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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!

Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowships

Four prizes of $1,000 each and publication by the Poetry Society of America are given annually for poetry chapbooks by poets who have not published a full-length collection. Two fellowships are open to poets 30 or younger living in any of the five boroughs of New York City, and two of the fellowships are open to poets of any age living anywhere in the United States. Joy Harjo and Bob Hicok will judge the New York City competition and Susan Howe and Gerald Stern will judge the national competition.

Submit a manuscript of 20 to 30 pages with a $12 entry fee by December 22. Visit the Web site for complete guidelines.

Seven Stories Press Holiday Sale

Seven Stories Press is having a holiday sale:

25% off all frontlist titles
50% off all backlist titles

Author catalog list here.
Subject catalog list here.

Enter the coupon code SSPHOLIDAY10 when checking out to claim the backlist discount. Backlist offer limited to titles published before July 1, 2010 and to orders within the US. Buyers are asked to place a separate order for frontlist and backlist titles.

Photos :: Humanity Collection

Humanity: A Celebration of Friendship, Family, Love & Laughter is a collection of photographs compiled by publisher Geoff Blackwell of “images revolving around the universal subject of ‘the fundamental human capacity and need for love'” and that capture “spontaneous human moments of intimacy, laughter, and kinship.” An online photo essay of some of the 17,000 photographers from 164 countries is available at Yes! Magazine.

Books :: Pay What You Want

Ben Tanzer’s book 99 Problems: Essays About Running and Writing is available as an e-book, with a twist. On his site, readers who want to download the book have several pay options, or rather amount-to-pay options. “I’d like to pay: $5 – $10 – $20 – a different amount – nothing.” That’s right – “nothing” is an option. Regardless of what amount you pay, or don’t, you’ll get the full-length version of the book. (Kindle users have an Amazon flat rate fee of $5.) The book is also licensed under Creative Commons – a growing culturally conscious way to share works with others. It will be interesting to see how Tanzer’s book does, in terms of readers and payers, and how the new-millennium old question goes, “If you give it to them for free, will they pay for it?” It perhaps even more of interest to writers – even if it’s free, will they read it?

Book Blurb: “Why is it that so many full-time writers seem to be full-time runners as well, and what is it about each activity that seems to fuel the other? In 99 Problems, Chicago author Ben Tanzer tackles this very question, penning a series of essays completed after a string of actual runs across the United States during the winter of 2009, cleverly combining the details of the run itself with what new insights he gained that day regarding whatever literary story he was working on at the time; and along the way, Tanzer also offers up astute observations on fatherhood, middle-age, and the complications of juggling traditional and artistic careers, all of it told through the funny and smart filter of pop-culture that has made this two-time novelist and national performance veteran so well-loved. A unique and fascinating new look at the curious relationship between physical activity and creative intellectualism, 99 Problems will have you looking at the arts in an entirely new way, and maybe even picking up a pair of running shoes yourself.”

Native Lab Fellowship

Sundance Institute’s Native American and Indigenous Program has created a Fellowship to provide direct support to emerging Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Alaskan Native film artists working in the U.S. The Fellowship is a two-stage development opportunity for filmmakers with feature film scripts, documentary projects, and short film scripts. The first stage of development is an intensive 5-day workshop to be held May 23-27, 2011. During the workshop, Fellows receive intensive feedback on their projects from established screenwriters and directors.

Writing and Buying Books for Children

The theme of Talking Writing for December 2010 is Kid Stuff: Writing and Buying Books for Children. Articles include: What Do Teenagers Want? by Rebecca D. Landau; Lessons Learned—Then and Now by Laura Deurmyer; Boys and Books in Lockup: It’s Magic by Lauren Norton Carson; Adoption Books: What’s the Message? by Fran Cronin; One Mom’s Comeuppance by Rebecca Steinitz; Editor’s Note: Kids like what they like—darn them; and Find Your Own Wonderland by Martha Nichols.

Talking Writing is an online monthly literary magazine featuring the work of poets, fiction and creative nonfiction writers, visual artists, and photographers. TW includes long reviews and personal essays.

