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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!

What’s New at the Pew

“The Pew Internet Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Internet explores the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. The Project is nonpartisan and takes no position on policy issues.”

Recent reports/memos include (visit the site for complete data):

Podcast Downloading 2008
Mary Madden Sydney Jones
8/28/2008
As gadgets with digital audio capability proliferate, podcast downloading continues to increase. Currently, 19% of all internet users say they have downloaded a podcast so they could listen to it or view it later. This most recent percentage is up from 12% of internet users who reported downloading podcasts in our August 2006 survey and 7% in our February-April 2006 survey. Still, podcasting has yet to become a fixture in the everyday lives of internet users, as very few internet users download podcasts on a typical day.

Search Engine Use
Deborah Fallows
8/6/2008
The percentage of internet users who use search engines on a typical day has been steadily rising from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one-half (49%). With this increase, the number of those using a search engine on a typical day is pulling ever closer to the 60% of internet users who use email, arguably the internet’s all-time killer app, on a typical day.

Home Broadband 2008
John Horrigan
7/2/2008
Some 55% of all adult Americans now have a high-speed internet connection at home. The percentage of Americans with broadband at home has grown from 47% in early 2007. Poorer Americans saw no growth in broadband adoption in the past year while at the same time nearly one-third of broadband users pay more to get faster connections.

Writing, Technology and Teens
Amanda Lenhart Sousan Arafeh Aaron Smith Alexandra Rankin Macgill
4/24/2008
Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.

Reissue :: On Reading

On Reading
W.W. Norton, September 2008
ISBN 978-0-393-06656-2
68 duotone photographs/80 pages

“André Kertész (1894-1985) was one of the most inventive, influential and prolific photographers in the medium’s history. This small volume, first published in 1971, became one of his signature works. Taken between 1920 and 1970, these photographs capture people reading in many parts of the world. Readers in every conceivable place—on rooftops, in public parks, on crowded streets, waiting in the wings of the school play—are caught in a deeply personal, yet universal, moment. Kertész’s images celebrate the absorptive power and pleasure of this solitary activity and speak to readers everywhere. Both playful and poetic, On Reading is reissued with striking new duotone reproductions. Fans of photography and literature alike will welcome this classic.”

NewPages Update :: September Book Reviews Posted

Once again, the NewPages Book Reviewers have outdone themselves with a unique selection of books. Stop by and check out these reviews:

Dear Everybody
Novel by Michael Kimball
Alma Books, September 2008
Reviewed by Josh Maday

Vacation
Novel by Deb Olin Unferth
McSweeney’s, September 2008
Review by Matt Bell

Liam’s Going
Novel by Michael Joyce
McPherson & Company, July 2008
Review by Rav Grewal-Kök

In the Land of the Free
Flash Fiction by Geoffrey Forsyth
Rose Metal Press, July 2008
Review by Sean Lovelace

New World Order
Stories by Derek Green
Autumn House Press, June 2008
Review by Dan Wickett

Sound + Noise
Novel by Curtis Smith
Casperian Books, September 2008
Review by Matt Bell

Bill’s Formal Complaint
Poetry by Dan Kaplan
The National Poetry Review Press, March 2008
Review by Micah Zevin

Lands of Memory
Stories by Felisberto Hernández
Translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen
New Directions, July 2008
Reviewed by Josh Maday

Who Can Save Us Now?
Brand-New Superheroes and their Amazing (Short) Stories
Ed. by Owen King and John McNally
Free Press, July 2008
Review by Matt Bell

In Hovering Flight
Novel by Joyce Hinnefeld
Unbridled Books, September 2008
Review by: Christina Hall

LGBT Thowback :: Freaky Lit

FREAKS READ showcases gay literature, erotica in East Village
by Scott Stiffler
EDGE Contributor
Thursday Aug 28, 2008

Just as the city’s gays were starting to clean up their act, along comes a bold and unapologetic happening that puts specific elements of gay life behind the mic and back on the front burner.

Working in the tradition of literary salons set in literate saloons, FREAKS READ is a new monthly event whose gay bar location and 21-plus policy guarantees exposure to the sort of provocative adult content on which urbane LGBTs used to thrive.

