NewPages Blog

Are we still talking about our addiction to Facebook despite its evils? Apparently, yes, we still are, with New England Review Editor Carolyn Kuebler contributing a new perspective to the conversation - especially for writers. In her editorial for Issue 38.2, she addresses some of the known issues with the social media platform, and comments that "Facebook seems to present a special kind of hell for writers" in that it "offers the possibility of an audience beyond one’s circle of friends (the real kind)—and even better, an audience that responds immediately, positively, and in great numbers."

But, alas, what about when there is NO response? What about the silence of a Facebook post? "Writers have always known that theirs is a lonely art," Kuebler comments, "but after spending time on Facebook it’s as if we have to learn this all over again. We have to remember that the audience for literature is largely silent; it takes its time."

Read the full editorial here, and Kuebler's closing comment of appreciation for writers, even if it is only ever offered in silence.

The Summer 2017 issue of Ruminate features 2017 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize winners with commentary from Judge Josh MacIvor-Andersen:

First Place
"Like This We Begin: An Essay in Two Photographs"
Sonja Livingston [pictured]

Second Place
"The Seven Stages of Not Eating"
Anne Boyle

Third Place
"Oh, Hi"
M. Sophia Newman

Loyal readers of NewPages book reviews may recognize a familiar name on the cover of Plato Poetica, the new poetry collection published by Kelsay Books in May 2017.

Author Daniel Klawitter has shared his thoughtful opinions on poetry books for NewPages for the past couple years, and now his own poetry collection Plato Poetica is out in in the world for readers. According to Carl Sharpe, founder and editor of VerseWrights, reading the collection causes Plato to become relevant, and also invites the philosopher to become “a friend, a confidante, an advisor, whispering in our ear in the 21st century language [ . . . ]. We are brought to realize that ancient philosophy and religion are only dry subjects if we allow them to be."

Pick up copies from Kelsay Books to invite Plato into your circle of friends and add this poetry collection to your bookshelf.

Visit the new Broadsided Press website to catch up on the most recent art and poetry collaborations available for free, full-color download to post and share. May: "Backyard" - words by Melissa Fite Johnson, art by Amy Meissner; June: "My Father's Hearing Aid" - words by Adam Chiles, art by Cheryl Gross; July: "Pink" - words by Terese Svoboda, art by Lisa Sette. Each artist and poet give a brief commentary on their work, which provides a great teaching tool for classroom use. Broadsided is looking to build a section of lesson plans for using broadsides in K-12, college, community centers, etc., so if you have some best practices to share, visit their website and click on TEACH.

In May, the Center for Literary Publishing released Beautiful Flesh: A Body of Essays edited by Stephanie G’Schwind. I find the eye-catching cover reason alone to pick up the nonfiction collection, but readers who require a little more persuading will be won over by the writing found inside. Selected from the country’s leading journals and publications, the eighteen essays build “a multi-gender, multi-ethnic body out of essays, each concerning a different part of the body.”

Contributors include Dinty W. Moore with “The Aquatic Ape,” exploring the curious design of sinuses; Peggy Shinner with “Elective,” examining the author’s “Jewish Nose”; and Matt Roberts with “Vasectomy Instruction 7,” considering the various reasons for and implications of the titular surgery. The fifteen additional contributors are Wendy Call, Steven Church, Sarah Rose Etter, Matthew Ferrence, Hester Kaplan, Sarah K. Lenz, Lupe Linares, Jody Mace, Samantha Simpson, Floyd Skloot, Danielle R. Spencer, Katherine E. Standefer, Kaitlyn Teer, Sarah Viren, and Vicki Weiqi Yang.

 Learn more at the University Press at Colorado website, where readers can rent or purchase the collection.

The Poetry Marathon is an annual event that challenges participants to write 24 poems in 24 hour, posting the writing online via a shared Wordpress site. This year's marathon begins at 9 AM EDT on Saturday, August 5, 2017 and ends at 9 AM on Sunday, August 6, 2017 There is also a half marathon from 9 AM until 9 PM Saturday or 9 PM until 9 AM Sunday. Registration is open from July 20 - 27.