Books :: Zahir Anthology 2010

Zahir Anthology 2010 edited by Sheryl Tempchin is now available. From the quarterly online magazine, Zahir: A Journal of Speculative Fiction, this anthology is the complete collection from 2010. “The collection includes twenty-four stories from all over the rich and varied map of speculative fiction. Some are recognizable as sci-fi, fantasy, or magical realism, while others seem to have invented categories all their own. Works of luminous imagination and psychological depth, these are stories that will stay with you long after you’ve closed the book and turned out the light.”

Pongo :: Warm Smiles in Winter

Pongo’s latest journal entry is “Warm Smiles in Winter,” about a recent poetry workshop with incarcerated women…

Pongo Teen Writing Project has many writing activities and resources on their website for teens, counselors, and teachers.

Some other recent Project Journal posts:

Watching Her and Her (Pongo Prize poetry, about a young woman who witnesses her mother’s struggle with addiction)

The Quieter We Become (about a Pongo volunteer in the psychiatric hospital who describes “holding the unholdable”)

Approaching the Trauma, Not the Crime (about a Pongo volunteer in detention who confronts the legacy of violence in his life)

Love Is a Useless Puppy (Pongo Prize poetry, about a young woman’s love for a boy who treats her badly)

Cops (about police officers who come to understand their own unprocessed trauma after violence and death)

CFS Anthology :: Children and War

This CFS was previously posted, but the editor is still accepting submissions: Children and War (working title)

When American politicians mention the “hidden costs” of war, they are referring to inflation, higher taxes, and medical care for veterans of U.S. wars. Even when we invoke images of human suffering, children and teenagers are often the forgotten part of the story.

Yet who can forget images of the Vietnam “baby lift,” when Amer-Asian children were flown out of Vietnam to the U.S. to be adopted by American families? Who can forget the horror of learning that Iranian children were being sent on suicide missions to clear landmines? Who wasn’t captivated by stories of the “lost boys” of Sudan, who traveled thousands of miles alone through the desert, seeking shelter and safety?

Children, like adults, lose their homes and families during war. They may travel for miles, alone or with others. They become refugees and victims of rape; they are recruited as soldiers; they suffer from PTSD, starvation, malnutrition, disease, and disability. In a recent report, UNICEF stated that from 1985-1995, over 2 million children had been killed in war; 4-5 million had been left disabled; over 12 million had become homeless; more than 1 million had been orphaned or separated from their parents; and over 10 million suffered psychological trauma. Their experiences affect the next generation as well.

This anthology, to be published by Cinco Puntos Press in 2011 or 2012, will explore all angles of children’s and teenagers’ experiences in war. The core of the book will be personal essays, memoirs, journalistic accounts, and historical narratives, both previously published and original pieces. It may also include photos, artwork, posters, and other debris that depicts the effects of war on children and teens. Though the book will be primarily non-fiction, we may include some fiction, and we are willing to consider pieces about both current and past wars. “War” is defined liberally to include both “official,” declared wars as well as secret, unofficial wars, such as those carried out by governments on civilians in places like Chile, Argentina, and Zimbabwe.

All submissions, queries, and suggestions should be sent to J.L. Powers at [email protected]

All acceptances are conditional. The publisher exercises final editorial control over which pieces will be included.

Rattle Poetry Prize Winners

Issue #34 (Winter 2010) of Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century includes the winner of the Rattle Poetry Prize, Patricia Smith, as well as the honorable mentions: Michele Battiste, Heidi Garnett, Valentina Gnup, francine j. harris, Courtney Kampa, Devon Miller-Duggan, Andrew Nurkin, Laura Read, and Scott Withiam.

6×6 – Fall 2010

How is it that there have been 20 issues before the one I’m holding—die cut corner, rubber band binding, and all—in amazement of this charming and worthwhile little journal and I had not heard of it or seen it anywhere? Published by Ugly Duckling Presse, 6×6 features the work of just 6 (of course!) writers (in this issue: Julie Carr, Marosa di Giorgio, Farid Matuk, Amanda Nadelberg, Sara Wintz, and Michael Barron) in an innovative, but low-key design that is original, clever, but unassuming. The poetry is paramount. And it deserves the attention the design enables. Continue reading “6×6 – Fall 2010”

Annalemma – 2010 No 7

The “Endurance” issue of Annalemma should be abysmally depressing, as all of the stories and essays in it are sad. The great care put into its design, however, gives one answer to the editor’s question of “what gives a person forward momentum when every sign around them says give up.” Editor/publisher Chris Heavener says that “to endure means having a purpose.” His publication shows that one can find purpose though literature and art.

