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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!

Request for Small Press Display Books

A letter from Natalija & Ognjen, curators of an upcoming small press book exhibit in Croatia seeking U.S. participation:

Dear colleagues,

we would like to invite you and your press to participate in an exhibition that would present independent US presses and their editions to the literary public, but also to translators, editors, critics, and literary scholars of Croatia and the neighboring region.

This exhibition (IamN – Izlozba americkih nakladnika / Exhibition of American Independent Presses) will be organized under the auspices of ZVONA i NARI (Bells & Pomegranates) Library and Literary Retreat, and curated by us, Natalija Grgorinic & Ognjen Raden.

ZVONA i NARI is a recently founded non-profit organization based in Liznjan, Croatia with a goal of promoting literary communication across the geographical borders (more information, albeit still only in Croatian, is available at www.zvonainari.hr). The two of us are writers, writing and publishing both in Croatian and English, graduates of Otis College’s MFA Writing Program (Los Angeles, CA), who have just earned a PhD in Literature at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH.

Having spent the better part of the past eight years in the US, we have become well acquainted with its literary scene, especially the independent one, and have for some time been aware of how little of that scene is noticed outside of the US borders. Unfortunately, the only literature that ever gets registered on an international scale is the one that gets picked up by commercial, corporate publishers, which, in our view, accounts for a very bland picture of what American literature is about.

Hence, by organizing this exhibition, we hope to offer local Croatian translators and publishers a deeper insight into current US literary trends and potentially establish new routes for literary dialogue and exchange. To participate in this exhibition all you have to do is send us at least one copy of each title you would like us to present. We encourage you to send primarily poetry and prose (meaning fiction and literature-oriented essays) of American writers. Please, accompany your books with any information you find relevant, either in regards to the authors or your press.

Depending on the number of books we receive for the exhibition, by October 2011 we will compile both digital and print catalogues, we will present the exhibition to the general public in participating public libraries in Croatia as well as the region, and will keep the books at our library in Liznjan making them permanently accessible to translators, publishers, and literary scholars who will stay at our literary retreat.

Here we need to emphasize that programs organized by ZVONA i NARI are absolutely free to the public: writers, translators, editors, critics, indeed all active participants in the world of literature. In fact, should you or any of your authors want to visit us, we would be more than happy to present your press and your work. Unfortunately, at this time, we still have no means of covering our guests’ travel expenses – our retreat offers free accommodation and logistical support to visiting writers.

For further information, regarding the exhibition, our literary retreat, or any other matter, contact us at: [email protected] or + 385 52 540 642.

You can send your entries for the exhibition to:

ZVONA i NARI

(for IamN)

Liznjan 840 B

52204 Liznjan

Croatia – Hrvatska

Should you decide to participate, do inform us of your decision by email so that we are aware of your entry, and that we are able to better organize our activities regarding the exhibition.

If, however, you find you have no interest in presenting your titles in this way or at this time, but have other projects we could help you with, please, remain in contact.

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,

Natalija Grgorinic & Ognjen Raden

www.zvonainari.hr

Think Symposium on Forum

The most recent issue of Think Journal (3.4) is dedicated to the Symposium: What We Talk About When We Talk About Form. “This is a round-table discussion conducted between March and May, 2011, among Ernest Hilbert, Julie Kane, Kate Northrop, David J. Rothman (co-moderator), David Sanders, Timothy Steele, Marilyn Taylor, Deborah Warren, James Matthew Wilson, with Christine Yurick as the moderator. Simon Jarvis and Tom Cable were asked to comment on the discussion in its entirety and their responses are included as an epilogue.”

New Lit on the Block :: Inlandia

In an effort to spotlight the Inland Southern California region’s rich literary heritage, Inlandia: A Literary Journey features regionally-focused poems, stories, essays, memoir, novel excerpts, book reviews, interviews, and a rotating feature of work produced by participants from the Inlandia Creative Writing Workshops series.

