NewPages Blog

Ruminate Winter 2017 features the 2018 Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize recipients awarded by judge Shane McCrae:

First Place
"Elizabeth Asks" by Maggie Blake Bailey
[pictured]

Second Place
"Bookend Quote from Bro. Yao" by Amanda Hawkins

Honorable Mention
'"All These Months Since Your Diagnosis" by Emily Ransdell

Finalists whose works are also included in the issue: Jen Stewart Fueston, Dante Di Stefano, Janine Certo, Mason Henderson, Jake Crist, Jehanne Dubrow, Kerri Vinson Snell, Charity Gingerich, John Sibley Williams, Berwyn Moore, and Mark Wagenaar.

One of the cover images, "Lotus Buddha" by Christine DeCamp, for the online publication Leaping Clear is reflective of its mission, to promote "accomplished artists whose work is informed by dedicated meditative and contemplative practices." There is more from DeCamp and other visual artists and writers in the Fall 2017 issue.

The cover image of the fall 2017 issue of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative is a gorgeous waterfall photo from White Mountains, N.H. by David FitzSimmons.

Tim L. Vasquez of Untamed Photography offers a seemingly surreal image for the cover of the fall/winter 2017 Concho River Review.

In the Fall 2017 issue of The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, the regular feature 4X4, in which four of the contibutor's answer the same four questions, adresses questions about the concept of lyric voice, what the most "productive relationship" is between poems and politics, and the inherent (or not) difficulty of poems. James Longenbach, Sarah Gridley, Jonathan Moody, and Jennifer Moxley all weigh in, responding in turn to the four questions.

Speculative Fiction in Translation (SFT) "often flies under the radar, despite the fact that it is an important part of the speculative fiction universe," writes author and editor Rachel Cordasco in her introduction to a special section of "Speculative Fiction in Translation By Women" in Anomaly 25. While "SFT has been growing in popularity over the last few years," Cordasco notes that, "like the publishing world as a whole, the world of SFT is often dominated by male authors."

Her selection of included works highlights some of what she feels are the best female authors writing speculative fiction in languages other than English, offering readers a variety of stories and styles. In addition to this, Cordasco started SFinTranslation.com, a site on which she indexes SFT, reviews works, and posts news and interviews relative to SFT. Cordasco herself is working on translating Italian SF.

The December 2017 issue of Allegro Poetry Magazine online features poems that "celebrate that perennial feature of poetry workshops and courses: The prompt." Editor Sally Long writes, "Poets were invited to describe the prompts that gave rise to their poems. The result is an issue that not only includes some amazing poetry but also a selection of ideas that will hopefully inspire new poems." Contributors include Sarah Law, Bill Brown, Kersten Christianson, Rick Blum, Cathryn Shea, Lisa Stice, Charles Rammelkamp, Cat Campbell, Andrew Turner, Helen May Williams, Harry Youtt and more.

It's hard to get the full effect of the Fall 2017 The Georgia Review cover art, which features work by poet and photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths printed on mirror metallic stock.  A portfolio of her work and essay, "What Has Changed," is included in the issue, with an introduction by Jenny Gropp.

An untitled enamel on plywood by Mose " Mose T" Tolliver attracts readers to the Fall 2017 issue of Field: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics.

Love love love Mary Jo Karimnia's work, which she describes in her Artist's Statement, "I draw in the backgrounds and enhance certain areas with glass beads. Cropped purposefully to omit faces, the images - such as teenagers in costumes at cosplay conventions, dancers in Bolivia, and Catrina icons at a Day of the Dead festival - emphasize how costumes can allow us to explore alternative personae in an anonymous way, which helps us to learn about our past or to imagine a future in which the acceptance of eccentricities is the norm." The Cincinnati Review Winter 2018 includes her work on the cover as well as a portfolio inside.

The Autumn 2017 issue of The Fiddlehead features "Remembering Alden Nowlan." Poet, novelist, and playwright Nowlan passed away in 1983, and this past fall, Goose Lane published the Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan. Fiddlehead  Editor Ross Leckie writes, "It is an occasion for a celebration of Nowlan's remarkable achievement. In this issue of The Fiddlehead  readers will find a brief appreciation by David Adams Richards and a previously unpublished interview with Nowlan conducted just before his death by two intrepid high school students [Corinne Schriver and Carmen McKell]."

Katie M. Flynn's "Island Rule" is the winner of the 2017 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction selected by Richard Bausch. Her work appears in the Fall/Winter 2017 issue of Colorado Review.

