The Moth: True Stories Told Live began in 1997 as a venue of storytelling in front of a live audience. The Moth Radio Hour, begun in 2009, is now on over 200 radio stations nationwide. There are a number of stories that can be accessed from the web, and The Moth is currently accepting stories to feature on its website. Storytellers are invited to record their one-minute pitch right on The Moth website, or if you have trouble with the online recording gizmo, there is a phone number to call and pitch your story via phone. All stories must be true – and no cliffhangers. What are your waiting for?
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!
Able Muse Write Prize Winners 2011
The Winter 2011 issue of Able Muse includes winners and finalists for its 2011 Write Prize contest:
Write Prize for Fiction – Final Judge: Alan Cheuse
Winner: Douglas Campbell – “Sunflowers, Rivers”
Write Prize for Poetry – Final Judge: Rachel Hadas
Winner: Jean L. Kreiling – “Waiting for a Helicopter”
Second: Susan McLean – “Teaching to the Test”
Finalists: John Beaton – “Your Voice”; Catherine Chandler – “This Dusky Arc”; T.S. Kerrigan – “Missing the Sunset at Sounion”; Joshua Lavender – “The Guest”; Gabriel Spera – “Bread and Fish”; Richard Wakefield – “Crossing”
An additional list of poetry honorable mentions can be found on the publication website.
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Black Lantern Publishing – November 2011
Aaron Milstead’s short story “The Pickled Man” was such an easy and captivating read that I suggested to my twelve-year-old son that he read it as well. As I predicted, he devoured the story of Wilber Will’s World of Wonders that features a mysterious oddity floating around in a pickle jar. That night, at around two a.m., I awoke to a shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed. I knew immediately that figure was my son and that he’d just had a nightmare featuring, not surprisingly, the pickled man. After putting him back to bed, I thought about the power of Milstead’s story. It had left an unsettling impression on my son—one that lies just below the cerebral surface—long after he’d finished reading it. It is the titillating payoff that you hope for when you read something particularly spooky. This is exactly what Black Lantern Publishing’s fifth issue offers its readers with its collection of short stories, poetry, flash fiction, and artwork, all within a macabre theme. Despite my recommendation to my son, this is not a collection intended for children. BLP offers an assortment of haunting contemplations that deal with the subject of death and ushers readers to a darker side of literature. Continue reading “Black Lantern Publishing – November 2011”
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Booth – December 2011
Run by the MFA program at Butler University, Booth publishes something every week on their website and has a print publication each spring. I have never seen the print edition, but found the online material quite intriguing. I was especially impressed by their selections of poetry. Continue reading “Booth – December 2011”
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Palooka – 2011
The subtitle of Palooka seems to indicate that editors Nicholas Maistros and Jonathan Starke have something of an outsider’s mindset. This “journal of underdog excellence” contains work that, according to Maistros, responds to the “storms” we experience in “different yet collectively elemental ways.” From the journal’s colorful and playfully disturbing cover art to its entertaining contributors’ notes, Palooka turns the difficult trick of making itself accessible to a wide range of audiences without talking down to them. Continue reading “Palooka – 2011”
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Silk Road – Summer/Fall 2011
As most people know, the Silk Road was a many-thousands-of-miles-long trade route linking Asia with the rest of the world in ancient times, a network of land and sea avenues over which civilizations traveled and cultures interfused. The goal of Pacific University’s literary journal is to “give readers a vivid point of exchange or interaction that could occur only in a specific time and space . . . ‘place’ is the touchstone the magazine uses for the pieces we publish.” In this issue, there are eight stories, six pieces of creative nonfiction, work from sixteen poets, and a provocative interview that “take readers somewhere crucial, defining and relevant.” The issue as a whole is a journey worth taking. Continue reading “Silk Road – Summer/Fall 2011”
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Straylight – Spring 2011
Straylight is pure, enjoyable entertainment. It is eclectic enough to satisfy any reader’s mood. This collection of fiction, poetry, an interview, and visual art is pretty darned amazing. At first glance, the selections may seem disjointed, especially for literary magazine readers who have become accustomed to themed collections, or high literary selections. Straylight is just plain fun, and the works that make up this volume are like a colorfully arrayed salad bar where you, Gentle Reader, get to pick the most enticing morsels. Continue reading “Straylight – Spring 2011”
