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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!

New Book :: The Last Gay Man on Earth

The Last Gay Man on Earth: A Photo Comic by Ype Driessen book cover image

The Last Gay Man on Earth: A Photo Comic by Ype Driessen
Street Noise Books, June 2023

In the photo comic The Last Gay Man on Earth, author Ype Driessen is a gay man living in Amsterdam with his boyfriend Nico. When asked by Nico to accompany him on a work trip to America, Ype must confront his deep fear of flying. While doing so, Ype finds he also has to come to terms with his social and sexual anxieties, his neurotic nature, and a serious case of imposter syndrome. What follows is a moving and deeply personal story, filled with humor as well as drama —surprising, honest, and unforgettable. Ype embarks on an adventure that leads him to his ultimate fantasy: being the last person on earth. Encouraged by a sentient robot vacuum cleaner called Chupi, he finds out what it really means to be true to yourself.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Book Review :: When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar

When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

Fatimah Asghar’s novel, When We Were Sisters, tells the story of three sisters who are orphaned, as was Asghar. Their uncle, who remains unnamed throughout the work, takes them in, not to actually care for them, but to use the money from their father’s death to fund his get-rich schemes that never work. The girls fend for themselves, often going hungry for days or weeks, living in squalorous conditions. They also have to work through their emotional struggles on their own, leading to trauma and suffering, especially for Kausar, the youngest sister and primary narrator of the novel. She portrays the sisters as watching out for one another, referring to them as sister-brothers or sister-mothers periodically in an attempt to show their toughness and their ability to nurture one another; however, Kausar realizes late in the novel that her perception has not been accurate. Asghar is a poet—this is her first novel—and her short sections feel almost like prose poems, at times; she even intersperses more poetic sections from the point of view of “him” and “her,” the sisters’ dead parents. Given their childhood, readers should be amazed at how well the sisters are able to manage largely on their own, but readers will also spend the novel wondering about the misogyny and greed that leads to their having to.

When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar. One World, October 2022.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.

Magazine Stand :: Cholla Needles – 79

Cholla Needles Issue 79 cover image

Issue 79 of Cholla Needles from Joshua Tree, California, features an exciting cover by young artist Lily M. Capra. The magical words within are by Bonnie Bostrom, Ron Riekki, Joy Gaines-Friedler, Christien Gholson, Miriam Sagan, David Chorlton, lalo kikiriki, J. David Rawn, James Marvelle, Johnny Kovatch, and Bobby Norman. Cholla Needles publishes monthly and therefore has rolling submission deadlines with editors who favor established and emerging writers with distinctive voices that communicate well with readers.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: EtC

EtC by Laura Mullen book cover image

EtC by Laura Mullen
Solid Objects, November 2023

EtC by Laura Mullen explores contemporary American selfhood, socially mediated and economically motivated, within a system where we learn to see and represent ourselves as one marketable image among many, where “brand” displaces character, and the corporal and corporate intersect. Elsie is both a collection of tropes for femininity (her embodied history leaning heavily into illness and inadequacy when not floating on fantasies of power) and also a symptom of her country’s illness. Almost constantly laughing, she is – obviously – unreliable. But EtC blends persona into hyper-confessionalism to open a space for honesty – the hope is that the spectacle of Elsie exercising her fraught and limited freedoms in the context of cultural, social, and environmental disasters might provide a point of critique, in order to readjust the values shaping our experience so as to move toward ways of being in the world that might be wiser, kinder, more sane, and more real.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Book Review :: Field Guide to Graphic Literature

Field Guide to Graphic Literatury book cover image

The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Graphic Literature: Artists and Writers on Creating Graphic Narratives, Poetry Comics, and Literary Collage edited by Kelcey Ervick and Tom Hart is the newest in the publisher’s Field Guide series. To say my mind was blown when I first thumbed through this collection would be an understatement. When I settled into reading it and working through the chapters, I intermittently laughed out loud with a kind of incredulous glee that such a book exists.

Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is probably the most popularly noted book on the subject of comic study and the tome that allowed many teachers to legitimize the incorporation of comics into academic classrooms. It’s the most oft-cited in this collection of essays, and while mentioned respectfully each time, there is a recognition of the limitation of his work, and in some cases, disagreements or differences of perspective. Each contributor who cites it does so as the starting point for furthering the dialogue in new concepts and theories on the practice of creating and reading contemporary graphic literature – pushing the conversation way outside the traditional comic frame.

Continue reading “Book Review :: Field Guide to Graphic Literature”

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week – July 10, 2023

Lit Mag Covers: Picks of the Week recognizes cover art and designs for literary magazines, whether in print or online. These are chosen solely at the discretion of the Editor. Enjoy!

Your Impossible Voice Spring 2023 cover image

Your Impossible Voice nonprofit online lit mag takes its name from “Phrases” by Arthur Rimbaud, “Bind yourself to us with your impossible voice, your voice! sole soother of this vile despair.” Issue 28 (Spring 2023) cover art is “A Different Recollection Than Yours” by Edward Lee.

86 Logic Issue 9 cover image

86 Logic Issue 9 is a print publication with sleek graphic design for both text and art throughout. The cover was commissioned from artist Tom Liesegang, whose work and an interview are included inside as well.

Yolk Literary Magazine Summer 2023 cover image

Montreal-based Yolk Literary Magazine publishes Canadian artists in print as well as offers unique online content. The cover art for their Summer 2023 issue is by Sophie Edell and captures a quintessential image of summer.

