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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!

Thrice Fiction – July 2012

Editor RW Spryszak begins this issue of Thrice Fiction by addressing the misconceptions some have with regard to “micro fiction.” Spryszak rejects the notion that flash fiction is “experimental” and has a very good point. “Experimental” implies that a piece isn’t fully formed “or that the writer doesn’t know what they’re trying to get at . . . by the time something is ready for public viewing the experiment should be over.” The writers whose work is represented in Thrice Fiction make use of the toolboxes of both poets and short story writers to create stories that are as emotionally potent as they are brief. Continue reading “Thrice Fiction – July 2012”

Willow Springs – Fall 2012

Having somehow never heard of Willow Springs prior to this issue arriving on my doorstep, I was excited by the caliber of the authors listed on the cover: Amorak Huey, Kathryn Nuernberger, Roxane Gay, and even an interview with one of my all-time favorites, Tim O’Brien! Continue reading “Willow Springs – Fall 2012”

Zone 3 – Spring 2012

This was the first issue of Zone 3 I’ve read cover-to-cover, and I was pleased with what I found. It’s an impressive, well-chosen collection of poetry and prose. Beginning with the narrative nonfiction, in “Puttanesca,” Kerry L. Malawista finds comfort in a special dish her friend made and brought to her following her daughter’s death. It is a straightforward and powerful piece that addresses and celebrates a simple gesture of humanity in the face of tragedy. Continue reading “Zone 3 – Spring 2012”

6X6 – Summer 2012

6X6 is an eccentric little number, a mini-compilation of avant-garde poetry. When you pick up the most recent issue of 6X6, titled “Enough About Pigs,” you know you’re in for a party. The journal is slim and funky, its bubble-gum pink cover accented with red letters and held together by a nifty red rubber-band for the binding. This poetry magazine, published by Ugly Duckling Presse, is a chapbook like no other, displaying the innovative work of six poets. Continue reading “6X6 – Summer 2012”

Sundog Lit – October 2012

This month, Sundog Lit opens the pages of its very first issue. Including poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, it hosts a bevy of writers, both established and new. Editor Justin Lawrence Daugherty writes in his note that this issue accomplishes what they hoped it would; “it burns retinas.” If there is one piece that stands out as “burning” my retinas, it’s definitely “Caul” by Jenna Lynch. It was, well to be honest, gross (if you don’t know what a “caul” is, look it up), but even though it is eerie and not pleasant to picture, it’s insightful: Continue reading “Sundog Lit – October 2012”

The Rusty Toque – 2012

The Rusty Toque, now in its third issue, is churning some solid butter. And instead of having just the traditional poetry, fiction, and nonfiction categories, The Rusty Toque publishes comics, monologues, art, and even videos. There is room in this home for a lot of different work. Continue reading “The Rusty Toque – 2012”

Sleet Magazine – Fall/Winter 2012

Sleet online literary magazine summer 2022 issue logo image

This issue of Sleet Magazine is a mash up. Inside there is a knitting monkey, a speaking octopus, and an affectionate doe and buck; there are plastic dolls, cymbal crashes, and “Peter Pan teeth”; and amidst all that, there are also pieces with more serious subject matter.

Continue reading “Sleet Magazine – Fall/Winter 2012”

Menacing Hedge – Fall 2012

The cover image for this issue of Menacing Hedge—“A Tree” by Alexander Jansson—is a perfect intro to what you’ll find inside. The image features a tree house I’d definitely like to climb up in, with a collection of empty picture frames, lanterns, and odds and ends hanging from the branches of the trees. It’s odd, it’s magical, it’s unique: truly representative of the work inside. Continue reading “Menacing Hedge – Fall 2012”

Quickly – Issue 1

Flash pieces are often my favorite to read (and write), so when I came upon this brand new magazine, I simply had to review it (after delightedly sharing it with my fellow flash fiction lovers). Quickly publishes pieces unbound by genre or form, so long as they can say what they need to say in 703 words or fewer. Continue reading “Quickly – Issue 1”

failbetter.com – Fall 2012

failbetter.com is an online magazine inspired by the quote from Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” After a short break, they are now publishing again. This issue of failbetter.com offers two stories and two poems. Continue reading “failbetter.com – Fall 2012”

