explains the project – taking sentences from Moby Dick and translating them into Emoji – Japanese comic icons. [Sample shown.] Each of the 10,000 sentences in the book was translated three times, then the three versions were voted on for inclusion. “In total, over eight hundred people spent approximately 3,795,980 seconds working to create this book.” Print copies of Emoji Dick are available for purchase $40 for B&W softcover and $200 for full color hardcover.

Chapbooks Issue

The New Orleans Review‘s Fall 2012 issue is actually a set of five chapbooks. All under a similar design, the chapbooks include Juan Rengifo-Borrero’s “To Create a World,” Patricia Colleen Murphy’s “Beloved Father Person,” Max Ross’s “Harold’s Problem,” Lynda Sexson’s “A Nickel Novel,” and Cody Peace Adams’s “Polish Movers.”

2012 Non-Fiction Contest

Event‘s Winter 2013 issue features the two winners of the magazine’s 2012 Non-Fiction Contest. There were 101 entries, ten of which were selected by Event’s staff and sent (without the writer’s names attached) to Zsuzsi Gartner, the contest judge.

Winners:
Mary B. Valencia: “The Decision”
Libby Zeleke: “We Were Punk Rockers”

Gartner writes that she wasn’t surprised that all ten pieces she read were memoirs: “Although it was disappointing not to discover narrative non-fiction tha was more outward looking, it did make my job easier. Apples to apples it would be—and some crisp Ambrosias, tangy Empires, sweet Galas, and pie-worthy Granny Smiths were found in the mix. So I come not to bury the memoir, but to praise it!”

8 short-listed entries:
Paige Cooper: “The Dead in Georgetown”
Trisha Cull: “The Doctor Scott Journals
Chris Donahue: “Where Poison Gets Ya”
Katherine Fawcett: “Promo Girl”
Kirsten Madsen: “Kestrel”
Sigal Samuel: “Sadder Than You”
Emily Walker: “The Grey Goose and Wild Turkey Years”
Terence Young: “Liquor Run”

Ready for AWP?

Can you believe that in just one week, we’ll be packing or already en route for Boston? Although it certainly hasn’t crept up on me, I still can’t seem to believe that it’s happening so soon. At NewPages, we’ve been hard at work, preparing everything we need to take with us. And this year, we are bringing out LitPaks again; but this year, they are even better!

The bound LitPak includes a listing of all the tables and booths that will be at the bookfair as well as lots of information from presses, creative writing programs, and literary magazines. Make sure to stop by our table (J1 & J2) to get your copy (and of course say hello to us!).

But knowing that you can’t possibly wait until then, we are offering a free PDF that you can either view online or download to your desktop. This way, you can plan out your bookfair sleuthing before you’ve even packed your bags.

Here is a link to where you can get the PDF. Even if you aren’t attending AWP, there is a lot of good information in there for writers, so be sure to share the link with any friends, colleagues, and students!

Women Write Serious Nonfiction

The cover of the latest Creative Nonfiction issue reads, “Who says Women Don’t Write Serious Nonfiction?” And this issue proves that women do. Lee Gutkind writes in his editor’s note that they didn’t intend to publish and all-women essay section: “CNF consistently receives more submissions from women than from men. As we read for this issue, we were drawn to a number of essays about, in some way, ‘the senses’—hearing, sight. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say they’re about ‘perception.’ It just so happened that all of them were by women.” And in correspondence with the cover, Gutkind says, “I think there are a lot of women writing serious nonfiction; they’re just not getting the serious attention they deserve.”

The first feature of the issue is a conversation between Cheryl Strayed and Elissa Bassist, titled “How to Write Like a Mother#^@%*&.” Bassist is the young writer who requested advice from “Sugar” on The Rumpus’s popular column and who received the now-famous response, “Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker.” This feature is a conversation via email correspondence, two years later. It is both entertaining and insightful. At one point, Strayed addresses the gender bias in writing:

“I think gender bias exists in forms that are more discreet and ingrained. I’ve had an incredible experience with Wild. It’s been received warmly by critics and readers alike. But a running theme has been how many men have said something along the lines of, ‘Wow, I was so surprised I loved your book, because I’m a man.’ These men mean no harm—I don’t take those comments personally—and yet the fact that they were surprised that they loved a book by and about a woman is an indication of the sexism women writers are up against every time they write. It tells me that women writers are still perceived as less capable than men writers of telling the big universal human story.”

