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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!

Interview :: NYQ Editor Raymond Hammond

The Best American Poetry December 11 section Meet the Press features an interview by Nin Andrews with Raymond Hammond, editor of NYQ Books and The New York Quarterly, exploring the history of the press, the kinds of books the press looks to publish, promoting poetry books to readers, and much more.

Commenting on NYQ Books press, Hammond says: “The first premise was to say to ourselves, ‘Poetry doesn’t sell.’ And while this statement sounds self-defeating and is open to all sorts of debate and sounds like a cry of desperate mediocrity, there is an element of truth to it which immediately removes any grand expectations that we will sell thousands of copies of each book we publish. By removing this expectation, we can publish and keep in print books that don’t immediately sell right alongside books that do, and we are hoping that eventually the press will work as a single organism, some books supporting the others—but keeping all in print.”

New Lit on the Block :: The Fiddleback

The Fiddleback is a new online bi-weekly publishing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and reviews as well as featuring one artist and one musician/band in every issue. Founded by Jeff Simpson “during the great recession of 2010,” with “cross-pollination” The Fiddleback will be a “mixing and colliding artistic disciplines to attract a diverse readership.” Works by new as well as established writers and artists will be featured.

The first issue features fiction by David Hollander, Alexandra Sadinoff, and Dinah Cox; poetry, Lisa Lewis, Nate Pritts, Clay Matthews, Tom C. Hunley, Steven D. Schroeder, and Jenny Yang Cropp; nonfiction, Andrew Merton and Gina Vozenilek; music reviews and an interview with “Other Lives”; an interview with artist George Boorujy.

The Fiddleback reads year-round and is published bi-monthly.

Behind the scenes at The Fiddleback are Jeff Simpson – Founding Editor; Labecca Jones – Senior Poetry Editor; Daniel Long – Senior Fiction Editor; Brian Gebhart – Senior Fiction Editor; Jessica Hendry Nelson – Senior Nonfiction Editor; Chelsey Simpson – Senior Nonfiction Editor; James Brubaker – Senior Music Editor; and Joshua Cross – Senior Music Editor.

CFS :: Women Writing on Family Anthology

Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing

Book Publisher: The Key Publishing House Inc., publisher of academic and non-academic books, Toronto, Ontario

Submissions are being sought for an anthology about writing and publishing by women with experience in writing and publishing about family. Possible subjects: using life experience; networking; unique issues women must overcome; formal education; queries and proposals; conference participation; self-publishing; teaching tips. Tips on writing about family: creative nonfiction, poetry, short stories, nonfiction, novels.

Practical, concise, how-to articles with bullets/headings have proven the most helpful to readers. Please avoid writing too much about “me” and concentrate on what will help the reader. No previously published, co-written, or simultaneously submitted material.

Foreword by Supriya Bhatnagar, Director of Publications, Editor of The Writer’s Chronicle, Association of Writers & Writing Programs, George Mason University. Author of the memoir: and then there were threeŠ (Serving House Books, 2010)

Afterword by Dr. Amy Hudock, co-editor of Literary Mama chosen by Writers Digest as one of the 101 Best Web Sites for Writers. She teaches creative writing and co-edited American Prose Writers (Seal Press, 2006)

Co-Editor Carol Smallwood appears in Who’s Who of American Women, Michigan Feminist Studies, The Writer’s Chronicle. She’s included in Best New Writing in Prose 2010. Her 23rd book is Writing and Publishing: The Librarian’s Handbook (American Library Association, 2010). A chapter of newly published Lily’s Odyssey was short listed for the Eric Hoffer Prose Award; a book trailer of Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages is http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=8M6m7PXGQIU&feature=related

Co-Editor Suzann Holland, 2010 Winner of Public Libraries Feature Award, secured the permission of the Laura Ingalls Wilder estate for the forthcoming: The Little House Literary Companion. Her masters degrees include history, library science: she taught English composition, information literacy, at William Penn University, was a librarian at Milwaukee Public Library, a consultant in Davenport, Iowa. Her anthology contributions appear in: Greenwood Press, Neal-Schuman, the American Library Association

Please send 2-3 possible topics you would like to contribute each described in a few sentences and a 65-75 word bio using the format like the bio’s above. Please send in a .doc Word file by December 30, 2010 using FAMILY/Your Name on the subject line to [email protected]. You’ll receive a Go-Ahead and guidelines if your topics haven’t been taken. Contributors will be asked to contribute a total of 1900-2100 words. Those included in the anthology will receive a complimentary copy as compensation.