The editorial staff is made up of: Cati Porter, Editor-in-Chief; Maureen Alsop, Associate Editor, Poetry; Jo Scott-Coe, Associate Editor, Nonfiction; Gayle Brandeis, Associate Editor, Fiction; and Ruth Nolan, Associate Editor, Fiction.

The first issues available online include fiction by Kate Anger, Rebecca K. O’Connor, Samantha Lamph, Rayme Waters, E.J. Jones, and Valerie Henderson; poetry by Nicelle Davis, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, Stephanie Barbé Hammer, Gregory Liffick, Louise Mathias, Jeff Mays, Shin Yu Pai, Jean Waggoner, Cynthia Anderson, Nancy Scott Campbell, Marcyn Clements, Mike Cluff, Rachelle Cruz, Sheela Free, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, Cindy Rinne, and Ash Russell; nonfiction by Judy Kronenfeld, as well as Inlandia Creative Writing Workshop Features.

Inlandia reads submissions year-round.

New Lit on the Block :: Adanna

Adanna: A Journal for Women, about Women was created by Editor Christine Redman-Waldeyer as a way that she, a mother of three with a teaching career, could “pursue the writing life without traveling.” Her lifetime of wanting “to be utterly female and to do what the boys could do” is also in the philosophy of creating a magazine open to all, but that specifically “celebrate[s] the lives and writing of women.” Redman-Waldeyer hopes that Adanna will “offer women a new opportunity to publish in a publishing world where the gender scales are too often unfavorably tilted.”

The next submission period for Issue #2 is January 31-April 30, 2012, but Adanna is currently accepting “love poetry” for a contest. The 50 poems selected will be published in a perfect-bound print edition.

The inaugural issue of Adanna is guest edited by Diane Lockward, and includes the following contributors:

POETRY
Jennifer Arin, Janet A. Baker, Carol Berg, Kristin Berkey-Abbott, Pam Bernard, Debra Bruce, Sarah Busse, Laura Cherry, Laura E. Davis, Jessica G. de Koninck, Erika Dreifus, George Drew, Lois Parker Edstrom, Susan V. Facknitz, Patricia Fargnoli, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Alice B. Fogel, Ruth Foley, Maria Gillan, Maryanne Hannan, Penny Harter, Ann Hostetler, Adele Kenny, Claire Keyes, Kathleen Kirk, Jacqueline Kolosov, Judy Kronenfeld, Michelle Lerner, Robin Lim, Diane Lockward, Sandy Longhorn, Angie Macri, Marjorie Maddox, Greg McBride, Judith H. Montgomery, Julie L. Moore, Jim O’Rourke, Connie Post, Susanna Rich, Helen Ruggieri, Judith Skillman, Sarah J. Sloat, Molly Spencer, Christine Stewart-Nunez, Madeline Tiger, Ingrid Wendt, Laura S. Whalen, TJ Wiley, Lisa Zimmerman

SHORT STORIES
Margo Berdeshevsky, Colleen S. Harris, Liesl Jobson, Lani Friend, Nwamaka Osakwe, Pramila Venkateswaran

CREATIVE NON‐FICTION
Jessica McCaughey, Yelizaveta P. Renfro

ESSAY
Beatrice M. Hogg

Memoir (and) Prize Winners

The Memoir (and) Prizes for Memoir in Prose or Poetry are awarded to the most outstanding prose or poetry memoirs—traditional, nontraditional or experimental—drawn from the submission period.

Issue 8 (2011) of Memoir (and) awarded Grand Prize to David Norman, “Flight Patterns”; Second Prize to Charles Atkinson, “Passing Bell for Kobun Chino, Sensie”; and Third Prize to William Caverlee, “Longleaf Parish.” Each contributor receives a cash award in addition to publication.

The submission period for Issue 10 is now open and will close at noon Pacific time, August 16, 2011.

Michael Redhill Steps Down

Michael Redhill will step down as proprietor and publisher of Brick effective with the publication of the current issue (87). In his introduction to the issue, Redhill explains that he will still be with the magazine as part of an editorial/ownership collective which also includes Michael Helm, Michael Ondaatje, Esta Spalding, Linda Spalding, and Rebecca Silver Slayter.