To find more great literary magazines, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Magazine Stand :: The Writing Disorder – Summer 2023

The Writing Disorder Summer 2023 cover image

The Summer 2023 issue of The Writing Disorder offers readers all new fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art to keep the season going. Featured contributors include fiction by Jennifer Blake, Rozanne Charbonneau, amy g dahla, Jonas David, Brad Gottschalk, Tina Dolly Ilangoven, Paul Perilli, Ellis Shuman; poetry by George Capaccio, Beatrice Feng, Sydney Fisher, Ron Riekki, Mykyta Ryzhykh, Scott Taylor; nonfiction by Sydney Hollins-Holloway, Eric Lee, Jonathan Kruyer, Steve Schecter, Rita Stevens; and art by Maja Lindberg.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: The Prumont Method

The Prumont Method by Trevor J. Houser book cover image

The Prumont Method by Trevor J. Houser
Unsolicited Press, August 2023

Staring down the barrel of a crumbling career and imploding marriage, “math hobbyist” Roger Prumont, unwittingly creates a formula that might predict when and where the next mass shooting occurs. He hits the road (where he’s joined by his unimpressed daughter) to test whether the Method could actually save lives. Except what if mass shootings are so ubiquitous now that his predictions are merely dumb luck? And what if he’s risking his own life to find out?

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Book Review :: Maamoul Press

Maamoul Press logo

At the 2023 Chicago Zine Fest, I met Maamoul Press, “a multi-disciplinary small press and collective for the creation, curation and dissemination of art at the intersection of comics, printmaking, and book arts.” The submission criteria includes “by-us-for-us” storytelling which need not be strictly autobiographical, but should be “rooted in some way in the writer or artist’s lived experience,” for “works by BIPOC women, trans, and non-binary artists.” I selected several publications from the Maamoul Press table, as I was interested in how each is unique in content and style.

Loneliness by Reimena Yee book cover image

Loneliness by Reimena Yee is a ten-page zine coursing through the author’s relationship with loneliness, from youth to adulthood. Not always ‘getting along’ with being alone, but finding the joy and beauty in it, nonetheless. Yee reveals how she copes with and even welcomes loneliness into her life. An uplifting and empowering perspective for all of us solitary dwellers out there. The images are mainly black and grayscale, a few brown/sepia tones, on ivory paper. (10pp, 2020)

The Insubordinate by Rawand Issa book cover image

The Insubordinate by Rawand Issa is a bilingual (Arabic/English) full-color graphic novel ‘do-si-do’ style, showing more of the publisher’s book arts skills. Its story is based on real events that took place in Beirut between October 8, 2015, and March 20, 2017, following a young woman’s demonstration participation and arrest. Her case was turned over to the Military Court and her lawyer fights to have the case thrown out since it is a civilian and not a military matter. Issa’s use of multiple thick lines and hard edges creating geometric shapes adds intensity to the story as it ramps up and unfolds. A disturbing narrative experience in a stylishly beautiful presentation.

The Layover by Soumya Dhulekar book cover image

I selected The Layover by Soumya Dhulekar for its two-color risograph print and its all-too-familiar mundane storyline of layover waiting in an airport, banal exchanges between strangers, and the connections we make in surreal yet familiar ways. The graphic style is a perfect vehicle of expression for this story experience. (12pp, 2019)

Reviewer bio: Denise Hill is Editor of NewPages.com and reviews books she chooses based on her own personal interests.

Magazine Stand :: Bending Genres – Issue 33

Bending Genres June 2023 logo image

Bending Genres online literary magazine’s submissions guidelines say they seek “thrilling, fanciful, oddball, unusual, stunning fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction pieces. Think Olympics on a case of Red Bull. Think October in April. Think Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.” Issue 33 contributors who made the cut include Catherine O’Brien, Jess Richardson, Erin Mizrahi, Pat Foran, Kathryn de Lancellotti, Kristin Idaszak, Samuel Edwards, Shannon Frost Greenstein, Theodora Ziolkowski, Sam Rasnake, Glen Pourciau, James Miller, Anna Mantzaris, Lisa Alletson, David Yourdon, Brendan Constantine, Nwabuisi Kenneth, Andrew Cusick, Amy Marques, Megan Jones, Laurel Benjamin, MaxieJane Frazier, Stephen Delaney, George Ryan, Claudia Monpere, Sean Ennis, Catherine Buck, Michaela Mayer, Tyler Dillow, Karen Arnold, Reece Gritzmacher, and Lee Chilcote.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Dread Space Volume 2

Dread Space Volume 2 edited by Erick Fomley book cover image

Dread Space Volume 2 ed. by Eric Fomley
Shacklebound Books, May 2023

Dread Space Volume 2 edited by Eric Fomley is an anthology of dark military science fiction stories. Within these pages are soldiers doing their best to stay alive against otherworldly odds and unimaginable terrors. Twenty-two dark flash fiction stories from Wendy Nikel, Robert Bagnall, Liam Hogan, Dawn Vogel, Jonathan Ficke & many others. Shacklebound Books is a small press that publishes anthologies and collections in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. Most of what they publish has “a darker bend to it.” Readers can sign up for their newsletter to stay up to date on new releases, submissions, and receive two free stories every month.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Magazine Stand :: New England Review – 44.2

New England Review 44.2 cover image

New England Review 44.2 is available now in print and ebook editions and features prose by Anu Kandikuppa, Susan Daitch, Efrén Ordóñez Garza, Olivia Muenz, and Nicholas Petty, poetry by Carlie Hoffman, George Uba, Mark Kyungsoo Bias, and Meg Reynolds, translations from French, Spanish, and Catalan, artwork by Louise O’Gorman, and our long-awaited special feature honoring the life and legacy of a beloved poet, editor, and mentor—”The Door Left Wide”: Irish Poets in Tribute to Eavan Boland. Subscribers receive full content, and NER rolls out selections from each new publication on their website over several weeks.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Where to Submit Roundup: July 7, 2023

35 Submission Opportunities including calls for submissions, writing contests, and book prizes.

Where to Submit Roundup 2023

The first week of July is a wrap. Hopefully you were able to have a safe July Fourth holiday and we hope everyone is able to keep cool and safe with these crazy heat waves and storms.

