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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!

New Lit on the Block :: Petrichor Review

Founded and edited by Emma Nichols, Pete Viola, and Sean Case Petrichor Review is a new online triannual of poetry, fiction, and art.

The first issue features fiction and poetry by Corey Mesler, G.A. Saindon, Howie Good, James Valvis, Jason Kalmanowitz, John Grey, Joseph Farley, Kyle Hemmings, Larry Gaffney, Len Kuntz, Les Wicks, M. Chandler Rodbro, Matthew Dexter, Paul David Adkins, Peter Marra, Thomas Zimmerman, Valentina Cano, and Walter Campbell, and artwork by Charlotte McKnight, Doris Case, Jim Fuess, Kimberly Marra, Lindsey Buckley, Thomas Zimmerman, and Vinny Carnevale.

Petrichor Review is open for submissions for their next and upcoming issues.

Narrative Spring 2011 Story Contest Winners

The Narrative Spring 2011 Story Contest Winners have been announced and are available on the publication’s website:

FIRST PLACE
Nickolas Butler “Underneath the Bonfire”

SECOND PLACE
Jan Ellison “Second First Night”

THIRD PLACE
Katie Cortese “The Promised Land”

FINALISTS
Douglas Bauer
Wesley Brown
Leslie Ingham
Hannah Johnson
Jerry D. Mathes II
Lewis Moyse
Rina Piccolo
Rickey Pittman
Charlotte Price
Lynn Stegner

New Lit on the Block :: Antiphon

Edited by Rosemary Badcoe and Noel Williams, Antiphon (UK) is a new online quarterly of poetry and reviews of poetry books. The Antiphon website also includes an online forum for opinions on poems and articles related to poetry.

The inaugural issue offers new work from Catherine Edmunds, Martyn Crucefix, Andrew Shields, Larry Jordan, Angelina Ayers, Jane Røken, Richard Moorhead, James Howard, Michaela Ridgway, Cora Greenhill, Mario Petrucci, Claire Dyer, John C Nash, Janet Fisher, Thomas Zimmerman, Jan Fortune, Brian Edwards, David Harmer, Pippa Little, and David Callin. The publication also features book reviews of works by Christy Ducker, Michael Mackmin and Helena Nelson, and a column called “Debating Point,” with this issue’s focus being: “Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Submissions are open through Submishmash.

Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology

The Poetry Anthology at Occupy Wall Street currently cataloged in the Occupy Wall Street library and maintained by the Occupy Language (formerly Occupy Poetry) seeks poems to place in the anthology. Send poems via e-mail (attachments accepted) to the librarian at the People’s Library: stephenjboyer [at] gmail [dot] com. You will receive and automated response. The anthology is currently organized in binders by week, with plans to migrate portions or all to the Web. Read more: here.[via Sarah Sarai]

Occupy Wall Street Library

The People’s Library is the collective, public, open library of the Occupy Wall Street leaderless resistance movement.

Located in the northeast corner of Liberty Plaza, the library provides free, open and unrestricted access to our collection of books, magazines, newspapers, ‘zines, pamphlets and other materials that have been donated, collected, gathered and discovered during the occupation.

The Occupy Wall Street Library website provides an overview of how the borrowing system works at the lending FAQ, a link to a catalog for a list of titles, the library’s history, and information on contributing to learn how you can help.

New Lit on the Block :: FictionNow

Editor Marge Lurie of FictionNow writes that the online magazine’s mission is “connecting good writers of short fiction with hungry, interactive readers. You’ll find stories that honestly reflect what it’s like to be alive in the 21st century – stories that wrestle, as all good fiction must, with how to construct meaning out of the welter of untamed experience.”

The first issues features works by Elizabeth England, George Dila, Richard Smolev, Ray Abernathy, Joel Hinman, Pamela Painter, Joanne Avallon, Silvia Bonilla, Seth Kaufman, and Susan Buttenwieser.

Submissions are open for previously unpublished fiction between 250 and 4,000 words.