Arsenic Lobster – Summer 2012

Arsenic Lobster is a great concoction, a boiling pot of poetry that fizzles and pops. The poetry pokes, it prods. Cristofre Kayser’s poem asks “Was there ever a knife that did not cut?” And Jeanne Stauffer-Merle’s poem tells us that “The mouth of wind is jagged and hanging and / cold and cold . . .” Continue reading “Arsenic Lobster – Summer 2012”

Persimmon Tree – Fall 2012

This magazine is one that features women writers all over the age of 60. The editors write, “Too often older women’s artistic work is ignored or disregarded, and only those few who are already established receive the attention they deserve. Yet many women are at the height of their creative abilities in their later decades and have a great deal to contribute.” This magazine’s mission is endearing, especially to me as my grandmother didn’t even start writing until she was in her ‘60s. It’s nice to see a magazine that showcases this type of work. Continue reading “Persimmon Tree – Fall 2012”

Pithead Chapel – October 2012

After seeing the cover of Pithead Chapel—a colorful collection of birds amongst flowers and plants—I expected something a little different. I’m not sure what, but I somehow expected stories of nature, or stories that were calm, and safe. But what I got was a different kind of surprise. Continue reading “Pithead Chapel – October 2012”

Umbrella Factory – September 2012

The highlight of this issue of Umbrella Factory was definitely the very first piece, Kristin Faatz’s “The Guardian.” I can sometimes get sick of stories from the perspective of children because I’m often bothered by the language of it or the way that their perspective doesn’t add to the story. But Faatz does an excellent job of allowing us to sympathize with the main character, Leah, and her thoughts seem to mirror a child’s quite well. Written as a close third-person and broken into sections, I was hooked as the story developed into one where Leah has broken a picture frame of her mother and her father, her father which “left” them years ago. The narrative shows how this child understands her world and how she is able to cope with the pain she has already had to endure at such a young age. But because it is written in the third person, we are able to step outside her world for a moment and see what happened to make her father leave, the story she doesn’t know about. The sections were excellently woven together to build very round characters and a round story. Continue reading “Umbrella Factory – September 2012”

Gemini Magazine – October 2012

First of all, I have to say that I’m not sure if Gemini Magazine has a web version or not, but the layout was perfect for mobile reading. I had no problem reading the entire issue from the comfort of my bed and my iPhone. I even had a chance to finish up reading the issue while sitting at a restaurant, awkwardly waiting for my friends to arrive. Continue reading “Gemini Magazine – October 2012”

Poemeleon – Summer 2012

I’m sure, as writers, we sometimes feel compelled to write a letter to someone—as a way to organize our thoughts and say it “just right”—rather than try to explain what we are feeling or thinking out loud. This issue of Poemeleon is titled “The Epistolary Issue.” Each of the writers in this issue uses this form of poetry in different ways, some even explain it with a short intro. Continue reading “Poemeleon – Summer 2012”

Revolution House – Summer/Fall 2012

Revolution House, as the editors indicate, “is the brainchild of a disparate group of writers who came together during the tumultuous early months of 2011, when the MFA application anxiety was high and the lows were lower than low. We had a dream of a sprawling farmhouse, a place where we could all escape the dragging monotony of reality. But it’s difficult to find a house with fourteen bedrooms, so we ended up here instead, building platforms to launch other dreams.” Continue reading “Revolution House – Summer/Fall 2012”

American Life in Poetry: Column 391

American Life in Poetry: Column 391
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Kay Ryan was our nation’s Poet Laureate at The Library of Congress for the 2008-2010 terms. Her poetry is celebrated for its compression; she can get a great deal into a few words. Here’s an example of a poem swift and accurate as a dart.

Pinhole

We say
pinhole.
A pin hole
of light. We
can’t imagine
how bright
more of it
could be,
the way
this much
defeats night.
It almost
isn’t fair,
whoever
poked this,
with such
a small act
to vanquish
blackness.