If you are able to stay indoors with the AC or fans, take the time to write, edit, and submit. NewPages has you covered with our first weekly roundup of submission opportunities for July 2023. NewPages Newsletter subscribers with a paid subscription get early and first access to our submission opportunities and upcoming events, the majority before they go live on our site. Consider subscribing today.

Continue reading “Where to Submit Roundup: July 7, 2023”

New Book :: This Morning the Mountain

This Morning the Mountain: Poems by Judy Rowe Michaels book cover image

This Morning the Mountain: Poems by Judy Rowe Michaels
Cherry Grove Collections, March 2023

Judy Rowe Michaels’ sixth bout of cancer coincided with a deeper grief: her husband’s sudden death, the end of a forty-four-year marriage. Yet the poems in This Morning the Mountain, in their various turnings, reveal unexpected moments of comfort, resilience, even laughter: the pet cat’s growling capture of a broiled shrimp, “like the fierce hunter he was meant to be”; an arresting improvisation by a favorite jazz pianist; a prisoner’s empathic insight about a poem—“I guess cancer could be a prison too.” Ranging from villanelle to prose poem to irregular stanzas that surge, stumble, or sprawl across a page, these poems find the music to explore not only our natural fears of loneliness, insufficiency, heartbreak, and death but the celebration of love.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Book Promotion Mailing Lists

image of author signing book

NewPages.com offers mailing lists to help with the promotion of new books as well as set up readings or other launch events. NewPages.com offers up-to-date and affordable mailing lists for indie bookstores (U.S. & Canada), Barnes & Noble bookstores, public and academic libraries, and daily newspaper and alternative newsweeklies with a 100% postal delivery guarantee. Learn more about our mailing lists here.

Magazine Stand :: Salamander – 56

Salamander Issue 56 cover image

Issue #56 of Salamander features more fiction and creative nonfiction than ever before, with short stories and flash fiction by: Leanne Ma, Alyson Mosquera Dutemple, John William McConnell, Benjamin Van Voorhis, William Woolfitt, and Lindsay Starck; and creative nonfiction by Martha K. Petersen, Zach Semel, Kathy Davis, and Joseph Dante. Salamander Issue 56 features poetry by Aaron Caycedo-Kimura, Chelsea Dingman, Suphil Lee Park, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Remi Recchia, Sihle Ntuli, Terena Elizabeth Bell, Ricardo Pau-Llosa, Brent Ameneyro, Martha Silano, Angie Macri, Adam J. Gellings, Sebastian Merrill, and many more poets, and reviews of work by Gabrielle Octavia Rucker, Jinwoo Chong, and Jose Antonio Villarán.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Book Review :: Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

In Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi’s Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions, interlocking stories form a novel that follows four Nigerian girls as they become women trying to determine who they should be and what role their lives should play in the history of their country. In fact, the first story begins in 1897, well before any of the girls are born, and ends with a story set in 2050 with the remaining women meeting to help one of them solve a significant problem. On the one hand, this collection examines the positives and negatives of Nigeria’s history and culture, as it shows the effects of the Biafran war, the rise of Evangelical churches and anti-LGBTQ laws, the rich culinary connections, and the deep family relationships. In the final story, Ogunyemi even uses her background in medicine to critique the American healthcare system, especially around medical debt. More than anything, though, Ogunyemi’s work reveals richly developed characters who try to negotiate what it means to be a Nigerian woman, always relying on their friends to help them through triumph and tragedy. These characters care deeply for one another and, mostly, for their families, so they are willing to make whatever sacrifices are necessary so that the others’ lives can be better, no matter what political and cultural shifts occur.

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi. Amistad, September 2022.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.

New Book :: Ellie is Cool Now

Ellie is Cool Now by Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren book cover image

Ellie is Cool Now by Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren
Forever, March 2023

Ellie is Cool Now is the result of Victoria Fulton and Faith McClaren ‘plopping’ an adult romcom chapter onto Wattpad, which resulted in a favorable readership and a Watty Award. The story follows TV writer Ellie Jenkins, who worked her butt off to put her nerdy, outcast teen years behind her. The irony being that she now works for a hit show about popular high school kids when she was So. Not. Cool. And she’s been offered the promotion of a lifetime—if she attends her reunion. But Ellie’s memory of High School Hell isn’t nearly as traumatic as the reality. No one at the reunion is what Ellie expected. Not her ex-best friend and not her secret crush. The only way she’s going to survive this whole weird ordeal is by fixing her bad high school karma, kissing the one who got away, and getting the hell out of Ohio for good. But Ellie’s discovering that in real life, she can’t just rewrite the script.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Things in the Basement