The Bellingham Review – Spring 2011

Brenda Miller, author of five Pushcart-Prize-winning works and co-author of a best-selling creative nonfiction text, is the editor-in-chief of Bellingham Review. The names of Rita Dove, Tess Gallagher, Tobias Wolff, and other better-than-well-known poets and writers light up the editorial board. And with such a masthead, and a mission statement that includes a cry of “hunger for […] writing that nudges the limits of form, or executes traditional forms exquisitely,” how could we not expect excellence from this fine journal out of Western Washington University? This hefty issue contains nearly 250 pages of striking fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and photography. And from the contest winners that open the issue to the interviews that conclude it, not a single entry misfires. Continue reading “The Bellingham Review – Spring 2011”

Beloit Poetry Journal – Fall 2011

Notwithstanding Lee Sharkey’s essay/review on the poets Kazim Ali and Brian Teare, this entire volume of BPJ features just one poet, Michael Broek—more precisely, his series of thirty poems titled The Logic of Yoo. Reading the collection is a transforming experience. The series tackles the problem of violence in modern history. The problem is approached without preaching or thundering. A protagonist—a doctoral student—researches the topic, not because he is passionate about it or wants to rid the world of violence, but because he is paid for his work. Masterful irony reverberates in the laconism of the student’s research notes, in his quoting factual documents, and in evoking authentic objects, places, and persons. Continue reading “Beloit Poetry Journal – Fall 2011”

Court Green – 2011

The “dossier” section of every issue saves Court Green from falling in with, and being hopelessly lost among, the more run-of-the-mill fair getting churned out among MFA programs. It’s a pretty classy way to get around having “themes” for issues while actually having different themes for each issue, and offers the editors a good chance at a shot of overall cohesion. Once the “dossier” covered Lorine Niedecker, next year it’s going to be “The Short Poem,” but this year it’s Frank O’Hara. Continue reading “Court Green – 2011”

Kestrel – Spring 2011

The cover art chosen for the Spring 2011 issue of Kestrel is a misty-blue piece titled Okeanos IV 2010 by Kathleen Holder, the visual artist featured in this issue. The artwork reminds me of a cold day on a beach, where the sky and the water fuse. Donna Long writes in her editorial comment, the submissions selected for publication sometimes “just seem cosmically ordained to share an issue.” Long tells us water is this cosmic connection, bending and rolling through the work like the thread of a river tying up a landscape. And I see that connection from the opening essay, “Upstream Against Forgetting” by Rob Merritt, to the poems, such as “Aqua Vitae” by Charles Tisdale or “Meditation: Labor Day” by Nancy Takacs. Wonderful. Continue reading “Kestrel – Spring 2011”

Michigan Quarterly Review – Summer 2011

The dignified beauty of the vast Great Lakes region is often outshone by the bright lights of Broadway and the high-wattage glow of Hollywood. This issue of the Michigan Quarterly Review, subtitled “Love Song and Lament,” contains poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction that will immerse the reader in the quiet dignity of the area and the people who call it home. Continue reading “Michigan Quarterly Review – Summer 2011”

The Paris Review – Fall 2011

The Paris Review is such a great magazine, edited with such discrimination that likes and dislikes inevitably come down to matters of personal taste. The pieces that I most enjoyed in this issue were two essays—Lydia Davis’s “Some Notes on Translation and on Madame Bovary,” and Geoff Dyer’s “Into the Zone”—and a poem by Sharon Olds, “The Haircut.” Continue reading “The Paris Review – Fall 2011”

Prairie Schooner – Fall 2011

We’ve all said or heard from time to time: “old friends are the best.” This adage is certainly true with the Fall 2011 issue of Prairie Schooner. I’ve known this magazine for a long time—it has been published for longer than most of us reading it have been alive—and the current issue is just as lively and alive as the issues from the 1970s when I first subscribed in graduate school. Its generous collection of poems and prose is at once rich, exciting, challenging, and refreshing as the ample section of reviews is enlightening. Continue reading “Prairie Schooner – Fall 2011”