CFS :: Women and Poetry Anthology

Women and Poetry: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing by Successful Women Poets

Book Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Contributors needed for articles about: websites for women poets, using life experience, magazine markets, networking, managing family, blogs, unique issues women must overcome, lesbian and bisexual poetry, continuing education, queries and proposals, anthologies, conference participation, contests, promotion, self-publishing, teaching tips, and other areas women poets are interested.

Practical, concise, how-to articles with bullets/headings have proven the most helpful.

Please avoid writing too much about “me” and concentrate on what will most help the reader. No previously published, co-written, or simultaneously submitted material.

Foreword: Molly Peacock, the author of six books of poetry, including The Second Blush (W.W. Norton and Company, 2008).

Co-editor Carol Smallwood is a 2009 National Federation of State Poetry Societies award winner included in Who’s Who of American Women who has appeared in Michigan Feminist Studies, The Writer’s Chronicle. She’s included in Best New Writing in Prose 2010. Her 23rd book is Writing and Publishing: The Librarian’s Handbook (American Library Association, 2010). The first chapter of Lily’s Odyssey (2010) was short listed for the Eric Hoffer Prose Award; chapbook by Pudding House Publications; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M6m7PXGQIU

Co-editor Colleen S. Harris is a 2010 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her book of poetry, God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems (Bellowing Ark Press, 2009), was a finalist for the Black Lawrence Book Award. Her second and third books, These Terrible Sacraments and Gonesongs, are forthcoming in 2011. Colleen holds an MFA degree in writing and has appeared in The Louisville Review, Wisconsin Review, River Styx, and Adirondack Review, among others. Her work has been included in Library Journal, and Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages.

Please send 2-3 topics you would like to contribute each described in a few sentences and a 65-75 word bio using the format of the bio’s above. Please send in a .doc Word (older version) file by December 30, 2010 using POETS/your last name on the subject line to [email protected]. You will receive a Go-Ahead with guidelines if your topics haven’t already been taken. Contributors will be asked to contribute a total of 1900-2100 words. Those included in the anthology will receive a complimentary copy as compensation.

Dalkey Archive Press Holiday Sale

Today is the final day of the Dalkey Archive Press Holiday Sale: 10 books for $70 or 20 books for $125 (individual copies or multiple copies of the same book). The offer applies to all trade paperbacks and issues of the Review of Contemporary Fiction published before November 2010 (scholarly titles are not included). Free shipping in the US.

Tony Hoagland’s Appeal on behalf of Dean Young

Dear Friends,

If you are reading this, you are probably a friend of Dean Young and/or a friend of poetry. And you may have heard that our friend is in a precarious position. Dean needs a heart transplant now. He also needs your assistance now.

Over the past 10 or 15 years, Dean has lived with a degenerative heart condition–congestive heart failure due to idiopathic hypotropic cardiomyopathy. After periods of more-or-less remission, in which his heart was stabilized and improved with the help of medications, the function of his heart has worsened. Now, radically.

For the last two years he has had periods in which he cannot walk a block without resting. Medications which once worked have lost their efficacy. He is in and out of the hospital, unable to breathe without discomfort, etc. Currently, Dean’s heart is pumping at an estimated 8% of normal volume.

In the past, doctors have been impressed with his ability to function in this condition. But now things are getting quickly worse. Dean has been placed on the transplant list at Seton Medical Center Austin, and has just been upgraded to a very critical category. He’s got to get a heart soon, or go to intermediate drastic measures like a mechanical external pump.

Whatever the scenario, the financial expenses, both direct and collateral, will be massive. Yes, he has sound health insurance, but even so, he will have enormous bills not covered by insurance–which is where you can help, with your financial support.

If you know Dean, you know that his non-anatomical heart, though hardly normal, is not malfunctioning, but great in scope, affectionate and loyal. And you know that his poetry is what the Elizabethans would have called “one of the ornaments of our era”–hilarious, heartbreaking, courageous, brilliant and already a part of the American canon.

His 10-plus books, his long career of passionate and brilliant teaching, most recently as William Livingston Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin; his instruction and mentorship of hundreds of younger poets; his many friendships; his high, reckless and uncompromised vision of what art is: all these are reasons for us to gather together now in his defense and support.