The all-women essay section is comprised of Sara Dailey’s “The Memory Train,” Marissa Landrigan’s “Elk Country,” Mary Quade’s “The Collection,” Danielle R. SPencer’s “Looking Back,” Elizabeth Mosier’s “The Pit and the Page,” Brenda Miller’s “Regeneration,” and Pria Anand’s “Far, Far Away.”

Audio Publishers Association Awards

The Audio Publishers Association has announced finalists for its 2013 Audie Awards competition, the only awards program in the United States devoted entirely to honoring spoken word entertainment. Winners will be announced at the Audies Gala on May 30, 2013, at the New-York Historical Society in New York. Writer Daniel Handler, longtime friend and supporter of the audiobook industry, will emcee the event. A list of finalists can be seen here.

Categories include: audio drama; biography/memoir; business/educational; childrens; classic; fantasy; fiction; history; humor; inspirational faith fiction; literary fiction; multi-voiced performance; mystery; narration by authors or authors; non-fiction; original work; package/design; paranormal; personal development; romance; science fiction; short stories; sole narration – female; sole narration – male; teens; thriller/suspense.

The Audio Publishers Association (APA) is a not-for-profit trade organization whose primary goals since 1986 have been to promote awareness of the audiobook industry, gather and disseminate industry statistics, encourage high production standards and represent the interests of audiobook publishers.

Southeast Review Contests

The Southeast Review‘s current issue (Volume 31, Number 1) features the winners of the 2012 contests:

World’s Best Short-Short Story Contest
judged by Robert Olen Butler

Winner:
Hal Ackerman, “Belle and Melinda”

Finalists:
Heidi Bell, “Haunted”
Stace Budzko, “Why We Will Always Love You, Vera Knightville”
Michelle Dove, “Intruders”
Sandra Jensen, “Fault Lines”
Kat Gonso, “Capture the Flag”
Rochelle Hurt, “Impossible Child”
Sam Paradise, “At The Liberty Motor Inn Motel”
Chris Tusa, “Mean Blood” and “Neighborhood Association”


SER Poetry Contest
judged by James Kimbrell

Winner:
Noel Crook, “Crows”

Finalists:
Johleen Adena, “I Will Stop Loving You When This War Ends”
Barrett Warner, “Ammo Domini”
John Lander, “A Place to Hide My Crumbs”
Emily Pulfer-Terino , “What Will Never Be” and “The Familiar”
Benjamin Goldberg, “Busted Mirror of Everything Under the Sun”
Les Gottesman, “My Twentieth Century” and “Tremble”
Mark Wagenaar, “A Gospel of Hands & Breath”


SER Narrative Nonfiction Contest
judged by Jennine Capó Crucet

Winner:
Ruth Moose, “A Key As Big As My Hand”

Finalists:
JLSchneider, “The Glass Wall”
Kelly Sundberg, “Snow. Angel. Ghost

Doppelganger Moment

`The Antioch Review’s most recent issue, “Our Doppelganger Moment,” starts what the editors have called their “doppelganger phase.” The magazine now has an electronic version available through JSTOR. Unlike some magazines that print two different versions, these will be the same, just available in two different formats. “We are now ‘double walkers,'” says Editor Robert S. Fogarty. “It will be the same magazine in both forms . . . The digital hadow version will not be a minor-league publication with also-ran authors appearing (those who could not make the cut for the hard-copy print edition). They will be separate and equal.”

This issue features Bruce Fleming, Jeffrey Meyers, Anis Shivani, Matthew Clark, Marcia Cavell, Thomas J. Cottle, Rick DeMarinis, Paul Christensen, Robert Ready, Alex M. Frankel, Sebastian Agudelo, Valerie Wohlfeld, Richie Hofmann, Richard Howard, and Alison Powell.

