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The editors of Mount Marty College’s literary journal Paddlefish are interested in poetry (3-5 poems), short/short fiction (2,500 words or less), graphic fiction, nonfiction, illustrated essays, graphic memoir and narrative documentary photography in all genres and styles. Their online extension is also accepting a variety of media arts including: video, motion graphics and animation (submitted via CD/DVD and limited to ten minutes). Submission Dates: November 1st, 2007 – February 29th, 2008

The AWP 2008 Conference & Bookfair in NYC is sold out. No more passes will be sold. No onsite registration will be available (presenters will be allowed to register onsite if they have not done so already). Over seven thousand people will be attending the NYC conference. Only pre-registered individuals possessing a registration badge will be admitted into the conference events & bookfair.

PEN American Center
Best of 2007
“Arthur Miller once suggested that PEN exists to remind us that humanity’s survival transcends any nation’s political interest, and that ‘the most convincing example—if not proof—of humanity’s essential oneness [is] the universality of the best literature.’ For years, PEN American Center and its Members have worked tirelessly to advance literature, defend free expression, and foster an international community of writers. Not until recently have we had the means to share our concerted efforts. PEN is pleased to present The Best of PEN 2007, featuring exclusive online conversations, essays, poetry, translations, audio clips from PEN programming, and photo galleries. Check back each week for new additions.”

2008 PEN LITERARY AWARDS
Call for Submissions
PEN American Center is currently accepting nominations and submissions for the 2008 Awards. Honors will be awarded in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, translation, and children’s literature.

PEN History
“The P.E.N. (poets, playwrights, essayists, editors, and novelists) American Center was founded in New York City in the spring of 1922. A year earlier in London, the first seed of building an international organization had been sown: Mrs. C. A. Dawson Scott, a Cornish novelist, and John Galsworthy, a well-known literary figure, together founded the first P.E.N. organization, and decided to call it “The P.E.N. Club.” This Club was borne out of Mrs. Dawson Scott’s “unshakable conviction that if the writers of the world could learn to stretch out their hands to each other, the nations of the world could learn in time to do the same.” The idea could not have come at a more appropriate time, as bitter hatred existed between the nations following the First World War.”

“Ninth Letter will publish a special section in the upcoming Spring 08 issue featuring poems about music. All music. Jazz, Blues, Classical, Reggae, Funk, Country, etc., etc., etc. For the first time, we will be accepting submissions via e-mail as well as traditional postal service.”

Comment 1/3/08: jodee stanley said…
Just a couple corrections to note: we are reading in the spring for the music poetry feature, but the feature will actually appear in the Fall 2008 issue. And we have opened an online submissions system, but we still do not accept submissions via email attachment–please use our electronic submission database as indicated in our guidelines. Thanks!

Babel Fruit, the online journal for “writing under the influence of the other,” welcomes submissions for the February spring issue. Poetry, prose, and creative non-fiction are welcome. For reviews and previews please query first. Babel Fruit accepts previously published work if it is not available online. babelfruit.org is an independent initiative in cooperation with the International Cities of Refuge Network.

A new issue of Six Little Things is now online: issue #9, winter 2008, themed “A Penny Saved.” It features new short work by Stefanie Freele, Richard Grayson, Ashley Hudson, Jayne Pupek, Kamau Rucker, and Patrick Swaney, as well as photographs by Melanie Faith. Submissions are currently open for issue #10, Spring 2008, themed “Cut Paper / Paper Cuts.”

( ) Significant Aside
by Seymour Chwast

Sometimes old is new again, especially when discovered on the web. This is from a 2005 exhibit, but the images – still available on The Kean Review‘s web site – are timelessly fun. From HOW Design:

GRAMMAR RULES. PERIOD.

For David Schimmel, president and creative director of And Partners, one of the best parts of Punc’t was getting to play client. It was like Christmas morning as each poster hit his desk and he uncovered another top designer’s interpretation of a punctuation mark. “It was a delight to get them,” he says. “I had a different response to each one.” When all 24 creations were in hand, Schimmel put together an invitation for the Punc’t reception and charity auction, as well as a catalog to showcase the posters.