In her Editor's Note, Stephanie G'Schwind writes, "Every fall, we have the true pleasure of publishing the winning story of the Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction. This year, it's Katie M. Flynn's 'Island Rule,' in which an environmental biology professor is haunted by memories of the surreally accelerated evolution and ensuing political violence that expelled her, as a child, from her island home. Final judge Richard Bausch calls it 'a very strange, audaciously original and convincing story that arrives at metaphor; it partakes of Kafka, being so matter-of-factly realistic .' It's a wonderful, daring story, richly deserving of the prize."

The Fall 2017 The Wallace Stevens Journal is a special issue focused on "Teaching Stevens."

The volume includes “Reflections by Poets" from Rachel Hadas, James Longenbach, and Lisa M. Steinman as well as poetry by Josepth Duemer, William Virgil Davis, Sharon Portnoff, Navlika Ramjee and more. Several of the essays focus on global contexts, such as teaching Stevens in Israel, Belgium, China, Sweden, and Portugal. Other essays include:

“Valuing Stevens’s Acts of Imagination” by Charles Altieri
“Stevens and Race: ‘Like Decorations in a Nigger Cemetery’ Revisited” by Marvin Campbell
“Stevens’s Poetics of Variation as a Guide for Teaching” by Lisa Goldfarb
“Casting for Keener Sounds: How to Make Difficult Poetry Fun Again” by Alex Streim, Zachary Tavlin
“As if Blackbirds Could Shape Scientists: Wallace Stevens Takes a Seat in the Classroom of Interdisciplinary Science” by David J. Waters
“Mountain Climbing in the Poetry Classroom in Malta: Teaching a Stevens Metapoem” by Daniel Xerri

The Wallace Stevens Project Muse website includes a full table of contents as well as previews of each article and full access for subscribers.

 

"Dying of the Already Dead" by Gloria Ceren is featured on the cover of the online fall 2017 issue of The Boiler along with additional works within the publication.

Billy Renkl's "Watching the Sky #2" collage of antique British chromoolithographs is the cover art for v32 n2 of Zone 3 literary journal. Renkl says of his work, "Vintage and antique paper can be surprisingly beautiful, and I find the way that it carries its history with it moving."

The front cover of Fall/Winter 2017 Poet Lore features a photograph of Coyote Bluffs, Arizona by Ariel Body of Live Laugh Design.

The Winter 2017 issue of Rattle features the $10,000 winner of their 2017 Poetry Prize, "Heard" by Rayon Lennon [pictured]. The ten contest finalists also appear in this issue with the chance to be selected by subscribers for the $2,000 Readers' Choice Award. Ballots, along with subscription information, are available in the publication itself. This year's finalist poets are Barbara Lydecker Crane, Kayla Czaga, Emari DiGiorgio, Rhina P. Espaillat, Troy Jollimore, Nancy Kangas, Ron Koertge, Jimmy Pappas, Kirk Schlueter, and Alison Townsend.

The Kenyon Review Nov/Dec 2017 issue features winners of the 2017 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers. This award "recognizes outstanding young poets and is open to high school sophomores and juniors throughout the world. The contest winner receives a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Young Writers workshop." Winning entries can also be read online here.

First Prize
Eileen Huang: “Movie Scene on a Highway Shoulder"

Runners Up
Daniel Blokh: “Family Portrait with Lost Map"
Isabella Victoria: “Clemente Curls"

Publishing since 1967 from the University of Victoria, The Malahat Review is one of Canada's leading literary journals. Editors since its inception have included Robin Skelton, John Peter, Constance Rooke, Derk Wynand, Marlene Cookshaw, and currently John Barton (since 2004).

Originally subtitled "An International Magazine of Life and Letters," The Malahat Review  now focuses on Canadian and international poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. The publication's website also features book reviews, interviews, contests, podcasts, and publishing tips - a bimontly guest column in which authors share how to improve professionals skills: "from the writing of cover letters, to what house style means, to choosing a rhyming dictionary, to having an author photo (as opposed to a selfie) shot."

Happy Anniversary Malahat! Here's hoping for another great half-century to come!

The Indianapolis Review is a new online quarterly of poetry and visual art supporting the growth of new voices in the literary scene in Indianapolis and beyond. Founder and Editor in Chief Natalie Solmer and Associate Editor Rachel Sahaidachny started the publication “to give back to the poetry and art world by curating a platform to showcase poets and artists. We desire to create connections among writers and artists in our community and around the globe. In our own publishing experiences, we've seen there is always a need for venues to publish new work.”

The University of Iowa Press published the winners of the 2017 Iowa Short Fiction Award and the 2017 John Simmons Short Fiction Award last month.