Redhill imparts some of what he has learned from his having “been involved with Brick, in one form or another, for much of [his] adult life.” He writes:

This is the eighty-seventh issue of Brick, a small Canadian literary journal that has existed for thirty-three years and, at any given time, has never had more than 2.5 employees. As a business model, Brick could be in MBA textbooks as an example of what not to do. A small cultural concern is about the worst kind of business you could have: humans may begin to die from the moment they’re born, but arts businesses need daily resuscitation from the moment of inception. Innovation, legwork, networking, enthusiasm, and a refusal to be surprised by disaster are just a few things you need to make a go of it. And success is not expressed in profit, or even survival. Success for something like Brick is simply being able to play a meaningful role in a time and place, be part of a conversation, and stick around at least long enough to be taken seriously. In that regard, Brick has been a smashing success and all signs point to it continuing to succeed for many years to come.

Cooking in Rome with Alimentum

Cook & Tour in Rome, Italy w/ Alimentum Publisher Paulette Licitra
October 11-17, 2011

Shop at the outdoor food markets, small food shops, Roman supermarkets and bring the bounty back to a fabulous apartment in the historic center of Rome to cook and dine.

Tour Rome’s best of best places: Piazza Navona, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Capitoline Hill, Coliseum, St. Peter’s, Teatro Marcellus, Bocca di Verita, and more, plus great neighborhoods for shopping: boutiques, flea markets, and department stores.

Vote: Million Writers Award 2011

The storySouth Million Writers Award is for any fictional short story of at least a 1,000 words first published in an online publication during 2010. “Publication” means any magazine or journal with an editorial process (so self-published stories are not eligible). The deadline for nominations was March 15, 2011. The list of notable stories of the year was released on April 17, 2011, and the top ten stories were released on June 6.

NewPages Reviewer Henry Tonn offered his own take on the selections before they went to Sanford and two other judges to choose the final ten.

Voting on the top stories of the year will last for one month after the top ten stories are released, so the rest is up to you! Visit storySouth Million Writers Award page by July 6 to read and vote on the following top ten online stories of 2011:

“Hell Dogs” by Daphne Buter (FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry)
“Arvies” by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine)
“The Green Book” by Amal El-Mohtar (Apex Magazine)
“Do You Have a Place for Me” by Roxane Gay (Spork Press)
“Here is David, the Greatest of Descendants” by Spencer Kealamakia (Anderbo)
“The Incorrupt Body of Carlo Busso” by Eric Maroney (Eclectica)
“Cancer Party” by Nicola Mason (Blackbird)
“Arthur Arellano” by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Narrative Magazine)
“Elegy for a Young Elk” by Hannu Rajaniemi (Subterranean Magazine)
“Most of Them Would Follow Wandering Fires” by Amber Sparks (Barrelhouse)

EdgePiece Promises to Work With You

Just when I thought I’d heard it all (sometimes over and over), along comes a whole new and ambitiously innovative new publication. Still in the submission stage for its inaugural issue, EdgePiece is a collective of “emerging editors launching emerging writers.”

The editors include Head Editor Sarah Lindsay, Readers and Developmental Editors Sarah Lucas, Dakota Morgan, Pamela S. Wall, Katie Damphousse, Max Pickering, and Copy Editor Pamela S. Wall.

The editorial process, and the use of “developmental editors” means the editors will work with authors to help them polish their work to prepare them for publication: “We edit for spelling, grammar and in some cases, clarity/strength of arguments/purpose. We do NOT touch the author/artist’s voice, vision, or personal style, and we never fully reject a piece. We suggest improvements and encourage the author/artist to resubmit, for we are capable of seeing the potential in all submissions we receive.”

EdgePiece is currently “hungry” for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, with consideration for book/essay/poetry/film reviews, photography and other graphic/visual art for their first tri-annual issue.

Interviews: Amy Chua and Jessica Hagedorn

Kartika Review, a national Asian American literary arts journal, recently published Issue 9 for Spring 2011. The issue features two author interviews, with Amy Chua on her memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and Jessica Hagedorn on her novel Toxicology. Kartika Review is available in print as well as online.