Teacher Resource: About Science Fiction

AboutSF, founded in 2005, is the educational outreach arm of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction and is a joint-project of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the Science Fiction Research Association. Their mission is to encourage librarians, educators, and individuals to promote, teach, read and share Science Fiction, the literature of speculation and change.

The “For Teachers” content of the site includes: “Why teach SF?”; numerous full course outlines as well as shorter lesson plans; information on finding guest speakers; video of lectures and interviews; reading guides for a number of science fiction and fantasy novels; sample projects; “SF and _____” (current content includes -for the Science Classroom, -for the French Students, -for Math Students, -for Physics Students); and SF Poetry selected by author and poet Scott Green.

AboutSF welcomes correspondence from readers, teachers, and writers, including contributions to “Teaching the Future,” a column in which teachers share stories and advice about using SF in the classroom.

First Nation Films

Since 1998, First Nation Films has been creating and distributing award-winning television documentary films for, by and about Indigenous people. Their exclusive programs are distributed to broadcasters, schools, libraries, universities and other individuals and institutions throughout the world. First Nation Films is also considers films for distribution.

Currently in production:

SO FAR FROM HOME
Two First Nations homeless youth search for the meaning of their home.

THE CIRCLES OF LIFE – The Medicine Wheel 2
Personal insight into the ancient stone circles in Canada and beyond!

TOTEM POLES
A visually beautiful film on the depth and meaning of the totem poles of the west coast – then and now.

BOUNDARIES
Analyzing the Indian “business” in Canada

First Nations Programs Available:

Life on the Reserve (real life)
Deception of Freedom (law)
The Medicine Wheel (native spirituality)
Whose Land is This? (land settlement)
Making Treaties (land settlement)
Role Models (inspiration for our youth)
Beat of the Drum (native music)
Native Women: Politics (history)
Reclaiming Our Children (child wellness)
DANCE – In Search of Hamat’sa (dance)
The Residential Schools (the other side)
Living in Two Worlds (old and new)
Dancing on the Moon (discovery)
Sleep Dancer (a dramatic journey)
Vanishing Links (returning to her roots)
HIV – If There’s a Will … (native people)
Echoes of the Sisters (breast cancer)
The Storytellers (truth and honor)
The Pipe Makers (making the pipe)
Sacred Buffalo People (culture and tradition)
The Medicine People (ceremony)

Modern Haiku Awards

The favorite poems from the autumn 2012 issue are selected by an anonymous selector and donor, and the poets receive a $50 award.

Favorite haiku:: Jayne Miller

dead of winter
making stock
from the bones

Favorite senryu: Dorothy McLaughlin

my ex’s date
wearing the dress
I almost bought

Favorite haibun: Harriot West

“A Brief Analysis of Contemporary Society as Seen Through My Eyes”

Tiny Lights No Longer in Print

Tiny Lights announces with its latest issue (18.1) that it will be its last print issue.”The world has changed a lot since 1995, and while advances such as email and the Internet have made publishing easier, increased printing and mailing costs have taken this enterprise from impractical to impossible. What hasn’t changed is the loving support from our family of writers and readers, who continue to keep the power of story alive,” writes the editors. “The decision to end the hard copy version of Tiny Lights has not been smooth or easy . . . I hope you’ll stay tuned!” Current subscribers may choose to receive back issues or have their money refunded.

The final print issue features writing by Eleanor Stanford, Kathryn Wilder, Richard Jay Goldstein, Traci Moore, JLSchneider, Gillian P. Herbert, Margaret Rose, Barbara Shine, Marilyn Petty, Catherine Crawford, Jamie Moore, Laurel Aiona, Carol Hoorn, and Teresa Oefinger.