Continue reading “Annalemma – 2010 No 7”

Arcadia – 2010

Arcadia is an annual produced by students at the University of Central Oklahoma. The inaugural issue features fiction, poetry, drama, an essay, and several black and white photographs. A brief bio page precedes each writer’s piece. This issue includes work by writers from around the country widely published, for the most part, in a variety of literary journals and by a number of independent presses. Continue reading “Arcadia – 2010”

The Bitter Oleander – Autumn 2010

This issue features a marvelous interview with and series of poems by Ana Minga, a young journalist and poet from Ecuador, whose work is translated here by Alexis Levitin. Having grown up in a religious community where her father worked, Minga says her childhood ended at age six; she suffered dreadful insomnia by age 11; and by her teens she was writing and publishing award-winning poetry. Her best friends, she claims, are her dogs; investigative journalism provides the adrenalin “rush” she needs to thrive. Her work reflects these realities: Continue reading “The Bitter Oleander – Autumn 2010”

Chtenia – Fall 2010

“A themed journal of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, photography and miscellany,” this issue is a “Chekhov Bilingual” comprised of an introductory essay by editor Tamara Eidelman; excerpts from “Notebooks” by Ivan Bunin (1870-1953), one of Chekhov’s contemporaries; a poem by Sasha Chyorny (1880-1932) “Why Did Chekhov Quit this Earth So Soon?”; and 8 stories and play excerpts by the great master, some newly translated. It is fantastic, even for those of us who do not read Russian, to have the originals and the translations side by side, and I wish more journals would follow suit and publish the originals as an integral component of presenting non-English work. I was delighted, too, to learn in the publisher’s note, that 1,000 copies of the journal were given to Russian language students at several hundred high schools and universities around the US, thanks to a grant to the magazine from The Ruskkiy Mir Foundation. Continue reading “Chtenia – Fall 2010”

Main Street Rag – Fall 2010

Known for its colloquial writing, The Main Street Rag, in its latest issue, features an interview with Steve Roberts, author of the Main Street Rag poetry book Another Word for Home; six fiction entries (though one is also, perplexingly, labeled as “Commentary”); over 100 pages devoted to poetry, including writers such as Lyn Lyfshin; five book reviews, and a page of feedback from readers. Continue reading “Main Street Rag – Fall 2010”

Mississippi Review – Spring 2010

This issue of the Mississippi Review somehow evokes a European tone, though the journal is firmly rooted in the Deep South. Editor Frederick Barthelme’s selections for the Review’s fiction and poetry prizes are united by the narrative risks taken by the authors. These gambles pay off for the most part, resulting in work that grabs more attention than conventional work while still fulfilling the reader’s craving for the standard story elements, including plot, character and setting. Continue reading “Mississippi Review – Spring 2010”

The New York Quarterly – 2010

In the latest issue of the New York Quarterly, we are reminded why it has survived for over 40 years while so many other literary journals of import both large and small are now defunct. The diversity of poetry in this journal makes it extremely inviting as if many disparate voices are having an energetic conversation so stimulating there is no need of a proper segue. Continue reading “The New York Quarterly – 2010”

The Paris Review – Fall 2010

Those who wish to participate in the latest literary world gossip should read The Paris Review. Articles have been written about its new editor, Lorin Stein, for months. Moreintelligentlife.com reports that the 37 year old former Farrar, Straus and Giroux editor is looking for “the best of the best, period—except I don’t really believe in The Best.” According to New York Magazine, Stein’s publishers told him they were looking for “boldness.” The Financial Times reports that “the magazine’s relationship with reportage has ended.” Poets are lamenting the choice of Stein and new poetry editor Robyn Creswell to reject all of the poems previously accepted and slated for future publication. (Many of the rejected poems can be found at The Equalizer.) Continue reading “The Paris Review – Fall 2010”