New Lit on the Block :: Fjords

Editors John Gosslee and Sarah Gallagher, along with a full staff, bring forth Fjords, a full-color, print annual “comprised of new cultural developments in art and literature,” featuring fiction, poetry, photography, visual art, new voices, authoritative figures, occasional biographies, interviews and film reviews.

The editors both solicit works from writers and artists, but maintain an open submission policy, “which creates a diverse collection of regional and international works from different eras, movements, and languages.” In addition to the print publication, Fjords also publishes some of its authors in a strictly audio format, which can be found on their website.

Included in the first print edition: poems by Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Corey Mesler, Olympia Sibley, Juliana Kocsis, J. J. Steinfeld, and 20th Century Ukrainian Poet Pavlo Tychyna translated by Stephen Komarnyckyj; the article “Ecclesiastic: a Font Orphan: Typographer Ed Edman restores a Font” by John Gosslee; prose by Judy Light Ayyildiz, Stephen Wade; art by Clay Witt and Suzun Hughes.

Fjords‘s next deadline for submissions is August 1, 2011

Publications :: Public Knowledge

Public Knowledge Journal is a multidisciplinary, graduate student-run, electronic journal hosted by the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture at Virginia Tech (ISSN 1948-3511). The journal incorporates a variety of communication technologies to sustain a conversation about the topics and questions raised in each issue. The journal welcomes contributions of articles for peer review, as well as book reviews, essays, interviews, and other works using a variety of media.

Public Knowledge Journal seeks articles, book reviews, essays, interviews, and multimedia submissions for Volume 3, Issue 2, on Academic Research. The deadline for scholarly articles and book reviews is September 1, 2011. Non-peer-reviewed and multimedia work will be considered throughout the lifespan of the issue.

NewPages Updates :: June 21, 2011

Added to NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines
Timber – poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, digital lit
Tulane Review – poetry, fiction, artwork
Caesura – poetry
bottle rocket – haiku, senryu, tanka, haibun
Thoughtsmith – poetry, prose, drama, articles, essays, critiques, photography, digital art
5 Chapters
Doorknobs & BodyPaint – fiction, poetry, essay, reviews
Calibanonlione – online poetry, fiction, art, music, art video
Narwhal – fiction
Tak’til – poetry, fiction, non-fiction, art
The Quotable – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, photography
C4 – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, digital art
Entasis – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, photography
The White Review – (UK) poetry, fiction, nonfiction, essays, politics, culture, translations
Scythe Literary Journal – poetry
Untitled Country Review – poetry, art, book reviews, interview

Added to NewPages Guide to Independent Publishers & University Presses
Ashland Creek Press
Greenpoint Press
Cy Gist Press
Tiny Hardcore Press
Arbutus Press
Infra-Thin Press
Engine Books
One Peace Books

Added to NewPages Guide to Misc Lit Sites and Blogs
The Monarch Review – Seattle’s literary & arts magazine
Red Booth Review – poetry, photography, artwork

April Family Matters Contest Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their April 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 October. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here. First place: Rebecca Podos, of Brookline, MA, wins $1200 for “The Fourth.” Her story will be published in the Fall 2012 issue of Glimmer Train Stories. [Photo credit: Holli Downs.]Second place: Marjorie Celona, of Madison, NY, wins $500 for “Gladstone.” Her story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing her prize to $700.

Third place: Clark Knowles of Portsmouth, NH, wins $300 for “Each Other’s Business.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing his prize to $700.A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.Deadline soon approaching for the Fiction Open: June 30Glimmer 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.

New Managing Editor at Artifice

One of Artifice‘s founding editors, Rebekah Silverman, is leaving the magazine to pursue a position advancement with her job at a nonprofit called Growing Home. James Tad Adcox remains as editor, and Ian McCarty is stepping in as the new managing editor. Apparently “more changes” are afoot, but nothing has yet been revealed.

