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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!

Southern Humanities Review – Fall 2008

Could there be a better moment for a re-examination of the very notion of “America?” With a translation from the French of noted French art historian, essayist, and poet Yves Bonnefoy’s story, “America” (translated by Hoyt Rogers), essays on white poverty in the south (Wayne Flight), and on modernism and democratic pluralism, with a focus on John Dewey (Allen Dunn), and fiction that considers American family life (Brigitte McCray), I am tempted to say that the editors of this issue of Southern Humanities Review (SHR) predicted, months ago, our need to explore what is at the essence of American identity during the current time of turmoil and transition. Continue reading “Southern Humanities Review – Fall 2008”

MultiMedia Updates

Two new additions you can find on the NewPages Literary Multimedia Guide – Podcasts, videos, and audio programs of interest from literary magazines, book publishers, alternative magazines, universities and bloggers. Includes poetry readings, lectures, author interviews, academic forums and news casts.

Poem Talk
A poetry blog sponsored by The Poetry Foundation, The Kelly Writers House, and Penn Sound.

Write the Book
An ongoing podcast of interviews with authors, editors, publishers, and others of interest in the world of reading and writing. Hosted by Shelagh C. Shapiro, Write The Book airs on WOMM-LP 105.9 FM “The Radiator,” in Burlington, Vermont, every Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. Recent interviews include Xu Xi, Abby Frucht, Rosellen Brown and Charles Barasch.

100 Poems, 100 Days

The day before the inauguration 100 Poems, 100 Days sent out a call to poets they admire to write poems that respond, however loosely, to the presidency, the nation, the government or the current political climate. More than one hundred American poets responded immediately. The first 100 poets were each assigned one of President Obama’s first hundred days in office, and each will write a poem reflecting on the state of the nation and the world on that day. A new poem is posted every day.

Literature and Psychiatry

The British Journal of Psychiatry includes a ‘psychiatry in 100 words’ series, with February’s column focusing on literature. Psychiatrist Femi Oyebode, edited of Mindreadings: literature and psychiatry, offers the following perspective:

“Reading works of fiction and attending to the language, the dialogue, the mood is like listening to patients. In both activities, we enter into other worlds, grasp something about the inner life of characters whose motivations may be unlike our own. D. H. Lawrence referring to this aspect of the novel wrote: `It can inform and lead into new places the flow of our sympathetic consciousness, and it can lead our sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead. Therefore the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of life’. Is this not also, partly, the task of psychiatry?”

Poetry Prize Winners Harpur Palate

The newest issue of Harpur Palate (v8 i2) features the work of Steven Ostrowski, winner of The Milton Kessler Memorial Prize for Poetry, as well as finalists Kerry Ruef, Katharyn Howd Machan, Kerry James Evans, and Claire McQuerry.

Starting in January 2009 Harpur Palate will be seeking submissions of poetry, fiction, & creative non-fiction for their next issue themed, The Long and Short of It, featuring short prose (1000 words or less) and long poems (3 pages or longer). “We’re trying to shake up the genres a little bit and publish some pieces a ‘normal’ journal might not accept, so send us what you got and please tell your friends.” The issue is scheduled for release in Summer 2009.

Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship

Ruth Lilly Fellowships
Five Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships in the amount of  $15,000 will be awarded to young poets through a national competition sponsored by the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry. Established in 1989 by the Indianapolis philanthropist Ruth Lilly, the fellowships are intended to encourage the further study and writing of poetry. Applicants must be us citizens between the age of twenty-one and thirty-one as of  March 31, 2009. Applications must be postmarked during the month of March 2009.

Grisham Novel Upsets University

A recent AP post reports: “Officials at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh are upset that best-selling author John Grisham mentions the school in connection with a fictional gang rape in his latest novel. Grisham’s The Associate deals with a character who attended the private Catholic college and was involved in a drunken rape scene in an off-campus apartment in 2003. Duquesne University spokeswoman Rose Ravasio said it’s unfortunate Grisham ‘chose to use our name and associate it with a fictional incident of this nature.’ Grisham told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he chose the school because he saw it once, and has been to Pittsburgh for Steelers and Pirates games. The novel contains several other references to Pittsburgh.”

Should writers not use the real names of places in their writing? Making up names of things isn’t new to any genre of literature (see Wikipedia’s Index: Lists of Fictional Things). How might it matter one way or another?