Founder and host Charlie Vazquez books the unconventional talent.

“We call it FREAKS READ because we started the reading as part of Freak Week, a week of events leading up to Pride,” he said.

In the true spirit of Pride and all things freaky, Vazquez sorts through the submitted material to ensure the poetry and fiction on display is filled with enough sex, gore and out there concepts to provide LGBTs with an antidote to the encroaching world of baby carriages, Jamba Juice franchises and other soul-crushing hallmarks of urban hetero-assimilation…[read the rest]

A Day of Literature in the Park

On Sunday, Sept. 7, the Christopher Morley Knothole Association will present a “Day of Literature in the Park: Poetry and Prose Picnic.” The event will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Christopher Morley Park, located on Searingtown Road in Roslyn Estates, New York.

The Knothole Association will present live readings and interpretations of classic works of literature. Local residents can be part of the fun by bringing their own poems or novels to read from and then share what they believe the author is saying, what the author’s history is, and why that work of literature has significant meaning. The Day of Literature will be held outdoors under the shade tree at the Knothole, itself the preserved study of Christopher Morley.

Rusty Sighting :: Fried Chicken and Coffee

I just got a note from Rusty Barnes about his newest literary endeavor, starting right now as a blog and seeing where interest might take it: “I’m doing periodic blogposts as well as interviews and reviews and publishing fiction and poetry, all of which is related to rural literature, Appalachian literature, and redneck/white trash literature in general. It’s at friedchickenandcoffee.blogspot.com. Right now I have a couple poems and a story posted, and interviews scheduled with Ron Rash and Silas House, as well as a review of Jayne Pupek’s Tomato Girl.”

NewPages Updates :: New Mag Listings

New Literary Magazines Listed
The Prague Revue – fiction, poetry, reviews, drama, essay, photography
Toward the Light – poetry, fiction, essay, photography
Rabbit Light Movies – video poetry
Torch – poetry, prose, artwork, video
Hawk & Handsaw – poetry, nonfiction, stories, visual art
Wild Violet – poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, essay, art, reviews, interviews
Dreaming Methods – media fiction

New Alternative Publications Listed
RiseUp – a newspaper and online magazine celebrating race and ethnicity

Jobs :: Various

Hartwick College Department of English and Theatre Arts invites applications for a full-time, 3-year position in fiction writing commencing September 2009 (pending final administrative approval) at the rank of assistant professor. Dr. Robert Bensen, Acting Chair, English and Theatre Arts. November 15, 2008.

University of Michigan Department of English Language & Literature invites applications for the Helen Herzog Zell Visiting Professorship in Creative Writing visiting appointment in fiction, which is a three-year appointment (through April 30, 2012), with potential renewal for two additional years (through April 30, 2014). Candidates should be emerging writers (no more than one or two books published or under contract) who have achieved distinction in their writing & excellence in their teaching or who have demonstrated the promise of such distinction & excellence. Send letter of application, c.v. & short writing sample (25 pages) by November 10 to: Professor Sidonie Smith, Chair, Department of English Language & Literature, University of Michigan, 3187 Angell Hall, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003.

Arkansas Tech University invites applications for a tenure-track, assistant professor in fiction writing, beginning August 11, 2009. Dr. Carl Brucker, Head, Department of English. November 25, 2008.

The 2009-10 Stadler Fellowship offers professional training in arts administration & literary editing in a thriving, university-based poetry center, while also providing the Fellow time to pursue his or her own writing. December 6, 2008.

The Creative Writing Program, New York University seeks a renowned fiction writer of national reputation who will play a leading role within the Creative Writing Program, & will hold a tenured appointment in the Department of English. Position to begin September 1, 2009, pending final administrative & budgetary approval.

University of California, San Diego, Department of Literature is seeking a poet to teach in a thriving undergraduate program & new MFA program. November 15, 2008.

Colby-Sawyer College has an opportunity for an innovative and energetic full-time Assistant Professor of Literature and Creative Writing in the Department of Humanities. This is a tenure-eligible faculty position available in late August 2009. October 15, 2008.