The Poetry Marathon is run (no pun intended) by Caitlin Jans (Thomson) and Jacob Jans, two writers and web publishers living in the Pacific Northwest. There is no charge to participate in the marathon, and in 2016, over 500 writers started the marathon, but many did not finish. Clearly, this is not an activity for the faint of heart.

Last year, I participated in the half marathon and found it to be demanding, frustrating (sometimes forgetting to write my poem!), but in the end immensely rewarding. I have run marathons and half marathons, and the feeling from finishing the Poetry Marathon was very similar. I felt a huge sense of accomplishment, and at the same time, a bit of sadness that it was over. I had posted poems, offered feedback to others, received comments on mine - just like cheering each other on in a foot race. It was sad to be a part of such an intense, similarly driven community of writers, and then, just be done with them. It's what makes a person want to come back and do it again!

The Poetry Marathon website has an FAQ that answers the burning questions, like: How do I prepare for the Marathon? What if I can't be at a computer all day? What happens to the poems once I post them? and more. The site also features blog posts from previous participants who offer commentary on their marathon experience. If you're not sure about the commitment, just try it for a day on your own. See what it takes to get to the computer once an hour and write a poem (or at least write a poem per hour, because you are allowed to "catch up" at the computer if you can't get to one every hour).

This year, like last year, the organizers plan to publish a Poetry Marathon Anthology of poems written during the marathon. Some writers included in the first anthology: Sheila Sondik, Teri Harroun, Marie Moser, Raven Kingsley, Joan Leotta, J.I. Klienberg, Liam Strong, Will Jackson, Anne McMaster, Ebony Larijani, and Seema Ka.

I simply can't resist this chicken on Issue 9 of True Story, Creative Nonfiction's monthly, pocket-size publication of longform nonfiction narrative.This month's story is "Resurrection" by Rebeca Dunn-Krahn. I have no idea yet what a chicken has to do with it, but I plan to find out!
This Thema cover photo by Eleanor Leonne Bennett made me smile, but then as I read the theme for this issue, it made me laugh out loud: "Second Thoughts." Yup. That's the look.
Danny Ochoa's artwork is featured on the summer 2017 cover of Writing Disorder, an online literary journal. More of his illustrations and comics are included in this issue as well.

The eleventh annual August Poetry Postcard Festival is open for 2017 registration - closing July 18.

For you newbies, the August PoPo Fest goes like this: You sign up. You get a list of 31 names/addresses of other people who signed up. Starting late July, you write a poem a day on a postcard and mail it off to the next person on the list, so by the end of the month, you will have (hopefully) written and sent 31 poems and (hopefully) received 31 poems.

The poems are not supposed to be pre-written or something you've been working on for months. This is an exercise is the spontaneous, the demanding, the gut-driven, the postcard inspired - whatever it is that gets you to write once a day, each day, and send it off into the world.

Last year, poems from contributors were selected for publication in the 1st Poetry Postcard Fest Anthology, 56 Days of August, Poetry Postcards, to be published October 2017.

I've done this event since it began! I don't always keep to a poem a day; sometimes I get ahead one day, or catch up another, with several poems in one day. But I try my best. The event gets me thinking of poetry in my every day, when I rarely have time for it, and writing it down - something I have time for even more rarely.

I've received poems from across the state, the country and around the globe. I've gotten postcards made from cereal boxes, some with gorgeous original artwork, and lots of the lovely tacky tourist cards from travel destinations. I have cards from "famous" poets, and some who have since become more famous, and some never signed, so I'll never know, and it hardly matters. I've gotten poetry. Sent to me directly. From strangers. Lovely, strange, absurd, and funny. Poetry.