Chicago Review: New Italian Writing

Chicago Review 56.1 is an issue devoted to New Italian Writing: Poetry, fiction, and criticism translated into English for the first time. Translators include: V. Joshua Adams, Anne Milano Appel, Sarah Arvio, Robert P. Baird, Lisa Barca, Patrick Barron, Jacob Blakesley, Joel Calahan, Maggie Fritz-Morkin, Elizabeth Harris, Chris Glomski, Peter Hainsworth, Laura Modigliani, Dylan J. Montanari, Gianluca Rizzo, Jennifer Scappettone, Dominic Siracusa, Kate Soto, and Paul Vangelisti.

The issue also includes a comprehensive checklist of recent Italian anthologies and letters by Cole Swensen, Kent Johnson, John Gallaher, and Richard Owens in response to Keith Tuma’s essay “After the Bubble” (CR 55-3/4).

A complete list of contents is available on the here.

New Lit on the Block :: The Newtowner

Based out of Newtown, CT with a focus on the local arts community, The Newtowner is also open to and encouraging of national readership and submissions. The quarterly, trade-sized print publication includes fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, essays, features, columns, artwork and photography, cartoons, profiles and interviews with local writers and artists, book reviews, “On the Town” – arts reviews of local theatre, dance, music and arts events, “Off Main St” – cultural events and locations of interest outside our local area, “The Newtowner Book Club” – read along and join discussions online, a directory of local arts and literary groups, and a calendar of local arts and literary events.

The Newtowner also includes “Youth Expressions,” a section of the magazine for young artists, poets and writers and visual artists. Currently, The Newtowner accepts creative nonfiction, fiction, columns, poetry, art and photography mediums from high school- and middle school-aged students.

Founding Editor Georgia Monaghan writes: “Newtown has a unique literary, artistic, and community spirit dating back to the philanthropist Mary Hawley, who laid the foundation for Newtown’s excellence in education and the arts. Boasting an inordinate number of literary and artistic residents both past and present, Newtown continues to act as a magnet, attracting established and emerging writers and artists of every kind. How many small-town libraries have a whole section dedicated to their town’s authors and illustrators? How many towns of this size can boast upwards of twenty book clubs within its borders?”

And now The Newtowner itself can be added to those bragging rights!

Full subscription and submissions guidelines can be found on The Newtowner website.

TLR Goes Emo

“Emo, Meet Hole” is the title of The Literary Review‘s Spring 2011 issue. Editor Minn Proctor writes, “Whether or not I associate emo (acute aesthetic sensitivity disorder coupled with a tendency to self dramatization) with poetry because Lord Byron is an oft-cited progenitor or because my ex-poet-boyfriend liked Morrissey too much, the spectre of a brooding young man with wet eyes and disheveled hair looks quaintly over a certain tenor of literature…and exes, too. Much to my poetry editor’s dismay, I called for an emo-themed issue of TLR. My undergraduate interns thought it was hilariously apropos and everyone else thought I was speaking in tongues. And yet we moved forth.”

The result is the current issue, with poetry, fiction, and essays by over a dozen authors as well as a variety of book reviews. Several pieces are available full-text online: Poetry by Michael Morse, “Void and Compensation (Poem as Aporia Between Lighthouses),” and Michael Homolka, “Thirteenth Birthday”; Fiction by Christine Sneed, “Roger Weber Would Like To Stay”; and an essay by Anthony D’Aries, “The Language of Men.”

[Cover art by Carrie Marill.]

Farid Matuk’s Debut Collection Recognized

Letter Machine Editions celebrates the dual selection of Farid Matuk’s debut collection This Isa Nice Neighborhood for Honorable Mention in the 2011 Arab American Book Awards (administered by the Arab American National Museum) as well as the runner-up for the Norma Farber First Book Award by the Poetry Society of America. This September, Farid will be honored at the Awards Ceremony of the Arab American National Museum in Washington, D.C. In anticipation of this event, Letter Machine Editions is offering copies of the book for $10 postage paid until September 1.

