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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!

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”

Leap

Oh, the teenage years. Insecurities, fights between friends, disagreements with parents, first loves, and broken hearts. Leap by Jodi Lundgren has it all and more. Natalie Ferguson is a fifteen-year-old who finds herself battling drugs and drinking, body issues, insecurities about dating, the struggle to hold onto childhood friends all while coping with divorced parents who are ready to move on with their lives. The amount of things on her plate would be overwhelming for anyone and through diary entries the reader goes through it all with her. Natalie’s one savior is her love of dance though she finds herself at odds with her strict dance teacher. While she explores a newfound love of modern dance, Natalie comes into her own and finds confidence in her ability to handle all of the crazy things life has thrown her way. Continue reading “Leap”

The Autobiography of an Execution

In the past decade, death penalty defense lawyers have taken to the practice of outlining the life history of their clients to juries, including the circumstances that led to the murder for which they face death. The goal is the jury’s sympathy, the hope that they might spare them from death. I always wondered about whether these same juries end up with sympathy for the lawyers themselves. A life of death penalty defense, with so many sleepless nights and last-minute scares, often seems like a sadomasochistic, or at the very least, all-consuming career choice. Continue reading “The Autobiography of an Execution”

At the Bureau of Divine Music

Cribbing from Leo Tolstoy, poets of place are all alike in how that particular locale obsesses them, whereas poets from Detroit are uniquely autochthonous. Jim Daniels, Toi Derricotte, Robert Hayden, and Philip Levine are four writers who come to mind, and each wears their (sometimes bittersweet) affection for Detroit like a permanent tattoo. Michael Heffernan, along with the above poets, has spent more time away from his native city than within it, yet no matter where he goes—Kansas, Washington, Ireland, Arkansas—he totes Detroit’s DNA along with him, whether he chooses to or not. Continue reading “At the Bureau of Divine Music”

The Ringer: A Novel

Right off the bat (no pun intended), Jenny Shank’s novel, The Ringer, appealed to me. The story takes place in the Mile High City, Denver, Colorado—a location I still consider to be home even though I haven’t lived there in eight years—and I was looking forward to being transported back to the wide-open skies, to the dry, thin air of the Rockies, and to the familiar sights and streets of my youth. And I wasn’t disappointed. Shank’s sense of place is strong, and throughout the novel I experienced many wonderful moments of nostalgia and recognition—Hey! I’ve eaten at that restaurant! I know that newscaster! I remember the daily, summer thundershowers! Continue reading “The Ringer: A Novel”

The Goodbye Town

Timothy O’Keefe’s The Goodbye Town is brimming with small, intricate images, stacked piecemeal upon one another to create the brilliant and sensuous world of each individual poem. Space is not only put to remarkable use by the poet in a structural sense, but is a complex recurrent theme as well. The occupation of space and—conversely—absence, are ever-present throughout O’Keefe’s work. The poems’ people are shadows and outlines or fleeting memories captivated only by the noises they produce. Continue reading “The Goodbye Town”

New Lit on the Block :: The 22

If there’s one thing the Internet is good for, it’s publishing visual art. And if there’s one magazine that has shown just how great this can be, it’s The 22, a new online magazine based out of Brooklyn, NY.

Simply titled to reflect its content, The 22 features 22 contributors each issue. The magazine’s mission is to “publish art, music and writing as integrated structures that play off each other and enhance the whole.” Editor and publisher, Cat Gilbert says they’re looking for “intriguing art,” poetry, fiction, non-fiction, video, music, animation and more. “The restrictions are few and the work is chosen by the creators or a visiting guest editor.” Some issues will revolve around themes which will be posted in advance. The inaugural issue editors include Gilbert, Contributing Editors Ansel Elkins and Dolores Alfien, with Guest Editor Laura Grandmaison.

The first issue features works by Adriean Auguste Koleric, Alan Bigelow, Andrew Topel, Ansel Elkins, April Gertler, Brian Dettmer, Dolores Alfieri, Douglas Pierre Baulos, Edgar Oliver, Eric Zboya, Erin Snyder, Jeff Burns, John Jennison, Joseba Eskubi, Kate Javens, Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann, Louise Robinson, Max Evry, Michael Babin, Samantha Kostmayer Sulaiman, Threefifty Duo, and Tobias Stretch.

The 22 is currently accepting submissions for their next volume (no theme or restrictions); deadline July 1st.

The 22 is also holding their first annual Bloomsday Contest. Deadline June 14.

[Artwork by Joseba Eskubi.]