Prime Mincer – Summer 2011

It is truly shocking to know that Prime Mincer is a young magazine still in its first year of publication. This edition is packed with insightful, daring, and creative work that will appeal to a diverse readership. So many poems, stories, and nonfiction pieces stood out and demanded to be heard. This is certainly a magazine you will have to hold in your hands to enjoy the punch it delivers. Continue reading “Prime Mincer – Summer 2011”

Redactions – 2011

This issue brings a fresh approach to regionalism by positing its own ad hoc region. “The I-90 Poetry Revolution” includes varied, ambitious work by poets who came from, live in or have some relation to the territory strung along the lanes, ramps, gas stations, motels, fast-food joints and rest stops between Boston and Seattle. Continue reading “Redactions – 2011”

THEMA – Summer 2011

The cool thing about THEMA is that prompt thing. Each issue of this cleverly-conceived magazine offers one premise (the prompt) and solicits whatever plots, poems, images and issues writers can come up with from that opening. Now, I don’t mean the opening or beginning of the story. I mean that opening into the imagination, that one key into story or wordplay. THEMA‘s threefold goal is: “to provide a stimulating forum for established and emerging literary artists […] to serve as source material and inspiration for teachers of creative writing [ . . . ] [and] to provide readers with a unique and entertaining collection of stories and poems.” The theme for the summer issue was “About two miles down the road.” What would you come up with for that? Continue reading “THEMA – Summer 2011”

upstreet – 2011

In the seventh issue of upstreet, creative nonfiction shines like an LED sun. Its poignancy encourages the reader to think of his or her own life experiences. The creative nonfiction stands out, to this reviewer anyway, as nothing short of amazing. It is both inspirational and compelling. While the fiction and poetry in this issue were good, the creative nonfiction reminded me, over and over again, of why I love to read. Continue reading “upstreet – 2011”

West Marin Review – 2010

Ah, Marin, county of my heart. Cross the Golden Gate Bridge north from San Francisco, veer west toward the ocean, and keep driving through oaks, hill country, and sea. Who wouldn’t love its rural beauty, or the loyalty to earth and humanity of the independent souls who choose to live there? The bio of Catherine David, whose delightful short essay “Amateurs are First-Rate Lovers” opens this issue of West Marin Review, identifies her as “an artist, journalist, and pianist living in Paris who visits West Marin whenever she can.” That love of place, that desire to be in this land of “seashore and woodland” infuses every work of word or art in this fine book. Continue reading “West Marin Review – 2010”

The Point – Spring 2011

The Point is a sophisticated 187-paged Chicago-based literary magazine about contemporary life and culture. The Spring issue’s most frequent theme is sports entertainment and rationale, although its five sections, “Letters from the Editors,” “Essays,” “Art,” “Symposium,” and “Reviews” include other topics. It’s good that it is a biannual, as its many articles require, more often than not, erudite engagement, and certainly more than one sitting. Continue reading “The Point – Spring 2011”

NewPages Young Authors Guide

Please check out the Young Authors Guide on NewPages.com.

This is guide where young authors (as defined by each publication – sometimes it includes college-age) can find places to publish their writing. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather a select list of publications in print as well as online that have open submissions with guidelines, an editorial selection process, and a regular print cycle. Some publish only young authors, some publish all ages for young audiences. For more specific submission guidelines, visit the publication’s website.

Also included in this guide are contests for young writers. These are carefully selected for quality and sensitivity to not wanting young writers to be taken advantage of (with promises of publication and high entry fees). Almost all are no-cost entry with some awarding scholarship money.

This is not a paid-for page or an advertising page in any way. It is a page I have put together as a resource to encourage young writers in their interest.

