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The Pedestal Magazine is currently seeking to fill three positions:

1. Poetry Editor. Applicants should have prior publication in Pedestal, as well as other prominent journals, and previous editing experience. Applicants should have at least one published full-length collection currently available. Applicant would be asked to edit the poetry in 1-2 issues per year. Please send resume to [email protected].

2. Reviewer. Applicants should have prior experience reviewing for various publications. Pedestal currently publishes 850-1000 word reviews. Reviewer would be asked to undertake 1-3 assigned reviews per issue, primarily poetry collections but possibly short fiction as well. Send resume and 2-3 sample reviews to [email protected].

3. Administrative Assistant. Applicants should be thoroughly familiar with MySpace.com: how to send friend requests, post bulletins, set up a blog, send event invitations, tailor/program a page aesthetically; i.e., all the ins and outs of setting up a compelling and effective MySpace page. Send resume, along with a link to a MySpace page you’ve designed, to [email protected].

Alehouse Press is now considering queries for short essays and book reviews for the next issue of Alehouse. Essay topics focus on the current state of poetry, the work of particular poets, plus other appropriate topics of interest. The 2009 issue will feature essays on African-American poets and poetry.

Book reviews focus on work published in the past few years, but may also include older, under-appreciated work that reviewers may want to promote to readers. Again, for our 2009 issue, special interest will be on reviews of books by or about African-American poets.

Alehouse essays run approximately 500-2000 words, book reviews approximately 500-1000 words per title. Please contact Alehouse for book review guidelines: editor(at)alehousepress.com

The English Department at Hamilton College invites applications for a two-year appointment, with the possibility of renewal, in Creative Writing, specializing in poetry. Professor Naomi Guttman. February 15, 2008.

Assistant Professor/Director of Creative Writing at Fordham University, tenure track. Writing Search Committee, English Department. February 29, 2008.

University of Mississippi welcomes applications for the Summer Poet in Residence (SPiR). Director Beth Ann Fennelly. February 1, 2008.

For information about these and many other quality alternative magazines, click the links or visit The NewPages Guide to Alternative Magazines.

Against the Current
“After Forty Year: The Memphis Strike”
January/February 2008
Bimonthly

American Book Review
Volume 29 Number 2
January/February 2008
Bimonthly

Geist
Ideas and Culture :: Made in Canada
Volume 16 Number 67
Winter 2007
Quarterly

Guild Practitioner
A journal of legal theory and practice: “…to the end that human rights shall be more sacred than property interests.”
Volume 64 Number 2
Summer 2007
Quarterly

Humor Times
Issue Number 193
January 2008
Monthly

In These Times
Lights! Camera! Collective Action!
Volume 32 Number 1
January 2008
Monthly

Labor Notes
Number 346
January 2008
Monthly

Lilith
Independent, Jewish & frankly feminist
Volume 32 Number 4
Winter 2007-08
Quarterly

Planet Drum Pulse
A Voice for Bioregional Sustainability, Education, and Culture
Winter 2007

Science & Society
Volume 72 Number
January 2008
Quarterly

Shambhala Sun
Buddhism/Culture/Meditation/Life
Volume 16 Number 4
March 2008
Bimonthly

Sing Out!
Folk Music Folk Songs
Volume 51 Number 4
Winter 2008
Quarterly

Turning the Tide
Journal of Anti-Racist Action, Research & Education
Volume 21 Number 1
Jan-Feb 2008
Bimonthly

Voices from the Earth
Southwest Research and Information Center, Albuquerque, NM
Volume 8 Number 4
Winter 2007
Quarterly

Z Magazine
20 Year Anniversary Issue
January 2008
Monthly

Women’s Presses, Activism, & Gender Inequities in the Literary World
Panel Sponsored by Kore Press
Friday, February 1, 12pm
Gibson Suite, Hilton 2nd floor
Moderated by Lisa Bowden. Guerrilla girls look at gender inequity and the literary world: why are there far fewer women getting published than men when MFA programs and residencies are filled with women writers? Through the lens of Third Wave Feminism, we will consider what the perception of feminist publishing is and if the women’s press is an effective activist project or a remarginalization of the already marginalized. Writers, editors, and activists comment on the historic need for and complexities inherent in the “affirmative action” of publishing women only.

Chocolate & Merlot Booksigning
Saturday, February 2, 4:30 pm
Kore Press Bookfair Table #451
Nibble truffles & sip red wine with Kore authors Spring Ulmer and Tiphanie Yanique as they sign their award-winning books at the Kore table.

From PEN American Center:

Our colleagues in China need your help.

Last month, in cooperation with the courageous members of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, PEN launched We Are Ready for Freedom of Expression, a campaign aimed at freeing all writers and journalists imprisoned in China before the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Noted Chinese authors Liu Xiaobo and Zheng Yi were among those joining international counterparts Margaret Atwood, Francine Prose, and Salman Rushdie in launching this important campaign. The support and participation of PEN Members in the United States is vital to our collective success.