Photographs: Entropy by David Perry

David Perry is an inspirational photographer, a willing teacher, and a captivating storyteller who brings the unique insights and skills garnered in his 30 years of professional photography to each new project he encounters. View 12 photographs (with narratives) of entropy in the garden and beyond on Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built and Natural Environment.

Sinister Wisdom: Dykes in Amerika in the 70s

In the editor’s note to the Spring 2011 issue of Sinister Wisdom, Julie R. Enszer comments on attending the October 2010 conference sponsored by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) titled In Amerika They Call Us Dykes: Lesbians in the 70s. This issue is compiled of works from this conference by Agatha Beins, Evelyn Torton Beck, Cheryl Clarke, Madeline Davis, Tucker Pamella Farley, Myriam Fougere, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Patricia A. Gozemba, Jeri Hilderley, Bonnie J. Morris, Amanda Ream, Mimi Iimuro Van Ausdall, Fran Winant, Renee DeLong, Lisa C. Moore and Tiona McClodden.

Enszer writes: “Attending the conference and compiling this issue of Sinister Wisdom, I’ve been thinking about these questions: How do we narrate and share history between generations? How can we pass on traditions, ideas, and values to new generations while still giving younger women the space to experiment and formulate their own traditions, ideas, and values? How do we honor the past and think critically about it as a way to refine our strategies for change? How do we honor the past while still celebrating the current achievements and future dreams of women who have already made extraordinary contributions? Contributors to this issue of Sinister Wisdom grapple with these questions and more.

NewPages Interview with James Engelhardt

Jessica Powers interviews James Engelhardt, [former] editor of Prarie Schooner, in which reveals his enthusiasm for the literary life: “We keep going over the same ground as humans, as writers, the same emotional or intellectual ground — we keep exploring what it means to be human, finding new ways to explore the human condition. You’d think we’d have done that already, that we would know everything there is to know about love, or loss, but we don’t. The world seems to excite the imagination endlessly.”

James also shares the news that he will be leaving Prairie Schooner to take a new position as acquisitions editor with the University of Alaska Press. Kwame Dawes will be the new editor-in-chief with Prairie Schooner beginning this fall.

We wish both the best in their new roles!

On the Freedom to Lit Mag

From Tricia Currans-Sheehan’s Editor’s Note to the 2011 issue of The Briar Cliff Review:

In November I went to Beijing to visit my daughter who was teaching English there. What struck me was the silence about Liu Xiaobo, who had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. There was a disconnect. Here I was in this city of 18 million, near a shopping mall, which was putting up Christmas decorations, selling KFC, Big Macs, and Gucci bags and yet the people didn’t know what was happening in their own country or if they knew they couldn’t talk about it. I wondered how long those Gucci bags would keep them satisfied.

While in Beijing my daughter couldn’t blog, connect to Facebook, YouTube or Twitter and only had access to a censored Google. In The New York Times on January 23, 2011, Nicholas Kristof wrote, “…the Chinese cyberspace remains a proletarian dictatorship. In November the government sent a young woman, Cheng Jianping to labor camp for a year for posting a single mocking sentence.”

The connection between freedom of speech and the press and my job as editor of The Briar Cliff Review was so clear. As editor I read hundreds of manuscripts that cover all topics and issues. If I lived in China, there wouldn’t be a magazine like this.

High Desert Journal Change of Editor

Formerly the assistant editor of High Desert Journal, issue #13 of the publication brings Charles Finn on as editor, with Elizabeth Quinn moving into the newly developed role of managing editor. Finn writes that Elizabeth is “still very much a part of the High Desert Journal. High Desert Journal is her creation, her ‘baby’ as she sometimes calls it and will continue to be so.” The change in roles will allow Elizabeth to “tackle the difficult and necessary job of keeping the magazine financially afloat, arriving on newsstands and in your mailbox twice a year.” With readership and subscriptions on the rise as well as an increase in submissions, the change is a necessary business decision.

Abolish Poetry Book Contests?

From The Huffington Post – Poetry Book Contests Should be Abolished: Why Contests Are the Stupidest Way to Publish First Books, in which Anis Shivani argues (with selected examples from recent contest-winning poetry books) that “the contest system is at least partially responsible for: 1. A halt to aesthetic progression; 2. An encouragement of mediocrity and ambition; and 3. A corruption of the poetic process itself.”