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 ©2011 by Kay Ryan, whose most recent book of poems is Odd Blocks, Selected and New Poems, Carcanet Press, 2011. Poem reprinted from Poetry, October 2011, by permission of Kay Ryan and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 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.

Writer Pen Pals Wanted

Send a letter, receive a letter. O.M. Pen-Pals is new project at Orange Monkey Publishing. “Inspired by the Letters-in-the-Mail program at the Rumpus which focuses on established writers, we plan on receiving letters from all over the country from various emerging and established writers and distributing them to fellow writers in hopes that it will spawn friendships, discussion, and connections.”

Orange Monkey Publishing staff will manage the pen-pal connections to protect writers’ personal contact information, and also offer writers the opportunity to publish “letters that tell the best stories, or talk of great ideas.”

For more information on how to participate, visit the Orange Monkey Publishing website.

Mills College Full-Tuition Assistantship

Mills College is pleased to offer one full-tuition assistantship each year to an entering student in the MFA in creative writing poetry program. This assistantship provides full tuition for either the two-year or three-year MFA program. Candidates for the assistantship will design and implement a poetry-related community project during the course of their degree program. The assistantship does not require a teaching commitment.

Applicants should follow and complete the usual application processes for the MFA in poetry by the priority application deadline of December 15. Applications for the full-tuition assistantship itself are due January 3, as per instructions on the Mills College website.

30th Anniversary of Alaska Quarterly Review

As part of its 30th anniversary, Alaska Quarterly Review celebrates with a special section in the latest issue that features three sections of invited poetry. Jane Hirshfield, guest editor, explains: “In one, you will find 30 previously published poems by poets familiar to any awake reader of contemporary literature. Many included in this section have also served as previous guest editors for AQR, all of whom were invited to contribute. I wrote to each of the thirty in this section and asked for a single, previously published poem, of their own choosing – sometimes describing it as a kind of tribute bouquet, meant for both the magazine and its readers. The resulting contributions are not bouquet in scale, though, they are continental. They range from signature poems – Marie Howe’s “What the Living Do” – to poems that first appeared in print in the past year, from publications ranging from The New Yorker to the online journal Clade Song.”

“To expand this special issue beyond my own range of knowledge and taste, Ron and I decided to invite in also two exceptional, and somewhat younger, poets, Camille Dungy and Todd Boss, to guest edit a second section of another 30 poems – in this case holding new work, previously unpublished, from a mix of poets.”

Writers among the pages of the rest of the issue include Lenore Myka, Jenny Hanning, Amy Sayre-Roberts, Victoria Kelly, Katherine Heiny, Victoria Lancelotta, Nicole Miller, Laura Jok, Dina Nayeri, Kirk Perry, Eva Saulitis, Francesca Mari, Sandra Kobrin, and Jesse Goolsby.

PEN America’s First Year

PEN America‘s newest issue time travels back to 1922, the magazine’s founding year and the height of modernism. “Borrowing from the pages of The Dial, The Crisis, and The Little Review,” says the magazine, “we offer you a taste of the literary scene, alongside a trove of photographs, drawings, advertisements, headlines, and commentary. The featured writers—including Joyce, Du Bois, Woolf, McKay, Crane, Cather, Fitzgerald, Mansfield, and Moore—remain some of our greatest teachers and literary loves.”

In an introduction to the special section, Steven L. Isenberg, PEN America Center’s executive director, says, “This year we celebrate PEN’s ninetieth anniversary and hence our origins and our emergence after World War II and unto today as a literary human rights organization devoted to the protection of free expression and as a standard-bearer for the place of literature and thus the ties that bind, internationally, through reading, writing, translation, and fellowship. When we turn to the literature of 1922 in the pages ahead, we begin the journey once again.”

Writers featured within the pages of the rest of the journal include Jamal Joseph & Sonia Sanchez, Julie Otsuka, Herta Mϋller, Liu Xiaobo & Liu Xia, John Cage, Kimiko Hahn, Theresa Rebeck, Etgar Keret, Eileen Myles, and Richard Feynman.