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Tin House – Fall 2011
A little of this, a little of that, effectively used white space, not over-crowded by images or advertisements, Tin House provides for a generally pleasant read. This issue of Tin House is subtitled “The Ecstatic.” This, along with the sheer caliber of her writing, explains the inclusion of Kelly Link’s “The Summer People” in this issue. Her characters are most definitely of ecstatic stock. Continue reading “Tin House – Fall 2011”
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Paul Revere’s Horse – 2011
The Editor’s Note for this issue suggests, “Texts, like lives, are precarious projects.” And Iranian ex-patriot Moniru Ravanipur, whose writings are banned in her homeland, interviewed by Miranda Mellis, reminds us that, “Stories are a testament to their time, especially in countries like mine.” Ravanipur knows too well the vital connection between writing and living. She describes how, “The short story for me is like a mirror that reflects different worlds—worlds that already exist, or worlds that could be or should be.” No matter what else, writing allows for confronting and challenging any established order. Continue reading “Paul Revere’s Horse – 2011”
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Alaska Quarterly Review – Fall/Winter 2011
I believe (but I might be convinced otherwise) that my favorite piece in this issue of the Alaska Quarterly Review is Charles Wyatt’s “An Accidental Dictionary”—a listing of strange, delicious, and mostly obsolete words taken from three late-twentieth-century specialty word-books. “Bomolluck: . . . not a thing in the night, but what you fear in the night. It can sit on your chest.” “Kist: a basket for the baby Moses or Noah’s ark or Queequeg’s coffin, or the cup of the sea, or the stinging stars pursuing . . . and the heavens see only fog, neither rising nor falling. Tuned. All attention. Will.” “Gardyloo: . . . there is no truth in truth and I have lost my cats.” To word lovers like me, these changeling glomerations of sound are glorious, and Wyatt’s explanations are grand spills of imagery. I can’t resist the temptation to use them to talk about the rest of the issue. Continue reading “Alaska Quarterly Review – Fall/Winter 2011”
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Bellevue Literary Review – Fall 2011
Last week my creative nonfiction writing class workshopped a piece about one student’s experience with ADD in elementary school. He described zigzag thoughts, hypersensitive ears, rising frustration, and a positively entertaining rage, in a perfectly modulated eight-year-old voice; he then took us through the process of diagnosis, disastrous prescription of inappropriate meds, and ultimately courageous development of a customized program that enabled him to manage the disorder satisfactorily. His understated irony, his consistent voice, and the beautifully appropriate imagery made the piece one of the most successful our class has seen this semester. Continue reading “Bellevue Literary Review – Fall 2011”
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Cake – Spring 2011
This fifth publication of Cake contains exceptional writing, including poetry, fiction, reviews, drama, and interviews. Breauna Roach’s poem “Scrambled” left me a bit unsettled, but there is no doubt as to her genius. Roach begins by revealing her discovery that cupcakes are never found in a garbage disposal, they are sweet desserts that would be shameful to waste; however, eggs are a whole different story: Continue reading “Cake – Spring 2011”
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The Carolina Quarterly – Winter/Spring 2011
“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?” As the venerable Carolina Quarterly enters its 64th year of publication in 2012, the answer from discerning readers, and good writers, must be yes. Poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, and graphic art accepted by the CQ’s editors provide a select tour through recent works of both polished and emerging writers and artists. Thematically, this issue features that which is certain—death and Texas. Continue reading “The Carolina Quarterly – Winter/Spring 2011”
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Faultline – Spring 2011
Faultline is the journal of the English department at the University of California-Irvine. The journal has a quiet, slightly offbeat feel to it. Much of the fiction is the kind that could be about people you know—but, then, there’s just something different, something slightly magical and slightly weird about it. Continue reading “Faultline – Spring 2011”
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The Helix – Spring 2011