Matthew Lansburgh’s Outside is the Ocean, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award, was chosen by Andre Dubus III, who calls the linked collection “mesmerizing” as it “explores, among other things, the tenuous tie between mother and son, between the Old World and the New, between what was and what is.”

Winner of the John Simons Short Fiction Award, What Counts as Love by Marian Crotty, is “sensual, brave, and wonderfully evocative” as Crotty  examines“the seemingly tattered nature of love, taking us deeply into the varied lives of her characters and making us care for them all.” The nine stories follow people—most often young women—searching for human connection, their stories touching on themes of addiction, class, sexuality, and gender.

Stop by the University of Iowa Press website to learn more about the awards and winning titles.

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their July/August Very Short Fiction Award. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories with a word count under 3000. The next Very Short Fiction competition will take place in March. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to Chase Burke of Tuscaloosa, AL [pictured], who wins $2000 for “That’s That.” His story will be published in Issue 101 of Glimmer Train Stories. This will be his first major print publication.

2nd place goes to Brian Yansky of Austin, TX, for “The Curse.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing his prize from $500 to $700.

3rd place goes to Ajit Dhillon of Singapore, for “Waiting.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing his prize from $300 to $700.

A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.

October offered more treats than just candy this year. Readers, a handful of prize-winning books hit bookshelves last month, and if you haven’t already gotten your hands on them, now is your chance!

The grand finalist of the Vine Leaves Vignette Collection Award, The Walmart Book of the Dead by Lucy Biederman, draws inspiration from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. Biederman’s version includes shoplifters, grifters, drifters, and hustlers as they wander Walmart unknowingly consigned to their afterlives.

Stephanie Carpenter brought home the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction with Missing Persons. Selected by Press 53 Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Kevin Morgan Watson, the collection contains stories that are “diverse in setting, conflict, and style,” and it rose above over 230 other manuscripts to claim the prize.

Pleaides Press awards the Editors Prize for Poetry each spring. The 2016 winner, A Lesser Love by E. J. Koh, was published this month. “Love, war and recovered testimony from Korea’s unhealed border inform the formal and imaginative boundaries” within the debut collection, according to D. A. Powell’s advance praise. Learn more about the collection at the press’s website.

In Set to Music a Wildfire, Ruth Awad’s homage to her father “explores the violence of living, the guilt of surviving, the loneliness of faith, and the impossible task of belonging.” Winner of the Michael Waters Poetry Prize, Awad writes of family, country, and the Lebanese Civil War.

Be sure to stop by each press’s website listed above to learn more about the award-winning books published last month.

Edited and published by Richard Peabody, along with the work of Associate Editor Lucinda Ebersole, Gargoyle celebrates 40 years of publishing with a 'two-sided' issue: Issue 65 - Side 1 and Issue 66 - Side 2. Sadly, Lucinda passed away March 20, 2017, as Peabody notes, "I'm heartbroken that my literary partner in crime has passed away. My plan is to shepherd her short story manuscripts and novel into print over the next few years. She was one of a kind and the funniest human I have ever known."

Gargoyle's impression on the literary landscape is vast, and it's with great hope and support for Richard and his staff that they will continue well into the future. In celebration, from the Gargoyle website:

In our first 40 years, Gargoyle has published work by:

10 Acker Award winners,
6 National Book Award-winning authors,
3 PEN/Faulkner winners,
4 Pulitzer Prize winners,
2 MacArthur Fellows,
2 Nebula Award winners,
2 Yale Younger Poets,
1 Hugo Award winner,
1 Poet Laureate,
6 Iowa Short Fiction Award winners,
6 Flannery O'Connor Award winners,
3 James Laughlin Award winners,
2 Lamont Poetry Selection winners,
2 William Carlos Williams Award winners,
8 National Poetry Series winners,
5 Orange Prize Long List writers,
2 Orange Prize Short List writers,
2 National Book Critics Circle Award winners,
6 Lambda Literary Award winners,
1 Gertrude Stein Award winner, and
3 Firecracker Alternative Book Award winners, among others.

In her Editor's Notes to Issue 13 of Saranac Review, Elizabeth Cohen begins by quoting Emily Dickinson: "If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."

Cohen writes, "We are sometimes asked at Saranac Review  how we select the work we publish, and I think Dickinson's words are applicable. Of course we seek work that has strong voice, craft and originality, but in the end, it is the visceral response that probably most informs our choices. We choose poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction and plays that make us feel and evoke in us a response that physically affects us, while simultaneously reminding us why we read in the first place. If you could read our notes to one another on Submittable, you would see a lot of this: 'Made me tingle,' 'heart stopping,' 'took my breath away.'"