If you know of other publications or contests that could be added to this list, please e-mail me with information: denisehill-at-newpages.com

What’s New?! NewPages Updates

New addition to the The NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines:

Beecher’s Magazine Image – poetry, fiction, nonfiction
Clover Image – poetry, fiction
Efiction Notice [O] – serial novels, short stories, plays, essay, poetry, children’s stories
Efiction Notice [O] – poetry, fiction, serial novels, drama, essays, children’s stories
The Fib Review [O] – poetry
New Purlieu Review [O] – poetry, fiction, artwork, photography
Scintilla [O] – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual works
Shot Glass Journal [O] – poetry
Stoneboat Image – poetry, prose
Armchair/Shotgun Image – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual arts
The Coffin Factory Image – poetry, fiction, essays, art, interviews
Little Patuxent Review Image – poetry, prose, visual art
Magnolia Journal Image – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, photography
Matter Journal Image – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, visual art
Phantom Drift Image – poetry, fiction, nonfiction
Vlak Image – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, photography

[O] = mainly online
Image = mainly print

Newly added to the NewPages Guide to Literary Links:
Freshly Hatched – nonfiction
Glimpse – Your stories from abroad
Ray’s Road Review – poetry, fiction
Rufous Salon – flash fiction, poetry, artwork

Newly added to the NewPages Guide to Alternative Magazines:
Autostraddle – news, entertainment, opinion and girl-on-girl culture
Zocalo – connects people to ideas and to each other in an open, accessible, non-partisan and broad-minded spirit

Newly added to NewPages Guide to Independent Publishers & University Presses
ELT Press – academic, nonfiction, literary criticism

New Lit on the Block :: Yew

Edited by designer Stephenie Foster and poet Carolyn Guinzio, Yew: A Journal of Innovative Writing and Images by Women will showcase three writers per month online with visual art provided by the writers, their collaborators, other artists or the editors.

The inaugural issue features Laynie Browne’s poem “An Urgent Walk Across a Moor” paired with Stephenie Foster’s photograph series “Drawn to the Light: Images of Mexico”; Andrea Baker’s work comprised of her own text and images; and Doro Boehme’s text paired with her own photographs.

Upcoming issues will feature writing and art by Maureen Alsop, Rosebud Ben-oni, Carol Berg, Grace Cavalieri, Jeri Coppola, Carolina Ebeid, Merlin Flower, Michaela Gabriel, Anne Gorrick, Endi Bogue Hartigan, Rebecca Gayle Howell, Megan Kaminski, Genevieve Kaplan, Deborah Poe, Maritza Ranero, Petra Whitaker, Marcela Sulak, and Carol Szamatowicz.

Yew welcomes submissions of poetry, hybrid writing, photography, or other visual art via email.

Lit Mags Gone Gorgeous :: South Dakota Review

Part of what makes the newest issue of South Dakota Review so stunning, in addition to the cover art by Oscar Howe (and design by Holly Baker) is the fact that the magazine changed its format to a luxurious 9×9, which allows two columns to ease the prose and wide margins to frame poetry.

Professor of English, Director of Creative Writing at The University of South Dakota, and now the new Editor-in-Chief of SDR, Lee Ann Roripaugh says the format change is permanent: “Our former editor, Brian Bedard, retired from USD this past spring, and I subsequently inherited the editorship of SDR. While I definitely wanted to retain the unique flavor of South Dakota Review, particularly with respect to its longstanding commitment to explorations of place/space/landscape and support of place-based and indigenous writers, I also wanted to both complicate these explorations, as well as contextualize them within larger national and even global literary contexts. Our goal is to broaden the aesthetic and cultural scope of the magazine in eclectically exciting ways, and broadening this conversation, to my mind, also included broadening the design. In particular, I wanted a larger page to allow for more possibilities in terms of framing and accommodating a wider variety of poems. Also, with the proliferation of so many excellent electronic magazines, it seems that if one is going to do a print magazine, the magazine should take delight in the sensuous and aesthetic pleasures of its own ‘printishness.'”

Mission accomplished SDR.

New Lit on the Block :: scissor and spackle

Jenny Catlin, Founder/Editor In Cheif, and Matt Schmid, Editor, bring readers scissors and spackle an online publication with a print companion, both available on the twenty-third of each month.