Narrative Contest Winners Announced

Narrative Magazine announces the winners of the 2008 First-Person Story Contest:

First Place ($3,000) Gina Ochsner On Principle
Second Place ($1,750) Heather Brittain Bergstrom Celilo Falls
Third Place ($1,000) Holly Wilson Night Glow

Ten Finalists ($125 each)
Alethea Black Mistake
Abby Frucht But You’re Not
Lisa Fugard The Ghost of Anton Viljoen
Ed Gray Freedom Cross
Barb Johnson Turn It Up
Twister Marquiss Spectator Sports
David Peters The Dressing Room
Marc Petersen Shopping in the Middle of the Night
Debra Spark 46
Terese Svoboda Recon

Dear Everybody

Michael Kimball’s third novel, Dear Everybody, is wonderfully subtitled “A Novel Written in the Form of Letters, Diary Entries, Encyclopedia Entries, Conversations with Various People, Notes Sent Home from Teachers, Newspaper Articles, Psychological Evaluations, Weather Reports, a Missing Person Flyer, a Eulogy, a Last Will and Testament, and Other Fragments, Which Taken Together Tell the Story of the Short Life of Jonathon Bender, Weatherman.” Kimball juxtaposes these fragments to cultivate a swirl of humor and sadness, giving the reader a palpable sense of Jonathon’s intense alienation and loneliness at the center of the increasingly unhappy Bender family. Continue reading “Dear Everybody”

Vacation

In Deb Olin Unferth’s Vacation, people are always following each other from one place to another, starting with Myers, a middling office worker whose main distinguishing characteristic is a dent in his skull from jumping out a window when he was young. When he discovers that his wife is spending her evenings following a man named Gray through the streets of New York City, he begins to follow her himself, a process that stretches wordlessly through the first two years of their marriage. Later, after Myers and his wife decide to separate, Myers goes looking for Gray directly, leading to yet another chase that takes him across the Americas in search of a man who, if not exactly a rival, is still the closest thing Myers has to a cause for the dissolution of his marriage. There are other characters throughout the book who have their own loved ones or enemies to follow, each of their stories intersecting the love triangle of Myers, his wife, and Gray, until the book is just one more place for its characters to get lost in, to lose sight of their goals, to find, if not what they were looking, then maybe something they needed instead. Continue reading “Vacation”

Liam’s Going

Almost nothing happens in Liam’s Going, a novel by Michael Joyce now out in paperback six years after its hardcover release. Joyce has written a number of hypertext fictions, and there is something of the feel of hypertext to this novel too, both in its swirling temporality – it loops continually from the present to the recent and more distant past – and in its occasional lack of momentum. Continue reading “Liam’s Going”

In the Land of the Free

When Flash Fiction was younger, you’d see it only occasionally in the neighborhood, maybe pedaling through the pages of Mid-American Review. But then something happened. Flash grew up, and got itself a diverse group of friends, with funky names like Short-Short and Postcard Fiction. Now, flash fiction is everywhere, in all of the magazines, online and in print, and we have publications devoted to the genre (SmokeLong Quarterly, Quick Fiction, flashquake, to name but a few). The next step of this maturation was natural, necessary, and finally realized: entire collections of flash fiction put out by publishers like Elixer, Calamari, Ravenna, and Rose Metal Press, who recently published Geoffrey Forsyth’s In the Land of the Free, the winner of their Second Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest. Clearly, this innovative press respects the flash fiction genre, and the idea of book as artifact. The text is an aesthetic marvel. Carefully crafted from a textured French paper, with an emerald green endpaper of Indian silk with straw, this objet d’art is something to behold. In a word: impressive. Continue reading “In the Land of the Free”

New World Order

Baghdad, Dubai, Brazil, Mexico, Asia, South Africa, Perth, Australia, Central America: In the eleven stories that make up Derek Green’s New World Order, only one takes place in the United States and in that one, “Cultural Awareness,” the characters are taking a seminar to get ready to spend time working in different lands. Green has taken his decade of experience working as both a journalist and consultant in foreign lands, and created an excellent collection of stories. Continue reading “New World Order”