Joe Di Prisco, one of Dean’s oldest friends, is chairing a fundraising campaign conducted through the National Foundation for Transplants (NFT). NFT is a nonprofit organization that has been assisting transplant patients with advocacy and fundraising support since 1983.

If you have any questions about NFT, feel free to contact the staff at 800-489-3863. You may also contact Joe personally at [email protected].

On behalf of Dean, myself, and the principle of all our friendships in art, I ask you to give all you can. Thanks, my friends.

Yours,

Tony Hoagland

You can help.

To make a donation to NFT in honor of Dean, click here. If you’d prefer to send your gift by mail, please send it to the NFT Texas Heart Fund, 5350 Poplar Avenue, Suite 430, Memphis, TN 38119. Please be sure to write “in honor of Dean Young” on the memo line.

Thank you for your generosity!

Patient Health Institute: Seton Medical Center

Children’s Books :: Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher

Just when you thought you’d read ’em all: Baxter, the Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher.

Author Laurel Snyder is joined by artist David Goldin in this newest of her books and novels for children. I first met Laurel about six years ago at a FLAC conference, and her energy and enthusiasm left an indelible mark in my memory. This book brought back a rush of those memories, as I could almost hear the joyful nature of her voice across every page.

Baxter, yes a pig in a human world, in a chance encounter with a man at a bus stop, hears about Shabbat dinner – the candles, the dancing, the singing. Baxter can’t stop thinking of it as the week progresses and returns to the bus stop to find out how he can become “a part of” Shabbat dinner. Of course, a different stranger he encounters at the stop tells Baxter he can’t be “a part” of the dinner because he’s “not kosher.”

Not knowing what this means, Baxter sets out to become kosher, each time based on comments from a stranger he meets. First he eats (too many) pickles, then eats (too much) challah, and finally tries to become a cow by eating clover and wearing horns. All of this comes to an end when he meets Rabbi Rosen at the bus stop, who explains to him what kosher means – and Baxter’s shock at the realization that if he were kosher, he’d be eaten! Grateful he is NOT kosher, he takes up Rabbi Rosin’s invitation to attend shabbat at her home and enjoys all he had been longing for – including eating (too much) kugel.

By title alone, this book is a curiosity. Reading it is pure delight as Snyder quickly develops Baxter’s personality as curious, eager to learn, and wanting so badly to belong. The story is supplemented with a brief glossary at the end, which continues the story in Synder’s voice, such as this entry for rabbi: “learned, generous Jewish leader who devotes time to reading, thinking, teaching, and helping people (and pigs!). Rabbis often tell wonderful stories, wear hats, and have nice laugh wrinkles.”

Goldin’s illustrations and Synder’s text are well balanced. Golin’s illustrations are a mixed media, including photographs with drawings. Baxter pants and shirt are photographed images of cloth, the food – such as whitefish salad, knish, pickled eggs, and challah – are also photographs. This blend is engaging for children, who can recognize the difference and enjoy the “reality” of some of the images in the story. There are full color illustrations on every page, some full bleed, some insert, each busy enough to entertain readers with new discoveries in multiple readings.

Call for Submissions—Young Writers

“If you are a teenager currently enrolled in high school, grades 9-12, Crashtest, the new online literary magazine for high school writers, would like to hear from you! Crashtest publishes poetry, stories and creative non-fiction in the form of personal essays, imaginative investigation, experimental interviews, or whatever else you would like to call it. We’re looking for writing that has both a perspective and a personality. We’re looking for authors who have something to say.” From Sarah Blackman, Director of Creative Writing, Fine Arts Center, Greenville, SC

Deadline for submissions April 15, 2011

Books :: For the Cook on Your List (Yourself Included)

Dining in Refugee Camps: The Art of Sahrawi Cooking
Cenando en los Campamentos de Refugiados: Un Libro De Cocina Saharaui
by Robin Kahn

From the publishers site: “A full-color, bilingual, collage journal that documents Robin Kahn’s month cooking with the women of the Western Sahara. As a guest artist selected to participate in ARTifariti 2009, Kahn stayed with Sahrawi families living in refugee camps in Algeria and in the desert of The Free Territories of the Western Sahara. There she created the collages for this publication by combining the sparse materials available locally with photos, recipes, histories and drawings. The result is a 50-page full-color journal that examines the art of Sahrawi food production: how kitchens are improvised, food is procured and prepared, and traditional recipes are innovated from UN rations and international aid. The book is a testament to the daily struggles of Sahrawi women whose role is to provide sustenance, fortitude and comfort inside a compromised society.”