December Fiction Open Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their December Fiction Open competition. This competition is held quarterly. Stories generally range from 2000-6000 words, though up to 20,000 is fine. The next Fiction Open will take place in March. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Vi Khi Nao [Pictured], Providence, RI, wins $2500 for “Herman and Margaret.” Her story will be published in the Spring/Summer 2014 issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

Second place: David H. Lynn, of Gambier, OH, wins $1000 for “Divergence.” His story will be published in an upcoming issue.

Third place: Madhuri Vijay, of Bangalore, India, wins $600 for “Hill Station.”

A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.

Deadline soon approaching! Short Story Award for New Writers: February 28. This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5000. No theme restrictions. Most submissions to this category run 1500-5000 words, but can go up to 12,000. First place prize is $1500. Second/third: $500/$300. Click here for complete guidelines.

Carve in Print

Carve has published their second print edition, this one themed about school. “It’s difficult to capture the range of joys and challenges one may experience in school in just one short story,” writes Editor-in-Chief Matthew Limpede. “We hadn’t planned to do a school-themed issue, but as we looked through the sotires that were drawing us in and receiving cheers from our reading committee, we realized we didn’t have just one story to give us insight into school, teenagers, and classrooms. We had four. Each of them present a different angle from which to view the prism.”

These stories that are included (along with interviews with the authors about writing style and processes) are “Lone Wolf” by Eric Freeze, “Literature Appreciation” by Man Martin, “Firebug” by Katie Cortese, and “Snow Day” by Gary V. Powell. Also in this issue is a Reject! section, which lists pieces rejected from Carve that have gone on to be published elsewhere; it also has a note both from Amber Krieger and the editor about the rejection of her piece “Among the Missing and the Dead” which went on to win the 2009 Fulton Prize and be published in the Adirondack Review.

Short Grain Contest

Grain hosted its 24th Annual Short Grain contest, judged by Lawrence Hill in fiction and rob mclennan in poetry. The Winter 2013 issue includes the winners along with comments from the judges. The winning fiction piece, Susan Mersereau’s “The Valley,” was selected because, according to Hill, it “leapt off the page from the first sentences, thanks to its strange, haunting, and unusual delivery.” And mclennan writes that in first place “something like being (five flights, for rafi),” speech is made out of single words, and less than. It can be that simple, that complicated.

Fiction: judged by Lawrence Hill
1st Prize, $1000 — Susan Mersereau of Vancouver, BC
2nd Prize, $750 — Madeline Sonik of Victoria, BC
3rd Prize, $500 — Alexandra Sadinoff of New York, NY

Poetry: judged by rob mclennan
1st Prize, $1000 — Sean Howard of Main-à-Dieu, NS
2nd Prize, $750 — Jordan Abel of Vancouver, BC
3rd Prize, $500 — Kate Flaherty of Toronto, ON

Poetry :: Portraits by Mark Irwin

American Life in Poetry: Column 413
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Every day, hundreds of thousands of us are preoccupied with keeping up a civil if not loving relationship with our parents. In this poem, Mark Irwin (who lives in Colorado) does a beautiful job in portraying, in a dreamlike manner, the complexities of just one of those relationships.

Portraits

Mother came to visit today. We
hadn’t seen each other in years. Why didn’t
you call? I asked. Your windows are filthy, she said. I know,
I know. It’s from the dust and rain. She stood outside.
I stood in, and we cleaned each one that way, staring into each other’s eyes,
rubbing the white towel over our faces, rubbing
away hours, years. This is what it was like
when you were inside me, she said. What? I asked,
though I understood. Afterwards, indoors, she smelled like snow
melting. Holding hands we stood by the picture window,
gazing into the December sun, watching the pines in flame.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Mark Irwin, whose most recent book of poems is Tall If, New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2008. Poem reprinted from The Sun, July, 2010, by permission of Mark Irwin and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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American Life in Poetry provides newspapers and online publications with a free weekly column featuring contemporary American poems. The sole mission of this project is to promote poetry: American Life in Poetry seeks to create a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. There are no costs for reprinting the columns; we do require that you register your publication here and that the text of the column be reproduced without alteration.

2012 Lush Triumphant Winners

subTerrain‘s newest issue features the winners of the 2012 Lush Triumphant Literary Award Winners, the 10th annual contest.