With such discerning criteria, writers have got to meet that bar, providing readers much to look forward to in each issue of Saranac Review.

American Life in Poetry: Column 657
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

I was deeply moved by this week's poem, which shows us the courage of a person struggling with a disability, one that threatens the way in which she wishes to present herself. It illustrates the fierce dignity that many of us have observed in elderly people. Wesley McNair served five years as poet laureate of Maine, and his most recent book is The Unfastening, published by David R. Godine.


My Mother's Penmanship Lessons

In her last notes, when her hand began
to tremble, my mother tried to teach it

the penmanship she was known for,
how to make the slanted stems

of the p's and d's, the descending
roundness of the capital m's, the long

loops of the f's crossed at the center,
sending it back again and again

until each message was the same:
a record of her insistence that the hand

return her to the way she was before,
and of all the ways the hand had disobeyed.


We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2016 by Wesley McNair, “My Mother's Penmanship Lessons,” from The Unfastening, (David R. Godine, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Wesley McNair and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2017 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

"Twenty years ago," writes Brevity Editor Dinty W. Moore, "I had an idea for a magazine that combined the swift impact of flash fiction with the true storytelling of memoir, and Brevity was born. To be honest, I expected it to last a year."

Instead, Brevity has aged into the most well-known publication of its kind, with a rich history of publishing new authors who have become some of the most respected in the genre, and guiding writers as they learn and practice their craft.

In celebration, Brevity reached out to authors who have appeared multiple times in Brevity over the years and commissioned their submissions for an anniversary issue. Authors includes Lee Martin, Diane Seuss, Brenda Miller, Sue William Silverman, Rebecca McClanahan, and Ira Sukrungruang. Moore notes that readers "may detect a common theme (or at least a common word)" among the works.

Read Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction as well as book reviews and craft essays online here.

After publishing 12 print issues from 2004-2015 in association with Columbia College Chicago, and a brief hiatus, Court Green is back with issue 13, "the first in its new incarnation as an independent online journal" edited by Tony Trigilio and David Trinidad.

Featured in this revival issue are poems by Matthew Burgess, Chris Green, Ginger Ko, Robert Siek, Kimiko Hahn, George Kalamaras, Annah Browning, Kimberly Lyons, Hafizah Geter, Megan Fernandes, Diane Seuss, Lynn Crosbie, Harlee Logan Kelly, Kenyatta Rogers, and C. Russell Price.

A special bonus features: “Robert Siek: 13 Instagram Photos”; Peter K. Steinberg, “‘A Fetish Somehow’: A Sylvia Plath Bookmark”; and “Radio Free Albion: Interview with George Kalamaras.”

Welcome back Court Green!

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their July/August Fiction Open competition. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers. Stories generally range from 3000-6000 words, though up to 20,000 is fine. The next Fiction Open will take place in March. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Arianna Reiche, of London, England, wins $3000 for “Archive Warden." Her story will be published in Issue 101 of Glimmer Train Stories. [Photo Credit: Laura Gallant.]

Second place: Randolph Thomas, of Baton Rouge, LA, wins $1000 for “Heir Apparent.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue.

Third place: Sharon Solwitz, of Chicago, IL, wins $600 for “We Enter History.”

A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.

Deadline soon approaching! Short Story Award for New Writers: October 31
This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5000. No theme restrictions. Most submissions to this category run 1000-5000 words, but can go up to 12,000. First place prize wins $2500 and publication in Glimmer Train Stories. Second/third: $500/$300 and consideration for publication. Click here for complete guidelines.

The fall issue of Carve Magazine features the winners of the 2017 Raymond Carver Contest as selected by Guest Judge Pinckney Benedict:

First Place
"Richard" by David J. Wingrave in Warsaw, Poland

Second Place
"Laughing and Turning Away" by Patrick Holloway in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Third Place
"Homecoming" by Zachary Lunn in Raleigh, NC

Editor’s Choice
"The Anatomy of Todd Melkin" by Catherine Malcynsky in Chester, CT
 "Windfall" by Edward Hamlin in Boulder, CO

Read these winning stories online here. For a full list of semifinalists and information about the contest, visit Carve online.

The cover image for issue 19 of Cleaver Magazine online is mixed media/map entitled “He had an Awkward Relationship With The Truth” by Emily Steinberg.
Photographs by street photographer J. Ray Paradiso are featured on the cover screen for the online Foliate Oak Literary Magazine.
Catherine Heard's work can be found on the cover of Hamilton Arts & Letters Magazine 10.1 as well as featured in an online portfolio. Her work "work interrogates the histories of science, medicine and the museum. Simultaneously attractive and repulsive, her works delve into primal anxieties about the body."