Things in the Basement by Ben Hatke book cover image

Things in the Basement by Ben Hatke
First Second, August 2023

In Ben Hatke’s graphic novel Things in the Basement, Milo is sent by his mother to fetch an errant sock from the basement of the historic home they’ve just moved into. It was supposed to just be a normal basement—some storage boxes, dust—the usual basement stuff. But when Milo finds a door in the back that he’s never seen before, it turns out that the basement of his house is enormous. In fact, there is a whole world down there. As Milo travels ever deeper into the Basement World, he meets the many Things that live in the shadows and gloom, and he learns that to face his fears he must approach even the strangest creatures with kindness.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Magazine Stand :: Paterson Literary Review – Number 51

Paterson Literary Review 2023 cover image

Paterson Literary Review Number 51 (2023 annual) includes work by Martin Espada, Joe Weil, Marge Piercy, Dante DiStefano, Kevin Carey, Tony Gloeggler, Bob Hicok, Vivien Shipley, Barbara Crooker, and January Gill O’Neil, as well as the winning poems from the Allen Ginsberg Award and many others in its 335 pages. Edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan since 1979, Paterson Literary Review is “an anthology of writers both famous and unknown,” and The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College has received international recognition for many of its activities, including the Paterson Literary Review.

To find more great reading, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Traveling? Visit Indie Bookstores!

Midland Street Books, Bay City, Michigan, photo of storefront

NewPages Guide to Independent Bookstores in the U.S. and Canada is a great resource for summer travelers. There is no better way to get to know a city than to check in with their local indie bookstore(s).

NewPages.com currently lists only brick-and-mortar stores (no online-only, pop-up, mobile, comics-only shops, or shops with books as a side business). We offer free enhanced listings in our Guide to Independent Bookstores to help booksellers connect with book lovers, so you can find a lot of info for many of the stores.

If we’re missing your favorite stores, do let us know!

[Thanks to our friends at Midland Street Books for the lovely storefront photo!]

Magazine Stand :: Superpresent – Summer 2023

Superpresent Summer 2023 cover image

Superpresent is a unique magazine in that it puts equal emphasis on the written word and visual arts, publishing work from a diverse set of talented writers, artists, and filmmakers. “When we chose the theme for this, our tenth issue,” explains Editor Kevin Clement, “we didn’t do an inquiry on the term ‘inquiries.’ Perhaps we should have. We didn’t expand on the theme as we sometimes do. Perhaps we should have. We did make the word plural, hoping for multiplicity. We weren’t disappointed. The writers and artists who contributed to this issue put forth questions across disciplines.” Providing some commentary on select pieces, Clements adds, “frequent contributor Duncan Forbes sent three poems that pose some fascinating questions and an essay on the brain which includes an analysis of one of our favorite Dickinson poems on the same subject. Her poem questions as it proposes. Our arts editor proposed questions to artist Aimée Beaubien whose work graces the cover. We know readers will enjoy her thoughtful responses which, like her art, have layers upon layers, questions upon questions.” Visit the Superpresent website today to read the entire issue.

New Book :: Bert Meyers

Bert Meyers The Unsung Masters Series book cover image

Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master
Ed. Dana Leven and Adele Elise Williams
The Unsung Masters Series, June 2023

Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master is the fourteenth volume in the Unsung Masters Series and includes both a large selection of his very best poems and appreciations from José Angel Araguz, Jim Bogen, Victoria Chang, Amy Gerstler, Garrett Hongo, Daniel Meyers, Barry Sanders, Ari Sherman, Maria Simon, Sean Singer, and others. Edited by Dana Leven and Adele Elise Williams and published with financial support by the Nancy Luton Fund and the University of Houston English Department in collaboration with Gulf Coast, Copper Nickel, and Pleiades.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Nervosa

Nervosa by Hayley Gold book cover image

Nervosa by Hayley Gold
Street Noise Books, April 2023

Hayley Gold’s graphic memoir Nervosa recognizes anorexia nervosa as an eating disorder. It is not a phase, a fad, or a choice. It is a debilitating illness, manifested in a distorted relationship with food, but which actually has more to do with issues of control. It is often a puzzle for doctors, therapists, parents, and friends. And so those who suffer from it are belittled, or tragically misunderstood, not only by society but by the healthcare system meant to treat it. Nervosa is a no-holds-barred, richly textured portrait of one young woman’s experience. In her vividly imagined retelling, Gold lays bare a callous medical system seemingly disinterested in the very patients it is supposed to treat and traces how her own life was irrevocably damaged by both the system and her own disorder, offering readers a remarkably candid exploration of the search for hope in the darkness.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Book Review :: The Funny Moon by Chris Lincoln

The Funny Moon by Chris Lincoln book cover image

Guest Post by Dave Greeley

Clair loved Wally but lately didn’t like him very much.

Wally is reminiscent of Jim Harrison’s Johnny Lundgren and Bukowski’s Henry Chinaski, guys who understand the cost of doing things the way they do because they are nothing if not self-aware.

The Funny Moon is set in a small New England college town where Wally grew up and to which he retreated in his late twenties. Lincoln renders it with a clarity that borders on virtual reality, and it becomes one of the book’s leading characters. After a few chapters, readers will feel like they grew up there, too. Inevitably, the walls are closing in on Wally. His main client wants social media advertising, a subject Wally knows nothing about. His wife Claire is running out of patience with him, or maybe she is outgrowing him. Even some of his lifelong chums are looking askance at him.

This is a classic coming-of-middle-age story, but Lincoln sails past every cliché with scenes so well-played the ending is one readers could not have predicted. The Funny Moon is sun-dappled and bleak, both a “What a ride” and “What the fuck?” As Jim Harrison puts it in Warlock, “The trouble is that no one gets to be anyone else.”