Winners
Fiction: Carleigh Baker’s “Last Call”
Poetry: Susan Musgrave’s “The Goodness of This World”

Runners-Up
Fiction: M.E. Powell’s “Grid Lines”
Poetry: Ashley-Elizabeth Best’s “Erratics”

Honorable Mention
Creative Nonfiction: Natalia Buchok’s “1948”

The rest of the issue features “Zombie Sluts, Purple Cows, and the Pornography of Death,” “We Are a Rupture That Cannot Be Contained,” “Canadian Nationalism: The Tip of the Colonial Iceberg,” and more.

Puppets, Poetry, Japan, and Jesse Glass

SPECS { } literary magazine from Rollins College features an interview with Jesse Glass as well as some of his work. Jesse Glass teaches literature and history at Meikai (Bright Sea) University in Japan, is author of The Passion of Phineas Gage and Slected Poems, publisher of Ahadada Press, and is a puppeteer and visual artist. His interview with SPECS covers his living abroad (“outsourcing” is SPECS theme), crossing boundaries of artistic expressions, and his work with the Meikai International Puppet Theater.

Unsanctioned Writing and Freedom of Speech

Check out Sampsonia Way: A Magazine on Literary Freedom of Expression. The publication offers full, online content, with the latest column by Vijay Nair “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” in which Nair parallels Indian government to “Alice in Wonderland” — the country is falling down the rabbit hole with its paradoxic interpretation of free speech. Also featured are interviews with Frank Dullaghan, Hind Shoufani, Zeina Hashem Beck, and Jehan Bseiso in columns “Unsanctioned Writing from the Middle East“; and an account of an attack against journalist Lars Hedegaard, the Mexican cartel’s intimidation tactics, and a Chinese blogger’s grassroots revolution are covered in Freedom of Speech Roundup.

Booth 2012 Poetry Prize

Booth 4 features the winners of the 2012 Poetry Prize, judged by Linda Gregg. Gregg’s awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writer’s Award, an NEA grant, a Lannan Literary Foundation Fellowship, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and multiple Pushcart Prizes. The first place winner received $500 and publication, and the second place winner won $250 and publication.

Winners
1st Prize: “How to Make a Beginning” by Aubrey Ryan
2nd Prize: “Bearing October” by Sarah Marcus
Honorable Mention: “Travelogue” by Claire Kiefer

Finalists
“Country Road” by George Amabile
“Distance and Order” by Dylan Carpenter
“Lion in the Limo” by Doug Paul Case
“To Know a Door” by Kate Rutledge Jaffe
“Travelogue” by Claire Kiefer
“May Support Life” by Alyse Knorr
“Bearing October” by Sarah Marcus
“How to Make a Beginning” by Aubrey Ryan
“Trout” by Emily Viggiano
“Flemish Giants” by Susan Yount

Knock’s New Cycle

Knock magazine is switching from a biannual cycle to an annual cycle, while also publishing 3-4 pieces online each month. The print issue for this year will be released April 2013, after which the issues will be printed in December of each year.

So what happens if you already have a subscription? Instead of receiving two for a year, your subscription is automatically changed to be for two years (so you will still get two issues). “In the end, with this new hybrid of online/print distribution, we will have more consistent contact with our readers–as well as a more artful product,” writes Caitlin Coey, managing editor.

Liberal Arts in Business

“The value of a liberal arts education has long been a source of skepticism in the business community. However, in a recent interview for PandoMonthly, Chad Dickerson – the CEO of Etsy who has a BA in English literature from Duke University – talked about the importance of a liberal arts background. When asked to name one thing he believes in that almost no one else does, he responded: ‘I believe that liberal arts education is as important, maybe more important, than a math or science education.'” – “Is there a Place for Liberal Arts in Business?” Inc. Online.