Pussy Riot! eBook Fundraiser

The Feminist Press has released a ebook edition of Pussy Riot! A Punk Prayer for Freedom with profits from the sale of the book going to support the Pussy Riot legal defense team.

Following the February 21, 2012 staged performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and subsequent arrest of several band members, “the Internet exploded with petitions, music videos, and calls to action, and as the guilty verdict was anticipated, Pussy Riot responded with articulate, unwavering courtroom statements, calling for freedom of expression, an end to economic and gender oppression, and a separation of church and state. They were sentenced to two years in prison, and inspired a global movement. Collected here are the words that roused the world.”

A print edition is forthcoming.

Nimrod Literary Awards

Nimrod‘s “It’s in the Cards” issue features the winners and finalists of the magazine’s annual awards competition. The Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction was judged by Gish Jen, and Philip Levine was the judge for the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. The following authors and their writing can be found in the most recent issue of Nimrod:

The Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction
First Prize
Judith E. Johnson

Second Prize
Terrence Cheng

Finalist
L. E. Miller
Lones Seiber

The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry
First Prize
Chelsea Wagenaar

Second Prize
Linda Hillringhouse

Finalists
Judy Rowe Michaels
Rafaella Del Bourgo
Dante Di Stefano
Melissa Reider
Kristen Ingrid Hoggatt
Charles P. R. Tisdale
June Blumenson
Amy Miller
Catherine Freeling
Katharyn Howd Machan
Helen T. Glenn
Joan Colby
Rafael Alvarez
Barbara Crooker
Joan I. Siegel

Semi-Finalists
Sarah L. Stecher
Jenny McDougal
Richard Agacinski
Maud Poole
Angela Patten
Gerald McCarthy
David Cazden
Matthew J. Spireng
Rebecca Hazelton
Lisa Zerkle
Lindsay Knowlton
Josephine Yu

Honorable Mention
Scot Siegel
Markham Johnson

Screen Reading Update!

Been keeping up with Screen Reading? If not, stop by and read reviews of online literary magazines by Editor Kirsten McIlvenna. Recent reviews include Amarillo Bay, The Bacon Review, Blue Lake Review, The Boiler, Brevity, DMQ Review, FRiGG, La Petite Zine, Lowestoft Chronicle, New Delta Review, Penduline, Poecology, Poemeleon, The Puritan, r.kv.r.y, Revolution House, Steel Toe Review, StepAway Magazine, Swamp Biscuits and Tea, and Sweet.

Thanks to those of you who have dropped us a line letting us know how much you appreciate this weekly column. Readers find it helpful for locating good reading and writers like getting a professional opinion of the publication for submission consideration.

NewPages continues to provide thoughtful reviews on these online publications as well as our regular monthly feature of literary magazine reviews and book reviews.

Good reading starts here!

Ruminate Magazine Contest Winners

The winners of the Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize, sponsored by Steve and Kim Franchini, are featured in the latest issue of Ruminate Magazine. Li-Young Lee, the finalist judge, comments on the winner Nicole Rollender’s poem “Necessary Work,” saying that it “is a memorable poem, powerfully realized and emotionally true. Among the many virtues that recommend it are the vivid images, as well as a complicated music arising out of a deep unconscious word-counting and word-weighing. One can sense the poet sorting the music of thinking and feeling from the chaos of an outsized undifferentiated passion. But above all, it is the passion that I love about this poem, and how that passion is canalized by discipline to create a work of profound beauty.” This poem, along with the poems from the second place winner and finalists, can be read in Ruminate.

