NewPages Blog

Open Call for Responses to the Work of John Taggart: Little Red Leaves is announcing a call for responses to the work of John Taggart. These will be collected for one of the next few issues, and can include anything you consider “responsive”: essays, reviews, poems, visual work, video/audio work, etc. For more information, visit the blog at Little Red Leaves

Babylon Burning: 9/11 five years on
“Nearly 90 poets from around the world have contributed to Babylon Burning: 9/11 five years on, an anthology of poems on the Twin Towers atrocity and its consequences. But we are aiming for more than pious hand-wringing: the anthology will be free, but there is a request to donate to the Red Cross, which works tirelessly to help people caught up in disasters and conflicts, wherever and whoever they are.”

Read more and access the PDF: nthposition online

For more information, visit website or contact person listed:

New Approaches to Mark Twain
for Conference
Jason Haslam (Jason.Haslam-at-dal.ca)
Deadline: September 15, 2007

The New Orthodoxy: Religion in Contemporary Jewish American Literature
for Conference
Amanda R. Toronto (aqt8334-at-nyu.edu)
Deadline: September 15, 2007

American “New Criticism”
for Book
Dr. Alfred J. Drake (ajdrake-at-ajdrake.com)
Deadline: August 31, 2007

The Americas: Drawing the Lines
for Conference
Christopher Lockett (clockett-at-mun.ca)
Deadline: August 1, 2007

“Metaphors and Allegories of the Body and Disease”
International Congress on Medieval Studies
for Conference
Jennifer Vaught (jvaught-at-louisiana.edu)
Deadline: September 1, 2007

First Impressions in Victorian Literature
for Conference
Christy Rieger (crieger-at-mercyhurst.edu)
Deadline: September 15, 2007

Kristina Mesaros is looking for personal accounts of graduate students preparing to enter into the academic job market for the forward to the second edition of Dawn M. Formo and Cheryl Reed’s book Job Search in Academe (Stylus Press, 2007). The forward to the second edition will focus on graduate students’ perceptions of the approaching academic job search and the pursuit of the tenure-track faculty position. You can be anonymous or named and titled. You may contribute a good quote or a case study. Your only time commitment is your email correspondence with me. Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to:
-Preparation you received for the job search
-Advice your mentors gave you about an academic career
-Impressions of academic positions (teaching, research, publishing, serving on committees, mentoring students)
-Preparation and advice you received for the teaching and service expectations of your first tenure-track position
-Advice your mentors gave you about teaching and publishing while in a tenure-track position

Please make informal queries to [email protected]

Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments
This online magazine includes poetry, fiction, essays, articles, art, reviews, interviews (currently Joy Harjo), and a feature called “UnSprawl” which features different cities’ approaches to revamping certain urban areas. Full issues are available as PDF download (with full also meaning full color!). Great for personal use or for use as assigned reading in the classroom.

Bloggasm is a blog run by Simon Owens that focuses on the media, with an emphasis on online media and journalism. It often features interviews with prominent bloggers, authors and journalists. Simon recently interviewed both the Million Writers Award creator, Jason Sanford, and the winner of the award, Catherynne M. Valente, for an article on how it raises the profile of online literary journals. Read the post: The Million Writers Award: Raising the profile of online literary journals

The Radical History Review seeks submissions for an issue that will explore the intellectual, historical and political implications of the “Irish Question” over the past eight centuries. Deadline: March 15, 2008.

Linda Christensen gets students to read and write critically about clothes, class, and consumption in Can’t Buy Me Love: Teaching about clothes, class, and consumption:

“I realized when I first stumbled on this writing assignment that I touched a place of pain and shame that needed to be explored more fully. Students knew they hurt, but they didn’t have a social critique to help them understand their humiliation. They internalized the shame of poverty and blamed themselves or their families instead of criticizing a society that places more value on what we own than on our capacity for compassion or good work. In every lesson I construct, I want to puncture holes in the myths that make my students feel shame and doubt about themselves and their families.”