Hollis Summers Poetry Prize Winner

Ohio State University Swallow Press announced the 15th Annual Winner for the 2011 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize winner is Nick Norwood for Gravel and Hawk. Final Judge for the competition was Mark Halliday. This is an annual contest open to both those who have not published a book-length collection and those who have. Deadline is October 31.

New Publication :: Boat Magazine

In the introduction to the inaugural issue of Boat Magazine, Editor Erin Spens writes, “We got a few blank stares when we told people we were picking up our 8-month-old studio and moving it to Sarajevo for a month to make a magazine. We suspected there were a few reasons for the confusion; magazines seem to be a dying art form, moving a brand new business in the middle of a recession is ludicrous, and Sarajevo? Where is Sarajevo? Precisely.”

The concept for Boat Magazine is a fresh one. Travel to “forgotten cities,” dock there for a month and set up a publication studio that pulls together “the most talented people we know; writers, photographers, illustrators, musicians… gave them a blank canvas, and set them loose on the streets” to create a magazine focused on that host city. Sarajevo is their first stop on this new venture.

The magazine features works by Dave Eggers, Jasmin Brutus, Lamija Hadžiosmanović, Ziyah Gafić, Max Knight, Sarah Correia, Jasmin Brutus, Zoë Barker, Davey Spens, Milomir Kovačević, Danis Tanović, Lara Ciarabellini, Bernie Gardner, Enes Zlatar Bure, Jonathan Cherry, Sam Baldwin, Neno Navaković, Agatha A. Nitecka, and Sophie Cooke.

Able Muse – Winter 2010

In the inaugural print edition of Able Muse, Marilyn N. Taylor’s essay on the recent rise of semi-formal poetry, mentions “the poetry wars” between “the shaggy free-verse stalwarts vs. the tweedy New Formalists.” It’s nice to see that the new New Formalist critics published in Able Muse definitely do not write in a tweedy style, as evidenced by Taylor’s piece and Julie Stoner’s review of new books by Maxime Kumin and Carrie Jewell, which begins “After the Revival…reminds me of an after-school snack. I enjoyed the combination of salt and crunch and grease and hellfire and cheese, even if I had to overcome the occasional wave of nausea. (I’m still referring to the book.)” Continue reading “Able Muse – Winter 2010”

Black Warrior Review – Spring/Summer 2011

The Spring/Summer Issue of Black Warrior Review, featuring Graham Foust, Aaron Kunin, Bhanu Kapil, Sarah Gridley, Joshua Cohen, Megan Volpert, and many other fine writers, is difficult not to pick up and thumb through. The ritualistic cover art gets the issue going: two guys, two girls, all with skeleton heads, watching a horse as it is either pulled into the sky or brought down from it. More in this series by Joseph McVetty can be found later in the issue, in the Nudity Feature. Continue reading “Black Warrior Review – Spring/Summer 2011”

Cave Wall – Winter/Spring 2011

In his Editor’s Note, Rhett Trull explains that, while she has “learned the patience, struggle and mercy of a body as it heals,” she recognizes—in the dying of Pita, her 20-year-old cat—that “one day” we will “reach a point past healing.” As a result, “My appreciation for each moment,” she says, has been “reinforced” by the poems she helped select for this issue. The poems, lyric and narrative, feature speakers whose distance from the poets seems slight. Continue reading “Cave Wall – Winter/Spring 2011”

The Georgia Review – Spring 2011

Wow, this issue of Georgia Review is a true literary bonanza! Subtitled “A Home in Other People,” the issue offers a broad retrospective of selected stories and art from 1984 to 2007. This is the second retrospective that the Review has done; the first one came out in 1986, and now the staff is both celebrating the 25th anniversary of that first retrospective, in addition to marking the start of the Review’s 65th year. Continue reading “The Georgia Review – Spring 2011”

The Greensboro Review – Spring 2011

Fiction rules in this issue of the Greensboro Review. Not to say that the poetry failed to capture my attention, but the stellar stories strung together here hooked me from the first, “The Drift Line” by Charlotte O’Donnell. It’s a tale of preteen female friendship, with the complexities of that friendship’s dynamics laid bare on a rocky shoreline: Continue reading “The Greensboro Review – Spring 2011”