Sound + Noise

Told in chapters which alternate viewpoints between its dual protagonists, the plot of Curtis Smith’s Sound + Noise is quieter than its title suggests – it is less the thrashing of a building cacophony than it is the last gentle notes of a favorite ballad. Tom and Jackie are both people with heavy pasts, the kind that refuse to let them move forward with their lives as fully as they might like until, little by little, they help each other to start again. Tom’s past is personified in the comatose person of his wife Karen, while Jackie’s is tied up in the past life she led as a backup singer for a famous country band. For each of them, part of what makes their pasts so daunting to overcome is that they love the lives they once led – Tom loves his wife, but from the very beginning it is obvious that she’s never going to awaken from her coma. Similarly, Jackie looks backwards from her new life as the owner of a local bar where she sings once a week, often covering the very band she was once a member of. Continue reading “Sound + Noise”

Bill’s Formal Complaint

In Bill’s Formal Complaint, Dan Kaplan presents us with Bill, a typical American male who must face his life’s various stereotypical boredoms with a smile and a wink, all the while struggling to avoid falling prey to anguish or despondency. Told in a haphazard, reflexive memoir style, the problems of Bill’s existence past and present are written in an informal, absurdist jump cut presentation, making it read like the haphazard biography of a C-list celebrity. Continue reading “Bill’s Formal Complaint”

Lands of Memory

Even if most English readers don’t know it, the influence of Felisberto Hernández’s writing can still be seen today in the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar, and Italo Calvino. Despite the recent trend of rediscovered Latin American writers, such as Roberto Bolaño, and their torrents of translated work, it is unsurprising that the foundations of Latin American literature are still being unearthed. Luckily, with this collection of two novellas and four short stories by Felisberto Hernández, one more influential Latin American writer’s work is finally available to English readers. Continue reading “Lands of Memory”

Who Can Save Us Now?

Who Can Save Us Now? is a collection of twenty-two short stories that each provide a new take on superhero lore, twisting and turning genre conventions on their head in the hopes of providing a new experience within the framework of the short story. Editors Owen King and John McNally use the book’s introduction to reflect on the difference between our world and the one that provided the more black-and-white conflicts of the Golden Age of comic books, setting the stage for tales of new superheroes “whose amazing abilities reflect and address our strange and confusing new conditions,” specifically the more modern terrors of “suicide bombers, dwindling oil reserves, global warming, and an international community in complete disrepair.” Continue reading “Who Can Save Us Now?”

In Hovering Flight

The quietly reliable narrator of In Hovering Flight, Joyce Hinnefeld’s first novel, is an everywoman character named Scarlet Kavanaugh, who, despite being raised unconventionally by her bird-loving parents, is a remarkably subtle and relatable character. Possessed of her own interesting personality, Scarlet isn’t excessively pro-nature like her recently deceased mother, Addie, or high society like their family friend, Lou. She is, however, the possessor of one of the three secrets that will eventually draw the primary themes of the entire novel together. Continue reading “In Hovering Flight”

Abyss & Apex – 2008

In Abyss & Apex, the reader is transported to speculative worlds that have an air of the suspense thriller movie or the ideas prevalent in the science fiction genre. Whether it is short fiction, flash fiction, poetry or haiku (or as they call it, the “Short Form Set) you will encounter the mysterious, the strange and the unknown until your curiosity wears out or is satiated and must wait until the next issue. Continue reading “Abyss & Apex – 2008”

Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal – Summer 2008

The poetry published in the Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal is possibly the most eccentric and intriguing mix of poetic styles ever mingled together in a chemical potluck of creative energy. A fascination with the life of certain creatures and their metaphoric or allegoric relationship to humanity is often at the center of these poetic pieces, as well as some poems that speak specifically or obliquely to the not-so-friendly and explosive reactions that have or can cause the death of millions in this country. Continue reading “Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal – Summer 2008”

Colorado Review – Summer 2008

The Colorado Review is one of the most reliably satisfying journals I know, with an editorial vision that is eclectic and generous, but not haphazard – a solid, but never stodgy collection of mature work. Summer 2008 features four short stories (by Kristin Fitzpatrick, Dawna Kemper, Lon Otto, and Kirsten Valdez Quade), all of which “accent the complex spaces between parents and their children,” and one of which, Valdez Quade’s “Den Mother,” is the winner of the 2007-2008 AWP Intro Journals Project, selected by Kwame Dawes. All constitute fine, enjoyable reading. These are competent, traditional stories with characters readers can care about and identify with. Continue reading “Colorado Review – Summer 2008”