These promotional pieces have a high-end, art gallery feel that’s clean and sophisticated. And since Schimmel didn’t want to favor one style over another, the invitation doesn’t include any poster images at all. The catalog, on the other hand, makes the posters the hero, giving each work its own page to shine. “On the whole, paper promos aren’t the memorable, savable, industry-influencing works that they were a decade or two ago,” says judge Bryn Mooth. “This one is.”

When it came time to arrange the posters within the catalog, Schimmel tried alphabetizing the pieces by each designer’s last name and was pleasantly surprised at how well everything fell into place. As luck would have it, he’d assigned James Victore the period, giving his poster of a cowboy riding off into the sunset the perfect spot to declare, “The end.”

POSTER DESIGNERS Seymour Chwast, Alexander Isley, Michael Bierut, Alexander Gelman, Stefan Sagmeister, Sam Potts, Aimee Sealfon-Eng, Woody Pirtle, Paula Scher, James Victore, Michael Ian Kaye, Carin Goldberg, David Schimmel, Scott Stowell, Steff Geissbuhler, Mirko Ilic, Chip Kidd, Steven Brower, Kent Hunter, Emily Oberman, Bonnie Siegler, Todd St. John, Robert Valentine, Marcos Chin, Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich

See the full display of posters here on The Kean Review.

NewPages was saddened to hear the news that Alexander “Sandy” Taylor of Curbstone Press passed away Thursday evening, December 20, 2007, after suffering a major stroke. Sandy was a dear friend and long-time supporter and advisor to NewPages. We will miss him dearly. Our heartfelt support and strength to his family, friends, and literary colleagues.

The Summer of 2006, Jessica Powers interviewed Sandy for NewPages. Read the interview here.

From Cune Magazine:
Curbstone Press is a place where the writers of many cultures meet, united by a common concern to produce literature that deals with social realities and that promotes a respect for human rights, civil liberties, human dignity, and multicultural understanding. Curbstone seeks out the highest aesthetic expression of the dedication to human rights: poetry, stories, novels, testimonials, photography. Editorial integrity is combined with painstaking craft in the creation of books, books of passion and purpose.

Co-directors Alexander Taylor and Judy Doyle began the press when James Scully returned from Chile with a poetry manuscript. Taylor says, “We were fairly certain that a commercial house would not do the book, both because of its attack on the Pinochet regime and because it was not of standard length. We published it because we felt the poetry was stunning and because we felt it was necessary for the public to know what was really going on in Chile.” Both Alexander and Judy have their roots in the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, and the Solidarity with Central America Movement, and a long interest in publishing. These two drives came together when they formed their publishing company.

Curbstone has become know as a preeminent source of translations of work by Latin American and Central American authors; however, one of their recent releases is a novel by Marnie Mueller about the injustice inflicted on Japanese Americans by their forced relocation during World War II, and it is a perfect example of their mission. Publishers Weekly called it “An engrossing character study.” Alexander Taylor says, “It’s a story where no one person is either right or wrong, and it forces us to examine our own consciences.”

Writing in Netantla
LaVon Rice interviews author Ana Castillo
Excerpted from ColorLines
Nov/Dec 2007

“Yet another voice is weighing in on the fate of la frontera these days—but it’s a poet, not a pundit. In her latest novel, The Guardians, the multi-genre writer Ana Castillo takes a look at life on the U.S.-Mexico border with sensitivity and imagination—qualities often sorely lacking in the immigration debate today. Told through the eyes of several characters, The Guardians explores the politics of the border with irony, lyricism and desert-spare clarity… [read the rest here]”

Founded in 2002 as an online literary journal, Tarpaulin Sky took the form of 12.5 internet issues before its first paper edition in November 2007. Moving into 2008 and beyond, the magazine will continue to publish new work both online and in print, often curated by guest-editors. Tarpaulin Sky focuses on cross-genre / trans-genre / hybrid forms as well as innovative poetry and prose. The journal emphasizes experiments with language and form, but holds no allegiance to any one style or school or network of writers – trying to avoid some of the defects associated with dipping too often into the same literary gene pool, and the diversity of their contributors is evidence of the TS’s eclectic interests.