PANK – 2011

If the unsettling cover art is meant to hint at the contents of this thick annual print issue of PANK, I’m at a loss as to the meaning of the hint, even after reading through to the very end. I’m not sure if that says more about the nature of the artwork, or the disparity of the work within. The pages hold prose poetry, visual poetry, and flash fiction, as well as more traditional poetry forms and longer short stories, and virtually everything in between. In the truly liberating fashion of contemporary experimental literature, PANK does not require its writers to classify their work, or if it does, it chooses not to disclose those labels within its table of contents. This can be refreshing, or occasionally annoying. Continue reading “PANK – 2011”

Potomac Review – Spring 2011

This journal is a joy, and my only critique is that it’s not pages and pages longer! I found Ted Kooser’s “A Farmhouse in Winter” instantly. This edition opened to this poem, as though I were assigned to encounter a chilly personality, first. As one who worships summer heat, I forgot that when I read, “It’s taken weeks but at last the cold / that poured down out of Alberta / has found its way into the old rock cellar / and up the steps to the kitchen door.” This spirit drifts into homely, hidden spaces, and somehow is expected. All is well. Are those “shelves of canned tomatoes” and “dusty rags of cobweb” prepared to move aside for this icy, temporary guest Kooser’s touch is simple, not simplistic. How I cherish the sweet power of image at the end! Continue reading “Potomac Review – Spring 2011”

The Southern Review – Spring 2011

Admittedly, I was a bit tentative when I began reading the latest issue of The Southern Review. When I hear the word “Americana,” its self-proclaimed theme, certain images are conjured—flat beers, hunters waiting in the pre-dawn darkness, the barefoot and pregnant teenage fatherless-yet-sweethearted girl working in a diner on the side of a barren highway—of which I have become a bit tired. Let us call those images shortcomings of my imagination; I had no idea of the depth and variance to the works waiting inside this publication’s pages. Produced by Louisiana State University, it is an engrossing and well-balanced mix of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and photography. Continue reading “The Southern Review – Spring 2011”

Adbusters – May/June 2011

This issue of Adbusters, subtitled POST—with an Arabic word insertion—WEST, is at first glance an irreverent avant-garde (the publishers probably think using avant-garde is passé) mish-mash of advertisements, graphics, photographs, art, essays, book excerpts, observations, and poetry about economics, capitalism, politics, jihad, revolution, militarism, overpopulation, aquaculture, genetic modification, anarchy, and you name it.

Continue reading “Adbusters – May/June 2011”

Social Policy – Spring 2011

Unless one is a regular reader of Social Policy magazine, there may be some confusion, despite Wade Rathke’s “Publisher’s note.” He says the Spring 2011 issue is “in perfect harmony with the heart and spirit needed in these times, despite the challenges of adversity…and challenges of our…heroic strengths and weaknesses.” If Social Policy is “[the] key site for intellectual exchange among progressive academics and activists from across the United States and beyond,” it would be instructive and helpful to say so in the boilerplate masthead or logo. Their website says, “Social Policy seeks to inform and report on the work of labor and community organizers who build union and constituency-based groups, run campaigns, and build movements for social justice, economic equality, and democratic participation in the U.S. and around the world.” Again, why not say so in the magazine? Its cover does include “Organizing for Social and Economic Justice.”