CutBank – Summer 2008

I’m not sure what CutBank means but I now know it’s synonymous with great fiction and poetry. A university-based journal, it manages to attract emerging and established writers with serious credentials. Some of its contributors have had work in Tin House and McSweeney’s, two of the best if not the most recognizable literary journals. Continue reading “CutBank – Summer 2008”

The Deronda Review – Spring/Summer 2008

A joint US-Israeli effort, The Deronda Review makes use of every available inch of its 8 ½ x 11 pages, covers included, presenting poems written originally in English and poems in English translated from Hebrew by more than 90 poets – as many as four or five poems per page. With this much work gathered in one slender volume, it’s reasonable to expect some unevenness in quality, which is the case here. At the same time, there are a number of lovely, serious, and memorable poems. Continue reading “The Deronda Review – Spring/Summer 2008”

The Dirty Goat – 2008

The Dirty Goat is an international journal of visual art, poetry and prose that attempts to deliver a healthy bilingual tasting of literature from wide-ranging cultures and nations from the Ukraine to Iran. The pieces in this journal not only speak to the immigrant experience, as epitomized by the journal’s namesake, they also transport us to a place simultaneously otherworldly yet familiar, as if we were home, but it had been slightly altered from the photography of our memories. Continue reading “The Dirty Goat – 2008”

Fulcrum – 2008

“It’s very difficult to say peace is an ideal unless you go on to define an ideal as something you can’t possibly have, but can’t possibly help wanting to have. That’d be another way to look at an ideal. And both cases can’t possibly mind you, can’t possibly have, but can’t possibly help wanting to have.” One of this year’s “Fulcrum Features” is a set of 16 essays on “Samuel Beckett as Poet,” so you might think this excerpt is related to Beckett or to one of his contemporaries, in sensibility, if not style. But you’d be wrong! It’s from another Fulcrum Feature altogether, “Robert Frost: Three Unpublished Talks.” Continue reading “Fulcrum – 2008”

Hanging Loose – 2008

Hanging Loose, the press which gave Sherman Alexie his start as a poet, opens this volume with two of Alexie’s poems. Alexie, as usual, is simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. Quoting a section won’t give him justice. Read these poems, cry (from sadness and laughter), and know that Alexie still recognizes, despite his fame, that good poetry demands attention and vulnerability to the world. Continue reading “Hanging Loose – 2008”

Juked – Winter 2007/2008

While Juked is primarily on online literary journal, the editors call for longer submissions of fiction and cull through poetry subs and put together an annual print issue. This issue features the winners of the fiction (Marianne Villanueva) and poetry contests (James Belflower) as well as other selected work. Also included is Kelly Spitzer’s insightful interview with Claudia Smith regarding Smith’s literary struggles and successes. Continue reading “Juked – Winter 2007/2008”

The Louisville Review – Spring 2008

Sorrow, loss and grief are recurring themes among the solid fiction in this issue of The Louisville Review. In Amy Tudor’s “Mourning Cloak,” a parent mourns the loss of a still-born child. Troy Ehlers’s “The Tide of Night” is a character study of a Vietnam Vet grappling with a traumatic past. Equally sad, Cate McGowan’s “How Can You Title Longing” skillfully weaves poetry and narrative as a shopper at a flea market finds an old book of poems. The story alternates between the present day and yesteryear scenes from the life of the poet. Continue reading “The Louisville Review – Spring 2008”

Monkeybicycle – Spring 2008

This issue celebrates dirty funny, e.g. bathroom humor, disfigurement, internet porn, genitalia, an aborted fetus, sodomy jokes, piercing mishaps, unusual orgasms, Beckett and Whitman; in essence, something for everyone. If you’re not amused by your own gas then you probably won’t laugh at some of these stories. Then again, you may not get what language we speak here on Earth. Guest-editor Eric Spitznagel distinguishes between run-of-the-bowl boring poo jokes and true poo humor: those that float or sink on their literary merit. Ahem. Continue reading “Monkeybicycle – Spring 2008”