Winner
Nicole Rollender: “Necessary Work”

Second Place
Temple Cone: “What I Meant by Joy”

Finalists
Harry Bauld: “When You Grow Up Catholic”
James Crews: “For Those Weary of Prayer Calling”
Rachael Katz: “Animal Valentine”
Anna Maria Craighead-Kintis: “The Bosque Burns on the Feast of John the Baptist”
Becca J. R. Lachman: “Wait”
Laurie Lamon: “I stopped writing the poem”
Kelly Michels: “Static In The Dark”
Carolyn Moore: “What Euclid’s Third Axiom Neglects to Mention about Circles”
Shann Ray: “My Dad, In America”
Matthew Roth: “My Father Goes Out with a Chain in His Hand”
Wesley Rothman: “Long After My Grandfather’s Death”
Mitchell Untch: “Autumn”
Gary Whitehead: “Warren”

4000 Words 4000 Dead – 2012

“I want to start with the milestone today of 4000 dead in Iraq. Americans. And just what effect do you think it has on the country?” -Martha Raddatz, ABC News White House correspondent to Dick Cheney in 2008

For the past four years, Jennifer Karmin has been collecting submissions of words as a memorial to the 4,487 American soldiers killed in Iraq. These words also create a public poem given away to passing pedestrians during street performances around the country. Throughout October 2012, she will transpose the elegy onto the walls of a dilapidated Chicago mansion utilizing the American flag as her writing utensil. The house will become the site for community events with 4000 Words 4000 Dead concluding on Veterans Day and published by Sona Books.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE:
*October 15, 2012

SUBMIT:
*Send 1 – 10 words

CONTACT:
*Email submission with subject 4000 WORDS to: jkarmin at yahoo dot com

EVENTS:
This project is part of the show Home: Public or Private? and presented by 6018NORTH, a non-profit space for experimental culture, installation, performance, and sound. All events will happen at 6018 N. Kenmore in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. Due to the home’s condition, space is limited. RSVP at http://6018north.weebly.com/rsvp-for-the-home-show.html.

*Opening:
Friday, Oct 5 @ 7-10pm

*Installation:
Saturday, Oct 6 @ 2-3pm & 4-5pm
Sunday, Oct 14 @ 2-3pm
Saturday, Oct 20 @ 2-3pm & 4-5pm
Saturday, Oct 27 @ 2-3pm & 4-5pm
Sunday, Oct 28 @ 2-3pm

*Artists’ Talk:
Saturday, Oct 20 @ 12pm

*Community Discussion & Potluck:
Saturday, Oct 27 @ 6-8pm

*Street Performance:
Sunday, Oct 28 @ 4-5pm

Home: Public or Private?
an exhibition of installations & performances at 6018NORTH
What happens when our private life becomes public and public space becomes private? Located in a mansion on the north side of Chicago, the exhibition presents multiple artists exploring this question through installations within the rooms of the house. The investigations and activities presented explore the social, cultural, and political ramifications of our shifting conceptions of public and private space.

Artists include: Teresa Albor, Lise Haller Baggesen, Rebecca Beachy, Sandra Binion, Troy Briggs, Deborah Boardman, Sandra Binion, Cuppola Bobber, Keith Buchholz, Chelsea Culp and Ben Foch, Collective Cleaners, Meg Duguid, Daniela Ehemann, Maria Gaspar, Jane Jerardi, Jennifer Karmin, Nance Klehm, Joseph Kramer with Radius, Carron Little, Trevor Martin and Victoria Fowler, Lou Mallozzi, Jesus Mejia and Ruth, Harold Mendez, Katrina Petrauskas, Jesse Schlesinger & Vintage Theatre Collective.

Home: Public or Private? is sponsored by Chicago Artists Month.

Call for Poets :: Celebration of Obama

If you’ll be on Michigan’s east side this month, please join us for A Celebration of Obama Poetry Reading at Delta College. This event is sponsored by the Delta Night Garden Poetry Club in collaboration with NewPages and Binge Press.

This event will take place on Thursday, October 25th at 7 p.m. at Delta College near Saginaw, MI.

We are looking for poets who would like to come read poetry in celebration of our 44th president.

Please contact JodiAnn Stevenson [jodianns777 at gmail dot com] no later than October 15th to get on the program. (Subject: Obama Reading) This is not an open mic – readers must be scheduled. If you are in need of accommodations, we may be able to assist in that.

The time we can offer each poet will depend on responses. Binge Press will also offer a publishing opportunity for this event – details will follow your response.