Anita Shreve :: Literary Fiction is Written by Men

“A book editor once had the gall to tell the popular American novelist Anita Shreve that literary fiction is written by men. What women write is women’s fiction. Her retort started with Alice Munro and went on from there.”

…

“A large part of writing is daydreaming. We all do it,” says Shreve, who confesses to occasionally missing her exit when driving. “You are rehearsing a conversation you had last night, and you are going to change the dialogue a bit so it comes out right, or you imagine what you are going to say when you get home. The only difference with a writer is a writer loves the challenge of structure and crafting sentences.”

Read the rest Profile on Anita Shreve: “You don’t sit waiting for the muse to come” by Kate Taylor (Globe and Mail)

Film :: Little Town of Bethlehem

Little Town of Bethlehem is a groundbreaking new documentary that shares the gripping story of three men — a Palestinian Muslim, a Palestinian Christian, and an Israeli Jew — born into violence and willing to risk everything to bring an end to violence in their lifetime.

Sami Awad is a Palestinian Christian whose grandfather was killed in Jerusalem in 1948. Today he is the executive director of Holy Land Trust, a non-profit organization that promotes Palestinian independence through peaceful means. Yonatan Shapira is an Israeli Jew whose grandparents were Zionist settlers who witnessed the birth of the Israeli nation. Today he is an outspoken advocate for the nonviolent peace movement, both in his homeland and abroad. Ahmad Al’Azzeh is a Palestinian Muslim who has lived his entire life in the Azzeh refugee camp in Bethlehem. Today, Ahmad heads the nonviolence program at Holy Land Trust, where he trains others in the methods of peaceful activism.

Little Town of Bethlehem was produced by EthnoGraphic Media (EGM), an educational non-profit organization exploring the critical issues of our time. Copies of the film are available for half price through December. Screening copies with full screening kits are available for schools, churches, clubs, groups, or local theaters.

Memoir (and) on Pants on Fire

In her Editorial Board Chair’s Note to the newest issue (v3 n2) of Memoir (and), Claudia Sternbach comments on (re)reading Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes:

“But as popular as the life story of McCourt is, there are those who take issue with it. Those who question McCourt’s ability to recall in such great detail events which took place decades ago. How could he remember which of his brothers begged for berries or the look on his mother’s face when she had to plead for an egg or the head of a pig for her children to eat at Christmas.

“These are fair questions. If I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night or whether I recharged my cell phone this morning, how can a writer sit down at his desk and starting with words, build sentences, paragraphs, pages, and finally an entire life story like a bricklayer constructs a solid house? And would a reader trust the construction?

“We have been taken a few times, I’ll admit. Well-regarded memoirists have turned out to be not so honest. Their pants burst into flames and it makes news. But I believe it makes news because it is rare. For the most part I believe when people sit down to tell their story, they do their best to tell it with truth. Their truth. And that is the key. They are communicating to the reader what they remember. They are spilling out on the page those images and sounds they have carried with them their entire lives.”

Exactly.

Chad Walsh Poetry Prize Winner

Charles Wyatt of Nashville, Tennessee, is the 2010 winner of the Beloit Poetry Journal’s annual Chad Walsh Poetry Prize. The editors of the BPJ select on the basis of its excellence a poem or group of poems they have published in the calendar year to receive the award. This year’s choice is a group of poems from “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Wallace Stevens” that appeared in the Spring 2010 issue. The awarding of this year’s prize to Wyatt also gives the journal the opportunity to recognize the extraordinary body of his work it has published beginning in 1965.

I-90ers – Submit to Sean Thomas Dougherty

Sean Thomas Dougherty (Broken Hallelujahs, and Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line both from BOA Editions) will be the guest editor for Redactions: Poetry & Poetics issue 14 the I-90 Revolution. “It’s I-90 becuase I-90 runs the breadth of the country. It’s 3,099.07 miles long and runs from Boston to Seattle,” writes editory Tom Holmes. “…we are inviting people who live within 50 miles of I-90 to submit poems. Make sure you first read the I-90 Manifesto…then send in your poems that are written in the spirit of the I-90 Manifesto.” Non-I-90ers are also welcome to submit their works.

