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"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."

The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing is seeking a Senior Editor for Hayden’s Ferry Review, a semi-annual international literary journal edited by the Creative Writing Program at Arizona State University.

In addition to general management and editorial duties, the Senior Editor will also be responsible for directing a special translation project and academic database using literature previously published in Hayden’s Ferry Review.

Applicants should have a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism or a related field and five years related experience; an MFA in Creative Writing, bilingualism, and experience working in a university setting and web development are preferred.

Salary range $41,976 - $50,000 DOE.

To view the full job description and apply, visit http://bit.ly/2hNxTGU or search openings at https://cfo.asu.edu/applicant by job title “Senior Editor” or requisition number “36507BR”. A pdf of the job description is also available at http://bit.ly/2fRlVLQ.

Individuals with any questions should contact the Piper Center at 480.965.6018 or pipercenter.info-at-asu.edu.

The position will close Wednesday, November 1st, 2017.

Anastasi Selby's story was selected as the winning entry for the 2016 Boulevard Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers. "Certain Fires" appears in the fall issue (#97). The story focuses "on fighting wildfires in California and the sexual tensions of mixed-gender crews." Selby worked as a firefighter on three hotshot crews for the USFS in California and Colorado as well as a helicopter crew member for the Park Service in Alaska. She began her fire career in 1999, in Eugene, Oregon, and ended it in 2010, in Fairbanks, Alaska. (From jaselby.com)

Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon is a collection of broadsides of contemporary Puerto Rican poets, in English and in Spanish. Edited by Raquel Salas Rivera and Erica Mena, published by Anomalous Press, 100% of sales will be donated directly to Taller Salud to assist Puerto Rico in recovering from Hurricane Maria. Including poems by Yara Liceaga, Raquel Albarrán, Luis Diaz (Intifada), Gaddiel Francisco Ruis Rivera, Nicole Delgado, Raquel Salas Rivera, Kadiri Vaquer Fernández, Martín Espada, Hermes Ayala, Ricardo Maldonado, Gegman Lee Ríos, Kenyatta JP García, Claritza Maldonado, Lara Mimosa Montes, Vincent Toro, Cindy Jimenez Vera, Luis Othoniel, Erica Mena, Abdiel Echevarria, and others.

I can't imagine having one successful author in the family, let alone two, and then the two of them writing - not one book together, but a series? J.L. Powers and M.A. Powers, brother and sister, have embarked on just such a journey together with the release of the first in a series of supernaturally themed YA novels. Broken Circle published by Akashic Books' YA and middle-grade imprint, Black Sheep. I have long been a fan and follower of Jessica Powers, her previous YA publications reflecting her wide range of interests as well as abilities: The Confessional  (Knopf, 2007), This Thing Called the Future  (Cinco Puntos, 2011), Amina  (Allen & Unwin, 2013), Colors of the Wind  - a children's picture book about Blind Artist and Champion Runner Geroge Mendoza with artwork by Mendoza  (Purple House, 2014). This is her first venture into the supernatural, which Claire Kirsch of Publisher's Weekly describes as "a mix of contemporary characters and setting with a mythological world."

Halloween, detail by Bo Bartlett, is seasonally appropriate for the Autumn 2017 cover of The Gettysburg Review. More of Bartlett's work is also featured in a full-color portfolio inside the publication.
"Finding Home: Family & Connections" is the theme of Bellvue Literary Review's Fall 2017 issue, with cover art and internal portfolio by father and son Paul and John Paul Caponigro.
The Massachusetts Review "back-to-school" fall 2017 issue features "He Who Is as if Death Were Not," an archival pigment print on German etching paper from Ayana V Jackson's series To Kill or Allow to Live in the issue.

Boulevard's fall symposium on campus protests includes essays by Jim Craig, Megan Giddings, Ena Selimovic, Andrew Weinstein, and Robert Zaller responding to the question: "Have the recent campus protests - ranging from demonstrations to the use of safety spaces - against mainly right-wing speakers contributed to a dumbing down of American colleges, or are they effective and necessary?"

Celebrating its 35th Anniversary, Alaska Quarterly Review Editor-in-Chief Ronald Spatz, while marking the milestone with gratitude, considers this passage of time and what AQR, like many literary publications, has witnessed. "In the past we counted on artists, scholars, scientists, and journalists as reliable firewalls against ignorance. But increasingly there are powerful efforts to silence or marginalize these agents of understanding and change . . . as writers, poets, editors, and publishers, we must redouble our efforts to seek truth in all of its parts while creating every possible opportunity for compassion and empathy. In our view, the role of the arts has simply never been more crucial."