Issue II includes poetry and fiction Adrian Mitchell, Alex Schillinger, Anja Vikarma, Ariana D. Den Bleyker, Carla Sarett, Chris Castle, Cody Deitz, Corey Mertes, D.G. Bracey, Dennis Nau, DJ Swykert, Donna d. Vitucci, John Fields, Josh Goller, Kaydi Johnson, Laura LeHew, M.P. Powers, Mark.Farrell, Mather Schneider, Robert Kulesz, Robert Levin, Sandra K. Woodiwiss, Steven Finkelstein, Tim Schumacher, and Wendy Bradley, as well as the photo essay “Making of the Gods: Snippets of the life and craft of the god makers of Kumortuli as seen and felt by Anurima Das and Saikat Sengupta.”

scissors and spackle is open for submissions of comics, short stories, poetry, art, photography, erotica, genera-fiction, audio, and video.

Lit Med Database


Literature, Arts, and Medicine
This site, sposored by NYU, is a resource I keep coming across in my research. Time and again, when working on analysis of literature, this site pops up, and I have found it immensely helpful in guiding some of my work. Specifically, “The Literature, Arts, & Medicine Database is an annotated multimedia listing of prose, poetry, film, video and art that was developed to be a dynamic, accessible, comprehensive resource for teaching and research in MEDICAL HUMANITIES, and for use in health/pre-health, graduate and undergraduate liberal arts and social science settings.”

Fine for med students, as a lit student/teacher, this site works great for me! Each entry specifies genre (including medium for art), keywords (which help direct analysis from a medical perspective and are linked to others with the same theme), summary and commentary. Bibliographic information is also provided.

Narrative Medicine

Two related pieces from MedPage Today:

A Love Story, in Print and in the Clinic
Kistina Fiore’s special report on the practice of medical professionals and writing. Includes interviews with editors and contributors from The Healing Muse, Bellevue Literary Review, Ars Medica, Creative Nonfiction, and Third Space. Also includes a video interview with BLR’s publisher, Dr. Martin Blaser.

Fiore writes: “Physicians are, by virtue of their profession, enmeshed in the human condition, so it’s not surprising that many are drawn to literature…Moreover, there is an increasing recognition of the value of the reflective process involved in writing as a means of honing a healer’s skill.”

Narrative Medicine and the Godfather

An excerpt from Kristina Fiore’s interview with Lee Gutkind.

New Lit on the Block :: Aesthetix

Aesthetix is a new online poetry publication with a unique approach: poets are required to write a poem using one specific title per issue. According to the editor, “This results in a really interesting variety of approaches to a subject (‘aesthetix’) juxtaposed in ways that are not common in the average poetry journal.”

The first issue, “Red Car in the Future,” includes works by Seth Landman, Wendy Xu, Sean Williams, Rob MacDonald, Adam Clay, Ed Haworth Hoeppner, Matt Anserello, Parker Tettleton, Nick Lantz, B. Medrev, John Gallaher, Nick Sturm, Matthew Henriksen, Kimiko Hahn, JoAnna Novak, and Elisabeth Workman.

Aesthetix will post one featured title quarterly for submission consideration. Submissions accepted from new and established writers, with a particular interest in publishing long poems, collaborative poems, poems with nontext elements, poems by children, and poems by non-poets.

New Lit on the Block :: ffrrfr

Jim Cole is founder and editor and Ana Machuca the fiction editor of the newly launched ffrrfr, an online and “occasional print journal” of short fiction devoted to “creative storytelling and intriguing uses of language.”

The first issue features works by Miranda Mellis and David-Glen Smith along with an interview with each.

ffrrfr is accepting submissions for their winter 2011-12 issue through November 30. ffrrfr us “open to all styles” and is “most interested in writers who are doing interesting things with language, such as the use of Oulipian constraints.”

Six Poets on Six Movies

Issue #10 of New Ohio Review includes a section in which six poets were asked to write about movies that had a particular impact on them. Claudia Rankine writes about 35 Shots of Rum, Jeffrey Harrison about Antonioni’s The Passenger, George Bilgere about No Country for Old Men, Lloyd Schwartz about Angel by German-born director Ernst Lubitsch, Laurence Goldstein about the 1946 film Tomorrow if Forever, and Linda Bamber about the 2011 documentary Long Night’s Journey Into Day.