Read the rest: Rethinking Schools, Summer 2007

Against the Current
Bolivia’s Transition in the Balance
Volume 22 Number 3, July/August 2007
Bimonthly

Conscience
Published by Catholics for a Free Choice
Volume 28 Number 2, Summer 2007
Quarterly

Grassroots Economic Organizing
Stories from the front lines of economic solidarity & cooperation
Issue 75, Summer 2007
Bimonthly

Greater Good
The Science of a Meaningful Life
Volume 4 Issue 1, Summer 2007
Quarterly

Labor Notes
Number 340, July 2007
Monthly

Space and Culture
International Journal of Social Spaces
Volume 10 Number 2, May 2007
Quarterly

To read more about these publications and others, visit the NewPages Guide to Alternative Magazines.

A Tale of Two Storytellers
The Satya Interview with Ishmael Beah and Laura Simms
Satya Magazine, June/July 2007 (Final Issue)

The Privacy Journal, a monthly newsletter founded in 1974 with news on new technology and its impact on privacy, useful tips for protecting your privacy, and the latest on court decisions, legislation, professional conferences, and corporate practices, offers Privacy Tips for Individuals and Organizations on their web site.

Triptych Haiku, an online journal in publication since October 2005, is looking for editors to join their team. For more information, visit Kevin Doran’s blog page: New Editorial Team at Triptych Haiku.

The Poetry at Noon Reading Series at the Library of Congress seeks submissions for the 2007-08 season. To apply, pick one or two themes from among these: “Magic and Magicians” (reading Oct. 9), “Love Poems (reading Feb 12), or Family Names and Nicknames (reading April 22). Include a cover sheet with the theme as the title; list your name, address, phone, and email; include a one-paragraph bio. Submit 2 of your own poems on the theme and 3 by other poets. Open to poets who have not read in the series in the past 3 years. Deadline: July 15 (postmarked). Send to: Patricia Gray, Library of Congress, Poetry and Literature Center, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, DC 20540-4861.

Let’s REVIEW
Publications that help readers navigate (and evaluate) the indie press
by Danielle Maestretti
UTNE Reader, July/August 2007

“NewPages is the web’s alt-press playground. It’s tough to stop by for a quick visit; you may go for the reviews, but you’ll stay for the guides, with pages upon pages of links to alternative magazines, small book publishers, and independent bookstores…”

To read more, pick up the latest issue of UTNE Reader – or better yet – SUBSCRIBE!

Upstreet publisher (Vivian) provides an intense three-part blog on literary magazine distribution woes, and calls out DeBoer for unethical behavior, but not without fairly assessing the why and what she has chosen to do about it. Lit mags looking for distribution may want to take close note: The Upstreet Fan Club blog

babel, an online journal promoting freedom of speech, is seeking poems, short stories, essays or interviews touching on the broad themes of identity and culture. Submissions are welcomed year-round.

From the San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal
Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche

After a six year hiatus, The Prague Revue will resume publishing regularly in 2007! The revue will continue to promote the best of the Prague literary scene while establishing an outlet for international writers to publish their work in Central Europe.

CROSSING LIMITS is a community outreach project of both the American Muslim and American Jewish Communities. It invites poets who locate themselves within the broad cultural, secular and/or religious contexts of the Muslim and Jewish communities to submit original poetry for an upcoming anthology. There are no subject matter restrictions. Previously published poems are acceptable IF author owns rights or provides permission statement(s). Simultaneous submissions are also accepted. Please paste 1-5 poems as text into the body of an e-mail to:CrossingLimits2(at)aol.com(replace (at) with @) OR submit by land mail to: Crossing Limits, P. O. Box 81268, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Deadline: September 30, 2007.

“There’s nothing quite like a good quiz, but they’ve become intensely problematic in this age of instantaneous Internet content. Google and Wikipedia are pirate-coves for the lazy and the cheatful, and so the monthly Open Letters quiz will rely entirely on the honor system: readers are expected to rely on their memories alone. And no quiz would be complete without incentive! The first reader to respond with the highest number of correct answers will receive a book in the mail, courtesy of the editors at Open Letters.” Take the quiz on Open Letters – and let us know if you win (esp. since I couldn’t get past the first question!).