Come out and let your voice be heard during this important time in our country’s and our world’s history!

Black Poetry Day October 17

“October 17 is Black Poetry Day. Poetry Foundation, in partnership with Furious Flower Foundation at James Madison University, Dr. Maya Angelou, and the Target Corporation, have created Dream in Color, a rich, comprehensive curriculum to teach the essentials of African American poetry—and poetry in general.”

Curriculum resources can be found on the following websites:

Yes! Magazine

Read Write Think

Black Poetry Day Poets Highlighted

The most recent issue of Saranac Review makes room for a special section of poetry about Black Poetry Day. “For almost thirty years, SUNY-Plattsburgh has been home to an annual celebration of Black Poetry Day. The event was first established by Stanley Ransom, a librarian from the Town of Huntington, Long Island, in1970. Its purpose is to recognize the contributors of Black poets to American life and culture and to honor Jupiter Hammon, the first African-American to publish his own verse,” says Alexis Levitin, co-host of Black Poetry Day and poetry editor of the magazine.

Poetry in this section comes from five of the Black Poetry Day celebrants: E. Ethelbert Miller, Gretna Wilkinson, Charles Fort, Marilyn Nelson, and Tony Medina.

Glimmer Train July Very Short Fiction Winners :: 2012

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their July Very Short Fiction competition. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories with a word count not exceeding 3000. No theme restrictions. The next Very Short Fiction competition will take place in January. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Josh Swiller [pictured], of Spencer, NY, wins $1500 for “Suddenly, The Apocalypse.” His story will be published in the Fall 2013 issue of Glimmer Train Stories. This is Josh’s first story accepted for publication.

Second place: Chad Schuster, of Shoreline WA, wins $500 for “A Warning to the Cycling Community.” His story will also be published in a future issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing his prize to $700. This is Chad’s first story accepted for publication.

Third place: June Edelstein, of Brooklyn, NY, wins $300 for “Nails.” Her story will also be published in a future issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing her prize to $700.

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

New Lit on the Block :: Clockhouse Review

Reminiscent of one of the buildings on the campus of Goddard College—a symbol for the college and the independent spirit of being part of its learning environment—comes the name of a brand new magazine: Clockhouse Review. Published by Tim Kenyon and managed by Editor Chris Mackowski, this annual print magazine prints fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama (for both stage and screen), comics, and graphic narratives. “Readers will find a collection of work in various genres from strong, independent voices,” says Kenyon.

Their mission statement is as follows: “Dare. Risk. Dream. Share. Ruminate. How do we understand our place in the world, our responsibility to it, and our responsibility to each other? Clockhouse Review is an eclectic conversation about the work-in-progress of life—a soul arousal, a testing ground, a new community, a call for change. Join in.”

Writers and artists from the first issue include Sean Bernard, Arthur Levine, Will Donnelly, Robert McGuill, Mira Martin-Parker, Ian Couch, Hunter Huskey, Tina Tocco, Elizabeth Dalton, Lisa Braxton, David Ritchie, Barbara Ridley, Jan Shoemaker, Louise Deretchin, Mike Mosher, Sara Backer, Joe Lauinger, Paul David Adkins, Lynnel Jones, Leslie Paolucci, Jeffrey MacLachlan, Lisa Mangini, Valerie Macon, Steve Klepetar, Timothy Martin, Ron Riekki, Thomas Piekarski, Matthew Thorburn, John Grey, Steve West, Gabrielle Freeman, Jenn Blair, Lauren Nicole Nixon, Franklin Mulkey, Genevieve Betts, Ruth Bavetta, Gerald Solomon, Billy Reynolds, Russell Rowland, Cecilia Llompart, Leslie Heywood, Nicole Santalucia, Virginia Shank, Marissa Schwalm, and Charles Davenport.

While the goal at the moment is to publish annually, Kenyon expresses that they have the potential to become a biannual journal. “We will be featuring the work of well-known, established writers as featured contributors with each upcoming issue,” he says.