The Helix is a biannual literary magazine run by students of Central Connecticut State University and is comprised of drawings, paintings, photographs, prose and poetry. Like helical strands of DNA, the art and literature printed in The Helix represents vast permutations of human experience and possibility. Continue reading “The Helix – Spring 2011”
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Magnolia – 2011
Magnolia: A Journal of Women’s Literature broke into the literary world just this year. The first guest editor, Gayle Brandeis, is an author of both young adult and adult fiction and has also been honored for her work as an activist. A little blurb on the back of the collection promises that Magnolia is “a diverse collection that will open your eyes, challenge your thinking, and break your heart.” And Magnolia certainly delivers. Continue reading “Magnolia – 2011”
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Main Street Rag – Fall 2011
I really like the way Main Street Rag fits in my hand; it’s the perfect size for a literary magazine. It’s also cool that MSR publishes letters from readers. In my experience, that’s a rarity for a literary mag, but one that I think adds to the experience of reading a magazine. It’s always fun to see what other readers have to say. Publisher/Editor M. Scott Douglass clearly puts a considerable amount of work into Main Street Rag, and marks each issue with his own “Front Seat” and “Back Seat” columns that bookend the contents. Not shy about veering into political territory, Douglass launches this particular issue’s “Back Seat” into a commentary on American economics and class struggles, offering up his own solutions on tax issues (two options to choose from!). This sort of diatribe within a literary magazine may seem out of place to some readers, but I found it refreshing. It helps to project the image that MSR is quite comfortable in its own skin. Continue reading “Main Street Rag – Fall 2011”
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New Orleans Review – 2011
I’ve always viewed the New Orleans Review as one of the silverbacks of the modern literary journal scene. Despite the obvious setbacks in dealing with Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, it still surges ahead as one of the leading reviews with a promise of great work by great writers—those well-known, and those not. Some have said it is better than ever. This current issue does not disappoint, especially with Jacob M. Appel’s story “Prisoners of the Multiverse,” winner of the 2011 Walker Percy Fiction Contest. Not wanting to ruin the story for future readers, I will quote Nancy Lemann, judge for this year’s prize, in her introduction to the piece: Appel’s story “preserves the mystery” of a thing of beauty and delivers “what I seek in literature: inspiration, hope, and possibility.” Continue reading “New Orleans Review – 2011”
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Off the Coast – Fall 2011
Off the Coast, based out of Robbinston, Maine, publishes poems, artwork, and reviews. It seems to me that this particular issue has a strong focus on nature and animals interacting within their natural surroundings. The title of each issue is chosen from a line or phrase from one of the issue’s selected poems. The Fall 2011 issue is entitled Everything Here. The editors make a very honest effort to live up to the promise of such a title. Continue reading “Off the Coast – Fall 2011”
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Phantom Drift – Fall 2011
It’s possible that the mark of an evolved soul is the ability to pass at will into whatever state of consciousness is useful or appropriate at any given time. Over twenty distinct such states have been observed, with names like reverie, lethargy, trance, and rapture. The question of when such states are useful or appropriate is the subject of story and song from time immemorial. That they are essential to our lives if we are ever to be whole is the conviction behind a compelling new journal whose title hints at this ability I’ve described: Phantom Drift. Continue reading “Phantom Drift – Fall 2011”
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Post Road – 2011
Post Road offered me surprises that I don’t believe I have actually seen in other magazines. For instance, during my first official flip through, my thumb stopped on a page where Micah Nathan reviews The Stories of John Cheever, claiming that, although not a “titan like Hemingway or Faulkner . . . there’s room in the pantheon for gods of all types. We reserve a temple for him.” I can’t recall how many reviews (celebrations?) of Cheever I have read in modern literary magazines—because I don’t believe that I ever have. And then on the page opposite began Asad Raza’s review of the 1983 Lizzie Borden movie Born in Flames, a movie that, according to the author: “makes most New York movies seem like sentimental fawning.” These two pieces represent the eclectic, brilliant choices the editors have made in putting the magazine together, which I think is its greatest strength. It caters to many different tastes, and, according to the magazine’s website, each submission is read by three different people before accepting or rejecting it—thus ensuring a strong collection with each biannual issue. Continue reading “Post Road – 2011”