The Funny Moon by Chris Lincoln. Rootstock Publishing, June 2023.

Dave Greeley worked with the author for several years in the early 1980s. He is a communications consultant to clients in education, pharma, and high technology.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week – July 3, 2023

Lit Mag Covers: Picks of the Week recognizes cover art and designs for literary magazines, whether in print or online. These are chosen solely at the discretion of the Editor. Enjoy!

45th Parallel Summer 2023

Managed and edited by MFA student volunteers from the Oregon State University’s School of Writing, Literature, and Film in Corvallis, the Summer 2023 issue of 45th Parallel features the compelling collage work of belle dorcas.

Louisiana Literature 40.1 cover image

Birds are a favorite subject, especially when captured so candidly in their natural environment, as on this latest issue of Louisiana Literature. Photo credit: Norman German.

Zeniada Summer 2023 cover image

Zeniada online magazine publishes “poetry that TALKS HARD and art that CURLS the floorboards like smoke billowing from the mouth of a small god,” which includes this cover art Feast of Eden by Cheo Kojima.

To find more great literary magazines, visit the NewPages Guide to Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines, the NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines, and the NewPages Guide to Publications for Young Writers. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Magazine Stand :: The Shore – Issue 18

The Shore Issue 18 cover image

The Shore Issue 18 brings the heat of distance and language and parenthood into haunting haze and burning light of the new season. It features scintillating poetry by Haley Winans, Sara Femenella, Dorsey Craft, Lisa Lewis, William Littlejohn-Oram, Laura Apol, Matthew Gustafson, Tracey Knapp, Sandra Fees, Roman Bobek, Jordan Walker, Emily A Benton, Jeff Newberry, Christopher McCormick, Katie Mora, Ashish Kumar Singh, Allison Thung, Fathia Quadri Eniola, Saba Husain, Matthew McDonald, Austin Segrest, Matthew Murrey, Amy DeBellis, Helena Mesa, Inkyoo Lee, Phoebe Gilmore, Alexander Duringer, Dan Schall, Jamie Tews, Peggy Hammond, Andrew Vogel, Laurel Benjamin, Annette Sisson, Phil Goldstein, Lisa Low, Barbara Daniels, Adam D Weeks, David Eileen Winn and Sarah B Cahalan. It also features art that interrogates ideas of space and distance by Andrew Spitzer.

New Book :: Tell Me What You See

Tell Me What You See by Terena Elizabeth Bell book cover image

Tell Me What You See by Terena Elizabeth Bell
Whiskey Tit, December 2022

Tell Me What You See, the debut short story collection by Terena Elizabeth Bell, offers readers ten experimental works about coronavirus quarantines, climate change, the January 6th invasion on the US Capitol, and other events from 2020-2021. The title story “Tell Me What You See” is a 2021 New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) City Artist Corps winner, and the book is dedicated in part to Detroit-area Congresswoman Haley Stevens who was an inspiration for the author.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

New Book :: Craft

Craft: A Memoir by Tony Trigilio book cover image

Craft: A Memoir by Tony Trigilio
Marsh Hawk Press, September 2023

Tony Trigilio’s Craft: A Memoir is an exploration of the writer’s craft through a series of short, linked personal essays. When writers talk about “craft,” they frequently focus on clinical, literary-dictionary terms such as language, narrative, structure, image, tone, and voice, among others. Craft: A Memoir is an effort to understand craft through discussions of the direct experience of writing itself—through stories of how Trigilio became a writer. Each chapter features an anecdote from the author’s development as a writer that illustrates craft elements central to his body of work.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!

Magazine Stand :: The Lake – July 2023

The Lake online magazine of poetry and reviews logo image

Just in time for the heat (and smoke?) of summer reading, the July 2023 issue of The Lake online poetry journal is ready for reading. Contributors include Catherine Arra, Ace Boggess, L. J. Carber, Eva Eliav, George Franklyn, Ann Malaspina, Liz McPherson, Debarshi Mitra, Stephen Page, Michael Salcman, Claire Scott, Richard Slottow. Reviews of David Giannini’s Already Long Ago and Matt Mauch’s A Northern Spring. One Poem Reviews, a feature that offers readers a one-poem sample from a new collection, spotlights Pauline Rowe/A. J. Wilkinson. In addition, J. R. Solonche reviews David Giannini’s, Already Long Ago, and Charles Rammelkamp reviews Matt Mauch’s A Northern Spring. All free online!

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Magazine Stand :: Radar Poetry – Issue 36

Radar Poetry Issue 36 cover image

Radar Poetry is an electronic journal of poetry and artwork from established and emerging writers from around the globe. Radar Poetry is interested in the interplay between poetry and visual media with each issue pairing works of poetry and art selected by the editors. The newest issue feature poetry by Jacqueline Berger, Alecia Beymer, Luke Eldredge, Josh Exoo, Stephen Lackaye, Lisa Lewis, Carlos A. Pittella, Phoebe Reeves, Liz Robbins, Lindsay Rockwell, Molly Tenenbaum, and Theodora Ziolkowski, and artwork by David Boyle, Kiley Brockway, Adam Dahlstrom, Armando Jaramillo Garcia, and Jim Ross.