Philip Roth Unmasked

American Masters explores the life and career of Pulitzer Prize-and National Book Award-winning novelist Philip Roth, often referred to as the greatest living American writer. Reclusive and diffident, Roth grants very few interviews, but for the first time, allowed a journalist to spend 10 days interviewing him on camera. The result is Philip Roth: Unmasked, a 90-minute documentary that features Roth freely discussing very intimate aspects of his life and art as he has never done before. The film has its world theatrical premiere March 13-19 for one week only at Film Forum in New York City and premieres nationally Friday, March 29 on PBS (check local listings) in honor of Roth’s 80th birthday. (Text from PBS AM.)

New Poetry Editor

Sou’wester‘s Fall 2012 issue has a new poetry editor: Stacey Lynn Brown. Editor Valerie Vogrin writes that as long as she has been with the journal, she has been learning new ways to think about poetry and how to assemble a publication. “The opportunity to collaborate with Stacey is no exception to this happy furthering of my literary education,” she says.

“The way we work things,” she continues, “I don’t generally see the poems until it’s time to lay out the entire issue. As that day approaches, I work with our talented roster of readers to select a complementary array of stories and essays, my anticipation rising. I am like the co-hostess of an elaborate gala who is forced to wait for months on end for the other half of the invitation list to be revealed. I have a sense of what kind of party it will be based on my accumulating choices, but until we’ve assembled all the guests and finalized the seating arrangement, so to speak, neither of us knows exactly what the season’s bash with bring.”

But now that it’s here, we know that the party guests include Alex Fabrizio, Angie Macri, Cynthia Manick, Nikki Zielinski,Jenna Bazzell, Elyse Fenton, James Ellenberger, Seth Abramson, Thomas Hawks, Scott Weaver, Lance Wilcox, Jon Pearson, Jeff Martin, Randall Brown, Jessica Afshar, Corey Ginsberg, and more. To see the whole guest list, you’ll have to invite yourself to the party, and go get an issue.

Damazine – Winter 2012

Damazine, published out of Damascus, Syria, aims to “become the treasure house for quality literature related to the Muslim world.” Editor Serene Taleb-Agha writes that “For those of you who search for truths that can’t be expressed in news reports or feature articles, we pray that Damazine will become one of your regular stops.” Continue reading “Damazine – Winter 2012”

SpringGun – 2012

SpringGun, available through issuu, publishes work that is “unexpected, sudden, immediate, urgent—it’s happening now.” In the words of the editors, SpringGun is “simultaneously insane, comical, violent, practical, ingenious, irresponsible, terrifying, vulnerable, and deadly.” Continue reading “SpringGun – 2012”

Cellar Roots – 2012

While Cellar Roots is only open to submissions for students at Eastern Michigan University (where the publication is published from), if you are looking for something good to read and scouting for up-and-coming writers, it’s definitely worth the read. Filled with art, poetry, and prose, the issue is brimming with words to read and images to view. Continue reading “Cellar Roots – 2012”

Cleaver Magazine – February 2013

Cleaver Magazine starts the hype about their brand new publication with a preview issue, all focused on “flash.” This gives you a hint of the magazine’s style in short bites. But it doesn’t just include flash fiction; there are also micro essays, short poems, and even a section called “tiny art”—where Blake Martin writes about Instagram and self-portraits. Continue reading “Cleaver Magazine – February 2013”

Lingerpost – January 2013

Lingerpost offers a fruit salad of poetry (some long, some round, some sweet, and some are fun to utter out loud—like kumquat or papaya) and accepts a wide variety so long as it, as the editors say, is “interesting.” Well, there is certainly a lot of interesting poems in this collection, in several different forms. Continue reading “Lingerpost – January 2013”

American Athenaeum – Winter 2012-2013

American Athenaeum invites you to step into their “museum of words” with their latest “Understanders” issue. Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s unwavering dedication to his craft in the face of stinging criticism, the editors dedicate this issue “to every artist who stays true to their art and vision amid the naysayers.” Continue reading “American Athenaeum – Winter 2012-2013”