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River Teeth – Fall 2011
One of the merits of nonfiction narratives is that they indulge human curiosity about others’ lives. The fall issue of River Teeth, a magazine dedicated solely to narrative nonfiction, includes eleven true stories, all of which quickly and convincingly pull you into the authors’ lives for brief, powerful episodes. While some stories uniquely explore common phenomena like homesickness, others offer coveted glimpses into rare experiences. The four most memorable stories in the collection are those whose subject matter and narrative voice are equally captivating. Continue reading “River Teeth – Fall 2011”
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2011 Iowa Review Contest Winners
Winners and runners-up of the 2011 Iowa Review Awards Contest are featured in the Winter 2011 publication:
Nonfiction Winner: Helen Phillips, “Life Care Center”
Poetry Winner: Emily Van Kley, 10 poems
Fiction Winner: John Van Kirk, “Landscape with Boys”
Runners-up
Maria Rapoport (nonfiction); Kimberly Burwick (poetry); Suzanne Scanlon (fiction)
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Clapboard House 2011 Short Story Contest Winners
Judged by writer Gerald Duff the winner of the 2011 Clapboard House Short Story Contest is “The Bet” by Steven D. Stark. His story, along with those of the nine runner-ups, are available in the newest online issue of Clapboard House. Stark’s winning story will also be included in the planned print edition of THE BEST OF CLAPBOARD HOUSE.
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New Lit on the Block :: Enizagam
What do celeb’ author Lemony Snicket (AKA Daniel Handler), luminary poet Nikki Giovanni, Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler, Sister Spit founder Michelle Tea, MacArthur Genius Award winner Yiyun Li, literary legend Walter Mosley, Pushcart nominee Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, and thirty young writers at an urban public high school have in common?
Rewind back exactly one year, to January 2011: in a renovated Art Deco theater complex in Downtown Oakland, CA, a seminar-sized group of young writers put their noses to the grindstone. That day marked the first day of the Enizagam course at Oakland School for the Arts (OSA), a public charter school that admits students grade-blind on the basis of artistic auditions.
OSA was founded in 2002 by CA Governor Jerry Brown—then Mayor of Oakland. It serves over 600 talented middle and high school students. Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, Chair of Literary Arts, explains: “These kids competed for acceptance into the program. They want to be here, and I want to give them a private-school-caliber experience, tuition free. To do that, I completely overhauled our literary journal, which was once a typical publication featuring student work.” It hasn’t been easy. While the school has stacked up accolades for its arts-based methodology, and for closing the achievement gap between student subgroups, its arts programs receive zero public funding.
The students, and Frazier, run the journal as a labor of love. Frazier describes the young staff as “sophisticated readers, poised to apply razor-sharp focus.” The students gain the nuts-and-bolts experience of running a serious literary journal, and Enizagam’s readers gain access to stunning new writing selected by fresh editorial eyes.
Enizagam’s goal? To become the first secondary-student-run literary publication with serious national acclaim. It may already have achieved that. While run by urban high school kids, it is written by and for adults. Last year, it received submissions from award-winning authors working across—and beyond—the U.S. Contributors included Jendi Reiter, Laura Shearer, Nick Kriefall and Rae Gouirand, who has just come out with a new book of poetry: Open Winter, winner of the 2011 Bellday Poetry Prize. Bookstores have begun shelving Enizagam, and the 2012 issue’s literary contest judges will be Lemony Snicket and Nikki Giovanni. Robert Olen Butler and Michelle Tea judged last year’s competition.
Yiyun Li and Walter Mosley will soon be interviewed by the journal’s student staff for the 2012 issue. Kerby Lynch, Student Co-Editor in Chief, interviewed Farm City phenom’ Novella Carpenter for the 2011 issue. Says Lynch: “Among other questions about her urban farm, I asked Novella how often the goats’ breath smelled delicious. Her answer? ‘Always.’” The student staff is “juiced” to see the new next issue on bookstore shelves in 2012.