Ropewalk Writers Retreat

RopeWalk
June 7-13, 2009
Indiana

The weeklong summer RopeWalk Writers Retreat gives participants an opportunity to attend workshops and to confer privately with one of four prominent writers. Historic New Harmony, Indiana, site of two nineteenth-century utopian experiments, provides an ideal setting for this event with its retreat-like atmosphere and its history of creative and intellectual achievement. At RopeWalk you will be encouraged to write, not simply listen to others talk about writing. In addition, several writers will present papers or give lectures, open to all participants, on aspects of the craft of writing.

New Lit on the Block :: G Twenty Two

Editor Roger Pemberton introduces G Twenty Two Literary Journal online as a publication “to give up-and-coming writers the opportunity to get their writing published not only along with their peers but alongside other writers who have experience in their respective literary fields. We strive to publish thoughtful, clever, inspired work that we think you will appreciate very much.”

The introductory issue includes poetyr, fiction, and flash fiction by Kevin Brown, Hannah Langley, Howie Good, Micah Zevin (also a NewPages Reviewer), Nancy Devine, Ernest Williamson III, John Greiner, Tyler Gobble, J.R. Solonche, Abrielle Willis, Joseph Goosey, Michael Canterino, Brian Alan Ellis, Gale Acuff, and John Bennett.

Based on submissions, G Twenty Two hopes to publish quarterly, if not monthly.

Writers Institute :: New York State

New York State Summer Writers Institute
2-wk or 4-wk sessions
June-July 2009

The New York State Writers Institute, established in 1984 by award-winning novelist William Kennedy at the University at Albany, SUNY, announces its 21st annual summer program. Under the joint auspices of Skidmore College and the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany, the summer program is held on the campus of Skidmore College and will feature creative writing workshops in fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Students may enroll for two weeks or for the entire four-week session. The Institute offers courses for undergraduate and graduate credit and may be taken on a non-credit basis as well. A Senior Fiction Fellow reads entire student novels or extensive works in progress and meets with students on a tutorial basis.

New Lit on the Block :: The Ne’er-Do-Well

Backed by Sheila Ashdown, who moonlights as an employee of Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon, The Ne’er-Do-Well publishes fiction and non-fiction. This first issue includes works by Laura Bogart, Ryan Davidson, Jon Lasser, Keith Rosson, Allan Shapiro, Ricardo Perin, and cover art by Dan Miller.

Magazine as Muse :: The New Quarterly

In its last issue (108 – reviewed here on NP), The New Quarterly introduced a new feature: “Magazine as Muse,” in which writers are asked to tell about magazines that have influenced them. In this issue Billeh Nickerson and Mark Callahan take the opportunity to discuss their “muses.”

How many magazines have made the plea to those who submit to read their publication and, better yet, subscribe to it? And how many times at conferences have I heard speakers charge writers with the same – support your lit mags! This new feature in TNQ provides a much more creative approach: show readers the influence of publications on writers.

It would be nice to see similarly styled features of “role modeling” included in more publications!

New Lit on the Block :: The Readheaded Stepchild

The online poetry magazine The Redheaded Stepchild only accepts poems that have been rejected by other magazines. Editors Malaika King Albrecht and Deborah Blakely, who have each seen their share of accpetance and rejection, say: “We are open to a wide variety of poetry and hold no allegiance to any particular style or school.” But don’t even think that this is a publication without standards: “regrettably even we reject 85% of our submissions.”

The inaugural issue of rejects who have found a home include: Mark DeCarteret, Elizabeth Kerlikowske, Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Richard Garcia, Maggie Glover, Thomas P. Levy, Lucia Galloway, Jessy Randall, Daniel M. Shapiro, Kit Loney, Dorine Jennette, Howie Good, Kathryn Stripling Byer, Susan Yount, Sergio Ortiz, and Susan Rich.

And TRS is kind enough to thank the rejecting publications on “The List.”

Submissions are now being accepted through February for the Spring 2009 issue. C’mon, who among you doesn’t have something to send in?

Jobs :: Various

University of Montevallo Assistant or Associate Professor of English/Creative Writing. The Department of English & Foreign Languages invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track Assistant or Associate Professorship in creative writing (fiction). Jim Murphy, Chair, Creative Writing Search Committee.

Mount Vernon Nazarene University is seeking to hire a qualified instructional faculty member for creative writing and literature. Dr. Henry W. Spaulding II Vice President for Academic Affairs and Academic Dean.