Camas – Winter 2012

From the rugged state of Montana comes Camas, a unique literary journal that focuses on environmental and cultural issues in the American West. Their winter 2012 issue features essays, fiction, and poetry revolving around work, but they’re not talking about white collar jobs here, folks. This issue is dedicated to the men and women who perform manual labor found in the rural parts of the United States. It celebrates, questions, and examines all aspects of this form of work, whether good or bad, legal or illegal. Continue reading “Camas – Winter 2012”

Mudfish – 2012

Mudfish, a journal founded by Jill Hoffman in 1984, marries poetry and art in a spellbinding series of verve and verse. For a quick and accessible view of the art in full color, the Mudfish website has an exquisite introduction to a moving collection of drawings, paintings, and photographs included in this volume. The poetry is likewise compelling and contains this year’s contest winners, as selected by Mark Doty. But for the poetry in its entirety, you may have to schlep it to a Barnes & Noble, where select stores feature the journal—see the website for participating locations. Continue reading “Mudfish – 2012”

North Dakota Quarterly – Fall 2012

North Dakota Quarterly is a scholar’s delight. The well-chosen creative nonfiction, poetry, and fiction are bookended by two incisive papers and eight book reviews. All of the work is informed by an interesting frame of reference; the beautiful Great Plains can be found in these pages, as can knowing glimpses of the rest of the world. Continue reading “North Dakota Quarterly – Fall 2012”

River Styx – 2012

By the time you read this review, the so-called Mayan Apocalypse has passed, and the human race is still kicking (whether we like it or not). But just because we missed our extermination date doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the latest batch of poems, essays, and stories from River Styx. Editor Richard Newman has dedicated issue 88 to the End of the World: “Something in us, often a small, barely suppressed voice, roots for destruction. Evangelicals have their own reasons—eternal rewards in heaven—but most of us harbor an itch to see the demise of things.” The works presented in this issue deal with The End in different ways, from personal and absurd to global and horrific. Continue reading “River Styx – 2012”

Soundings Review – Spring/Summer 2012

The Northwest Institute for the Literary Arts (NILA) is a community of writers on Whidbey Island (Washington state) which supports, teaches, and guides upcoming writers by means of a freestanding low-residency MFA program, an annual conference, and this publication, Soundings Review. This was the last issue to be produced under the direction of founding editor Marian Blue. Subsequent issues will be produced by students and faculty in the Whidbey Writers Workshop, the Institute’s MFA program, where, according to the website, production of the Review is to become an aspect of the proposed MFA in Publishing and Editing. It’s apparent from the bionotes of the journal that much of the work published in Soundings comes from within the NILA community—but that doesn’t mean it’s local, or even regional. It especially doesn’t mean that it’s anything but “high quality poetry, fiction, and nonfiction” by writers whose deepest value is to create community and contribute to the field of writing. The institute’s website is emphatic about this; I find it very exciting. Continue reading “Soundings Review – Spring/Summer 2012”

Sterling – Fall 2012

Now this is fun! Published out of Canada, Sterling gives us a handy (128 pages), portable (of course, most literary art is portable), and extremely enjoyable collection of poetry, fiction, plays, manuscripts, and an “interview.” The cover of the issue evokes the idea of Boy Scout merit badges, but for writers. With badges such as “First Typewriter,” “Rejection Letter,” and “Rhymed with Orange,” the cover puts forth its main badge that says, “All Stories Matter.” I like variety, and the Sterling premise is “I want to hear everyone’s stories.” Me too. Continue reading “Sterling – Fall 2012”

Unstuck – 2012

Unstuck, a relatively new literary journal based in Austin, Texas promises “literary fiction with elements of the fantastic, the futuristic, or the surreal . . . everything from straight-up science fiction and fantasy to domestic realism with a twist of the improbable.” After reading this thick—well over 500 pages—issue, it is that last line, “domestic realism with a twist of the improbable,” that seems most applicable to the surprising pieces in Unstuck. While many of the selections could be called “weird” in one way or another, most of the pieces are grounded in a reality. Continue reading “Unstuck – 2012”