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Magazine Stand :: Glassworks – Spring 2023

Glassworks Spring 2023 cover image

Issue 26 (Spring 2023) of Glassworks features artwork by E. O. Connors, Catherine Edgerton, Gerberg Garmann, and Carella Keil; fiction by Faith McNaughton and Kathryn Reese; nonfiction by Joanna Acevedo, Chelsea M. Carney, and Ted McLoof; and poetry by Devon Brock, Amber Lee Carpenter, Rachael Inciarte, Karina Jha, Sean Madden, Mary Makofske, Claire Hamner Matturro, Reese Menefee, Kathleen McGookey, Sam Moe, Judith H. Montgomery, Annette Sisson, and Jacob Stratman. Glassworks is a publication of Rowan University’s Master of Arts in Writing program and also publishes Flash Glass – a monthly of flash fiction, prose poetry, and micro-essays, and lookingglass – a space for contributors to share reflections on their work.

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New Book :: The Liberators

The Liberators: A Novel by E. J. Koh book cover image

The Liberators: A Novel by E. J. Koh
Tin House Books, November 2023

At the height of the military dictatorship in South Korea, Insuk and Sungho are arranged to be married. The couple soon moves to San Jose, California, with an infant and Sungho’s overbearing mother-in-law. Adrift in a new country, Insuk grieves the loss of her past and her divided homeland, finding herself drawn into an illicit relationship that sets into motion a dramatic saga and echoes for generations to come. From the Gwangju Massacre to the 1988 Olympics, flashbacks to Korean repatriation after Japanese surrender, and the Sewol ferry accident, E. J. Koh’s exquisitely drawn portraits and symphonic testimony from guards, prisoners, perpetrators, and liberators spans continents and four generations of two Korean families forever changed by fateful past decisions made in love and war.

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Book Review :: Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah book cover image

Guest Post by Kevin Brown

Chain-Gang All-Stars is Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s debut novel. After his stellar 2018 story collection Friday Black, this is an important book, but it’s also a good, if challenging, read. He creates an America similar to our contemporary one, but he’s updated some of the technology and introduced a new extreme sport, one in which those whom the state has incarcerated battle each other to the death. What hasn’t changed, though, is the racism and sexism and brutality found within the carceral system. Adjei-Brenyah highlights both Americas through the portrayal of his characters, but also through footnotes that remind the reader that, while his work is fiction, the suffering endured by so many is absolutely real. This mixture of what happens in twenty-first-century America and what has happened throughout American history along with his fictional world that builds upon those realities constantly reminds readers that what happens in the prison system today—especially the for-profit sections of it—is effectively no different from having prisoners kill one another for entertainment. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxx” Stacker—the two main characters—try to create a relationship in the midst of this oppression and abuse, and they also work to show America what could be different, just as Adjei-Brenyah does in his novel.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. Pantheon Books, May 2023.

Reviewer bio: Kevin Brown has published three books of poetry: Liturgical Calendar: Poems (Wipf and Stock); A Lexicon of Lost Words (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry, Snake Nation Press); and Exit Lines (Plain View Press). He also has a memoir, Another Way: Finding Faith, Then Finding It Again, and a book of scholarship, They Love to Tell the Stories: Five Contemporary Novelists Take on the Gospels. Twitter @kevinbrownwrite or kevinbrownwrites.weebly.com/.

Magazine Stand :: The Barcelona Review – Issue 107

The Barcelona Review Issue 107 cover image

Started in 1997, The Barcelona Review is an online multi-lingual review of contemporary international fiction. The newest issue (107) includes their regular quiz feature, this time on “A.I. in Literature.” Readers can test their knowledge of cyberpunk – 21st-century AI that has appeared in literature and compete for an Amazon gift card. The issue also includes “Pandemonium” by Bandi, the pseudonym of an anonymous North Korean dissident, who managed to smuggle seven short stories into South Korea; “Sink Rate” by English writer David Frankel, which begins with a horrific event, then moves inward as the protagonist tries to absorb what has happened. Offering some humor is Diggory Dunn’s “Nosedive on Eagle’s Nest Ridge,” a dispute concerning an incident on the slopes with a deluded “defendant’” brashly attempting to argue his case, and from Scotland comes a debut story by Garry Vass, “The Pig Was Finally Dead,” recounting the time of year for slaughter. Jim Daniel’s personal essay “Drought” collects the random thoughts of an American as he pedals through the countryside of France. The Barcelona Review also includes some “Picks from Back Issues,” a nice way to catch something you might have missed, as well as a book review, this time Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino, reviewed by editor Jill Adams, who notes, “I had the pleasure to see [Tarantino] speak in Barcelona last April where he was welcomed like a rock star.”

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Magazine Stand :: Plant-Human Quarterly – Issue 9

Plant Human Quaterly Issue 9

Following the rhythm of the planet, Plant-Human Quarterly publishes four issues each year: one on each solstice and equinox. Plant-Human Quarterly Issue 9 explores the myriad ways writers manifest their relationship to the botanical world, attempting to communicate across boundaries and possibly approach a plant’s-eye-view of the world. Poems and essays are paired with botanical images, merging verbal and visual mediums. In this issue, Candela Murillo’s artwork is paired with writing from Robert Bensen, Margaret Chula, Deborah Doolittle, Camille Dungy, Leonore Hildebrandt, Andrea Hollander, Susan Jefts, Kelly Madigan, Davis McCombs, Mark McKain, Bertha Rogers, Jean Ryan, Eleni Sikelianos, and Barry Wallenstein. Plant-Human Quarterly is produced in collaboration with the Otherwise Collective, based in Amsterdam, NL.