NDQ Looks at Hemingway Then & Now

Volume 76, Numbers 1 & 2 of North Dakota Quarterly is devoted to “Hemingway in His and Our Time” and features the following authors and their works:

H. R. Stoneback
For Whom the Flood Rolls: Ernest Hemingway and Robert Penn Warren—Connections and Echoes, Allusion, and Intertextuality

Ben Stoltzfus
Hemingway’s Iceberg: Camus’ L’Etranger and The Sun Also Rises

Jeffrey Herlihy
The Complications of Exile in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises

Joseph Holt
The Textual Condition of Hemingway’s African Book

Walter Houk
Hemingway’s Cuban Son Looks Back on Life with Papa

Allen Josephs
Confessions of an Animal Lover: Clearing Up a Few Things about Hemingway, Spain, and the Bulls

Allen Josephs
Picasso, Hemingway, and Lorca: or Toreo As a Modernist Principle

Melanie Conroy-Goldman
10,000 Words (story)

Matthew Nickel
Lighthearted Sinners and Pious Puritans, Followers, and Believers: Hemingway’s “Holy War Meat Eaters and Beer Drinkers Happy Hunting Ground and Mountain Religion” in Under Kilimanjaro

Brad McDuffie
Teaching In Our Time to Freshmen (poem)

Donald Junkins
Martha Gellhorn’s Letters

David Raabe
Dempsey over Hemingway in Three Rounds

Robert E. Fleming
The Deaths of the Children in Islands in the Stream

Robert E. Gajdusek
Bimini

Ron McFarland
Three Novels on Hemingway in Cuba

Zak Haselmo
Hemingway: Eight Decades of Criticism

Donald A. Daiker
“Don’t Get Drunk, Jake”: Drinking, Drunkenness, and Sobriety in The Sun Also Rises

Marina Gradoli
Hemingway’s Criteria in Ordering the Sequence of the Vignettes of in our time (1924) and In Our Time (1925)

Phoebe Contest Winners

The newest issue of George Mason University’s Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art (Fall 2011 Issue 40.2) features works by the winners of the magazine’s annual contest:

Winter Fiction Contest
Judged by Caitlin Horrocks
Winner: Aja Gabel, “Little Fish”
Honorable Mention: Dwight Holing, “Spines”

Greg Grummer Poetry Award
Judged by Dan Beachy-Quick
Winner: Mark Wagenaar, “Moth Hour Reliquaries”
Honorable Mention: Grace Curtis, “Wordsplay”

Inaugural Nonfiction Contest
Judged by Shauna Cross
Winner: R.B. Moreno, “I’d Like to Talk About the Bigger Stuff”
Honorable Mention: Jessica McCaughey, “On the Music of Distraction”

Aufgabe: French Poetry & Poetics

Along with a full section of poetry and essays, notes, and reviews, French poetry and poetics in translation (English only) are featured in Aufgabe #10, guest edited by Cole Swensen and introduced with her essay “Dossier: Contemporary Poetry in France.”

Authors whose works are translated include Oscarine Bosquet, St

New Lit on the Block :: The Quotable

The Quotable is a quarterly online and print magazine “showcasing tomorrow’s quote-worthy authors.” Each issue will feature short stories, essays, poetry and artwork based on a specific theme and quote. The first issue is available online at no cost, and in print, epub, mobi both for single issue purchase and subscription.

The inaugural issue features works by A.J. Kandathil, Eddie Jones, Brooke Bailey, Jasmon Drain, Chris Wiewiora, Joseph Pravda, Rob McClure Smith, Bruce Bischoff, Alicia Dekker, William Zebulon Peacock, and Don Campbell.

Behind the scenes of The Quotable are Editors Eimile Denizer, Lisa Heins, and Leslye PJ Reaves, Poetry Editor Deborah Preg, Art Editor Michael Reid, Associate Editor Mary Wilt, and Copy Editor Cassie Pinner.

The Quotable accepts submissions during the following reading periods:

December 1 – February 1 : Spring Issue
March 1 – May 1 : Summer Issue
June 1 – August 1 : Fall Issue
September 1 – November 1 : Winter Issue

Unless otherwise noted, each issue will be centered around a theme. The next theme for Issue III is Transformation: “The universe is transformation; our life is what our thoughts make it.” ~Marcus Aurelius

The Quatable accepts flash fiction (under 1,000 words), short fiction (under 3,000 words), creative nonfiction (under 3,000 words), poetry (up to three submissions of one poem per submission), art and photography.

Introducing Southword: A New Multimedia Partnership with NPR

The Oxford American is pleased to announce the launch of Southword, a multimedia partnership with NPR designed to present thoughtful and textured reporting about the people, places, and trends that are shaping the modern American South. The OA’s award-winning filmmaker, Dave Anderson, teams up with NPR’s celebrated journalists to go wherever an important or interesting story is unfolding. Together they produce video and radio pieces that provide timely and artful perspectives on a region that continues to evolve in unexpected ways.