Glacial Acceleration: A Sea of Troubles
Why what’s happening in Greenland matters now
By Paul Brown
From E-Magzine
December 14, 2007

“It is hard to shock journalists and at the same time leave them in awe of the power of nature. A group returning from a helicopter trip flying over, then landing on, the Greenland ice cap at the time of maximum ice melt last month were shaken. One shrugged and said, ‘It is too late already.’

“What they were all talking about was the moulins, not one moulin but hundreds, possibly thousands. “Moulin” is a word I had only just become familiar with. It is the name for a giant hole in a glacier through which millions of gallons of melt water cascade through to the rock below. The water has the effect of lubricating the glaciers so they move at three times the rate that they did previously…” [read the rest and see more images here]

Eco Tipping Points
How a vicious cycle can become virtuous
by Amanda Suutari and Gerald Marten
From Earth Island Journal
Summer 2007

“The cicadas are in full voice on a sultry morning in May as we make our way along a rickety wooden boardwalk that snakes through a community mangrove forest near Thung Dase village in southern Thailand. The mangroves offer welcome shade near a dock where a small boat is moored. Handmade bamboo traps are set to catch mud crabs when the tides go out. In a flash of orange and turquoise, a kingfisher swoops to a low-hanging branch.

“It’s hard to imagine that three decades ago the area’s lush abundance was collapsing into a wasteland. ‘At one time,’ recalls Nom Ham Yak, chair of the forest’s management committee, ‘our economic base was crabs, fisheries, and rubber. Then areas were leased as concessions to private contractors to clear for charcoal, and the forest became badly degraded.’

“The prospects for the area’s villages were so bleak that a revival would have seemed a fantasy. What brought them back from the brink was an Eco Tipping Point.

“Eco Tipping Points offer a new paradigm for restoring our communities, both natural and human. Conventional approaches to ecological problems – from piecemeal micromanagement, to techno-fixes, to top-down regulation – often fail or generate new messes. But Eco Tipping Points show how the same forces that endanger environments and communities can be harnessed to heal them.

“To demonstrate what Eco Tipping Points are and how they work, consider two very different stories from two continents: the mangrove forests of Trang Province and the marshes of Arcata, California…” [read the rest and see more images here]

Oregon State University Andrews Forest Writers’ Residencies

Creative writers whose work in any genre reflects a keen awareness of the natural world and an appreciation for both scientific and literary ways of knowing are invited to apply for one-week residencies at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest.

The mission of the Long-Term Ecological Reflections program is to bring together writers, humanists and scientists to create a living, growing record of how we understand the forest and the relation of people to the forest, as that understanding and that forest both change over time.

Next application deadline: December 31, 2007

An excerpt from “All the Broke Young Literary Magazines: Flooded Highways, Disinterest in California, and Other Minor Setbacks on the n+1 West Coast Tour” by Christopher Frizzelle:

“[. . .]What We Should Have Known: Two Discussions, the 126-page pamphlet n+1 just published that’s a conversation among writers about college—specifically, what they were made to read in college that they regret reading, or conversely what books they regret not having read sooner. I read What We Should Have Known in one sitting and loved it. It’s funny. It’s got references you might not know (the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess) but it’s unpretentious. Caleb Crain compares reading Henry James to smoking crack. Mark Greif talks about his sadness for college teachers, because some of their students ‘have much more power in their brains and they have youth on their side, and they pick up teachers and fall in love with them and abandon them, throw them away like bits of trash or crumpled-up paper. But this is what you have to do as a student.'”

For $9, you can have your own copy of this recommended publication. Visit n+1 online order page. NewPages ponied up for a copy – you can, too!

A total of 215 Say Brother episodes from 1968 to 1982 have been organized and preserved by the WGBH Media Archives and Preservation Center through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. One of television’s longest running program series by, for and about the African American community, Say Brother (now known as Basic Black) was born at a milestone moment in America’s history. The people and issues the show turned its lens on through the years tell, in capsule form, the history of both Black America and the city of Boston from the Civil Rights movement through the era of Black Power and the significant increase of numbers in the Black middle class.