Young Writers’ Prize: The Kenyon Review

Every year, The Kenyon Review hosts the Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers, “named in honor of Patricia Grodd in recognition of her generous support of The Kenyon Review and its programs, as well as her passionate commitment to education and deep love for poetry.” Judged by Poetry Editor David Baker, the prize awards high school sophomores and juniors with a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Young Writers workshop as well as publication in The Kenyon Review. Featured in the most recent issue of the magazine are the winners from the 2012 contest, the ninth year of the contest.

For the first time, says Baker, “I have opted to present two first-prize designations to two equally fine yet notably different poems. The screening and judging is done through a blind process—no identifying names or origins on the individual poems—so let me congratulate all three poets whose work has risen to the top this year.”

The poems of the two first place winners and the runner up, as well as commentary from Baker, can be read in the Fall 2012 issue of The Kenyon Review.

First-Prize Winners
Victoria White: “Elephant Grave”
Truman Zhang: “Dear Poet”

Runner-Up
Nandita Karambelkar: “Rangoli”

Creative Writing Programs Guide

Researching Creative Writing Programs? Check out NewPages Guide to Creative Writing Programs, which includes Creative Writing Graduate Programs: MFA, PhD, MA, as well as Creative Writing Undergraduate Programs: BFA, AFA.

TEACHERS: Please let your students know about this guide as a resource! It’s FREE and regularly updated!

If you know a college or university you think should be listed that isn’t, PLEASE let us know: newpages-at-newpages.com

Carver Short Story Contest Winners

Featured both online and in Carve Magazine‘s first print issue (Fall 2012) are the winners of the 2012 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest. Selected among 691 entries, 39 semi-finalists, and 7 finalists, the five winners were selected by blind voting.

The 2012 guest judge was Bridget Boland, a “a Dallas-based writer whose work has appeared in Conde Nast Women’s Sports and Fitness, YogaChicago, and The Essential Chicago. Her debut novel, The Doula, will be published by Simon and Schuster in September 2012. Ms. Boland teaches writing classes on fiction and memoir, coaches other writers, and offers seminars on yoga, energetics and writing as life process tools. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a JD from Loyola University of Chicago, and is the recipient of five residencies at The Ragdale Foundation for Writers and Artists.”

Winners:

First Place: $1000
“The Odyssey” by Jia Tolentino in Houston, TX

Second Place: $750
“The Third Element” by Jodi Paloni in Marlboro, VT

Third Place: $500
“Neuropathy” by Kathy Flann in Baltimore, MD

Two Editor’s Choice: $250 each
“Starlings” by Joseph Johnson in Ellensburg, WA (Matthew)
“Floating on Water” by Dalia Rosenfeld in Charlottesville, VA (Kristin)

The “longlist” (39 semi-finalists) can be found on the website and interviews with the winning authors and the comments from Boland are exclusive to the print issue.

Riding Fury Home

“I was the first child ever allowed to visit a patient at the private mental hospital where my mother was being treated. Before our first trip there, Dad said, ‘The doctors think your mother will get better if she can keep seeing you.’” The opening lines of Chana Wilson’s book illuminate the intimate, complex and soul-sucking relationship that she and her mother have throughout their lives, meanwhile plunging the reader into a sparse, transparent glimpse into the lives of women treated in 1950s psych wards. Wilson grows up with her parents as an only child, but at the age of seven, her mother is put into a mental hospital for her severe depression. She attempts to commit suicide numerous times, and the memoir jarringly opens up with the scene of Gloria holding a rifle to her head in the bathroom. Continue reading “Riding Fury Home”

Half of What They Carried Flew Away

All throughout Half of What They Carried Flew Away, Andrea Rexilius proves her command of words and sentences. Mostly, the process of her creating is hidden by its resulting prose poems and declarative stanzas. One passage, however, lifts the curtain: “These borders live on, interrelated. Between the body’s procreation and use. I have been told, it is unfair to say the word ‘body’ again. That’s fine. It’s easy enough to ignore.” Continue reading “Half of What They Carried Flew Away”