Writers: “We can’t wait to dig into this year’s submissions!” Check out the 2012 Enizagam Literary Awards in Poetry and Fiction at: http://enizagam.org
[Press release provided by the editors of Enizagam; Cover Art: Zooey Yi]
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MAR Fiction & Poetry Award Winners
The newest issue of Mid-American Review (v31 n2) includes the 2010-11 Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award: Lydia Fitzpatrick (“Flood Lines”) and winner of the 201-11 James Wright Poetry Award: Katie Umans (“Forecast”).
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Spoon River Poetry Review Contest Winners
The Summer/Fall 2011 issue of Spoon River Poetry Review features the 2011 Editors’ Prize Winners selected by final judge Cecil S. Giscombe:
First Place ($1,000): Jennie Ray
First Runner Up ($100): Craig Blais
Second Runner Up ($100): Ben Purkert
Honorable Mentions: Miles Waggener, Molly Tustison, Neal Shipley, Suzume, Laura Sherwood Rudish.
One winning poem will be awarded $1000 and two runners-up awarded $100 each in this annual contest. Winning poem, runners-up, and honorable mentions are published in the fall issue.
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New Lit on the Block :: Kudzu Review
Kudzu Review is a biannual online ecojournal. Editor-in-Chief M.P. Jones IV writes that the title is from his grandfather’s, Madison Jones, house “which we lovingly called ‘Kudzu’ for the plant which proliferated along the property line. He was a farmer, writer, literary critic, and professor in Auburn, Alabama.”
The biannual publication is available in PDF and on Issuu, and looks to publish “savvy, sharp, well polished literature that captures life in a post-natural world” and works that “cast new light on rapid species extinction, climate change, food production, technology, sustainability and community.”
The first issue of Kudzu Review features fiction, poetry, and artwork by
Aaron Poller, André Babyn, Ann Cavlovic, Anthony Rintala, Ashleigh Rajala, Becky Garrison, Cassie Premo Steele, Dominic James, Donal Mahoney, Donna Emerson, Drew Jennings, Dwain Wilder, Ed Zahniser, Jack Foster, Jeanpaul Ferro, Joan Colby, John Bohannon, Joseph Rhea, Karla Linn Merrifield, Kenneth Pobo, Lakshmi Eassey, Laurie A Skelton, Maggie Koger, Mercedes Lawry, Sue Blaustein, Susi Lovell, Thomas Fussey, Trent Laubscher, and Tiffany Morris.
Kudzu Review is also offering a “fundraiser” for their publication: woodcut carving t-shirts, each individually hand pressed with a unique front design and back logo. T-shirt buyers have their names listed on a page “forever” in recognition of their support.
Kudzu Review is open on a rolling basis for e-mail submissions of short stories, flash fiction and poetry, and Submishmash submissions of art and photography.
Kudzu Review is staffed by Senior Editors: M.P. Jones IV, Editor-in-Chief; Arthur Wilke, Field Editor; Robin Ward, Web-Design Editor; and Associate Editors: Powell Burke, Fiction & Revisions Editor; Jane Alford, Nonfiction & Revisions Editor; Rivers Langley, 20-Year-Man Assistant Editor; and Ashley Sams, Visual Art Editor.