It's an amazing event, and I hope you will take the challenge and join in this year. There is a nominal fee for the event ($10). I can only imagine the amount of work it is to run this (with 300+ people participating), and keeping up virtual space to promote it. I'm not dissuaded by the fee, knowing the extraordinary event that it is, and knowing I've spent 100 times that on conferences from which I've gotten a great deal less inspiration...anyone else?

So, please writers, wanna-bes and needs-a-kick-in-the-arsers, poetry lovers, postcard lovers - this event is for you. Join us! Registration ends July 18!

Issue 43 of New Orleans Review is themed "The African Literary Hustle" and opens with the editorial by Mukoma Wa Ngugi and Laura T. Murphy, "This Hustle is Not Your Grandpa's African Lit." The two issue editors examine the historical 'presentation' of African literature published in Western culture as "all too often realist, in English, and in the spirit of Chinua Achebe. But romance, science fiction, fantasy, epic, experimental poetry, satire, and political allegory all find expression in Africa, though not necessarily publication." The editors confront this disparity, "Those who are called to write often have to hustle to get recognition by writing a coming-of-age colonial encounter tale or hustle even harder to have their unique voices heard. So the post-Achebe generation writer faces all sorts of firewalls."

Thus, the call went out for this issue, and writers responded with the editors hoping "to provoke some interesting and unpredictable writing and thinking that would reflect and respond to the spirit of the hustle." Oddly enough, the editors note, "eighty percent of the submissions were from white non-African-identifying writers who thought they could hustle their way into a volume of African literature and had no qualms about it." Seriously.

The editors close on the comment, "But what is African literature? Is there, can there be, was there ever and African literature? In asking you have answered your question. African literature is a question. It is an open question that invites, and has to keep on inviting, different geographies, languages and forms."

Thus, this issue of New Orleans Review: The African Literary Hustle.

The Summer/Fall 2017 issue of The Southampton Review includes winners of the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize:

"Delivering" by Suzy Vitello [pictured]
Vitello's piece can be read on TSR's website here.

"Sounds Kept in the Valley of the Tongue" by Sarah Cadorette

The most recent issue (17.1) of Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley features winners of two of the publication's annual contests:

2016 Mighty River Short Story Contest
$1000 Award and Publication
"In the Jungle" by Jeremy Griffin [pictured]

2016 Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Contest
$500 Award and Publication
"Frayed Cords and Pink Underwear" by Shannon Sweetnam

From the Smithsonian article "Horse-Riding Librarians Were the Great Depression’s Bookmobiles" by Eliza McGraw:

During the Great Depression, a New Deal program brought books to Kentuckians living in remote areas.

In 1936, packhorse librarians served 50,000 families, and, by 1937, 155 public schools. Children loved the program; many mountain schools didn't have libraries, and since they were so far from public libraries, most students had never checked out a book. "'Bring me a book to read,' is the cry of every child as he runs to meet the librarian with whom he has become acquainted," wrote one Pack Horse Library supervisor. "Not a certain book, but any kind of book. The child has read none of them."

Read the full article and see more photos here.

The Summer 2017 issue of The Cincinnati Review features the winning entries of their annual Robert and Adele Schiff Awards in poetry in prose:

Prose Winner
"Stylites Anonymous" by Maureen McGranaghan

Poetry Winner
"Very Many Hands" by Aaron Coleman [pictured]

Each winner receives $1000 in addition to publication.

American Life in Poetry: Column 639
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

One of my favorite poems is Louise Bogan's "The Crossed Apple" which mentions two species, Meadow Milk and Sweet Burning, and since reading it many years ago I have made notes of the names of apples, a poet's delight. In this touching poem by Cathryn Essinger, who lives in Ohio, I've come upon yet another for my collection. Her most recent book is What I Know About Innocence from Main Street Rag press.

Summer Apples

I planted an apple tree in memory
of my mother, who is not gone,

but whose memory has become
so transparent that she remembers

slicing apples with her grandmother
(yellow apples; blue bowl) better than

the fruit that I hand her today. Still,
she polishes the surface with her thumb,

holds it to the light and says with no
hesitation, Oh, Yellow Transparent . . .

they're so fragile, you can almost see
to the core. She no longer remembers how

to roll the crust, sweeten the sauce, but
her desire is clear—it is pie that she wants.