Open Minds Poetry Contest HM

The Fall 2010 issue of Open Minds Quarterly: Your Psychosocial Literary Journal includes the honorable mentions of the 2010 BrainStorm Poetry Contest. This is the eighth annual poetry contest for mental health consumers and include works by Catherine Martell, Eufemia Fantetti, Zan Bockes, Kate Flaherty, Anthony Chalk, Mark Murphy, E.V. Noechel, Brock Moore, Christopher Gaskins, Lisa Morris, Jerome Frank, Debrenee Adkisson, Gail Kroll, Diane Germano, Carla E. Anderton, Monika Lee, John Parsons, and Robin Barr Hill.

Pirate Talk or Mermalade

Put aside any expectations of swashbuckling that this title might inspire. Pirate Talk or Mermalade has its share of cutlasses, of peg legs, of sailors marooned on desert isles. But it is far from a typical pirate tale. Described as a “novel in voices,” the story is told entirely in dialogue. No quotation marks, no helpful tag lines (i.e. he said, she replied): each page is simply the conversation, with an indentation serving as the indication that the speaker has shifted. At first, I thought the “only dialogue” rule would limit the scope—where would the description be? The thought and reflection?—but within a few pages, it was apparent that Svoboda is a masterful writer and is no more constrained by this selection of form than a poet is constrained by composing a sonnet: the novel delights because of this rule, succeeds because of this confinement. Continue reading “Pirate Talk or Mermalade”

The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide

In his new book, The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist, John McNally gives an honest and highly informative account of his experiences in the writing/publishing industry. As he cautions his readers in the introduction entitled “The Writer’s Wonderland—Or: A Warning,” this book is not an instruction manual on how to write short stories, it’s not a place to seek writing prompts, and the author does not claim to have a formulaic answer to getting published. Rather, he explains: Continue reading “The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide”

Muted Lines from Someone Elses Memory

The mind is a smelly heap of compost comprising our greatest hopes, delusions and sexual fantasies about robots. We explain its function with analogies to computers or other machines, trying to impose a structure on a ghost. So when our bodies and minds start to fail, we panic. We grope about in the dark for a user's manual, a crossword puzzle or anti-depressant that will put our brains in the order that we suppose it should have. Seth Berg explores this dark space in his first book of poems, Muted Lines from Someone Else's Memory. Continue reading “Muted Lines from Someone Elses Memory”

God on the Rocks

For fans of Jane Gardam’s Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat, God on the Rocks, a 1978 Booker Prize finalist, will satisfy. As Gardam wrote in the November 20, 2010 Op-Ed article “Richard’s Glove, Kate’s Hand” (which gives an historical perspective to Kate and Prince William’s upcoming wedding), “In my novels I write about the ‘old world,’ my parents’ world, where people wore hats—and gloves.” But “the old world is not so far away from this one.” Therefore, this novel, set along the northern English coast in 1938, between the world wars, is not chronological but jumps back and forth between different characters’ perspectives and pasts. In a book both humorous and tragic, the reader has to read carefully to notice switches in perspective and Gardam’s parceling out of information during the unfolding of fully defined lives. Continue reading “God on the Rocks”

Indexical Elegies

I adore Coach House Books. The book design is smart, inventive, spot on. Poetry is clever, original, risky, inspiring. You want to go back to these books again and see them as if new each time you pick them up. You’re happy to give them to others, to show them off. You return to them as, and I am not exaggerating, a reason to keep going on. And on. A reason to read. A reason to write. A reason to believe in poetry. Even, maybe especially, when they are difficult (emotionally or intellectually or in a reader-ly way). Continue reading “Indexical Elegies”

The Patterns of Paper Monsters

Emma Rathbone’s debut novel The Patterns of Paper Monsters is about Jacob Higgins, an angry kid incarcerated in a juvenile detention center. But like any great book, this one can’t be reduced to its plot. Its magic lies in the sarcasm that drools from its narrator’s voice and in the beauty of the way that voice strings together language. Listen, as Jacob describes the crime that landed him in the JDC: Continue reading “The Patterns of Paper Monsters”