Thanks to African American Review for this information.

Contemporary Verse 2 is looking for submissions for poetry, critical writing about poetry and reviews of books of poetry for these upcoming issues:

Spring 2008: The Jilted Issue, deadline: January 31, 2008
Summer 2008: Poem as Travelogue, deadline: April 1, 2008
Fall 2008: CV2’s Annual Open Issue, deadline: July 10, 2008

A note on submissions from CV2: “We suggest that writers research literary journals carefully before submitting their work to determine that the journal’s aesthetics match that of their writing.”

Split This Rock
Call for poetry films and videos

Poems of Provocation & Witness
Poets have long played a central role in movements for social change. Today, at a critical juncture in our country’s history, poetry that gives voice to the voiceless, names the unnamable, and speaks directly from the individual and collective conscience is more important than ever. The festival will explore and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for change: reaching across differences, considering personal and social responsibility, asserting the centrality of the right to free speech, bearing witness to the diversity and complexity of human experience through language, imagining a better world.

Film & Video Submissions:
We are looking for artistic, experimental, and challenging film/video interpretations of poetry that explore critical social issues. Selected work will be screened during the Split This Rock Poetry Festival film program.

Deadline: postmarked by January 30th, 2008
Entry fee: $15.00 (non-refundable)
Notification by February 15th, 2008
Festival dates: March 20th-23rd, 2008

Muldoon Mulls Over Nature, Candy Bars
By Becky Lang
The Minnesota Daily
November 30, 2007

“Finally there’s a poet to express the less-than-timeless tribulations of the soccer mom. Princeton professor, New Yorker poetry editor and garage-band lyricist Paul Muldoon has learned the subtle art of inflating virtually anything with poetry. ‘The time of day when light fails on the field / and gives back a sky more muddy than mother-of-pearl,’ is just one line from the short ode to the Gatorade-toting masters of the minivan. Apparently, rhyming ‘soccer ball’ with ‘shopping mall’ is for amateurs.

“With more than two dozen poetry compilations, two children’s books, and a few translations on his r

Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression is entering its second year of publication. This new literary journal is designed for authors who want to write seriously, but struggle to find an outlet for poetry and prose that have a faithful slant. Their goal is to publish poems, creative nonfiction, and short stories that push the envelope beyond stereotypically “fluffy” Christian writing, encouraging writers to feel free to stand out on the edge.

Relief is currently seeking short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry for issue 2.2 (Spring 2008). Cash prizes will be awarded to “Editor’s Choice” for each genre. Submissions will only be accepted through our online submission process.

Fair Trade and Indigenous Autonomy in the Mayan Highlands
February 11th – February 18th, 2008

Join Higher Grounds on an adventure through the Mayan Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico visiting two organic and fair trade coffee co-ops working to create community sustainability and various autonomous projects. Trip highlights:

Spend the day at a certified organic, Fair Trade Coffee Cooperative to learn about the positive impacts of Fair Trade

Visit local coffee growing communities to learn about indigenous culture and the use of organic agriculture as a means to self-sufficiency

Learn about the “Other Campaign” – A new political initiative by the EZLN to build a national plan of struggle

Examine the issue of land rights and see first hand the global threats to the Mayan communities very existence

Learn about innovative, sustainable water projects taking place to support communal access to fresh water

Meet with a successful women’s artisan cooperative in the highlands and learn about the production of fair trade artisan goods

Witness first-hand the effects the global economy has on indigenous peoples

If you can’t make the trip, at least consider supporting their work through the purchase of their GREAT coffee. A NewPages staple.

Thereby Hangs a Tale is currently accepting submissions for its fourth print issue due out is Fall 2008. Each issue of THaT explores the stories that for around a single word. For Issue Four, that word is TASTE. Accepting fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and essays under 2,000 words. The deadline for submissions in February 15, 2008.