Paterson Literary Review – 2008/2009

In a brief introductory note, editor Maria Mazziotti Gillan reveals that the journal receives 10,000 submissions annually. I wish there were as many people regularly reading and subscribing to these sorts of reviews as there are submitting to them! We are lucky that dedicated editors like Mazziotti Gillan are willing to do the challenging work year in and year out to keep journals like the Paterson Literary Review alive. Selected recently by Library Journal as one of the ten best literary magazines in the country, the review continues to offer readers the best of well-known writers and those “whose work is so fine it should be better known” – a much more apt and respectful phrase than “emerging” or any of the other terms used to define writers whose reputations are not as impressive as their work. Continue reading “Paterson Literary Review – 2008/2009”

upstreet – 2008

Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines “upstreet” as “toward the higher part of a street; as to walk upstreet.” That’s a fitting definition for this up-and-coming journal with a sleek, minimalist design. Coming in at over 230 pages, this issue of Upstreet is jam-packed with quality fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and an interview with Michael Martone. Continue reading “upstreet – 2008”

NewPages Update :: Gimme the Online Print Combo

Starting today, all sponsored listings and basic links to literary magazines – print & online – can now be viewed in the most popular page on our website: HERE

Because we maintain a list of quality online lit mags, we feel it is only fair to include them in the complete list of lit mags. This will benefit both readers and writers who come to NewPages to find the web’s best list of literary magazines.

As always, if you know of a publication that you think should be listed on NewPages, drop us a line: denisehill-at-newpages.com

Video Poetry :: Rabbit Light Movie

Created by Joshua Marie WilkinsonRabbit Light Movies began in February 2007 as a poemfilm journal on dvd (including Episodes #1-4). With Episode #5, Rabbit Light Movies will continue online, updated twice a year, and will no longer be available on dvd. In the short films where the poets’ faces don’t appear, their voices do. No open submissions, queries are welcome.

Some past voices/faces you’ll find on RLM include: Eric Baus, Sommer Browning, Allison Titus, Chuck Stebelton, Catherine Wagner, Joshua Poteat, Jason Bredle, J.W. Marshall, Joyelle McSweeney, Dana Ward, Sasha Steensen, Christopher Stackhouse, Matthea Harvey, Mary Jo Bang, Christine Deavel, Juliana Leslie, Johannes G

Awards :: Glimmer Train June Fiction Open :: August 2008

Glimmer Train has just chosen the three winning stories of their June Fiction Open competition! This quarterly competition is open to all writers and all themes.

First place: Shimon Tanaka of San Francisco, CA, wins $2000 for “The Suit”. His story will be published in the Fall 2009 issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

Second place: Christine Sneed of Evanston, IL, wins $1000 for “Twelve + Twelve”. Her story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

Third place: Horatio Potter, also of Wilsall, MT, wins $600 for “Summer Help”. His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing his prize to $700.

Word count range: 2000-20,000. Submissions may be sent for the September Fiction Open using our online submissions system.

Just in Time for Back-to-School

Spying on Professors Proposed by NAS
From John K. Wilson
Blog: College Freedom

The National Association of Scholars announced plans for monitoring campuses [“The Argus Project“], and it’s getting some well deserved criticism.

In defense of NAS, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with monitoring what colleges do, and protecting the rights of students and faculty is a good thing. I wish that progressives had some organization that did this, now that NAS, FIRE, Students for Academic Freedom, NoIndoctrination.org, and many others are monitoring campuses.

However, what makes the monitoring by NAS wrong is the ideological nature of it. Note how they proclaim that they will be scrutinizing “politicized teaching” or “slights to conservative students.” Neither of these are violations of student rights (and, of course, slights to liberal students will be ignored). Indeed, it is the attempt to banish “politicized” teaching that threatens academic freedom and free speech on campus.