Please Take Me Off the Guest List

Please Take Me Off the Guest List is a collaboration between three people: Nick Zinner, of the band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, provides the photographs; Zachary Lipez, of the band Freshkills, provides the essays; and Stacy Wakefield, former design director of Artforum, pulls it all together into a wonderfully designed object. It has already been noted elsewhere how rare it is for the book’s designer to have her name on the cover, but here it is earned. Zinner’s photographs and Wakefield’s design are the true highlights of this collection, which should appeal to anyone interested in book arts. Unfortunately, Lipez’s essays do not measure up to the quality of the photographs and the quality of the design elements. Continue reading “Please Take Me Off the Guest List”

Velleity’s Shade

This is the sixth volume in Saturnalia’s Artist/Collaboration Series. I am impressed by and grateful for publisher Henry Israeli’s commitment to making available the collaborative efforts of visual and literary artists. The books are beautifully conceived, designed, and composed, and they occupy a uniquely wonderful place in the world of small press poetry publications. Continue reading “Velleity’s Shade”

Skin, Inc.

Ellis’s collection of poems, Skin, Inc, is an aggressive book to say the least. It is a statement in itself. A statement that is different and powerful. The language coursing through the veins of this collection is raw, real, and full of earnest emotion. It is calm, yet aggressive. Strong, yet tamed. One poem that really sets the tone for the first portion of the book is “My Meter Is Percussive”: Continue reading “Skin, Inc.”

Sonnets

Can you pour new wine into old bottles? Well, if you are Camille Martin and the bottles are sonnets, the answer is an emphatic, "Yes." By her flexible use of the idea of the sonnet, Camille Martin has written a book that holds a pleasing balance of unity and variation. In the second sonnet, Martin seems to be speaking to the form as the beloved: Continue reading “Sonnets”

Narrative 30 Below Contest Winners

Narrative has named the finalists and winners for their 30 Below Contest 2010 (All entrants in the Contest were between the ages of eighteen and thirty.):

FIRST PRIZE
Kevin González – “Cerromar”

SECOND PRIZE
Jacob Powers – “Safety”

THIRD PRIZE
Erika Solomon – “Rules for Jews in Damascus”

FINALISTS
Caroline Arden
Stephanie DeOrio
Katharine Dion
Kelly Luce
Michael Nardone
Hannah Sarvasy
Samantha Shea
Douglas Silver
Cam Terwilliger
Jessica Wilson

The Fall 2010 Story Contest, with a $3,250 First Prize, a $1,500 Second Prize, a $750 Third Prize, and ten finalists receiving $100 each. Open to fiction and nonfiction. All entries will be considered for publication. Contest deadline: November 30, midnight, Pacific standard time.

Tupelo Press Recieves NEA Grant

Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, announced that Tupelo Press has been approved for a grant of $20,000 to support production, publication and promotion of thirteen exceptional books of poetry, fiction, and literary nonfiction. Tupelo Press is one of 1,057 not-for-profit organizations recommended for a grant as part of the federal agency’s first round of fiscal year 2011 grants. In total, the Arts Endowment will distribute $26.68 million to support projects nationwide.

Glimmer Train September Fiction Open Winners :: 2010

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their September Fiction Open competition. This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers for stories with a word count range between 2000 – 20,000. The next Fiction Open will take place in December. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Lydia Fitzpatrick [pictured] , of Brooklyn, NY, wins $2000 for “In a Library, in Saltillo.” Her story will be published in the Winter 2012 issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

Second place: Andrea Scrima, also of Berlin, Germany, wins $1000 for “Leaving Home.”

Third place: Brenden Wysocki, of Marina del Rey, CA, wins $600 for “A Dodgy Version.”

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

Short Story Award for New Writers Deadline: November 30

This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5000. No theme restrictions. Word count should not exceed 12,000. (All shorter lengths welcome.) Click here for complete guidelines.

Can Technology End Poverty?

The lead essay in the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of Boston Review forum by Kentaro Toyama, Can Technology End Poverty?, is available full-text online with responses from Nicholas Negroponte, Dean Karlan, Ignacio Mas, Nathan Eagle, Jenny C. Aker, Christine Zhenwei Qiang, Evgeny Morozov, and Archon Fung and a final reply by Kentaro Toyama. The forum is also open to reader responses.

Free Tanka Teachers Guide

Offered as a free PDF download from the Modern English Tanka Press (MET Press), Tanka Teachers Guide contains primary materials and resources about tanka poetry which educators and students may copy without seeking permission (Creative Commons License).