And so, I slice as close as I dare to the core—
to that little cathedral to memory—where

the seeds remember everything they need
to know to become yellow and transparent.

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. 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 Cathryn Essinger, “Summer Apples,” from Alaska Quarterly Review, (Vol 33, No. 1 & 2, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Cathryn Essinger 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.

The Southampton Review Editor Lou Ann Walker recounts the day, ten years ago, when Robert Reeves, who would be rebuilding the MFA Creative Writing Program at Stony Brook University, opined that a "distinguished MFA program" should likewise have a "distinguished literary journal as its intellectual and creative center." Then he asked Lou Ann: "Do you happen to know anyone who might be interested in founding and editing a literary review?" She writes that it had been her "secret dream" to do just that. Ten years later, Walker has created exactly the publication worthy of the university's writing program - and vice versa! Publishing two issues per year, readers can also find selections available to read on the TSR website.

Hanging Loose, published by Hanging Loose Press since 1966, includes the section "Writers of High School Age" in each issue. Featured in issue 108 are two young poets who contribute several works each.

Elizabeth Girdharry writes of math and sciences with "Filling Empty Spaces," including the lines "Mathematical formulas, / on how to stay tangent to the line, / somehow slipped my mind," and "There Was Geometry" begins: "There is geometry in my junk drawer." And comes back around to, "More importantly, / there is geometry in my junk drawer. / Angles and tangents twist out of circles / the same way you smooth back flyaway wisps of baby hair / when you're pondering a hard science theory."

Elise Wing crafts strong imagery to draw her readers in. "The Microscope" begins "Dead diatom / Crisp as a leaf skeleton," and "The Living That Terrifies" begins with the amusing but poignant, "Your ears are the trees for egrets to nest in," and "Tomorrow, the Seagulls" starts, "The future is as frightening as a three-headed hyena."

NewPages includes Hanging Loose in our Young Writers Guide where we list publications written by and for young writers and readers as well as a vetted, ad-free list of contests for young writers.

In celebration of TLR's 40 years of publication and "looking toward the future," Sena Jeter Naslund writes in the Editor's Note, four guest editors all under the age of forty were invited to select works for this first issue year 41. "Each of them is a graduate, in various areas of concentration, of the Spalding University low-residency MFA in Writing Program," notes Naslund. Making the selections: Eva Sage Gordon, nonfiction editor; Ellyn Lichvar, poetry and Children's Corner editor; Amina S. McIntyre, drama editor; Flora K. Schildknecht, fiction editor.

The Summer 2017 issue of The Gettysburg Review features paintings by Tina Newberry. In addition to this untitled cover piece, there are eight works in a full-color portfolio inside. It's also worth a visit to her website to view her Barbies series.
You have to take a close look at this detail from "Iron Horse" by Kent Monkman on the cover of Brick #99 to get the full effect of the kind of cultural/historical mishmash that makes up this image and a great many of his works.
"Myth" by Eiko Ojala is a papercut illustration for the cover of the May 2017 issue of Hermeneutic Chaos Journal, an online bi-monthly publishing poetry and prose.

Glimmer Train has chosen the winning stories for their March/April 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 open on July 1. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to George Makana Clark [pictured] of Milwaukee, WI, who wins $2000 for “Pluto.” His story will be published in Issue 102 of Glimmer Train Stories.

2nd place goes to Madiha Sattar of Karachi, Pakistan, for “Mulberry Street.” Her story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train, increasing her prize from $500 to $700.

3rd place goes to Oguz Dinc of Istanbul, Turkey, for “The Hurricane.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train, increasing his prize from $300 to $700.

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

Deadline soon approaching! Short Story Award for New Writers: June 30
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 1500-5000 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.