NewPages at AWP

Yes, we will be in Chicago this year!

We’re tabled in Southwest Hall – #624.

We don’t really plan to be at the table much this year, as we will be attending sessions and hitting the floor to say hello to as many of our friends as possible. But do feel free to stop by, say hello, leave a card, a postcard, a book, a lit mag, a beer, etc.

We’ll be sharing a table with Jessica Powers of Catalyst Press Books.

Iowa Review Awards

The Iowa Review, Winter 2008/09, features Winners of the 2008 Iowa Review Awards:

Nonfiction: Nancy Geyer for “Where the Children Are”
Poetry: Dave Snyder for “Bamboo Poem”
Fiction: Andrew Mortazavi for “Stop Six, Ft. Worth”

IR also announced a tie for the Tim McGinnis Award for 2008 for “the most unusually pleasing and unexpected work of the year” : Jim Barnes (“Five Villanelles,” Spring 2008) and Ron Carlson (“Victory at Sea,” in this current issue).

IR makes several works from their most current issue available online.

Glen Workshop

The Glen Workshop in Santa Fe
Fully Human: Art and the Religious Sense
July 26 – August 2, 2009

“The Glen Workshop, sponsored by Image journal, is an innovative and enriching program, combining the best elements of a workshop, an arts festival, and a conference. Add to this the intimate setting at St. John’s College and the rich cultural, spiritual, and natural resources of northern New Mexico and the result is an unforgettable experience. Daily classes are taught by nationally known authors and artists, and are small enough to allow the faculty to give close attention to each participant—to beginners as well as those advanced in their craft. The seminar class is for artists and non-artists alike, a forum to explore the workshop theme in more depth through discussion and hands-on collaborative art making.”

MQR :: Emma’s Father – Dementia?

The newest issue of Michigan Quarterly Review (under the new editorial guidance of Jonathan Freedman, University of Michigan Professor of English and American Culture) includes an article by Margaret Morganroth Gullette: “Annals of Caregiving: Does Emma Woodhouse’s Father Suffer from ‘Dementia’?” For Austen fans, this is a compelling analysis, ready for controversy: “Some readers may deny that Mr. Woodhouse has any form of cognitive impairment, veering back to the simplicities of the ‘polite old man’ characterizations and ignoring the tender manipulations of his caregivers that I have tried to put into relief. Many of us may be diminished in our capacity to connect his condition with our contemporary contest…one of the old people Americans fear most – even, sometimes when they are our own relatives.”

New Lit on the Block :: The Ampersand

Hailing from St. Petersburg, Florida, The Ampersand is held together by editors Jason Cook, Bruce Bostick, and Meghan Kelly. The debut issue features fiction by G.K Wuori, Myfanwy Collins, Matt DeBenedictis, Jason Jordan, Will Lasky, Joseph Riippi, & more. Poetry by Shane Seeley, Julie Yi, diego baez, J. Bradley, Sarah Moon, and “a full brigade of talented, frothy-mouthed poets.” Cover art by Alejandro Sanchez.

Haiku Festival and Contest

The Seventh Annual ukiaHaiku Festival is an afternoon devoted to the Haiku form of poetry. Keynote speaker: Theresa Whitehill

Sunday, April 26, 2009
2 pm to 4 pm at the City Conference Center
200 School Street in Ukiah, California

The festival will also include awards for their Haiku contest, which is a no-fee contest for all age groups *except* the Contemporary Adult Category (3/$5). Deadline March 13

Working with Teen Writers

A great model for others to follow or in which to get involved, the Pongo Publishing Teen Writing Project is a volunteer, nonprofit effort with Seattle teens who are in jail, on the streets, or in other ways leading difficult lives. Pongo helps these young people express themselves through poetry and other forms of writing and publish annual anthologies of their work.

PONGO FUN FACTS:
*This is Pongo’s 14th year.
*Pongo currently has two projects, one at juvenile detention in Seattle and one at the state psychiatric hospital for children in Tacoma.
*Pongo currently has 11 volunteers.
*Pongo has collected 286 surveys from our writers over the last three years, and one-third have previously not written at all or have previously written just a little.
*On the surverys, 100% said they enjoyed writing, 99% said they were proud of their writing, 66% said they wrote about things they don’t normally talk about, 91% said they plan to write in the future when life is difficult.
*Since 2000, Pongo has worked with over 4,000 teens (including 1,800 in individual sessions).
*Pongo has published close to 500 teens in 12 poetry books.
*Pongo has given away 11,800 of our poetry books to youth, agencies, judges, libraries, and others.