Education Ordeal
by Dena Rashed
Al-Ahram Weekly, June 28 – July 4, 2007

“Looking at Sahar Zakaria, a mother of two, you’d think she was the one taking the thanawiya amma (TA) exams. It’s actually her daughter. For two years now Zakaria has been following up on her daughter’s studies, making sure she does her work and, well, worrying. For her part Heba Khaled, said daughter, is significantly more relaxed: “I’ve been TA mode for two years, I’m sort of used to its kind of stress by now.” But having obtained an average grade of 64 per cent last year, Khaled is already aware that her state-university options are already limited…”

Read more on Al-Ahram Weekly

I received this correspondence in response to my letter writing to express concern for the fate of the small press if postal rate hikes were to go into effect. Bottom line is: rates went up, and the “incentive” the postal service means to provide is a euphemism for “screw ’em.” Any publishers/small press folks out there want to respond – please write me and I’ll post commentary here – maybe I’m way off on this, and we’ll all be just fine…

(Oh, and my favorite part of this was undergoing gender reassignment…)

***

UNITED STATES
POSTAL SERVICE

June 12, 2007

Mr. Denise R. Hill
Editor
NewPages
Post Office Box 1580
Bay City, Ml 48706-1580

Dear Mr. Hill:

This responds to your recent letter to Postmaster General John E. Potter concerning the approved rate increase for Periodicals.

While most United Postal Service price changes and new mailing standards went into effect on May 14, 2007 (including the 41-cent price for First Class Mail stamps), the Postal Service Board of Governors delayed the implementation of new Periodical prices and mailing standards until July 15, 2007. The delay will give mailers and the Postal Service more time to prepare for the new pricing structure recommended by the Postal Regulatory Commission.

The United Postal Service has proposed revisions to the Periodical (magazine and newspaper) portion of its mailing standards that will accompany the new Periodical pricing that will go into effect on July 15, 2007. Periodical mailers will have new incentives to use efficient containers and bundles, and copalletization (publishers/printers merging bundles from separate publications or titles on the same pallet) becomes a permanent offering to encourage more publishers to combine mailings.

You may visit our website at www.usps.com for the proposed revised standards. This site also contains rate charts and other helpful information for mailers.

You can be assured that we will continue our efforts to keep our cost as low as possible while continuing to provide the American public with consistent, reliable, and economical mail service.

Sameatria Morton
Consumer Research Analyst
Reference: HQ31719362

***

Is it just me, or does “copalletization” sound smutty?

“Human Rights Watch is the largest human rights organization based in the United States. Human Rights Watch researchers conduct fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in all regions of the world.”

Recent Photo Essays:
Gay Rights Under Attack in Russia
Wal-Mart Denies Workers Basic Rights
Iran: Release Women’s Rights Advocates
Sri Lanka – Karuna Group Abducts Children for Combat
…and dozens more archived.

Recent HRW Publications available online, print, or as .pdf download:
Indiscriminate Fire: Palestinian Rocket Attacks on Israel and Israeli Artillery Shelling in the Gaza Strip
Scared Silent: Impunity for Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines
Unfinished Business: Serbia’s War Crimes Chamber
The Poisoned Chalice: A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper on the Decision of the Iraqi High Tribunal in the Dujail Case
Bottom of the Ladder
Exploitation and Abuse of Girl Domestic Workers in Guinea
…and many, many more.

Visit Speechless: Straight out of L.A.—the oddest little literary magazine on the Web

Suzanne Lummis invited a select group of poets to “name their ten favorite movies—or twelve, or seven, or fifteen, or however many they had…” with the resulting opinion that “now we know how different the Top Grossing Movies of all Times list would look if poets would just spend more money attending the ones of their choice—or, if the world had more poets. No Titanic, no Star Wars sequels, no Passion of the Christ…”

Each poet is given their own page on which the movies are listed and comments noted. Some of the poets include: John Allman, Ellen Bass, Wanda Colean, Allen Ginsberg, Terence Hayes, Philip Levine, Judith Taylor, and a couple dozen more.