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New Book :: A Night of Screams

A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories edited by Richard Z. Santos book cover image

A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories edited by Richard Z. Santos
Arte Público Press, June 2023

This riveting collection of horror stories—and four poems—contains a wide range of styles, themes, and authors. Creepy creatures roam the pages, including La Llorona and the Chupacabras in fresh takes on Latin American lore, as well as ghosts, zombies, and shadow selves. Migrants continue to pass through Rancho Altamira where Esteban’s family has lived for generations, but now there are two types: the living and the dead. A young man returns repeatedly to the scary portal down which his buddy disappeared. A woman is relieved to receive multiple calls from her cousin following Hurricane María in Puerto Rico, but she is stunned to later learn her prima died the first night of the storm! There’s plenty of blood and gore in some stories, while others are mysterious and suspenseful. Contributors include Ann Davila Cardinal, V. Castro, Ruben Degollado, Richie Narvaez, Lilliam Rivera, and Ivelisse Rodriguez.

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Magazine Stand :: World Literature Today – July/August 2023

World Literature Today July/August 2023 cover image

For its July/August 2023 issue, World Literature Today’s editors took to the road to explore “The Bookstores of Middle America” and chose favorite destinations in nine states. Other highlights include Veronica Esposito’s new “Untranslatable” column, Andrew Lam’s moving homage to his mother, Shahd Alshammari’s favorite books on disability and illness, and a visit to literary Los Angeles with Ming Di and Dana Gioia. The book review section rounds up the best new books from around the world, while additional interviews, poetry, essays—and a recipe for peach galette—make the July issue your latest passport to great reading, whether in “flyover country” or some far-flung literary destination.

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Where to Submit Roundup: June 30, 2023

52 Submission Opportunities including calls for submissions, writing contests, and book prizes.

Where to Submit Roundup 2023

June is officially over with today and July starts tomorrow. Don’t forget about the NewPages Big List of Writing Contests which features vetted contests you can submit to throughout the year. Plus, don’t miss out on the submission opportunities below which feature deadlines for today and tomorrow as well as further into the future.

NewPages Newsletter subscribers with a paid subscription get early and first access to our submission opportunities and upcoming events, the majority before they go live on our site. Consider subscribing today.

Continue reading “Where to Submit Roundup: June 30, 2023”

Magazine Stand :: Good River Review – Issue 5

Good River Review Issue 5 cover image

Good River Review is the literary journal of the School of Creative and Professional Writing at Spalding University publishing two issues per year. Between issues, readers can enjoy book reviews, interviews, essays on the practice of writing, and other literary news on the publication’s website. Issue 5 features poetry and prose by Adeleke Adeyemi, makalani bandele, DeMisty Bellinger, Kris Bigalk, Bea Bolongaita, Terri Brown-Davidson, Ndidi Chiazor-Enenmor, Cindy Corpier, Tony Crunk, Debra Kang Dean,  Jane Donohue, Mitchell L. H. Douglas, Monic Ductan, Devin Kelly, Iris A. Law, Jeremy Paden, Claudia Putnam, Jack Ridl, Mervyn Seivwright, Jason Tandon, and Melanie Weldon-Soiset.

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Magazine Stand :: Tiferet – Spring/Summer 2023

Tiferet Spring Summer 2023 cover image

Tiferet Journal online publishes poetry, essays, interviews, and reviews in keeping with their mission “to help reveal Spirits, in all its manifestations, through the Written Word [. . . ] from authors of many faiths, even non-traditional ones” to “foster cultural pluralism and be a stable center within our modern lives, a place where the flames of creativity burn brightly.” The Spring/Summer 2023 issue offers readers over 80 pages of works to enjoy and features cover art by Richard Stocker.

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New Book :: October Journey

October Journey: Poems by Margaret Walker book cover image

October Journey: Poems by Margaret Walker
50th Anniversary Edition
Aquarius Press, July 2023

Celebrating a beloved collection’s return after 50 years, October Journey, first published in 1973, is being reissued with the addition of works not seen in decades. Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander (July 7, 1915 – November 30, 1998) was an American poet and writer. She was part of the African-American literary movement in Chicago, known as the Chicago Black Renaissance. Her notable works include For My People (1942) which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition, and the novel Jubilee (1966), set in the South during the American Civil War.

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Magazine Stand :: trampset – June 2023

trampset literary journal june 2023

trampset online literary journal publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry on a rolling basis, welcoming “all tramps” and their diverse voices to participate. Some recent contributors include Brett Biebel, Sean Ennis, Sumitra Singam, Erik Kennedy, Dan Alter, Fred Johnson, Claire Scott, Frances Gapper, S A Greene, Beth Hahn, Jeffrey Hermann, Mandira Pattnaik, and Michael Scott Neuffer.

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New Book :: Read My Lips

Read My Lips: Poems by Charles K. Carter book cover image

Read My Lips: Poems by Charles K. Carter
David Roberts Books, November 2022

Charles K. Carter’s Read My Lips is a collection of poetry that follows the metamorphosis of romance; journeying from adolescent crushes to casual intimate encounters to marriage and heartbreak. Carter utilizes a variety of poetic forms including blank verse, free verse, ghazal, haiku, nirat, and prose poem as well as more unconventional forms.