PEN’s Prison Writing Fundraiser

Breakout: Voices from Inside
The 2011 PEN Prison Writing Program Fundraiser

With Cara Benson, Hettie Jones, Claudia Menza, Marie Ponsot, Susan Rosenberg, Jackson Taylor, John Paul Infante, Randall Horton, and other special guests

Join PEN Members and special guests for a reading of award-winning prose and poetry from the PEN Prison Writing Contest. Proceeds from the event help ensure that PEN’s hallmark program continues to promote the restorative and rehabilitative power of writing by providing hundreds of inmates with skilled writing mentors, free Handbooks for Writers in Prison, and a forum where inmates are encouraged to use the written word as a legitimate form of power.

This event will feature a special reading of poems and prose by incarcerated men and women everywhere from El Paso to Riker’s Island, from Ft. Leavenworth to San Diego.

When: Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Where: The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York City
What time: 7 p.m.
Tickets: $25. Purchase online or e-mail [email protected]

**If you can’t attend, please sponsor an MFA writing student to go in your place.**

In 2011, PEN’s Prison Writing Program:
• Distributed more than 8,000 copies of the PEN Handbook for Writers in Prison free of charge to men and women serving sentences throughout the United States
• Connected over 100 mentors with writers in prison for one-on-one instruction
• Judged over 1,500 manuscripts in our Prison Writing Contest
• Reprinted an Anthology Doing Time, with a new forward

New Lit on the Block :: Magnolia

Published by the Institute of Arts and Social Engagement, Magnolia: A Journal of Women’s Literature publishes “socially engaged works of fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry that interact with and challenge social injustices of our time.”

Misty Ericson, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of HerCircleEzine.com, an online portal of women’s creative arts and activism, writes in the journal’s foreword: “Magnolia: A Journal of Women’s Literature, and its precursor, HerCircleEzine.com, were established in an effort to bridge the gap created by both political and market censorship, as a space wherein women can speak freely the truth of female experience, to draw our attention to the atrocities of our world, and to act as catalysts for social, cultural, and political change.”

With selections chosen and introduced by Gayle Brandeis, Volume One features works by Mary Akers, Andrea Berthot, Lorraine Caputo, Stephanie Dickinson, Bonnie Fortune, Ana Garza G’z, Eliza Kellley, Kathleen Kirkm Sari Krosinsky, Peggy Landsman, Simone Martel, Adriana Paramo, Carol Smallwood, Sami Schalk, Jill Stukenberg, Sheila Thorne, and Linda Whittenberg.

Submissions for this annual print publication are accepted from September – December. See the magazine’s website for full guidelines.

New Lit on the Block :: Armchair/Shotgun

John Cusick, Laura McMillan, Adam Read-Brown, and Evan Simko-Bednarski make up the editorial board at Armchair/Shotgun, a print journal of poetry, fiction, non-fiction and visual arts “published occasionally, and for good reason.”

Currently in its second issue, Armchair/Shotgun features works by Zachary White, Brian Morrison, Kimberly Grey, Marvin Shackelford, Sono Osato, Sarah Kate Levy, Alanna Bailey, Kevin Brown, Alicia Dreilinger, Cory Schubert, Kevin Dugan, Matthew Montesano, Cecilia Galarraga, and Jackson Culpepper.

Armchair/Shotgun accepts submissions “on real honest-to-goodness paper” and professes to “not care about your bio. We read all submissions anonymously, and conceal even an author’s name until a piece has been selected for publication. We feel that good writing does not know one MFA program from another. It does not know a PhD from a high school drop-out. Good writing does not know your interstate exit or your subway stop, and it does not care what you’ve written before. Good writing knows only story.”