My Lorenzo

Impossibly pure poetry is a losing game. At best, a transient mood may be set by way of tone as the general weight of measured restraint from over-expression provides an atmospheric gloss of consciousness. This is the haunting of Mallarme. The desire to have the poem stand for more than is possible. Yet Andrew Zawacki’s translation of Sébastien Smirou holds up admirably well in the face of such challenges. Continue reading “My Lorenzo”

After Urgency

Many of the meditations in Rusty Morrison’s After Urgency—selected by Jane Hirshfield for the Dorset Prize—arise from nature where the poet comforts herself after the loss of her mother and father (“‘My dead,’ I’ve begun to call them”), who died only a season apart. How, now, to “live past” their deaths? How to go on; “how to stand still?” In “Appearances,” Morrison’s melancholy goes unanswered by the landscape: “Tree-line, water’s edge, places that borders will gather against. / What a body might verge upon, it can neither tame nor test.” Continue reading “After Urgency”

With Blood in Their Eyes

In the John Ford’s 1962 classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, there’s a line or two that ring particularly true to writing about the West. After learning the truth about the shootout and the story behind outlaw Liberty Valance’s death, the newspaperman tells James Stewart’s character, “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Continue reading “With Blood in Their Eyes”

Rise

Winner of the 2011 Mary McCarthy Prize in short fiction, Rise by L. Annette Binder is a book of fourteen stories in which, with each story, we experience living inside a trauma from the subject’s interior eye level. Binder gives a no-blink portrayal of what happens to an individual and the person close to that individual as the trauma is lived and shapes their responses. She constructs her stories around traumas many of us will deal with at one time or another with ourselves or a loved one or collaterally from the newspaper: a child kidnapped at the mall, life lived around a birth defect, a child losing a parent to death, war with a malicious neighbor, molestation of a young teen by a parental figure, being diagnosed with a terminal illness, a driver hitting a child in a crosswalk. Once thrown into trauma that is life-altering, how do we reclaim ourselves . . . or can we? Continue reading “Rise”

The Branches, the Axe, the Missing

Charlotte Pence’s chapbook and winner of the Black River Chapbook Competition, The Branches, the Axe, the Missing, leads the reader through a sequence of unnamed poems. A brief narrative of a woman leaving her husband after a divorce and thinking about her homeless father is told alongside poems that address the development of language and social interaction among the evolution of humans as a species. Varied in form and length, each poem adds another link to the narrative chain that brings together a complex and sophisticated extended poem that dwells on our evolutionary desire to communicate. Continue reading “The Branches, the Axe, the Missing”

Still Some Cake

James Cummins’s volume Still Some Cake tells a story whose meaning unfolds gradually, like in a puzzle, as one pieces together phrases, motifs, insights, scenes, catchwords, central figures, and word or theme repetitions. Because it is a story, it seems advisable to read the collection as a whole, from the first to the last page. Continue reading “Still Some Cake”

Sarmada

The novel Sarmada, by Fadi Azzam, is the story of the Druze village of Sarmada in the rugged southern mountains of Syria. The narrator, a journalist, has escaped his upbringing in this backwater for the cosmopolitanism of Paris and Dubai. In Paris he meets a woman who believes that in another life, she was a beautiful young woman of Sarmada, Hela Mansour, who in 1968 was punished for running off with a lover. The narrator goes to Sarmada to investigate this fantastic tale of transmigration. Interviewing village survivors, he learns of Hela’s five brothers and how their monomaniacal obsession to restore family honor forced the lovers to live as fugitives and pariahs. He learns how, out of exhaustion, Hela left her lover and returned to Sarmada to face the bloodlust of her family and how no one in the village intervened to stop the brutal death foretold. The narrator in his return becomes a seeker looking for “. . . clues to help me try to understand how I fit in with these people who made me who I am . . . who nursed me . . . with the waters of rage, fear, joy and gloom.” Foreshadowing the present convulsive awakening in Syria, with all the divisions and sectarianism, he portrays a place of myth and magic ultimately under siege by the forces of transformation. Continue reading “Sarmada”