Ecotone’s Contribution to Evolution

Ecotone‘s latest issue is a whopping 430 pages – a double issue – in celebration of the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth and the sesquicentennial of the publication of The Origin of Species. The editorial alone (“Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkeys) is worth the issue price, in reading how David Gessner once taught a course called “When Thoreau Met Darwin.”

The issue includes winners of the 2008 Ecotone Evoluntion Contest, judeged by Jennifer Ackerman:

First Prize: Emily Taylor for her short story “Beginning”
Second Prize: Kathryn Miles for her essay “Dog Is Our Copilot
Third Prize: Lynn Pederson for her poem “On Reading about the Illness adn Death of Darwin’s Daughter Annie

And a shout out to Jennifer Sinor for her essay, “The Certainty of Spinning,” and for Birkerts fans (me!), he’s here too, with the nonfiction piece, “The Points of Sail.”

Tin House Summer Writers Workshop

Tin House
Summer Writers Workshop ’09
Reed College, Portland, OR
July 12 – 19, 20089

One-week writing intesnive: workshops, readings, seminars, panels in fiction, non-fiction, poetry.

Faculty and Guests:
Dorothy Allison, Steve Almond, Aimee Bender, Lan Samantha Chang, Charles D’Ambrosio, Anthony Doerr, Stephen Elliott, Ron Hansen, Ehud Havazelet, Ann Hood, Marie Howe, Walter Kirn, D.A. Powell, Jim Shepard, Karen Shepard, David Shields, Kevin Young

Editors and Agents:
Julie Barer, Betsy Lerner, Lee Montgomery,Brenda Shaughnessy, Rob Spillman, Denise Shannon

2009 Mission Creek Festival

The Mission Creek Festival returns to Iowa City, Iowa for its fourth year. Taking place from April 1st – 4th, this four-day annual celebration takes over the venues and art spaces in downtown Iowa City, providing an easily navigated nexus of music, literature, and visual art. The festival remains dedicated to inspiring and building our artistic community through the exposure of both underground and renowned artists.

Confirmed bands include: GZA/Genius (of Wu-Tang Clan) performing Liquid Swordz, The Mountain Goats, John Vanderslice, Fruit Bats, Headlights, Bowerbirds, The Tallest, Man on Earth, Simon Joyner, El Paso Hot Button, Caleb Engstrom, Fulton Lights, Golden Birds, and Pieta Brown

Confirmed readers include: Edmund White, Charlie D’Ambrosio, Steven Kuusisto, Forklift: Ohio, Andrew Milward, Mark Leidner, Steve Hanson, with more to come!

Confirmed film: Copyright Criminals – a documentary by Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod

Updike’s Rules for Reviews

Reviewing 101: John Updike’s rules
Originally posted by John Freeman

Posted back in 2006 on Critical Mass: The blog of the national book critics circle board of directors, it was refreshing to re-read this and feel a sense of connection with our work here at NewPages in what we have always stood by as “fair reviews” with a commitment not to post “trash reviews.”

2009 Sami Rohr Prize Fiction Finalists Announced

Posted on the Jewish Book Council blog by Naomi Firestone, where each finalist will be featured in upcoming blog posts.

The 2009 Sami Rohr Prize Fiction finalists:

Elisa Albert for The Book of Dahlia (Free Press)
Sana Krasikov for One More Year (Spiegel & Grau)
Anne Landsman for The Rowing Lesson (Soho Press)
Dalia Sofer for The Septembers of Shiraz (Ecco)
Anya Ulinich for Petropolis (Viking Penguin)

Global Slums Exhibit

The Places We Live by Jonas Bendiksen includes an online exhibit of sounds and images of slums in Caracas – Venezula; Kibera, Nairobi – Kenya; Jakarta – Indonesia; and Dharavi, Mumbai – India. After the stunning introduction, you can click on each country for further images as well as several “houses” to visit. For each visit, there is audio and an interactive image that can be viewed using your mouse.

“The year 2008 has witnessed a major shift in the way people across the world live: for the first time in human history more people live in cities than in rural areas. This triumph of the urban, however, does not entirely represent progress, as the number of people living in urban slums—often in abject conditions—will soon exceed one billion.”

The Places We Live is also a traveling exhibit and available as a book, with signed copies at the Magnum Photo store.