Visit: Poet’s Favorite Movies

Michael Moore’s Sicko
by Christopher Hayes
The Nation
Posted June 27, 2007 (July 16, 2007 issue)

“In what may be a tacit acknowledgment of this unfortunate fact, Sicko is different from Moore’s last two efforts. Not just because of an absence of gimmicky gotcha moments, or a reduction in screen time for Moore himself, but because its topic isn’t fundamentally polarizing in the way his previous works were. There’s a whole lot of Americans who love their guns, and in 2004 there were a lot of Americans who loved their President, but it’s pretty hard to find anyone who loves their health insurance company.”

Read the rest at The Nation

Hip-Hop Dogmatism and Potential Problems for Political Organizing
by Matthew Birkhold
June 8, 2007

“Over the last few months hip-hop has been under attack in the mainstream media. However, the political hip-hop community (PHHC) — a group comprised of socially conscious hip-hop fans, grassroots activists, prominent hip-hop generation artists and intellectuals — has not been silenced. We have defended hip-hop from outside and feel confident in our defense. Unfortunately, most of our attempts to defend hip-hop have deflected valid criticisms of the music and culture. In response, this essay argues that being hip-hop is often a roadblock to intellectual honesty and hinders political organizing by allowing us to deflect critique.”

Read the rest on Wiretap

Winter of Different Directions Blog/Podcast
by Steven J. McDermott
Each week since mid-January, McDermott has read a story from his short story collection Winter of Different Directions. These can be accessed free as an mp3 you can listen to from your browser or download into your mp3 player. In addition to the podcast, McDermott has posted commentary on the story over in the Storyglossia litblog: “The Story Behind the Story.” This includes history on where the story came from, why he wrote it, how it changed in its various revisions, as well as some of the craft issues he was working on in the story.

Virginia High School to Revise Policy After Controversial Articles Published
June 28, 2007

VIRGINIA — A Fairfax County high school has removed a newspaper adviser and said it will revise school policy on student publications after the student newspaper released two controversial issues in March.

The Lake Braddock High School student newspaper, The Bear Facts, landed itself in controversy when it published its March 2 issue that included articles on homosexuality, transsexuality and review of a documentary about bestiality, and its March 30 issue that carried a story on Post Secret, a Web site that posts anonymous contributors’ secrets displayed on homemade postcards. Although the school did not punish the student newspaper staff for circulating these issues, faculty member Daniel Weintraub has been removed from his adviser position and the school has signaled that it plans to modify student editorial policy for the upcoming school year.

Read the rest as well as other articles at the Student Press Law Center

Storyglossia Issue 20 2007
If you haven’t been reading along as each story has been released, the full Issue 20 is now available featuring stories by: Conor Robin Madigan, Eileen Corder, Elizabeth Ellen, Myfanway Collins, Jocelyn Johnson, David Michael Wolach, Marcela Fuentes, Mark Spencer, Shubha Venugopal, Jacquie Powers, Michael Wigdor, Sabrina Tom, Julee Newberger, and Priscilla Rhoades.

A book worth note in these days and times of “woe is me” and “what can I do about it?” and “I have to do SOMETHING!”

Building Powerful Community Organizations
A Personal Guide to Creating Groups that Can Solve Problems and Change the World
by Michael Jacoby Brown (Long Haul Press)
A guidebook for people who want to make a difference in the world and know they can’t do it alone. This new book, with stories, personal exercises and lessons learned, provides detailed information to help you build a new group or strengthen an old one to solve problems in your community, workplace or the world. It includes details about how to:
Take specific steps to build an effective group from the start
Revitalize an existing group
Tap into the special resources and talents of your particular community or group
Recruit participants and keep them active – so that all the work does not fall on your shoulders
Inspire others to take on tasks and responsibility
Structure the group so that it runs the way you want it to
Foster members’ passion for the cause
Run meetings that engage your members and achieve your goals
Raise money to keep the work going
Plan and carry out effective actions to win improvements in the real world
Reflect and learn from your actions to build a powerful group for the long haul
Build a sense of caring and community within your organization

The Way Fire Talks to Wood
by Christine Boyka Kluge
“In front of me in line, a man hisses at a woman. I can’t distinguish all of the words, but the words don’t matter; his voice crackles and stings. He talks to her the way fire talks to wood…”

Read the rest and more on Pif, “one of the oldest, continually published literary zines online.”