As I argue in my book Patriotic Correctness, it’s time for progressives to form an activist organization that will monitor violations of liberty on campuses (especially the campuses ignored by the right-wing groups), and protect the intellectual freedom of right-wingers, left-wingers, and everyone in between. If you’re interested in helping with this (whether you’re conservative or liberal), please contact me at [email protected]

Literary Festival :: Words Alive – Sharon, Ontario 9.21

The 2nd annual Words Alive Literary Festival celebrates a rich literary heritage providing a showcase for Canadian authors. One day of author readings, public readings, workshops, panel discussions and storytelling including poetry with music and art. This year’s presenters include:

Allan Briesmaster
Allyson Latta
Anthony De Sa
Barry Dempster
bill bissett
Brenda Byers
Christopher Dewdney
Fay Wilkinson
Heather Whaley
Jim Blake
Karolyn Smardz Frost
Kelley Armstrong
Kim Michele
Marie Campbell
Mary Swan
Maureen Jennings
Maureen Scott Harris
Menaka Thakkar
Peter Unwin
Uma Parameswaran
Valentino Assenza

Jobs :: Various

The English Department at Western Kentucky University seeks applicants for the following position: Distinguished Visiting Professor in Creative Writing (Poetry), Summer 2009. Dr. Tom C. Hunley, Department of English, Chair, Distinguished Visiting Creative Writing Professor Search Committee. October 31, 2008.

Illinois Valley Community College, located in North Central Illinois, anticipates filling this position to begin January 2009. Glenna Jones, Director of Human Resources.

2008 Brooklyn Book Festival Sept 14

On Sunday, September 14, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn Literary Council and Brooklyn Tourism host the annual Brooklyn Book Festival, a huge, free event presenting an array of literary stars and emerging authors who represent the exciting world of literature today.

Confirmed authors include Joan Didion, Richard Price, Jonathan Lethem, Dorothy Allison, Russell Banks, A.M. Homes, George Pelecanos, Terry McMillan, Jonathan Franzen, Susan Choi, Esmeralda Santiago, Thurston Moore, Paul Beatty, Jacqueline Woodson, Chuck Klosterman, Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill, Nikki Turner, Elizabeth Nunez, Ed Park, Pico Iyer, Gail Carson Levine, Cecily von Ziegesar, Chris Myers, Jane O’Connor, Jon Scieszka, Mo Willems and many more.

3-Day Novel Contest

The 31st Annual 3-Day Novel Contest is coming up in September and registration has begun. Every year more than 500 writers from around the world enter to write their brains out over the long weekend and be published. Here’s how it works: entrants begin writing after 12:01am on Sept 1st, and must stop by 11:59pm, Sept 3rd. Participants can write in any location, anywhere in the world. The organizers of the contest say they would know if people were cheating, so no cheating. Writers may write on any subject and in any genre, and finished novels must be submitted by mail in the week following the contest.

NewPages Welcomes New Sponsors

decomP is an online literary magazine that is updated monthly. decomP has been in existence since April 2004 and was originally called Decomposition Magazine. Contributors range from all over the country, and recently, an increased fan base in places like London and Scotland. decomP publish prose, poetry, art, and solicited book reviews. decomP is currently open for submissions.

River Teeth is a biannual creative nonfiction journal co-edited by Joe Mackall and Dan Lehman with the assistance of students in the low-residency MFA program at Ashland University. Founded in 1999, River Teeth combines the best of creative nonfiction, including narrative reportage, essays, and memoirs, as well as critical essays that examine the genre and that explore the impact of nonfiction narrative on the lives of its writers, subjects, and readers. River Teeth is currently open for submissions.

TV :: The Black List

”The Black List’ highlights African-American luminaries
By Mekeisha Madden Toby
Detroit News
Article Last Updated: 08/25/2008 12:05:06 AM PDT

The African-American experience is not relegated to February, declares film critic Elvis Mitchell, whose HBO documentary “The Black List: Volume One” premieres tonight.

A Detroit native and former New York Times film critic, Mitchell, 50, has moved behind the camera, and with the help of acclaimed photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders created “The Black List,” a series of interviews with African-American luminaries in literature, sports, entertainment and politics, including Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In addition to touring all over the country to promote “The Black List,” he hosts “Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence” on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), interviewing the likes of Emmy- and Tony-winning actor Laurence Fishburne and comedic legend Bill Murray. Mitchell’s show will return in January.