Modern English Tanka Press is dedicated to tanka education and welcomes innovative uses of their print and online resources: “We want to facilitate the use of our publications to the maximum extent feasible by educators at every level of school and university studies. Educators, without individually seeking permission from the publisher, may use our publications, online digital editions and print editions, as primary or ancillary teaching resources.”

580 Split – 2010

An exciting issue, beginning with Daniel Backman’s front cover “architectonic collage” (“Oakland in Transit”). Backman’s collages, he explains in the note that opens the issue, “envision a city in a constant state of transformation” and exhibit “the themes that have traveled with me throughout my experience as an artist, a designer, and a city dweller.” Continue reading “580 Split – 2010”

The Allegheny Review – 2010

One can hardly believe that the astounding works within Allegheny Review’s 28th volume is all from undergraduates. The wording might be a bit self-consciously ornate; which can be put to youthful enthusiasm. However, there is an explosion of images and modifiers, working toward emotional complexity – the effort succeeds; entrancing, engaging and enchanting the reader. Continue reading “The Allegheny Review – 2010”

Arc Poetry Magazine – 2011

In “The lure of the gallery wall,” one of the excellent conversations in the Canadian Arc Poetry’s “Poet As Art Thief” issue, the poet John Barton says writing ekphrastic poetry is “a way to expand our world, especially as so much of 20th-century poetry seems overwhelmingly concerned with the self.”

Continue reading “Arc Poetry Magazine – 2011”

Cave Wall – Summer/Fall 2010

Cave Wall’s latest issue invites us, in Robert Bly’s poem “Flowers with Holes,” to “look for / The odd places / In each other / And write poems about them.” The issue begins with an editor’s note that describes the poems in this issue as endeavoring to “embody that quest to communicate what moves us most deeply.” The style of communication varies, from the narrative free verse poem “Kung Pao with You on the Anniversary of Your Suicide” by Elizabeth Volpe which communicates with a deceased friend through the poem, to Sara E. Lamer’s ode to decay, “Compost.” Continue reading “Cave Wall – Summer/Fall 2010”

The Evansville Review – 2010

Fine sonnets, formal verse, and modern poetry inhabit The Evansville Review. The covers of the mag feature a blue glossy finish framing a woman who is arching her back in front of some stained glass icons, it is very formal and a slightly theatrical painting, titled “Mariana of the Moated Grange” by Millais. Besides poetry, inside the elegant covers are eight pieces of short fiction and three items of nonfiction. The short fiction tends to have an other-worldly tension about it, a dreamy quality mirrored in the painting. Continue reading “The Evansville Review – 2010”

Limestone – 2009

The 2009 edition of Limestone is titled “Legacy Obscura,” which I assume is a reference to the “camera obscura,” a device used to project images onto a screen, which led to the invention of photography. It’s a relevant title. This issue is ripe with photography and other visual arts, as well as poems and stories that create verbal images of legacy. What is a legacy? Is it something we’re born with? Do we carry it with us? Editor Rebecca Beach says “what we are and what we will be hinges on our past.” This journal examines that past. The past is where we come from and informs the future. The speakers of these poems and stories share their personal memories, yet they are universal and timeless. Continue reading “Limestone – 2009”

Many Mountains Moving – 2010

Over the years, the publication calendar for Many Mountains Moving has seemed erratic and unpredictable, at best, yet it’s always worth waiting for. This issue features a special section of “ecopoetry,” with selections by two-dozen poets, followed by an “ecopiety essay”; the magazine’s flash fiction and poetry winners, runners up, and finalists from 2008 and 2009; 9 short stories; four nonfiction contributions; “mixed genre” work (flash fiction/prose poems) by two contributors; and a general section of poetry with the work of another dozen and a half poets, including several selections from Henry Israeli and Shpresa Qatipi’s recent book of very fine translations of the work of Albanian poet Luljeta Lleshanaku; and one review. Continue reading “Many Mountains Moving – 2010”

Mythium – 2010

Mythium is a journal that publishes poems, fiction, and nonfiction written by writers of color. Its mission is to celebrate the cultural voice. The content is as varied as there are ethnicities. From African American and Native American writers with violent and unjust ancestral histories, to more recent immigrants of Latin, Asian, and African heritage (and then some) looking to find a place in a new America, it’s natural to assume that this magazine is a collection of many voices and many stories. Some of the material is depressing. Some is hopeful. All of it is interesting. Continue reading “Mythium – 2010”