In Southword’s first episode, NPR’s Debbie Elliott and The OA’s Dave Anderson explore issues of appetite and health in Holmes County, the most obese county in Mississippi.

Visit NPR’s website to see the program with additional information and related links.

25 Books for 25 Cents

Unbridled Books is partnering with the American Booksellers Association for a promotion that highlights 25 Unbridled eBooks for 25 cents. The titles, all Google eBooks™, will be available for 25 cents via IndieCommerce websites for three days, June 9 – 11.

The 25 Unbridled eBooks for 25 Cents

Conscience Point by Erica Abeel
The Islands of Divine Music by John Addiego
Panopticon by David Bajo
Shimmer by Eric Barnes
The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish by Elise Blackwell
Green Age of Asher Witherow by M. Allen Cunningham
Breath and Bones by Susann Cokal
The Journal of Antonio Montoya by Rick Collignon
The Good Doctor Guillotine by Marc Estrin
Wolf Point by Edward Falco
Small Acts of Sex and Electricity by Lise Haines
The Distance between Us by Masha Hamilton
Stranger Here Below by Joyce Hinnefeld
Vanishing by Candida Lawrence
Song of the Crow Layne Maheu
The Evolution of Shadows by Jason Quinn Malott
The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel
The Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
Captivity by Deborah Noyes
Hick by Andrea Portes
The Wonder Singer by George Rabasa
Taroko Gorge by Jacob Ritari
Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters by Timothy Schaffert
Rain Village by Carolyn Turgeon
Sometimes We’re Always Real Same-Same by Mattox Roesch

New Lit on the Block :: Chamber Four

The folks at Chamber Four (C4), in addition to their book review and book news website, and on the heels of their fiction anthology of the web’s best stories, have launched their own literary magazine. C4 Magazine features fiction, nonfiction, poetry and artwork and is available in print ($12) and online and in various ebook formats for free: PDF, ePub, and Mobi. You can also get Issue 1 at Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Diesel eBooks, on Stanza apps on iPhone and iPad, and on the Nook app on Android and other devices (in apps, search for “C4 issue 1”). Coming soon to the Kobo and Sony Reader ebookstores.

Issue 1 includes fiction by Gregory Blake Smith, Bilal Ibne Rasheed, Margaret Finnegan, Kim Henderson, Michael Henson, Anne Leigh Parrish, Ron Koppelberger; nonfiction by Marc Levy, Terra Brigando, M.J. Fievre; poetry by D.H. Sutherland, Gale Acuff, William Doreski, Yaul Perez-Stable Husni, Shannon C. Walsh, Luca Penne, Julian Smith-Newman, Katelyn Kiley, Daniel Lawless, Jenn Monroe, Greg Hewett; artwork by Ganesha Balunsat, Eleanor-Leonne Bennett, Guillermo Esteves, Dennis van Dijk, Christoph Zurbuchen, Sandro Garcia, Christopher Woods, Paivi Salonen, Ivo Berg.

C4 Magazine is open for submissions for its second issue: fiction (short stories, flash fiction); nonfiction (personal essays, memoir excerpts, travel writing); poetry (traditional, experimental); digital visual art (anything 2D and static, i.e. pictures, drawings, etc.). Deadline: July 1, 2011

Audio :: Jesse Glass and Ahadada Authors Featured

Cover to Cover on WKPFA (Berkeley, CA) hosted by Jack Foley features weekly interviews and readings with Jesse Glass and authors from Ahadada Books from June 1 – July 8, 2011. Available online (mp3).

June 1
This is the first of three shows featuring Jesse Glass, American expatriate poet, publisher, artist and folklorist. In 1992, Glass moved to Japan, where he currently lives and teaches. In this show, Jack and Jesse particularly discuss The Passion of Phineas Gage and Selected Poems and Lost Poet: Four Plays by Jesse Glass.

June 8
Jesse Glass interviewed, Part Two.

June 15
Jesse Glass reading from his work.

June 22
A celebration of Ahadada Reader 3, published by Jesse Glass and Ahadada Press. Four chapbooks by four poets are featured in the Reader: Mary-Marcia Casoly, Katherine Hastings, Melanie Moro-Huber and Jack Foley. This show features Mary-Marcia Casoly reading from Australia Dreaming.

June 29
Ahadada Reader 3, Part Two. Katherine Hastings reads from Fog and Light.

July 1
Ahadada Reader 3, Part Three, selections from Melanie Moro-Huber’s The Memory of Paper read by Jack Foley.

July 8
Ahadada Reader 3, Part Four. Jack Foley reads from Disordered City.