Please

The epigraph from Prince Rogers Nelson (“The beautiful ones always smash the picture”) provides a succinct introduction to the territory Brown mines throughout Please; namely, the intersection of violence and desire. For those who may not recognize his full given name, Prince Rogers Nelson is better known simply as Prince (a.k.a. The Artist Formerly Known As…). It should come as no surprise, given the choice of epigraph, that music is one of the book’s central motifs. Continue reading “Please”

The Madwoman of Bethlehem

Don’t let the title or shadowy sepia cover fool you; this is not your typical Middle Eastern novel: sad, dark, slow, un-relatable. There are no silent, dark-clad, wise old women or handsome, ruthless, old-fashioned, but still socially respectable young men. The plot isn’t made slow by verbally artistic renditions of the dusty scenery or groups of loyal women milling around the well. The tone is not sad in a “you’ll-never-know-what-it’s-like, feel-sorry-for-the-lot-of-us, but-our-life-is-beautiful,” distant kind of way. Continue reading “The Madwoman of Bethlehem”

Some Place Quite Unknown

Celia, a teacher, writer, and mother in her fifties, undergoes psychoanalysis after nearly being killed by a passing taxi. Finding that she has bottled away years of painful memories, she obsessively engages in her work with Dr. Daniels, to whom she pours out stories and dreams about her mother who committed suicide, her relationship with various members of her extended family, and longing for her grown son who lives across the country. Continue reading “Some Place Quite Unknown”

Why the Long Face?

Ron MacLean, author of the 2004 novel Blue Winnetka Skies, surges forward with his new collection of short stories, Why the Long Face? The collection’s witty, and at times wry, take on the ordinary stuff of life works to subtly reveal the extraordinary nature hidden in even the most common events. Continue reading “Why the Long Face?”

State of the Union

The word “politics” comes from the Latin politicus and means, according to Merriam-Webster, “of or relating to government, a government, or the conduct of government.” It’s the conduct of government – George Bush’s government – that concerns most of the 50 poets collected here. Some are famous; some are new. All are accomplished and impassioned. Continue reading “State of the Union”

On a Day Like This

On a seemingly ordinary day, Andreas decides to change the course of his life. He’s empty, worn out and sick of life’s routines, but he’s also learned that he may have cancer. Almost immediately, Andreas decides to quit his job, sell his Parisian apartment of 20 years and return to his hometown in Switzerland to visit, and perhaps act upon, an unrequited love. Continue reading “On a Day Like This”

Inventing the Real

The logic behind the 2×2 series, published by the Feminist Press, goes something like this: selected works by two authors (one male, one female) dealing with a similar theme or subject are juxtaposed in a single book. The blurb on the back of the jacket puts it this way: “Love. Death. Conflict. Civilization and its discontents. Do women and men tackle these enduring themes differently? [2×2] matches short works by great women and men writers and lets you be the judge.” Continue reading “Inventing the Real”

A Nod to Nester

Thanks to Daniel Nester for mentioning NewPages as a “best online portal” in The Library Journal‘s January installment of The Magazine Rack. Magazines mentioned in this column include Cave Wall, Bateau, 1913, The Lumberyard, Caketrain, Alimentum, Habitus, Chautauqua, Atlas, and Greatest Uncommon Denominator.

aaaarrrrrggghhhhhhhhh…..

Schwartz Bookshops to Close After 82 Years
By Evan Rytlewski
Express Milwaukee
Monday, January 19, 2009

Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, one of the largest and oldest independent chains in Wisconsin, survived the Great Depression but wasn’t able to overcome titanic changes in the retail sector, exacerbated by the current economic crisis. Following years of disappointing sales and a brutal 2008, after eight decades in business the chain will close its remaining four locations on March 31.

“Business has been rough for a number of years now,” said Schwartz President Carol Grossmeyer. “Then the market fell apart and it was such a dismal holiday season that we decided we really needed to end it in the first quarter of the year, that we weren’t going to make it beyond that.”

Read the rest here.

Brevity Seeks Photographers and Artists

In addition to its submissions of non-fiction prose of many styles, Brevity has put out a special call for photographers and artists: “We are looking for artists and photographers who may want to be featured in future issues… the artwork does not attempt to illustrate the essays, but instead sits alongside the work with either no or merely a subtle connection. What we are looking for is distinctive, quality work.” Check out Brevity online for more information.