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The Night Before Christmas
Russian writer Nikolai Gogol is famous for his serious satiric novel The Overcoat, but The Night Before Christmas, originally published in a 1926 short story collection, was Gogol’s first work at age 27—an early contribution to Russian literature. Recognized then for its fine writing and humor, now it can also be appreciated as a charming picture of Ukrainian folklore. Instead of Scrooge or the Grinch, the devil and a witch make mischief on a night full of mystical forces, the night before Christmas. Continue reading “The Night Before Christmas”
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Betty Superman
Ten stories make up Tiff Holland’s collection, Betty Superman. The stories themselves are short; altogether they fill only thirty-four pages, stapled into a lovely little edition from Rose Metal Press. But the size of Holland’s collection is deceiving. These stories cover the span of a life as only linked shorts can. They invite the reader to fill in the spaces between the wacky and outrageous scenarios our narrator and her mother, Betty, find themselves in. Continue reading “Betty Superman”
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The Weary World Rejoices
Steve Fellner’s collection of poems, The Weary World Rejoices, has much more weariness in it than rejoicing, but that is only because, as he writes in the first of three odes to Matthew Shepard, “Explanation never // satisfies. It / always wants // something / like redemption.” Fellner is not trying to explain what it is like to be a gay man in 21st-century America; instead, he is trying to redeem it by showing the varieties of that life as it actually is. Continue reading “The Weary World Rejoices”
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Red Plenty
As a kid growing up in a rural community in central Ohio during the 1960s, I heard the word “Communist” bandied about as if it were the lowest form of life to crawl across the American landscape. I thought for a time they had to be like the ogres in Grimm’s fairytales who kidnapped children and ate them. Surely they lurked behind every corner. They were to be feared and exterminated. Commies were bad. Continue reading “Red Plenty”
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By Word of Mouth
After more than fifty years of James Laughlin’s New Directions publishing the work of William Carlos Williams, to have yet another new collection is a splendid surprise. Although many of these translations already appear in Williams’s Collected Poems, when all are gathered together from these separate sources and placed in company with a few other renegade poems not found there, the continuing necessity of considering the influence of Williams’s biracial heritage upon his work is evident. To not recognize this aspect of Williams’s identity is to risk missing a key component of his poetry. This is a danger editor Jonathan Cohen notes with his assertion that “Pound failed to understand that Williams identified himself as American because of his Hispanic background.” The multi-layered cultural identity of Williams celebrates the rich, fertile brewing ground that the Americas remain. Continue reading “By Word of Mouth”
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Pulp and Paper
Josh Rolnick writes like a storyteller. He places his characters in the middle of complex situations, but doesn’t leave them stranded. Instead, he inhabits their psyches and builds compelling scenes for them to respond to trouble in the best way they know how, by lunging headlong into it. Meanwhile he creates scenes that rivet you to a sliver of time and the gloom of place, sweeping you up in the first sentences of his eight tales and setting you down at the end of each one with greater faith in the human race. Continue reading “Pulp and Paper”
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Thrown into Nature
Novels that focus on contemporary foibles are often flattened in time by the ephemeral. In Thrown into Nature, Bulgarian writer Milen Ruskov sidesteps the obsolescence problem by giving us a picaresque novel set in sixteenth century Spain. Guimarães da Silva, acolyte and student, narrates his adventures with his mentor, Dr. Monardes, a true figure out of history, the “discoverer” and promoter of tobacco as the cure for whatever ails you. Continue reading “Thrown into Nature”
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Death-In-A-Box
“We are nothing but characters in a book” surmises the child narrator forever staring into the window of “Mrs. Q.’s Drugstore.” It is left to the reader to determine the exact relationship among the trio of peepers and if they ever work up the courage to see those “things that she must have at the counter.” But by the end of Death-In-A-Box readers will have a very good idea of Alta Ifland’s writing talent. Continue reading “Death-In-A-Box”
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Power Ballads
Will Boast’s Power Ballads, winner of the Iowa Award for Short Fiction, can at times feel as layered and as over-produced as its moniker. For one, the book, thematically linking the lives of various musicians, unfolds as a short-story cycle, which by the nature of the form allows a freedom and an unevenness to the storytelling on par with, say, Van Halen post-David Lee Roth. Continue reading “Power Ballads”
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The Blood Lie