Continue reading “Social Policy – Spring 2011”

The Concession Stand

Arpine Konyalian Grenier’s fourth full-length book, The Concession Stand: Exaptation at the Margins, is a genre-bending collection of what can best be described as lyric essays. In essence, the pieces in this book are enacting the exaptation that they advocate: the exaptation of language to connect with a collective identity, one that allows for new ways of communication that are not hindered by culture/hierarchy/power/history but are inclusive to all. Continue reading “The Concession Stand”

The Convert

Part mystery, biography, memoir, history, narrative nonfiction escapade, Deborah Baker’s The Convert doesn’t fit in any one category. Like its subject, Margaret Marcus/Maryam Jameelah, the book is a misfit. And like creative nonfiction should, it poses questions, and in wrestling with those questions, it jigs loose more questions, bigger questions, questions that tie you in knots, give you an unscratchable itch, or maybe incite you to hurl something not unlike a hardback volume across the room. In any case, it is a book you want to discuss. Continue reading “The Convert”

In Which Brief Stories Are Told

Titling a collection of short stories In Which Brief Stories Are Told may seem rather obvious, but Phillip Sterling’s tales of loss, detachment, and mystery reveal the complications inherent in narrative and character, and call into question the relationship between narrator and audience. Throughout, he brings to life characters we ordinarily might not give a second glance: bystanders and passers-by who, like the reader, catch only glimpses of the greater plot in which they play a role. Continue reading “In Which Brief Stories Are Told”

Curses and Wishes

Curses and Wishes, Carl Adamshick’s award-winning debut collection, is driven by brief retrospective and introspective poems, compacting an overwhelming sense of loss in America. Adamshick at once laments and celebrates different ways of American life, ranging from small-town farms of the Midwest to the international scale of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Following in the tradition of American poetry that engages with the American spirit, Adamshick transfers the fervor of Whitman’s long, sprawling lines into short-lined, energetic poems that make for a fast and invigorating read. Curses and Wishes will entrance any reader with concerns for the fate of the American landscape and its people. Continue reading “Curses and Wishes”

Helsinki

Helsinki, as a collection, almost reads as one long poem. The poems are nearly uniform in length and line-length, all one-stanza, lacking punctuation, title-less. The poems are characterized by their drive, their unceasing motion that sweeps the reader along with it. It is the work of an author with focus; the collection’s themes are primarily on love and war. The love object, a reoccurring character, is Julia. The book first begins with discussing war and death: Continue reading “Helsinki”

Coming from an Off-Key Time

Fallout from a real revolution can be worse than its cause. Mass murder, reckless replacement of proven agrarian practices, and imprisoning the educated are just a few documented aftershocks. Fictional revolutions and their resulting chaos can be equally atrocious, as it is in Bogdan Suceav?‘s Coming from an Off-Key Time. Continue reading “Coming from an Off-Key Time”

Come and See

Fanny Howe’s latest work, Come and See, explores themes of spirituality and war with a concern for children growing up in the midst of war-torn countries. Spirituality, a theme that can be seen in Howe’s work as a whole, rises more in the form of a seeker, one questioning religion, rather than an adherent. Continue reading “Come and See”

The Requited Distance

In Greek mythology, there is perhaps no myth so painfully evocative and morally instructive as that of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus, the brilliant architect of the Minotaur’s labyrinth, constructs wings of feather and wax so that he and his son can escape their imprisonment. They are almost successful, until Icarus, forgetting his father’s warnings, flies too close to the sun and his wings melt, plunging him to his death. Rachel Eliza Griffiths’s The Requited Distance mines this myth, as well as the other stories related to Daedalus, for their rich and mournful underpinnings. Griffiths presents the conception and birth of the Minotaur, the construction of the labyrinth, Daedalus’s attempted murder of his nephew Perdix, and Icarus’s fatal flight through many different eyes (including that of a watching fig tree), capturing profound emotions with her lush descriptions. Throughout, we witness the cost of unwieldy desire and ambition. Continue reading “The Requited Distance”

Silver Sparrow

Atlanta in the late seventies and early eighties, two women, two daughters, one man: such are the major players in Tayari Jones’s Silver Sparrow. Delicate and tender without being cloying, this novel explores not only the strangeness of bigamy but also what it means to be a wife, to be a sister, to be a family. The premise of Jones’s plot is straightforward: James Witherspoon, a black man who runs his own limousine company, has married two women and fathered a daughter with each. Only one wife, Gwen, and her daughter, Dana, know of the existence James’s other family (Laverne, the wife, and Chaurisse, the daughter). Continue reading “Silver Sparrow”