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New Book :: The Act of Contrition

The Act of Contrition & Other Poems by Joseph Bathanti book cover image

The Act of Contrition & Other Poems by Joseph Bathanti
EastOver Press, July 2023

The Act of Contrition by Joseph Bathanti is a series of linked stories and one novella that continues the adventures of Fritz Sweeney and his outrageously memorable parents, Travis and Rita, that began in Bathanti’s earlier award-winning volume of stories, The High Heart. Spanning the mid-fifties to the mid-seventies, in an Italian American working-class neighborhood in Pittsburgh, these fourteen unforgettable stories—a mélange of incantatory magical realism and clear-eyed documentary precision (in the vein of Raymond Carver)—are narrated by Fritz in a prophetic voice that issues at once from the very aggregate of steel town Pittsburgh and his deep yearning to escape it.

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New Book :: True for the Moment

True for the Moment: Poems by Ian Ganassi book cover image

True for the Moment: Poems by Ian Ganassi
David Roberts Books, April 2023

The poems in True for the Moment by Ian Ganassi address the transient and impermanent nature of internal life as it intersects with life in the world. This impermanence is part and parcel of the deceptive and shifting performance of language. From “Your Last Chance”: “Nope, no number of dictionaries can save you now.” Nothing, not even love, is free from the conditional nature of experience: “All she remembers after all these years/Is how good I was in bed.” (“Marking the Blues”). One of the last poems offers a ray of hope: “There’s a kind of salvation in the practice of the mundane,” “And practice makes perfect, or at least it can contribute / Some sort of equanimity to the dementia reality is known for…” Art and artistic technique alone are reliable, as well as the comedy that is enacted in the poems.

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New Book :: Gordita

Gordita by Daisy "Draizys" Ruiz book cover image

Gordita: Built Like This by Daisy “Draizys” Ruiz
Black Josei Press, January 2023

Gordita: Built Like This is an autobiographical comic by Daisy “Draizys” Ruiz. The 28-page color comic follows Gordita, a young Mexican-American teenager who lives in The Bronx. She’s judged for having no ass by classmates, strangers, and even family. Gordita struggles with low self-esteem and body dysmorphia. But, through her friendships with other girls who are also getting bullied and mentorship with her guidance counselor, Gordita, begins to speak up for herself and see that she is more than just her body. Ruiz started this comic as a 6-page black and white comic called “Built Like Spongebob,” which was created for and displayed at NYU’s exhibition, ¡Oye! Cuéntame un Cuento. Daisy’s first solo exhibit in Casita Maria in The Bronx featured pages from Gordita as well.

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Magazine Stand :: Aji – Issue 18

Aji Magazine Issue 18 cover image

Issue 18 of Aji Magazine is themed “The Moon.” As Editor-in-Chief Erin O’Neill Armendarez writes, “The tide goes in; the tide goes out. And the mysterious moon has her influence, only part of which we actually understand…” Attempting and understanding are the contributors to this issue, which has over 100 pages of content that can be read online, downloaded, or ordered in a print copy. This issue includes an interview with Oisín Breen by Erin O’Neill Armendarez and an interview with Jamie Nakagawa Boley by Erin Schalk, and works by Joe Bisicchia, Robert Boucheron, John Brantingham, Stephen Campiglio, William Crawford, Elizabeth Crowell, James Fowler, D. Dina Friedman, Trina Gaynon, Sergey Gerasimov, Carmen Germain, Elise Glassman, Joel Glickman, Cynthia Good, Robin Greene, Michael Hettich, Natalie Jill, Susan Johnson, LindaAnn LoSchiavo, Katharyn Howd Machan, Gwendolyn Joyce Mintz, Michael Moreth, William Nesbitt, Irina Novikova, Toti O’Brien, Robert L. Penick, Jocelyn Quevedo, D.M. Richardson, Richard Robbins, Sandip Saha, David Anthony Sam, Lauren Scharhag, Jacquelyn Shah, Steven M. Smith, Wally Swist, J. Tarwood, Sharon Tracey, Reed Venrick, James Von Hendy, Bill Wolak, and Ellen June Wright.

New Book :: Petrochemical Nocturne

Petrochemical Nocturne: A Novel by Amos Jasper Wright IV book cover image

Petrochemical Nocturne: A Novel by Amos Jasper Wright IV
Livingston Press, August 2023

The Mississippi River. HAZMAT. Boxing. Suicide by cop. New Orleans Saints football. Chemical explosions. The Angola Prison rodeo. Chlorine gas ghost ships. Through these symbols and themes, readers learn about Toussaint and his formative experiences in the Standard Heights neighborhood of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “Petrochemical Nocturne” results in an indictment of what Toussasint describes as “that dystopian haunted carnival cruise line called America.” A discursive and often surreal exploration of environmental racism, southern history, the prison-industrial complex, police brutality, inter-generational trauma, and climate change, Petrochemical Nocturne is both paean and eulogy for the formerly enslaved communities of Cancer Alley, the erasure of an entire people from a poisoned landscape.

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New Book :: Romance Language

Romance Language: Poems by Amy Glynn book cover image

Romance Language: Poems by Amy Glynn
Able Muse Press, January 2024

Winner of the 2022 Able Muse Book Award for Poetry, Amy Glynn’s Romance Language is a wellspring of culture, nature, natural phenomena, myths, esoterica. A kaleidoscope of sciences and disciplines—spanning archeology, acoustics, botany, zoology, psychology, cosmology, meteorology, mythology—are freely juxtaposed with the bliss of romance gained to longing for the one lost, the celebration of nature and the teeming creatures therein to hope for their enduring sustenance. A logophilic showcase, Romance Language transports the reader into a sensory and cerebral world of the real and imagined, ever reaching for stimulus, wisdom, understanding, and enlightenment.

To discover more great books from small, independent, and university presses, visit the NewPages Guide to Publishers as well as the New Books category on our blog. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up to date!