The Blood Lie is labeled as a Young Adult/Jewish Studies book, but I think the main intention of the writer was to present it as Jewish Studies. The characters, plot, and narration did not seem aimed at appealing to the young adult reader, but at telling a story of Jewish history. A young girl, Daisy, gets lost in the woods and the Jewish people of the town are accused of kidnapping her for a blood sacrifice for Yom Kippur. These people are soon ostracized and forced to band together. Continue reading “The Blood Lie”
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Songs My Mother Never Taught Me
Murray Shugars’s collection of poems, Songs My Mother Never Taught Me, is clearly divided into three sections with distinct differences in approaches to the craft. The first section, which gives the book its title, is the strongest of the three, as Shugars creates a distinct world in this section. These poems are much more narrative than the other two sections and draw mostly on his childhood, though the speaker of the poems moves into adulthood in the poems about war. Continue reading “Songs My Mother Never Taught Me”
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Broadsided “2011 Haiku Year-in-Review”
Poems by Peter Kline, Steve Brightman and Jennifer Jabaily-Blackburn were selected via reader vote for the 2011 Haiku Year-in-Review Broadside, combined with art by Kara Searcy, Caleb Brown, Jennifer Moses and Kevin Morrow. The Broadsided website features writers’ and artists’ responses to this collaborative, innovative project in which four artists were asked to choose a subject that rang out from a season of 2011 as significant. Then, writers were invited to submit haiku on the same subject. Haiku finalists were chosen by the Broadsided editors, then posted online for readers to view alongside the art and vote for which poem/art combinations should represent each season. The full-color broadside includes all four haiku with art and is available for free download and distribution.
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MQR Tribute to Jeanne Leiby
Editor Jonathan Freeman shares a sweet memory and kind words in memoriam of Jeanne Leiby in the Fall 2011 of Michigan Quarterly Review. While not available for online reading, friends of Jeanne will appreciate getting a hold of a copy of the magazine for our own personal collections.
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2011 River Styx Poetry Contest Winners
Winners of the 2011 River Styx International Poetry Contest are included in the newest issue of River Styx.
1st Place: Stephen Kampa, “Small Change”
2nd Place: Tara Taylor, “Sea Glass”
3rd Place: Julie Hall, “Octopus”
This annual contest awards $1500 First Prize plus one case of micro-brewed Schlafly Beer as well as publication of top selections. A complete list of winners and honorable mentions are available on the publication’s website.
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New Lit on the Block :: The Bacon Review
The Bacon Review, edited by the writer/designer Eric Westerlind and philosophy acquisitions editor Jason Barry, was founded in 2011 as a review of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and intellectual life. After only two issues, Westerlind and Barry have just announced that they would like to shift from a bi-monthly to a monthly publication, but will continue to limit content to four pieces per issue.
The Bacon Review also includes a featured called “Hot Seat” where authors whose works are selected for publication will be asked to participate in a half hour online chat regarding their “piece/writing/bovines/whatever else comes up” in the site’s chatroom (open to members who sign in). As Westerlind and Barry write, “We are interested in our authors as people; we want to know what inspires and motivates our contributors to write their stories, poems, and non-fiction.” The chats will be live with discussions archived on the site. Members will receive advance notice of scheduled chats.
The Bacon Review ontributors to date include Parker Finn, Melanie Braverman, William Doreski, Howie Good, Keith Batter, James Collector, Pablo Armando Fern
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Salamander 2011 Fiction Contest Winners
The newest issue of Salamander (v17 n1) includes the winning story of the 2011 Salamander Fiction Contest, “The Aerialist” by Hester Kaplan, and honorable mention, “The Blue Demon of Ikumi” by Kelly Luce. This year’s contest was judged by Jim Shepherd. A full list of finalists is available on the publication’s website.
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Anderbo Contest Winners
Open City 2011 RRofihe Trophy Short Story Contest
Winning Story “A Pair of Soup” by JL SCHNEIDER
Anderbo 2011 No-Fee Novel Contest / The Mercer Street Books Fiction Prize Winner
DORETTE SNOVER for “THE CITY OF LADIES”
Read the First Chapter here
2011 Anderbo Creative Nonfiction Prize FINALISTS
Judged by Elizabeth Wurtzel (PROZAC NATION)
Winner to be announced soon…
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In Memoriam :: Carol Novack
Editor and publisher of Mad Hatter’s Review – and so much more – Carol Novack passed away December 29. Acting Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Marc Vincenz has posted a piece on Mad Hatter’s Blog and has indicated they will be featuring tributes to Carol from many of her contemporaries, collaborators and closest friends in the weeks to come. An e-mail address is provided for those who wish to contribute.