Take action today by adding your name to two PEN petitions:

• Petition to the Chinese government

• Petition to the U.S. Congress to ban U.S. involvement in internet censorship in China

This is a historic moment in which the international community has the opportunity to pressure the Chinese government to improve its human rights record. Take time now to sign the petitions, and join us in our advocacy work in the weeks ahead.

Help us win the release of our colleagues in Chinese prisons and expand freedom of expression in China in this crucial year.

Many thanks,

Francine Prose
President

Larry Siems
Director, Freedom to Write and International Programs

“Each year, Fishtrap, Inc. awards up to five Fellowships for Summer Fishtrap, held every July at Wallowa Lake, Oregon. Awards are made on the basis of writing submission only, and are not limited to or made because of the genre. In a given year, awards might all go to poets, or to fiction writers, or to non-fiction writers; in fact they go out in different combinations each year, based on the judge’s selection of best writing. Fellowships cover the cost of a workshop, registration for the Gathering, and food and lodging for the week. Previous Fellows include fiction writers Kathleen Tyau and Geronimo Tagatac, poets Charles Goodrich and Marilyn Johnston, and non-fiction writer Ellie Waterston.”

Deadline: Postmark February 4, 2008

The Abacot Journal is seeking submissions for its second issue, due out in April. Stories must be in the magic realism/urban fantasy/fabulist fiction genres, and under 2000 words. Please see the website for full guidelines. Deadline for submissions is March 10, 2008.

The Brown International Writers Project is currently seeking nominations and applications for its one-year fellowship with residency. The Fellowship, supported by a grant from the William H. Donner Foundation, is designed to provide sanctuary and support for established creative writers–fiction writers, playwrights, and poets-who are persecuted in their home countries or are actively prevented from pursuing free expression in their literary art. Deadline: February 1, 2008.

The Puritan, Ottawa’s Literary Prose Magazine, is accepting submissions for the Spring 2008 issue: fiction and creative non-fiction,500-7500 words. Deadline: March 17, 2008.

Congratulations to the winners of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals Prizes for 2007:

Parnassus Award for Significant Editorial Achievement
Winner: Margaret D. Bauer for North Carolina Literary Review
Runner Up: Richard Mathews for Tampa Review

Best New Journal
Winner: Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation, Editors, Christy Desmet, Sujata Lyengar
Runner-Up: American Naturalism, Editors, Keith Newlin, Stephen C. Brennan

Best Special Issue
Winner: African American Review for “The Curse of Caste,” Editor Joycelyn Moody, guest editor Veta Smith Tucker
Runner Up: Eighteenth-Century Fiction, “War/La Guerre,” Editors, Peter Walmsley, Julie Park
Honorable Mention: Fashion Theory, Vol.11, Issue 2/3, Editors, Emma Tarlo, Annelies Moors

Best Journal Design
Not awarded

The Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement
Winner: Women’s Studies Quarterly, Editors, Cindi Katz and Nancy K. Miller

Distinguished Editor
Winners: George D. Greenia, La coronica and Holly Laird, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature
Honorable Mention: Rick Emmerson, Speculum

Big Think

Ex-Harvard President Meets a Former Student, and Intellectual Sparks Fly
By TIM ARANGO
Published: January 7, 2008
Excerpted from the New York Times

In June 2006, Peter Hopkins, a civic-minded and idealistic 2004 Harvard graduate, trekked up to his alma mater from New York for a meeting with Lawrence H. Summers, the economist and former Treasury secretary. Mr. Hopkins, who finagled the appointment through his friendship with Mr. Summers’s assistant, had a business idea: a Web site that could do for intellectuals what YouTube, the popular video-sharing site, did for bulldogs on skateboards.

The pitch — “a YouTube for ideas” — appealed to Mr. Summers. “Larry, to his credit, is open to new ideas,” Mr. Hopkins recalled recently. “He grilled me for two hours.” In the age of user-generated content, Mr. Summers did have one worry: “Let’s say someone puts up a porn video next to my macroeconomic speech?”

It took awhile, but a year after that meeting, Mr. Summers decided to invest (“a few tens of thousands of dollars,” he said, adding “not something I’m hoping to retire on”) in the site, called Big Think, which officially makes its debut today after being tested for several months.

Big Think (www.bigthink.com) mixes interviews with public intellectuals from a variety of fields, from politics, to law to business, and allows users to engage in debates on issues like global warming and the two-party system. It plans to add new features as it goes along, including a Facebook-like application for social networking, and Mr. Hopkins said he would like the site to become a popular place for college students looking for original sources.

complete conversations with my father:
unprovoked and about which i am still confused
by jody brooks
Published in SUB-LIT, Volume 1 Number 3

Dad: “You remember Uncle Snooze?”
Me: “No.”
Dad: “He lived over where I shot that deer in the ass. Had a great swimming pool.”

D: “You ever hear of Goat Man?”
M: “Not that I recall.”
D: “He used to live up in that cove. They called him Goat Man because he came down from the mountains once a month with his cart and his goats. I never knew what he was selling, but people always had to go see him about something.”