Arkansas Review: 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement

The Summer/August 2011 issue of Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies, commemorates Civil Rights Activism in Arkansas. Induced in the issue are the articles: “Battle Cry of Freedom: Little Rock, Arkansas, and the Freedom Rides at Fifty” by John A. Kirk, “‘We Became Radicalized by What We Experienced’: Excerpts from an Interview with William (Bill) Hansen, Director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s Arkansas Project, July 22, 1997” by Jennifer Jensen Wallach, and “Why the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement is More Important than the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War” a panel discussion with John A. Kirk, Grif Stockley, and Spirit Trickey.

New Lit on the Block :: The Coffin Factory

Published & Edited by Laura Isaacman & Randy Rosenthal, with Managing Editors Brendan Kiely & Jessie Chaffee, and Editorial Assistants Darcey Glasser, Jessica Kagansky, and Leah Clancy, The Coffin Factory intends to serve as “a nexus between readers, writers, and the book publishing industry” and to “provide great literature and art to people who love books, including those who do not usually read literary magazines.” The Coffin Factory publishes fiction, essays, and art three times a year in print.

The inaugural issue features written works by Roberto Bola

NOR Contest Winners

The Fall 2011 (#10) issue of New Ohio Review includes their 2011 Contest Winners. The poetry winners, selected by Nancy Eimers, are Julie Hanson (“A Mile In”), awarded first prize of $1,500; and Angie Mazakis (“Pretending to be Asleep” and “Owen and Paul”), awarded second prize of $500. The fiction winners, selected by Don De Grazia, are Daniel Larkins (“The Rush of Losing”), awarded first prize of $1,500; and Emily Nagin (“The Truest Thing”) awarded second prize of $500.

Dear Prudence

Dear Prudence: New & Selected Poems, the latest work by poet and Columbia College Chicago professor David Trinidad, collects new poems and selections from over a thirty-year publishing history, including most recently By Myself (with D.A. Powell, 2009), Tiny Moon Notebook (2007), and The Late Show (2007). In 2000, he was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for his collection Plasticville. The scope of Dear Prudence allows readers unfamiliar with Trinidad’s work a thorough introduction; those familiar with his work will find an indispensable exploration of the poet’s task of collecting, arranging and remembering. Continue reading “Dear Prudence”

The Year Book

Boston area poet Doug Holder noted the recent death of Hugh Fox with a blog post in which he remarks, “Whatever you say about Fox, he wasn’t a cliché of a man—he was a total original. He was a PhD with a big disdain for the academy; his breadth of knowledge left me breathless; he could be incredibly kind and incredibly rude, but I loved him warts and all.” He continues a little further on, “I asked Fox a few years ago what he would like to be remembered for. He told me: ‘That I reminded people to take a close look and engage the world around them.’ Fox took it all in: from sex, the Aztecs, religion, the meaning of being, the meaning of meaning…you name it.” On all these counts, The Year Book doesn’t disappoint. Continue reading “The Year Book”

South of Superior

Ellen Airgood’s debut novel South of Superior is categorized first under “self-realization in women” and secondly under “Michigan Fiction.” Such categories never tell the full story. Certainly there is a female main character, but she is for much of the book unsympathetic and certainly not a superwoman, and the novel’s delight is in the realism of all the vividly portrayed characters and of Michigan life in a place like Grand Marais, here renamed McAllaster. All Michiganders (not just women) should relish this book for the reliving of this state’s recognizable features and lifestyles.

Continue reading “South of Superior”

The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree

In the fall of 2004, I attended a faculty reading at Sarah Lawrence College featuring Kevin Pilkington. I can still hear Kevin’s voice tenderly describing how his niece helped him look for “poet trees,” after they drank a glass of “apple spider.” This poem, aptly titled “Apple Spider,” is from Pilkington’s 2004 collection Ready to Eat the Sky. Far from being trite and sentimental, this poem captures the magical essence of childhood innocence in a sincere narrative that exemplifies Pilkington’s ability to convey the extraordinary beauty and revelation inherent in ordinary life. His new volume, The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree, continues to express Pilkington’s trademark emotional clarity, as is evident from the heartfelt simplicity of the last lines of “A View From Here,” in which Pilkington sits alone with his wife on a pier: Continue reading “The Unemployed Man Who Became a Tree”