Yellow Medicine Review – Fall 2012

There is persistent music in this volume, and it is not limited to the poetry. From Denise Low’s “Gambling in the Heart of Winter” to Dawn Karima Pettigrew’s “An Indian Doctor,” the prose narratives invoke other echelons in a mesmerizing language. “Mesmerizing” is a very fat word for what I mean specifically—that is, the success of these writers in engaging tradition to create new meaning. The language is rich, the styles often magical, but even in a lush literary landscape the authors in this volume evade over-writing or purple prose. It’s a tough and beautiful presentation. Continue reading “Yellow Medicine Review – Fall 2012”

ZYZZYVA – Winter 2012

ZYZZYVA publishes prose, poetry, and artwork from West Coast writers and artists. This regional focus is hardly limiting as this issue is made for consistently compelling reading. The stories are on the longer side, allowing the writers to burrow down into the characters, whose lives skew towards the bleary and darkly complicated. Continue reading “ZYZZYVA – Winter 2012”

Goodbye to an Editor

Ecotone‘s “The Abnormal Issue” announces that Editor Ben George will be leaving the magazine to pursue his career in NYC. Editor-in-Chief David Gessner writes an intro to the magazine, dedicating several pages to recognize his gratitude for Ben and acknowledge Ben’s hard work, ambition, and dedication. Spending a great deal of time editing and developing strong relationships with the writers, Ben, as Gessner says, will be “dearly missed.” Gessner writes, “We wish him luck and many sharpened pencils.

The issue itself features David Shields, Lia Purpura, Darin Strauss, Nicholas Kahn, Richard Selesnick, Lauren Slater, Beth Ann Fennelly, Paul Crenshaw, Jen Percy, Dash Shaw, Olivia Clare, George Makana Clark, Edith Pearlman, Andrew Tonkovich, Douglas Watson, Callan Wink, Geoff Wyss, Gerard Beirne, Marvin Bell, Billy Collins, Adam Giannelli, Mark Halliday, Janet McNally, Christoper Merrill, Donald Platt, Diane Seuss, Bruce Smith, Charles Harper Webb, and Robert Wrigley.

Craft Essays on Brevity

Brevity online magazine of “concise literary nonfiction” also regularly publishes craft essays. Recent contributions to this feature include “On Writing as an Act of Living: An Interview with Terry Tempest Williams” by Jeanette Luise Eberhardy; “The Ant in the Water Droplet: Locating the Mystery within Memory” by Philip Graham; “Tipping the Whippers” by Mary Clearman Blew (examining the demands of the writing life and writers’ responses to them, “Drink Wild Turkey” she advises); and “Not Every Sentence Can Be Great But Every Sentences Must Be Good” by Cynthia Newberry Martin.

New Editors at Anderbo

Anderbo.com magazine welcomes three new editors. From Anderbo’s newsletter, here is a description of the new staff members:

Leslie Fields, Associate Editor
Leslie Fields holds an undergraduate degree in English and Theatre from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and a MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Graduating in 2011, Leslie studied under the tutelage of award winners’ Mary Morris, Brian Morton and Joan Silber. She is also the author of two plays, “Never Have” and “Hecho in Ecuador,” a compilation of short pieces created for Dramatic Adventure Theatre (DAT). Both plays were performed off-off Broadway in New York City. She is currently working on a collection of interconnected short stories.

Suzannah Windsor, Associate Editor
Suzannah Windsor is a Canadian writer and editor whose work has appeared in Sou’wester, Grist, Anderbo, Saw Palm, Best of the Sand Hill Review, and others. She studied English Literature at The University of Windsor, and Education at Lakehead University. Currently, she lives in Australia.

Claudine Levy, Associate Editor
Claudine Levy is graduating with an English degree from Bristol University this summer, having regularly written for the student newspaper, Epigram, and online arts forum, Inter:Mission. She has also written for Psychologies Magazine and is currently contributing online editor for Suitcase Magazine. She continues in her endeavors to write a pithy, self-aware novel detailing the dull life of a middle class Jewish girl plagued with pseudo-existentialist crises and an insatiable appetite. Above all things in life she loves analyzing, eating and writing.