New England Review Editor Carolyn Kuebler writes in the 38.3 Editor's Note that, while the twenty-three pieces in issue 38.3 (2017) were not chosen for nor do they have a focused message or singular theme, ". . . it surprised me to see how frequently the shadow of war—to take one obvious example of a culture of violence—darkened the edges of these disparate writings. With the world always in the throes of some violence or other, it’s no wonder; whether we’re civilians or soldiers or doctors, we all become part of it. Born during the Vietnam War, finishing college at the start of the Gulf War, and then becoming a parent during the War on Terror, I’ve learned that being in a state of war doesn’t always have a clear beginning and end, and now it’s not even always clear where the war is actually happening and who’s fighting it. It’s not just in this magazine or in this moment in time that writers are contending with such themes; it’s always."

Read the full editorial here and access full-text of several works from this issue, including Louise Aronson's "Necessary Violence."

Cover: Warfare  by Sabra Field

Virga is the name for the cloud streaks that stream hazily down from the sky, snow or rain precipitation that evaporates before having a chance to reach the ground. Virga can often fool radar into recording precipitation while the ground remains dry. Perhaps in this same way, poetic and hybrid forms can be as elusive as nature herself, and why Virga is an appropriate name for new online literary biannual dedicated to poetry and hybrid writing.

September is a busy month for award-winning book releases. Here is just a sampling of small press and university press titles readers can look for this month.

At the beginning of September, Southeast Missouri State University Press published the winner of the 2015 Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel: Pie Man by John Surowiecki. The debut novel is told through a series of reminiscences by the titular character’s family, friends, and teachers, and explores the story of a boy, Adam Olszewski, who on his seven birthday tries to leave his family house but can’t. Soon after, the boy believes the house is alive and an inseparable part of him. Pie Man is a vivid exploration of what it means to be normal.

A Brief Alphabet of Torture: Stories by Vi Khi Nao, winner of the FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, is also out this month. A Brief Alphabet of Torture is made of many modes and genres—poetry, essay fiction, drama—and almost constitutes a novel of a different kind. Each tale is a chapter that captures the concerns that pervade life.

In poetry, readers can pick up a copy of To Whitey & the Crackerjack by May Yang (Hauntie), winner of the 2016 Robert Dana Anhinga Prize, selected by Evie Schockley. Shockley says of her selection: “May Yang’s poetry pierces the silence in which the history of Hmong women has been blanketed, with indecorous wordplay, unruly rhymes, and evocative, unequivocal images. This book begins by naming names (America, global capitalism) and ends by revivifying the poetic epigram.”

Check out the publishers' websites to learn more about these newly-releaed, award-winning titles.

The Fall 2017 issue of Raleigh Review features the 2017 Laux/Miller Poetry Prize winner, finalists and honorable mentions:

Winner
Kristin Robertson - "Poem for My Unborn Daughter"

Honorable Mention
Jenna Bazzell - "All Is Wild, All Is Silent"

Finalists
Emily Paige Wilson - "Reasons to Return Home"
Emily Rose Cole - "How Not to Remember Your Mother"
Jenna Bazzell - "The Speaker's Prayer"
Mario Ariza - "Erratic transcription of notes taken at a refugee camp in Anse-A-Pitre, Haiti"

Several of the works as well as other content from this issue can be read online here.

Teaching a course in The Novel, I took my students to the fiction section of the library and had them pull down books at random and simply read the first several pages, sometimes just the first sentence. I wanted them to sample as many “beginnings” as they could, then comment on the exercise. Some said they liked it as a way to consider a lot of books and see which one might grab their interest; overwhelmingly, they all wanted to go back and keep reading at least one or more of what they had sampled. Now, imagine this experience of sampling first chapters at your fingertips, on the computer, in one publication, and you will have imagined Embark.

Dogwood Issue 16 features the winners of their 2017 Literary Prizes:

Grand Prize Winner
Judge Michele Glazer
Laura Read’s poem “Margaret Corrine, Dunseith, North Dakota, 1932”
$1000 and publication
[Laura pictured]

First Prize in Nonfiction
Judge Sarah Einstein
Natasha Sajé’s essay “Guilt: A Love Story”
$250 and publication

First Prize in Fiction
Judge Karen Osborn
J. Stillwell Powers’ story “Salvage”
$250 and publication

Read full judge's comments here.

"The decision to consider the work in the current issue of Bennington Review through the lens of threat," writes Editor Michael Dumanis, "- be this threat political, global, localized, or existential - was made during an uncharacteriscially emotional editorial meeting on Thursday, November 10, 2016, two days after a certain historical event. We felt completely unprepared to imagine what might come next. Animated by collective anxiety - this sense of abrupt dislocation of expectaions, as well as new actual danger - we gravitated toward poems and stories and essays where paradigms were similarly disrupted, where characters suddenly found themselves destabalized by external forces, where institutions and individuals in which we'd placed our trust failed to hold up their end of the bargain."

See a full table of contents with several sample works from the issue here.

