Sponsored Blog Posts are paid advertisements from indie and university presses, authors, and literary magazines to announce their latest titles and issues, and from literary websites offering writing tools and resources.
Join Writing Coach & Author Lynne Golodner for five glorious days October 20-24, 2024, in the Redwood forests of northern California for a writers retreat that will change your life! Includes daily craft lessons, guided hikes and yoga in an intimate setting plus daily breakfast, two lunches and a celebratory final night dinner. NewPages readers are eligible for EARLY BIRD PRICING. View flyer to learn more and apply here. ONLY TWO SPOTS LEFT!
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“Eugene Stevenson’s Heart’s Code is a work of true wonder. Ever since my introduction to his poetry, I have awaited his first collection and it is nothing short of magnificent. With deft precision and a keen eye, Stevenson captures ‘the places of great joy [and] the places of great pain’ with a tender grace and moving beauty that will leave readers’ hearts aching for more.”—Michelle Champagne, Susurrus, A Literary Arts Magazine of the American South
“Filled with snapshots of compassion, the poems in Heart’s Code explore both the grand and pocket-sized experiences that drive us apart and bring us back together again, transformed into something greater than before.”—Maxwell Bauman, Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine Editor-In-Chief
“Expansive and stirring, Heart’s Code carries us through complex landscapes of generational love and loss. A study in impermanence, anchored to nature’s juxtaposed cycles of rebirth, Stevenson’s verse offers redemption through the very journey itself. A poetic atlas of life’s gutting transience, not to be missed.”—Kelly Easton, Editor, Compass Rose Literary Journal
“Eugene Stevenson’s debut collection of poetry ruminates on points of origin and journeys in sharply observed language. Simultaneously plain and artful, poem after poem draws us into dislocated people finding their way, following their own path, as a sensuous realism that conducts its own exploration, both familiar and unfamiliar, without constraining, as the ‘world / recede[s] in the distance.’ Heart’s Code is a meditation on a world balancing at the edge of its own disappearance.” —Geoffrey Gatza, author of Disappointment Apples
New titles from Black Rose Books, Montreal’s radical publisher since 1969. This year’s catalogue includes Freedom or Death, the definitive text on Mikhail Bakunin, titan of the Left; Eros and Revolution, a daring exploration into the history of revolutionary social movements; and Castoriadis Against Heidegger, a critical tour-de-force juxtaposing the politics of these two pivotal philosophers. View our flyer and see our website for more!
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Deadline: April 30, 2024 Applications are open for the Tremont Writers Workshop, a five-day experience for a select group inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Join renowned author workshop leaders Maurice Manning (poetry), Monic Ductan (fiction), David Brill (nonfiction), and guest faculty Frank X Walker for a writers conference like no other. View flyer for more information. Apply at our website.
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Look out for the latest issue of Amsterdam Review with poetry, translations, interviews, and flash fiction by local and international artists. Featuring an exclusive interview of W. S. Merwin and Andrei Voznesensky, and works by Elisa Gabbert, Amy Catanzano, Iain Britton, Marin Sorescu, Geoffrey Babbit, Karen Bishop, Daniel Nemo, and many more. View our flyer and visit our website for more information.
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Marriage 2001: A Bruised Odyssey, Poetry by J. W. Young
unPublications, February 2024
Marriage 2001: A Bruised Odyssey by J. W Young is a book of poetry & writings which deals with the confines of marriage when defined and marred by subjugation, domestic abuse, and censorship in modern times. It is Young’s first published literary work. Though many of the writings were destroyed, this book contains survivors. The poetic expressions served as a means to cope and endure. Marriage 2001: A Bruised Odyssey is a journey of hope, pain, grief and the difficult pathway to reclaiming a sense of self.
Three Sixes and a Forked Tongue or Cold Medicine and a Liar, Fiction by James Tyler Toothman
millions of colors, December 2023
The year is 1971. Lost deep in the woods of West Virginia, a desperate young girl discovers a book of witchcraft and pledges herself to Satan. But the Devil’s checking into town, and he’s got something special in store for this new little witch.