The Pedestrian – August 2010

The Pedestrian is curious. In the best sense. A compilation of essays written by long-dead writers and today’s up-and-comers, The Pedestrian is dedicated to immortalizing what some may view as a dying art, the essay. With the rise of creative nonfiction, the essay has been sorely missing from many modern journals. The existence of this magazine is promising, and, like any good essay, ripe with curiosity, wonder, and philosophy. Continue reading “The Pedestrian – August 2010”

Roanoke Review – 2010

This volume of the Roanoke Review features the work of 8 fiction writers, including the journal’s three fiction prize-winners, 24 poets, and an interview with poet and novelist Lee Upton. Contributors’ notes include the writers’ statements about the genesis of their pieces and/or their writing process. Poetry and fiction are characterized by affable, accessible voices, and moving stories. Continue reading “Roanoke Review – 2010”

Telephone – Fall 2010

This is a tiny little journal, literally, despite its large ambitions—“this journal is designed as an opportunity to bask in the general shiftiness of translation…serves as a home to foreign poetry, as a tool for developing new work, and as an experiment in translation,” the editors tell us—Telephone fits snugly in one palm. This inaugural issue features the work of Berlin poet Uljana Wolf whose original five poems serve as a “jumping-off point” for more than a dozen poets writing in English, including Mary Jo Bang, Matthea Harvey, Robert Fitterman, Erin Moure, and Craig Santos Perez, among others. Continue reading “Telephone – Fall 2010”

Trachodon – Summer/Fall 2010

The editor of the first issue of Trachodon, named after a dinosaur that never existed, writes in his editor’s note, “I want TRACHODON the magazine…to be this weird, sort of impossible thing. Something that’s up for debate because it’s always leaning a little toward the unreasonable. And, maybe, to be something that’s never quite finished.” Continue reading “Trachodon – Summer/Fall 2010”

Vallum – 2010

This issue’s theme is “renegades,” perfectly apt for the journal as a publication of “new international poetics.” New poems from the prolific and ever-renegade-ish Tomaz Salumun, translated from the Slovenian by Michael Thomas Taren and the author, serve as a fitting start: “The relation between you can and you cannot / is art, / therefore the line is art.” The “you can” is poetry from two and a half dozen poets, reviews, and provocative visual art from Tanya Cooper and the journal’s marvelous—appropriately curious and disturbing—cover by Mathieu Bories. The “you cannot” is ignore Vallum as a poetic force to be reckoned with. Continue reading “Vallum – 2010”

Vivisect

Vivisection—such an evocative word—is experimental surgery performed on animals typically for research purposes, considered unethical by many, and harsh and aggressive as the word itself sounds. I am somewhat surprised at this title, wondering at the poet’s choice of a word with such negative connotations for her book, but the title poem (the final in the collection) demonstrates how poetry can take any term and make it one of great power, salvaged by artistic achievement, prowess, and mastery, rendering it positive on some level. Despite difficult and painful images (or, perhaps, because of them), the title poem reminds us that poetry’s unique power resides in its ability to make every human experience unique (yet universal) and exquisite. Continue reading “Vivisect”

Reliquary Fever

The final lines of the book’s opening poem (“Our questions are / our miracles.”) are uncharacteristically positive (even to use the word “positive” here seems an awkward choice, perhaps “affirming” is more apt) for Goldberg. Drawing a poem to an eloquently surprising and surprisingly eloquent and obsessively conclusive conclusion, however, is not. In fact, this is Goldberg’s special talent—perfected over twenty years and throughout her six books—demonstrated with astonishing consistency and brilliance in her new poems, of which a dozen and a half appear in this volume. “It’s not a season if it expects / a conclusion. That’s what I think, / because of you,” she concludes in “Everything is Nervous.” “If you can’t bear to forget don’t / be born,” concludes “Absence.” Continue reading “Reliquary Fever”