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New Lit on the Block :: analogpress.net
analogpress.net is a new online biannual literary journal “focused on featuring the vision of today’s writers, poets and artists dedicated to the idea that literature should make universal themes relevant to the generation that the writer belongs to . . . cutting edge, on the fringe, anchored in classic intuitions: poetry, fiction, non-fiction topics, art & photography.”
Contributors to the first two issues include Laurits Haaning, Robert Lietz, Danielle Altic, Jonathan Steffen, J.T. Andrews, Robert Dicarlo, Peter Fernbach, D H Sutherland, Nicholas Petrone, Dylan T. Price, Lee D. Rorman, Richard Stolorow, Hanny Castano, Kellee Rich, Santiago Dominique, Susanna Douglas, Petra Gabriele Dannehl, Jeremy Mayer, Kate Zaliznock, Edward Harsen, Mark Goad, Ryan Palmer, Hanny Castro, Gretchen Meixner, Tom Rowley-Conwy, Mar Trujillo, M.Y. Lermontov translated by Teimuraz Chanturishvili, and Madeleine Swann.
analogpress.net accepts e-mail submissions of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, art and photography. Submissions for 2011 are currently closed but will open again January 31, 2012.
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2011 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest Winners
The Winter 2012 issue of The Kenyon Review includes the winners of the 2011 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest, previously for writers under the age of thirty. Final judge for the contest was Ron Carlson.
First Prize: Fan Li “Chiasmus”
Runner up: Anna Kovatcheva “September”
Runner up: Nichols Malick “The Boy in the Lake”
In a change from previous years of the contest, submissions will no longer be limited to writers under thirty. Starting in 2012, entries for the Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest will be limited to writers who have not yet published a book of fiction.
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New Lit on the Block :: Tongue
Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art is a new biannual literary magazine “devoted to all species of translation and border-crossing”: original poetry, essays and images that “aspires to challenge comfortable gestures and distinctions.” Tongue is an autonomous project of the Pirogue Collective — the arts and culture expression of the Gorée Institute. Editors are Adam Wiedewitsch, Colin Cheney, R.A. Villanueva, and Janine Joseph.
Tongue can be read online using the Issuu format or downloaded in several versions of PDF (suitable for mobile viewing – 1.35MB; high-resolution – 33.6MB; suitable for high-quality CMYK printing – 65.5MB).
Issue One launched in December and features new work from Geoffrey Nutter, Darren Morris, Claudia Rankine, Alfonso D’Aquino & Forrest Gander, Kiwao Nomura & Forrest Gander & Kyoko Yoshida, Cecily Parks, Idra Novey, Sally Wen Mao, Adam Small & Mike Dickman, Venús Khoury-Ghata & Marilyn Hacker, Brian Oliu, Birgitta Trotzig & Rika Lesser, Nathalie Handal, Ewa Chrusciel, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and photographer Zhang Xiao.
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Glimmer Train Family Matters Winners :: 2011
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their October Family Matters competition. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories about family. The next Family Matters competition will take place in April. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: Joseph Vastano [pictured], of Austin, TX, wins $1500 for “Twinning.” His story will be published in the Spring 2013 issue of Glimmer Train Stories.
Second place: Aisha Gawad, of Ithaca, NY, wins $500 for “My Cousin Luna Sleeps on Super 8 Motel Beds.”
Third place: Nahal Suzanne Jamir of Tallahassee, FL, wins $300 for “My Mother’s Hands in My Mouth.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Deadline soon approaching: Fiction Open, January 2.
Glimmer Train hosts this competition quarterly, and first place is $2000 plus publication in the journal. It’s open to all writers and there are no theme restrictions. The word count generally ranges from 3000 – 8000, though up to 20,000 is fine. Click here for complete guidelines.