When Black Lavender Luci, the Devil himself, rocks up to Clockmaker, West Virginia in a Rolls Royce Silver Wraith, wearing alligator boots, a chinchilla coat, Porkpie hat and a gold-plated grin, he’s got his sights on only one thing: fifteen-year-old Miss Priscilla Carpenter, the baddest witch in town. Tired of being on the receiving end of Old Red—her father’s favorite paddle—Priscilla doesn’t hesitate when she stumbles upon a book of witchcraft and stains the pages with her blood.
At first, signing her soul away to Satan was just an opportunity to have some fun, help the people she loves, and get a little revenge on the townspeople that turned their backs on her and her mother, Lavinia. Flanked by her childhood best friend Joseph and her loyal disciple Big Tommy, Priscilla makes her way through the increasingly demanding spells of her beloved grimoire. But when the Devil calls in his favor and seduces Priscilla deeper into the world of dark magic, drugs, and desire, she unwittingly unleashes a torrent of death on Clockmaker, causing dams to break, women to go missing, and rabbit piss to fall from the sky. And pretty soon, she finds herself the baby mama of Hell himself.
Another Name for Darkness: Sans. PRESS Anthology #6
Sans. PRESS, December 2023
A lifetime buried in the mud, a shadow haunting your past, a creature built from offered scraps – there is something lurking in the dark! In this new collection, 15 writers explore the many shapes that darkness can take, from the monstrous to the stark realities of loss and heartbreak. In tales that embrace both the mundane and the supernatural, nothing is impossible, and realities can be shattered and rebuilt for those willing to dare.
MONARCH: Stories subverts the reader’s common perceptions about how love can heal, how loss and suffering can transform, and how every character deserves a second chance. America’s city scars, sewers, alleyways, and bars are landscape to their wars, as characters heal and transform under wind turbines and on open roads, in golden cornfields and with the wails of Chicago blues. Heroes in this collection are the marginalized, the sufferers, the down-trodden, the misfits, the wanderers, and the wounded, shaped by grief but not defined by their scars.
The collection is driven by its characters, unsung heroes who are shades of the sufferers and healers in all. An inclusive invitation, MONARCH is aimed at an intimate portrayal of scarred characters on American streets beating the drum of current culture against the fierce rhythm of critical social justice issues. An exploration of the human condition through a lens of the damaged, MONARCH’s characters bear traumas with their bodies, and often, they transgress while learning how to love through small acts of kindness. They break in, break down, and ultimately, break open.
Foreword by Chris Abani, author of The Secret History of Las Vegas.
Christopher Soden’s poems are never a PR campaign for the author, never self-aggrandizing below a thin veil of manufactured vulnerability. These are not poems created to insight sighs from the audience. They are much more real than that, much more truly vulnerable than that, much more sticky and fun and difficult than that. Often life is solitary, often life is a mother-fucker, but if you are holding this book in your hands then you are not alone, even more than that: you are being held in the arms of an author who may not know you but, in each and every poem, wonders and cares about you. —Matthew Dickman author of Wonderland
Dead Men Cast No Shadows: The Managua Trilogy 3, Novel by Sergio Ramirez translated from Spanish by Daryl R. Hague
McPherson & Company, October 2023
Forcibly exiled to Honduras at the conclusion of No One Weeps for Me Now, Inspector Dolores Morales returns in Sergio Ramirez’s final, stand-alone volume of The Managua Trilogy, accompanied by a cast of brave priests, corrupt secret service agents, washed up former foot soldiers, and out-for-themselves vestiges of mid-century ideals, all colliding in this exuberant portrait of the depredations of oligarchs and dictators, the human cost of promises deferred, and the implacable hopes and resolve of Nicaraguans.
“Dead Men Cast No Shadows is an enormously entertaining novel about responses to perfidy in high places by one of the most prominent writers in the Spanish-speaking world. It is a courageous act of political defiance; Ramírez has paid a painful price for simply putting pen to paper to tell the truth. . . . He examines a shameful period in Nicaraguan history through the lens of a police/detective yarn and he succeeds magnificently.”— Brooks Geikan, The Arts Fuse
Now living in exile in Spain, Sergio Ramirez is the only Central American author ever to be awarded the Cervantes Prize, the highest honor in Spanish language letters.