Up From the Blue

Striking, sad, suspenseful, Up From the Blue tells the coming-of-age story of Tillie Harris. Set in her third-grade year, the novel focuses on the home life of Tillie. The father, a colonel in the air force, develops navigation systems for missiles. The older brother, Phil, tries his hardest to be a small soldier: orderly, emotionless, and compliant. Tillie herself is an energetic eight-year-old, full of conflicting emotions and confusing expectations from the adult world. It is her mother, though, who is the star of the book. Red-headed, dreamy-eyed, the mother swings from being loving and tender, the only one who understands Tillie, to vacant and lost, sitting on the couch or lying in bed for days on end. As the mother’s depression deepens and the conflict extends from between the parents to create an ever-widening gulf into which the entire family slides, Tillie risks losing not just her mother but herself. Continue reading “Up From the Blue”

Baby & Other Stories

In her collection of short stories entitled Baby and Other Stories, Paula Bomer explores the dark underbelly of marriage and parenthood and fearlessly puts to paper horrific human desires. Anger plays out through violent (and sometimes sexual) acts and, even more dangerously, through toxic passive aggression. There is a stark contrast between what her characters say and what they think, and real communication takes a backseat to resentment and isolation. She raises questions that aren’t easy to answer, as in the title story “Baby”: Continue reading “Baby & Other Stories”

The Sixty-Five Years of Washington

The Sixty-Five Years of Washington by Juan Jose Saer flows like the walk it entails, divided into three sections of seven blocks each, in the Argentinian town of Rosario, taking place around 10 a.m. on October or November 1960 or 1961. On that day Angel Leto decides not to go to work and encounters The Mathematician, just back from his grand tour of Europe. The two men, different in important respects (class, town’s years of residency), nevertheless walk together for most of the distance, the Mathematician regaling his companion with accounts of Noriega Washington’s sixty-fifth birthday, a party to which neither man was invited. Continue reading “The Sixty-Five Years of Washington”

Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room

Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, by Kelli Russell Agodon, is a collection of charming, intelligent poems that invoke the idea of a modern day Emily addressing the world from the safety of her room. Agodon incorporates anagrams in many of the poems; for example, in “Believing Anagrams,” “funeral” becomes “real fun,” “Emily Dickinson” becomes “inky misled icon” and “poetry” becomes “prey to.” While with some poets this kind of word play can become gimmicky, Agodon masterfully weaves the words into the poem in a natural, organic way. “In the 70s, I Confused Macramé for Macabre” is another poem where language is taken apart and put back together, using the words incorrectly in two different memories, as the speaker “wanted / my mother to remind me / that sometimes we survive.” Continue reading “Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room”

An Invisible Rope

Cynthia L. Haven has gathered an exquisite collection of thirty-two memoirs, which pay tribute personally through historical and personal accounts of one of the most celebrated poets, Czeslaw Milosz. The bevy of contributors who share encounters with Milosz spin intimate stories oft with intimate ease—spanning from the 1930s until just days before his death in 2004. Haven did an excellent job selecting memoirs from a well-credentialed, diverse group of contributors who represent political, literary, environmental, cultural and spiritual spectrums on many levels. She also weaves in lines form Milosz’s vast works in relation to the time period, stories, and references. Continue reading “An Invisible Rope”

Birds for a Demolition

The ninety-two-year old de Barros, recipient of the most prestigious poetry awards in his native Brazil, is author of more than 20 books, though this is the first to appear in English. (Birds for Demolition is a collection of poems from the poet’s oeuvre over the last few decades.) Novey, director of Columbia University’s Center for Literary Translation and author of the poetry collection, The Next Country (2008), explains in her introductory note that de Barros writes of the wetlands and rivers, the “poverty and solitude of rural life,” the part of Brazil where he was raised and which he knows best, not the city, where we often expect (however erroneously) to find most poets. She classifies his writing as “riverbed-poems” and describes the intensity of the experience of translating their unique sense of place. Continue reading “Birds for a Demolition”

The Oldest Hands in the World

Daniele Pantano is a Swiss poet, translator, critic, editor, and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University in England. Work from this volume was published in numerous journals and anthologies in the U.K., Germany, Italy, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, and the U.S. Continue reading “The Oldest Hands in the World”

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