D: “You ever meet Bang Bang LaFarr? Guy that sold chicken diapers?”
M: “I don’t understand any part of that question.”
D: [read the rest]

The Association of Literary Scholars and Critics is accepting applications for the post of Special Liaison for Graduate Student Affairs.

Ideally, the successful candidate will be enrolled in a program of graduate study in literature, and will have been a member of the ALSC for at least one year. The post carries the following responsibilities:

Create and distribute outreach e-mailings to college and university humanities departments (English, Classics, Theater, Creative Writing, Comparative Literature, Foreign Language, etc.) to promote student membership in the Association

Organize periodic local meetings of graduate students at the Liaison’s home institution and encourage and assist other students to organize meetings on other campuses in the U.S. and abroad

Write a brief quarterly column on graduate-student affairs for publication on our Website and in the ALSC Newsletter

Host and moderate the ALSC’s Graduate Student Listserv on Google.

Attend the ALSC conference each year (at the discretion of the ALSC Executive Council and subject to the budgetary capacity of the ALSC, a travel stipend may be available to defray some or all of the costs of this annual trip)

Produce a report on the annual conference for publication in the winter issue of the ALSC Newsletter

Maintain regular communications with the executive director regarding outreach activities and planning

Report to the Council and executive director on a quarterly basis (including in-person at the annual conference) with news of outreach activities, ideas for future projects, results of graduate student surveys, etc.

This is an unpaid position. Applicants should send a CV and a brief covering letter of interest to the attention of the executive director at alsc(at)bu.edu.

The application deadline is Friday, February 1.

C&R Press is now accepting submissions for Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes (scheduled for Fall 2008 publication). Our intention is to bring together contemporary American poems that meditate, celebrate, and take stock of our world. We envision this anthology as a roadmap of (1) where we’ve been (our sense of history), (2) who we are (identity and character), and (3) where we’re headed (a re-envisioning of community, self, and the idea of America).

Feel free to challenge the thematic and stylistic limits of these guidelines (and of the ode form itself), and in doing so, help us best represent the range, depth, and veracity of America’s plural voice(s). Though this anthology will contain mostly new, original work by contemporary writers, we might also include select classic odes to show the richness of the tradition in giving poetic utterance to the hopes, dreams, and concerns of the American spirit in an accessible, classroom-friendly gathering.

Visit the C&R Press website for more details.

Rebuilding Labor’s Power
April 11-13, 2008 – Detroit, Michigan

Over 40 workshops will be offered including:
Labor History
Flyers and Newsletters
Assertive Grievance Handling
Internal Organizing: Key to a Strong Union
Getting Ahead of Globalization
Taking Control of the Workplace: A “Continuous Bargaining” Approach
Contract Campaigns
Fighting Blame the Worker Health and Safety Programs
Running for Local Union Office
Dealing with the Media
Strategic Planning: Building a Strong Local
Creative Tactics
Pension Crisis 101
Strike Strategy

From Editors Barbara Jacksha & Joan Kremer: Cezanne’s Carrot is now reading for its 2008 Spring Equinox edition and beyond. Deadline for the spring issue is midnight, February 20, 2008 (US Mountain time). Current needs: fiction (short stories and flash), creative nonfiction, and visual art. We’re especially interested in work with a metaphysical bent – work that pushes beyond the physical world as we know it. Full submission guidelines, including the email addresses for submitting work, are available at the website.

Cezanne’s Carrot publishes high-quality literary work that explores spiritual, transformational, visionary, or contemplative themes. We are most interested in the personal quest for evolution and understanding, whether that quest takes place within the context of a religious tradition, an inner temple of your own making, or a seemingly mundane neighborhood or backyard. Cezanne’s Carrot appears quarterly, each Equinox and Solstice, in alignment with the Earth’s rhythms.

“The Great American Poetry Show is a hardcover serial poetry anthology open year-round to submissions of poems in English on any subject and in any style, length and number. We have three editors who can handle a lot of submissions. So please send us a lot of poems. If we do not accept your poems, please send us another group to go through. Simultaneous submissions and previously published poems are welcome. Response time is usually 1-3 months. Each contributor receives one free copy of the volume in which his/her work appears. Volume 2 of the Great American Poetry Show is now taking submissions by email and by regular mail. Volume 2 is scheduled to appear in 2008 if we have enough good poems (about 120); if not, we will wait until we do. Please take a look at our website where you can preview Volume 1 of TGAPS and also purchase a copy.”

In addition to letting us here at NewPages know about your AWP events, if you are hosting any kind of event off-site in New York, meaning any event that is NOT taking place at the AWP Conference Hotels, AWP will help you promote this event. Please visit the Writers Circle on-line, and post your event on the discussion, and AWP will include it in a list of off-site events to be posted on their web pages. AWP hopes that those who are not able to register for the conference will still attend these off-site events, which are open to the public. The more word on the street, the better.

Submissions for the March 2008 issue of The Innisfree Poetry Journal are being accepted until February 1, 2008.