The stories in Sara Hosey’s stunning collection, Dirty Suburbia, trace the lives of girls and women struggling to live with dignity in a world that often hates them.
Dirty suburbias are working-class neighborhoods in which girls who are left to fend for themselves sometimes become predators, as well as affluent communities in which women discover that money is no protection against sexism, both their own and others’.
Strange Attractors: The Ephrem Stories, Fiction by Janice Deal
New Door Books, September 2023
In Janice Deal’s linked story collection, everyday people navigate the uncertainties of life in the American heartland, seeking order in chaos with a very human mix of resilience and folly.
At first glance, the fictional Ephrem, Illinois, seems a friendly, familiar town—it draws you right in, even if you don’t need supplies at the mall or a snack at Brat Station. But as you come closer, you discover people who are complex and unpredictable. Life itself is capricious, and loneliness can turn a person strange. Yet there’s much affection here, small and large examples of human kindness.
For years, Janice Deal has been publishing award-winning stories about Ephrem. (Reviewers have compared them to Anton Chekhov, Sherwood Anderson, and Flannery O’Connor.) Now assembled for the first time, these extraordinary tales offer a masterful snapshot of life in today’s small-town America.
Janice Deal is the author of a novel, The Sound of Rabbits, and a previous story collection, The Decline of Pigeons. Stories from Strange Attractors have won The Moth Short Story Prize and the Cagibi Macaron Prize. Janice has also received an Illinois Arts Council Artists Fellowship Award for prose.
2024… Your Year of More is your go-to book to set goals and mindfully invest your efforts. It appeals to adults of all ages, nationalities, and backgrounds who wish to improve their lives. Its pages are packed with something special for everyone.
The pages contain practical ideas from A to Z, thought-provoking questions, and self-reflective exercises that inspire you to live your best life.
The book is an ideal companion during your moments of solitude. You can read it in the early morning before the rest of the world wakes up or during the evenings after a long day. You may also find it enjoyable while writing in your journal or taking a lunch break.
Enthusiastic indie author Noah William Smith knows the blessings and challenges of intelligence, creativity, high sensitivity and being a minority, underdog and outsider. While his books are based on his experiences, they offer valuable insights without being prescriptive or offering advice.
The book’s authenticity and invaluable insights make it a compelling read that will remain relevant for many years!
Are you considering investing in yourself or searching for the perfect gift for someone special? Enjoy this life-changing book that you cannot afford to miss!
They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So, Memoir by Lori Jakiela
Atticus Books, October 2023
They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice—the latest book from award-winning Pittsburgh author Lori Jakiela—is much more than a cancer memoir. It’s a pause between polarities. Cancer is almost an afterthought. Inspired by Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, it celebrates the tiny moments that make up a time capsule of a life.
A weirdly funny book about mortality, Rice is also about family, genetics, nature vs. nurture, the Rust Belt, EPA clean-up zones, emotional support peacocks, box turtles, Emily Dickinson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Andy Warhol(a), and so much more. A fresh voice aligned with the work of classic stream-of-consciousness writers like Richard Brautigan and Virginia Woolf, Jakiela explores the way a mind works—complete with leaps and spirals—while reflecting on a life thoroughly lived against a dire breast cancer diagnosis.
Half new and selected essays, half spiraling memoir, Rice is experimental in both voice and form, and offers a fresh approach to age-old questions about life, love, mortality, and the fine art of living, even so.