Loving Longing Leaving

Lindy is married to Hugh. They live in the Midwest. Adam is married to Jan. They live in Brooklyn. Lindy and Adam have resumed their affair that began in Manhattan and ended when Hugh took over his family’s bicycle business. Jan and Hugh know what’s going on but there are careers, children, and, most importantly, routines to consider. Routines that hurt rather than ease. Continue reading “Loving Longing Leaving”

By Kelman Out of Pessoa

Doug Nufer makes me wish I knew more about horse racing because if I was more knowledgeable about horse races and the art of betting on this sport, I’d get so much more from By Kelman Out of Pessoa. As book 4 of 5 in the TrenchArt Recon Series, Nufer’s novel swings a wide arc of gambled characters and the throw of the die, using a backdrop of gaming as the setting of the novel as well as a means to writing it, a sleight of hand best described by the editors of Les Figues Press: Continue reading “By Kelman Out of Pessoa”

Ghost Writers: Us Haunting Them

When we think about North American geography and ghost stories, the Midwest United States feels somewhat lacking. Maybe that’s because we think of the region historically as merely a way toward somewhere else, and thus any good haunting it might have acquired also feels ephemeral. Ghosts also require a decent amount of tragedy. The East has its colonies and its Puritanical roots based in part on superstitions. The South, of course, has its own tragic pillar of slavery and its gothic aftermath. Even the West has plenty of dead and displaced Native Americans. So the Midwest would seem to need its own man-made disaster to birth some spirits. Continue reading “Ghost Writers: Us Haunting Them”

In the Carnival of Breathing

Lisa Fay Coutley’s most recent chapbook highlights numerous poems published in an array of literary magazines. Within each poem, the ideas are very fragmented; however, Coutley weaves them together so that each idea feeds from the one that precedes it. While there may be an overall theme, no poem constricts to one image; instead, she creates a collage of images to support a theme. For example, in her poem “After the Fire”: Continue reading “In the Carnival of Breathing”

You Need a Schoolhouse

In Memphis, Tennessee, where I live, the evidence is abundant that our country has not yet achieved racial equality. African Americans make up 61% of the metropolis’ population, and a recent report revealed that 24% of the population lives below the poverty level. Stephanie Deutsch’s You Need a Schoolhouse reminds us that, although we have a long way to go to achieve equality, our country has made notable strides in the 146 years since the end of the Civil War. Continue reading “You Need a Schoolhouse”

Afterglow / Tras el Rayo

This is the first full collection of poetry by Alberto Blanco to appear in a bilingual edition in the United States. While his reputation in his native Mexico and abroad is well established, here in the States, aside from receiving significant university appointments, he’s relatively less known. Bitter Oleander Press and translator Jennifer Rathbun are out to change that. Continue reading “Afterglow / Tras el Rayo”

Vertical Motion

Chinese writer Can Xue’s short story collection Vertical Motion captures dream/nightscapes like Steven Milhauser and the surreal like Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. The short stories do reflect real life in activities and mostly relationships, but as she says in one of her stories, “Fantasy is still the way we do things best,” which seems to mean through fantastical experiences people improve. Thus each story explores a “new realm of imagination.” Continue reading “Vertical Motion”

Calyx of Teversall

Calyx of Teversall will entice you from the first sentence to the very last. Maia Appleby’s prose ensnares the reader in a fictional world that is both interesting and realistic at the same time. She plays off of what the young reader is already familiar with in order to structure this fantasy world full of gnomes and elves. In the beginning, we learn that Sigrid is recently widowed and struggling to make ends meet. Her husband maintained a wheat field that she now undertakes, and her three-year-old son Charlie braids the wheat. When Fenbeck, secretly a Borgh Elf, arrives and strikes a deal, Sigrid has no choice but to accept. Fenbeck magically turns many times the normal crop yield and accepts no payment but asserts that Charlie must work for him when he turns nine for one year. Continue reading “Calyx of Teversall”