Poet Clare Paniccia surprises readers by following up this title with the imagery of boys dissecting frogs in biology class, then skillfully guides this action to align with that of a girl's realization about the nature of [those] boys who would treat girls similarly. Never in my life would I have put these two together, but Paniccia's ability to do so seamlessly engages the reader in a strange tangle of reminicent emotion. Take the opportunity to hear her, and others on TriQuarterly's online journal, read the work herself. 

Self-Portrait as Girl Being Led On
By Clare Paniccia

I watched them do it,
their small, fat fingers taking
          to the swell of chest a blunt scalpel
and peeling, no, sawing into stomach
                 their fitful curiosity, the frog’s
                         glass eye staring outward and empty,
                 staring toward the very mouths of schoolboys
          who entered so brutally the crevice, the abdomen’s
                                    silenced bell. . . . 

Read the rest and hear the poem read by the author on TriQuarterly.

The summer 2017 issue of Rattle features a tribute to poets living with mental illness. "An estimated 26% of Americans experience mental illness in a given year," write the editors, "and we wanted to acknowledge and explore that reality, while also helping to diminish the associated cultural stigma of these illnesses. [. . . ] While the topics of the poems themselves vary greatly, each of the poets live with some form of depressive, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, bi-polar, post-traumatic stress, or eating disorder—all of discussed openly and bravely in their contributor notes. In the conversation section, we talk about mental illness and a wide range of other topics with Francesca Bell." [Cover Art by Jasmine C. Bell.]

In his introduction to Issue 97 of Translation Review, Boris Dralyuk, literary translator and the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, writes: "Today’s Russian-to-English translation community is far broader and more diverse; the body of work of any given translator might be smaller than that of Garnett, but there are so many more gifted translators that the shared corpus is a monumental achievement. In this, our era of translation does indeed resemble the Silver Age of Russian poetry..." Dralyuk goes on to discuss many contemporary writers, some of whose works fill the pages of this issue, "The Silver Age of Russian-to-English Transaltion," while also recognizes the shoulders of the Golden Age writers upon which we now stand.

Translation Review is a forum for the discussion of the art, practice and theory of literary translation published by UT Dallas Center for Translation Studies and available online via Routledge Taylor & Francis Online. The full issue can be accessed here for individuals/institutions with logins. Without a login, the full preface can be accessed as well as beginning excerpts from each work published.

New online literary magazine Breathe Free Press specializes in the lyric essay. Having recently published their first issue, Editor Deborah Di Bari seeks an editorial assistant.

From Di Bari:

"We are seeking a freelance assistant for outreach to the literary community, strategize, manage and curate media content for social media and blog."

Artists say things with objects, images, symbols, and metaphors that are difficult, if not impossible, to express any other way.
Artists have tremendous courage, a necessary quality when it comes to expressing personal dreams and emotions so all can see them.
Artists break down barriers of thought, time, custom, and expectation.
Artists make the intangible tangible.
Artists see the trees and the forest.
Artists challenge us to see and understand our world differently than we do now.
Artists are born with open hands and open hearts, courageously willing to accept whatever is given.
Imagine our world without artists, without their ability to see, dream, express, break down barriers, and challenge the rest of us to imagine our world differently.

Excerpted from Christine Brooks Cote, "Imagine Our World Without Artists," from Still Point Arts Quarterly, Summer 2017.

The Fiddlehead No. 271 (Spring 2017) includes winners and honorable mentions from their 26th Annual Literary Contest:

The Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem
Dominique Bernier-Cormier's "Fabric"
[author pictured]
Read an interview Bernier-Cormier here.

Poetry Honorable Mentions
Tammy Armstrong's "Blessing the Boats"
Kim Trainor's "Bluegrass"

Short Fiction Prize
Kate Finegan's "Blues Too Bright"
Read an interview with Finegan here.

Fiction Honorable Mentions
Steven Benstead's "Will There Be Clowns?"
Ann Cavlovic's "The Foundation"

Winning entries can be read on The Fiddlehead's website.