If It Comes to That is a collection that thoughtfully considers the human condition. The poet shares deep reflections on the creative spirit, on the archetypes that encapsulate our behaviors, and on our relationship with the natural world. One can’t help but see the connections that emerge while reading these poems—there are big questions of how we’re connected to the people who inspire us and the ways in which we’re tied to the past. However, these poems are also filled with the people who we touch simply and softly, hand to hand, finding a way through uncertain times. —Aaron Lelito, Founder, Editor-in-Chief, Wild Roof Journal
Distinguished by expert attention to image and phrase, line and sentence, rhythm and tone, George Witte’s An Abundance of Caution proves much more than a showcase of virtuoso technique. Witte’s formal skill lends voice and body to the crucial work of finding grace in a time marked by environmental crisis, global pandemic, and personal loss. His poems gain their depth and dimension from attentiveness to the lives of others, the details of the natural world, and the often-bewildering ways we live now. In lines both formal and free, these poems answer uncertainty with clarity, imagination, and compassion.
“The poet’s incredible attention to image, rhythm, and insistence upon the exact right word creates an incantatory sense of era-encapsulating collection of stylish, deftly composed poems.”–Kirkus Reviews
“These elegantly constructed poems about “each livid day” are definitely worth listening to.”–Ron Charles, The Washington Post Book Club Newsletter
“Visionary is what I would call the quality that enables these poems to know realities that exceed comprehension …”–H. L. Hix
“Witte’s poems find their way in, taking up residence in the mind and heart.”–David Yezzi
Graveyard Dogs is a graceful descent into the dimension of loss and grief. We witness life reduced to dirt and gravestones. We see love pushed into the shadows with nowhere to go. Jason Brightwell is a masterful shepherd whose poems guide us through the many facets of death. There is beauty and elegance in mourning and on every page in this book. He shows us that life prevails through tar, rust, and blood. We remain—the ones that are left behind—still of stars and still of purpose.
Winona Heeley spent the last year of recovery from eating disorders in rural Japan, at Michikusa House, alongside one other full-time resident: Jun Nakashima. Like Winona, Jun was a recovering addict and college dropout. While they bonded over rituals of growing their own food and preparing meals, they changed each other’s lives by reconstructing long-held beliefs about shame, identity, and renewal.
But after Winona returns to her Midwest hometown, Jun vanishes.
Two years pass and Winona, seeking revival through gardening, accepts a job as a groundskeeper at a local cemetery…and begins searching for Jun Nakashima once more.
No One Is on the Line: The Poetry of Mohsen Mohamed
Translated from the Arabic by Sherine Elbanhawy
Laertes, September 2023
These poems arose from the depths of incarceration, from the voice and intellect of Mohsen Mohamed (sentenced to five years of imprisonment after a campus protest in 2014) and went on to win Egypt’s two most significant literary prizes. They speak of dislocation and the wrenching of the heart, of a found (and forged) community, of the bare lineaments of humanity disclosed in the throes of suffering. They are works of provocative witness and searching tenderness.
“Mohsen Mohamed is an honest poet with a new dictionary, a keen eye for details and surprising twists, and a great talent.” —Amin Haddad, poet, winner of the International Cavafy Prize for poetry
Refugee Poetry by Pamela Uschuck Red Hen Press, Spring 2022
Refugee deals with political refugees, refugees from racism, from domestic violence, from environmental destruction and cancer—and their stories of cruelty and courage, hardship, and hope to overcome the most daunting of circumstances. This collection confronts and explores xenophobia, sexism, gun violence, domestic violence, corporate greed, environmental destruction and political tyranny. An ovarian cancer survivor, Pamela also writes about her own courageous confrontation with death.
“With tenderness, expansive compassion, and profound gifts of radiant description, Pamela Uschuk considers so many ways people may be estranged and lost in this precious, difficult world. With brave ferocity, her poems in Refugee navigate new vision and reconnection, so desperately longed for right now and always.”
Syncopation Literary Journal amalgamates the realms of literature and music. Volume 1, Issue 1 is now available to read on the website for FREE! The first issue contains book excerpts, poetry, creative nonfiction, short stories and flash fiction penned by writers and musicians from around the world. Titles of pieces in issue include: “The First Time I Heard Leonard Cohen”, “Memphis, Tennessee”, and “I’ve Got the Blues.”
Visit the Syncopation Literary Journal website for more information.