Cover image by Prague-based artist Jakub Geltner: "Cultural Landscape."

Earth Island Journal is an online magazine that "consistently delivers environmental stories that mainstream media often fail to cover." As such, writers who have "distinctive stories that anticipate environmental concerns before they become pressing problems, stories that scan the horizon for the next big issue" will find a place for their work here. Earth Island Journal  is a paying market for articles on the full spectrum of environmental issues and success stories of individuals and communities defending and restoring the Earth. Each issue also includes the feature "1,000 Words," focusing on environmental artists and their works.

“Field Tripping” by Katie Buchan is the eye-catching cover on the concīs Summer 2017. This online and e-pub journal devoted to brevity is available as PDF download.
"The Spaces Between" by Laura Berger is featured on the cover of the online issue of Fugue (52). Managed and edited by graduate students in the English and Creative Writing Programs at University of Idaho, Fugue  features poetry, plays, fiction, essays, visual-text hybrids, and interviews.
Do I pick EVERY Kenyon Review cover? Maybe, but when covers make me laugh or do a double take, that's worth sharing. The artist is Milan, Italy-based Emiliano Ponzi.

Born in the southern reaches of Arizona and New Mexico, Sky Island Journal is a new, open access online quarterly of poetry, flash fiction, and brief creative nonfiction. Just like its unique geographical namesake, Sky Island Journal  promises, “as a writer, no matter who you are, where you're from, or what you write about – if you’ve ever felt a connection to landscapes, art, or people, your writing might very well find a home with us. As a reader, you're in for a real treat.”

In its Spring 2017 issue, Michigan Quarterly Review editor, Jonathan Freedman, offers a wonderful tribute to Managing Editor Vicki Lawrence who stepped down in May after twenty years with the magazine. As managing editor, Freedman writes, "she did just about everything: copyedited, proofread, supervised all the other manifold details of the publishing process, helped select the covers, talked the authors into her judicious recasting of the more infelicitous, erroneous, or just plain aberrational turns of phrase or thought. She schlepped copies of the journal to the Ann Arbor Book Festival and the AWP convention with equal vigor and tenacity."

NewPages enjoyed our professional relationship with Vicki, looking forward to our annual meetings with her at AWP. Along with many others who came to know her as the face of MQR, we will miss her greatly in our literary circle, but look forward to seeing her again soon to fulfill our promise of beers in Ann Arbor!

The Rust Belt extends from the Great Lakes to the Upper Midwest and refers to the deindustrialization the region experienced as needs and supplies changed over the decades. As a Michigander, Detroit and Flint are well-known names from our state representing the Rust Belt sector. But on the tails of any discussion of decline and decay are examples and stories of revitalization and renewal, and these are common literary themes. Rattle takes a uniquely complex approach in issue #57, looking instead to the impact "the shifting political attitude of this region" had on the 2016 election and checks in to "find a first-hand account of what’s going on through the poet’s eye."

Featured poets include: Joseph A. Chelius, Edward Derby, Heather Finnegan, Jim Hanlen, Zachary Hester, Donna Hilbert, Ananda Lima, Bob Lucky, Herbert Woodward Martin, Andrew Miller, Behzad Molavi, Al Ortolani, Li Qingzhao, Lee Rossi, Michael Sears, Matthew Buckley Smith, and Dennis Trudell, with a conversation with Detroit-based psychotherapist and poet Ken Meisel.

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their May/June Short Story Award for New Writers. This competition is held three times a year and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. The next Short Story Award competition will start on September 1: Short Story Award for New Writers. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to Dan Murphy [pictured] of Brooklyn, NY, who wins $2500 for “In Miniature.” His story will be published in Issue 101 of Glimmer Train Stories. This will be his first fiction publication.

2nd place goes to David Ye of Irvine, CA, who wins $500 for “Blue Water.”

3rd place goes to Jen Wellington of Buffalo, NY, who wins $300 for “Red Stick.”

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

Deadlines soon approaching:

Fiction Open: August 31 (grace period extends through September 10)
Glimmer Train hosts this competition twice a year, and first place has just been increased to $3000 plus publication in the journal, and 10 copies of that issue. Second/third: $1000/$600 and consideration for publication. This category has been won by both beginning and veteran writers - all are welcome! There are no theme restrictions. Word count generally ranges from 3000 – 6000, though up to 20,000 is fine. Stories may have previously appeared online but not in print. Click here for complete guidelines.

Very Short Fiction Award: August 31 (grace period extends through September 10)
This competition is also held twice a year, with first place winning $2000 plus publication in the journal, and 10 copies of that issue. Second/third: $500/$300 and consideration for publication. It’s open to all writers, with no theme restrictions, and the word count must not exceed 3000. Stories may have previously appeared online but not in print. Click here for complete guidelines.