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Winners of the Terrain.org 8th Annual Contest in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry each receive $500 in addition to publication. Finalists are awarded $100 and publication.
Poetry Winner
Judge Robert Wrigley
“Tying a Tie” and “Airborne”, two poems by Edward Harkness
Finalists: Poems by Ellery Akers, Deborah Fass, and John Pass.
Nonfiction Winner
Judge Nicole Walker
“Ghost Trees” by Jennie Goode [pictured]
Finalists: “What Remained” by Kristina Moriconi and “Northern Wardens” by Alisa Slaughter
Fiction Winner
Judge Padma Viswanathan
“N-Place Exiting” by Thomas Ausa
Finalist: “The Stilled Ring” by Luther Allen
Read more about the winning works here. The contest re-opens in January 2018.
"The Cowards" by French photographer Iva Iova on the cover of Into the Void #6 is from her series, The Remains , of which she writes, "The last decade held a concentration of questionable political and social events. [. . . ] A population raised and educated to be Deaf, Cowards and Heartless."
Kikki Ghezzi's oil on linen entitled "Snow Flake" is featured on the cover of Salamander #45 with a full-color portfolio of more of her works inside the issue. She writes, "My paintings are increments of time and increments of marks and strokes in a meditative moment. They are the time of a walk, the time of process. The kind of 'glow”' time in my paintings is infinite in both directions, outward in accumulated, immeasurable brush strokes and inward towards a glow point."
Oil on canvas "21 August 2017" by Lynn Boggess invites readers into the December issue One online poetry magazine, which features a "Second Look" section in which writers discuss poems they admire. This issue's Second Look is Patrick Kavanagh discussing The Great Hunger.
CFS: "Bearing Arms: Responding to Guns in American Culture"
Published December 23, 2017 Posted By Denise HillThe Editors at Broadsided Press write:
We have, according to the constitution, the right “to keep and bear arms” in the United States. But how, in the wake of Las Vegas, Pulse, Sandy Hook, Trayvon Martin, and other abuses of firearms—by citizens and in some cases by those trained to protect and serve—do we bear that right? How do we bear it?
At Broadsided, we believe that art and literature belong in our daily lives. They inspire and demonstrate the vitality and depth of our connection with the world. We had to speak out—we had to make a space for you to speak out—on this issue as part of our ongoing "Broadsided Responds" feature.
We put out a call to visual artists asking for submissions. Work came from all over the country, in all media. Powerful, provocative, dynamic work. Guest Arts Editor Stacy Isenbarger selected six pieces that offer a range of attitudes, aesthetics, and opportunities. Of her decision, Stacy has this to say:
How do we confront that of which we already hold tightly? Collectively, these chosen works offer a dimensional conversation of this weighted issue. Some may suggest a boundary of societal judgement, but they don’t necessarily reveal what side they are one. Instead these pieces offer evolving space. They welcome an opportunity for viewers to discuss how we bear that which touches our lives.
We now ask you to respond with words to six works of visual art by Sandra Cohen, Jonathan Frey, David Kamm, Osceola Refetoff, Dixie Salazar, and Kristen Woodward.
See full images and guidelines here.
When you submit your writing, be sure to be clear as to which piece you are responding.
DEADLINE: December 27, 2017.
The December 2017 Glimmer Train Bulletin is a fun read this time around, with an eclectic mix of craft essay written from teachers and authors, some of whose works have recently been published in Glimmer Train Stories.
Author of the novel The Luster of Lost Things , Sophie Chen Keller's [pictured] essay, "On Writing from a Child's Perspective for Adults," is a topic I have often tried to better understand as a reviewer assessing others' writing;. This was an instructive perspective to read, as Keller asks, "But how to manage that voice while keeping the novel from becoming a book for younger readers - especially when my inspiration for plot and tone was those books for younger readers?"
For essays on writing and revision, University of Chicago Professor Will Boast offers his advice on "Cutting Out the Bad Bits," while Andrew Porter, Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Trinity University in San Antonio writes on "The Long First Draft."
And, in these volatile times, Iranian-American writer Siamak Vossoughi comments on "The Political Lives of Characters," noting the decision writers face: "Political beliefs can matter a lot, in stories and in life, and they can not matter at all. [. . . ] A writer only runs the risk of being preachy or dogmatic if he or she makes a character of one political belief less three-dimensional and human than that of another."
The Glimmer Train Bulletin is free to read online each month here, or have it delivered monthly to your inbox.
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.
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. 2017 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers Winners
Published November 14, 2017 Posted By Denise Hill
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.”
Books :: 2017 University of Iowa Press Fiction Award Winners
Published November 08, 2017 Posted By Katy Haas
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 2017 July/August Very Short Fiction Award Winners
Published November 08, 2017 Posted By Denise HillGlimmer 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.
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 beganto 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.