Here’s what Mitchell had to say about the film — which he dedicated to the late Bernie Mac — and other subjects…[read the rest]

To Note or Not to Note Contributors

The most recent issue of Spoon River Poetry Review includes an interesting commentary from Editor Bruce Guernsey on the inclusion or not of contributors notes in a literary publication. (And is it contributors / contributor’s / contributors’ – I’ve seen all of these!)

Bruce Guernsey addresses SRPR‘s choice to omit these notes – I would recommend your picking up the most recent issue to read his comments in full. In less than two pages, he succinctly and thoroughly discusses the practical issue of space in a print publication as well as the “symbolic” issue of wanting readers to focus on the poem rather than “the celebrity mentality that infects the current poetry scene.” Though Guernsey admits he is just as guilty of going to contributors notes “in this all-too-competitive market world” to see “where so-and-so has recently published.”

Interestingly enough, a SRPR reader sent in an e-mail saying contributors notes help know where else to find an author’s work. And my response to this was the same as Guernsey’s: “Look on the Internet.” It does seem to be the knee-jerk response to any question we have these days, and it’s Guernsey’s comment on this that I found most poignant: “…given the sources we now have on the Internet, that information can almost always be easily found online. Speed and information go well together. It’s poetry, that primitive technology, which is slow going and belongs in journals and books – when we can’t be there to hear it, anyway.”

Seriously?

The Headline: “Woman Arrested For Failing To Return Library Books ‘Angels and Demons’ and ‘White Oleander’ borrowed last year”

ABC/wisn.com
August 21, 2008
GRAFTON, Wis. — A woman has been arrested for failing to return two books to the Grafton Library…[read the full story here]

It may sound extreme, until you read that she ignored notices, including a court date, thinking, “What are they going to to, arrest me?” Uh, yeah, since what you did went from “borrow” to “theft”, arrest would be the right response… I just hope the books were worth it – I mean, do you think she even read them?

Listen & Be Heard Open Mic

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 from 8-9:30pm PST. Three rounds of open mic. The lightning round (30 seconds) and spotlight round (five minutes) will feature several designated poets who signed the open mic list ahead of time at Listen & Be Heard Poetry Cafe. The third round will be for poets who are listening to call in and share one poem. Hosted by Martha Cinader Mims. Scheduled to be featured are Bill Vartnaw, Olivia Johnson, Dana Teen Lomax and Gerald Schwartz.

Women’s Lit :: Tulsa Studies

The newest issue of Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature (27.1, Spring 2008) features a special section: Revisiting Female Authorship in the Long Eighteenth Century. Also included in the publication are articles on the work of Peal S. Buck, Una Mars, and others. The publication accepts submissions of articles, notes, contributions to archives, and queries on literature in all time periods and places, including foreign-language literatures, and in every genre—poetry, prose, drama, essays, diaries, memoirs, journalism, and criticism. TSWL currently has a special call for papers: Women Writing Race – deadline January 19, 2009.

Barry Unsworth on Historical Fiction, Language and Aging

An interview with Barry Unsworth, winner of the Man Booker Prize in 1993 for his novel Sacred Hunger, has recently been posted on Littoral: The blog of the Key West Literary Seminar. Unsworth discusses the effects of expatriate life, of aging, and the role historical fiction plays in understanding our past and our present.

Here, he comments on how age has affected his writing: “With time I have grown more sparing with the words. I think less of fire-works and flourishes. I try to get warmth and color through precision of language. This is more difficult, I think, which may be why I find writing novels so challenging and exacting.”

And on public appearances, he comes to this: “There is also a division of persona in the way the writer is perceived, the discrepancy between the effects of his books and the impression he makes when the reader gets to talk to him or listen to him. It has to be admitted that there will often be an element of disappointment here. The best of us goes into the book. We are not, with some rare and spectacular exceptions, so brilliant or wise or witty as might have been hoped or expected. Far from it. And perhaps the lure of readings and talks and panels, and all these public forums, is simply a doomed desire to live up to the promise, to not disappoint.”

Read more of the interview on Littoral.

Barry Unsworth will deliver the John Hersey Memorial Address to open the second session of the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar.