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Works by winners of the Ruminate 2018 Kalos Visual Art Prize can be viewed in the Spring 2018 issue, with a still from Eloisa Guanlao's digital documentary Noli Me Tangere featured on the publication's cover.

First Place
Eloisa Guanlao

Second Place
Janet McKenzie

Honorable Mention
Joseph Di Bella

Information about each of these selected artists and a full list of finalists can be found here.

Pittsburgh-based literary magazine Creative Nonfiction is the winner of the 2018 Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Small Press Publisher Award. The prize was announced in Tampa, Florida, at an opening ceremony at AWP’s annual conference and bookfair, which brings together 11,000+ writers, teachers, and small-press publishers. The other finalists were Fence, the Normal School, and Terrain.org.

AWP’s Small Press Publisher Award is an annual prize for nonprofit presses and literary journals that recognizes the important role such organizations play in publishing creative works and introducing new authors to the reading public. The award acknowledges the hard work, creativity, and innovation of these presses and journals, and honors their contributions to the literary landscape through their publication of consistently excellent work. The award includes a $2,000 honorarium and a complimentary exhibit booth at the AWP Conference & Bookfair in the year following the recipient’s recognition. The prize is given to literary magazines in even years; Creative Nonfiction was a finalist in both 2014 and 2016.

Creative Nonfiction founder and editor Lee Gutkind said, “It’s really nice to be recognized in this way. Creative Nonfiction’s small staff is incredibly dedicated, and does so much with so little. And thanks go to our contributors—the writers and artists whose work makes the magazine possible. Twenty-four years ago, we brought the very first issue of Creative Nonfiction to this conference, and I was so nervous … but we sold every copy. So, thanks go to AWP, too, for all their support over the years.”

Creative Nonfiction is true stories, well told. Each issue of the quarterly features original essays and illustrations; writing that pushes traditional boundaries of the genre; notes on craft; micro-essays; conversations with writers and editors; and more. Almost every issue includes a writer’s first publication, and the editorial team emphasizes a thoughtful editorial process and rigorous fact-checking as vital elements of the organization’s overall educational mission. Visit creativenonfiction.org to learn more.

Thema's cover photo for their Spring 2018 issue is "Question the Answer" by Kathleen Gunton, appropriately fitting for the theme: "Is There a Word for That?" Perhaps not a word, but a beautiful image instead. Upcoming themes in search of submissions: "Where's the food truck?" (July 1) and "The critter in the attic" (November 1).

 The cover and internal art portfolio of Georgia Review's Winter 2017 issue features a very different kind of garden life by sculptor Toshihiko Mitsuya: Aluminum. "Far from static," Mitsuya says of his medium, "it takes on the feelings of its surroundings - the wind, the light an the hands that touch it.As a material, aluminum starts in a huge factory and ends in something precious yet transitive: the installation reclaims an industrial material back to nature."

As unique as the vision through the cylindrical optic toy, Kaleidoscope is a publication "exploring the experiene of disability through literature and the arts." Kristin Gehrmann's "The Vial Keeper" reflects the Winter/Spring 2018 theme: Life's Unpredicatbiilty. Now available open access online, readers unfamilar with this journal should defnitely check it out.

The most recent issue of Cold Mountain Review (v45 n2) features winners of the 2017 R.T. Smith Prize for Narrative Poetry:

Winner
"We will Never Mend This" by Jeff Burt [pictured]
Read the beautifully heart-wrenching poem and hear it read by the author here.

Honorable Mention
"A Sestina for Traveling Season" by Geetha Iyer
"To Shadow" by Matthew Winberley

Finalist
"Prologue" by Jude Whelchel

Gerald Plain's photo "Spider Rock, Canyon DeChelly, Arizona" dizzying perspective draws readers into the newest issue of The Louisville Review (#82, Fall 2017). Inside, The Children's Corner features high school sophomore Haemaru Chung's poem "Waking Up."

Looking forward to summer, I enjoy this cover image (also a bit dizzying) on issue four of Cherry Tree national literary journal published out of Washington College: "Children Running in Backlight (Dozza, Italy)" by Claudio Cricca.

The Art of Miss Fluff is featured in the Winter 2017-2018 issue of The Writing Disorder, and online quarterly of new and emerging writers and artists. Fluff is "an enchanting design brand created by artist, Claudette Barjoud."

Along with commentary from final judge Naomi Shihab Nye, the Winter 2018 issue of The MacGuffin, published by Schoolcraft College in Michigan, features winners of the 22nd National Poet Hunt Contest.

First Place
"The Last Time I head Her Play the Piano" by Bethany Reid [pictured]

Honorable Mention
"Big Sky Drive-in" by Kathleen McClung
"An Ordinary Afternoon" by Sue Fagalde Lick

The Spring 2018 issue of Raleigh Review Literary and Arts Magazine features "Eve," a lush collage by Geri Digiorno.

"Summer Rain" by Kristina Gehrmann on the Spring 2018 cover of Rattle poetry journal brightened my day, as did the special section inside the publication, "Tribute to Immigrant Poets," which includes works by 18 poets who "no longer reside in their country of birth."

"Challenging Transitions" is the theme of most recent issue of The Antioch Review. Like the theme, David Battle's cover image could be broadly interpreted but also directly reflective of Robert S. Fogarty's Editorial, "The Brooklyn Bridge and Other Transitions."

The HitchLit Review: A Secular Literary-Arts Journal publishes online twice per year, poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and would consider short, stand-alone scenes from plays and screen plays as well as visual art and cover design. “There are many literary magazines,” The HitchLit Review  Founder and Editor Daniel Ruefman tells me, “but in a growing community of secular voices, few publications are focused on giveing them a platform. In addition to that, there are a lot of misunderstandings about what it means to be secular today (atheist, agnostic, freethinker, skeptic, etc.). By highlighting secular voices through literature and art, HitchLit  hopes to confront stereotypes and demonstrate just how diverse the secular community is.”

The Winter 2017-2018 issue of The Main Street Rag features an interview with Michael Dowdy, author of URBILLY, winner of the 2017 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. In it, Dowdy talks about his lifelong love of books and choice of the "academic route" over his "recessive hillbilly" DNA strain, his shifting majors in college, taking a stab at the family business, how the poetry for URBILLY  came about, and his interests from Appalachian Latino literature to "undocumentary" poetry.

The Editor's Note in New Orleans Review Issue 43 (Themed: "This Hustle Is Not Your Grandpa’s African Lit") contained the following announcement:

"Since its founding in 1968, New Orleans Review  has had the pleasure of including in its pages the work of hundreds of writers, poets, essayists, critics, celebrities, and artists from around the world. We take particular delight in having published numerous 'first-time-in-print' authors as well as offering eclectic volumes on a range of topics and forms – from Alexander Pope’s 'The Rape of the Lock' to Post-Structuralism, from Spanish-language film to Czech writing in translation, and from Science Fiction to a set of seven chapbooks enclosed in a slipcase. As the journal enters its 50^th year, this special issue on contemporary writing from Africa celebrates our final printed volume. Both honoring its past and embracing its future, New Orleans Review  will continue to publish new work in an expanded digital venue, which will also include free access to all 50 years of print issues."

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their Family Matters competition. This competition is held once a year and is open to all writers for stories about family of all configurations. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to Peter Nathaniel Malae [pictured] of McMinnville, Oregon, who wins $2500 for “El Camino.” His story will be published in Issue 103 of Glimmer Train Stories.

2nd place goes to Gregory J. Wolos of Millis, Massachusetts, who wins $500 for “Boy Strangling Goose.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing his prize to $700.

3rd place goes to Chloe Higgins of Wollongong, Australia, who wins $300 for “Things We Cannot Say.”

Here’s a PDF of the Top 25.

Twyckenham is a name linked strongly with South Bend and Twyckenham Notes Editor in Chief Austin Veldman, who grew up there at a time when the economic slump felt by many post-automobile industry cities lingered on. “In the early 2000’s,” Veldman says, “the prevalent attitude of the town’s youth was not lost on me: I wanted to leave as soon as I could. The common words among most were there is nothing to do here.” And yet, not even a decade later, Veldman founded Twyckenham Notes  in response to what he saw happening in his city, “a reemergence, the founding of a new identity,” contributing literature to help in this rebirth and renewal.

Autumn House Press annually hosts contests for full-length manuscripts of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Each winner receives publication, and $2,500 ($1,000 advance against royalties and $1,500 for travel and publicity). The 2017 winners will be available for purchase next month.

In fiction, Glori Simmons’s Carry You, selected by Amina Gauthier, is an intense read, a linked collection of intertwined stories. Advance praise calls the collection gorgeous, moving, and deeply empathetic.

Dickson Lam’s memoir Paper Sons was selected by Alison Hawthorne Deming. Paper Sons combines memoir and cultural history, violence marking the story at every turn. Deming calls the book important and “beautifully crafted, rich in poetic image and juxtapositions.”

Alberto Ríos selected Darling Nova by Melissa Cundieff as the poetry 2017 poetry winner. The collection makes “new connections, new sparks, new thoughts as often as line to line,” and covers “grief, love, humanness,” moving readers.

While you’re learning more about the 2017 prize winners, be sure to stop by the contest submission guidelines: entries are now open until the end of June.

Available this month is the winner of the 2017 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry: Bridled by Amy Meng. Selected by Jaswinder Bolina, Bolina says of his selection:

Bridled is poetry as slow-burn opera. [ . . . ] The poems here offer, in reverse chronology, the story of a crumbling relationship between an unnamed speaker and her nameless ‘lover.’ In this telling, Bridled articulates a politics of self versus other, of body and gender, of loneliness and togetherness. It’s a collection you’re going to want to read from start to finish and then from finish to start.

A Kundiman Fellow and poetry editor at Bodega Magazine, this is Amy Meng’s first collection. Stop by the Pleaides Press website to learn more.

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their 2017 November/December Very Short Fiction Award. This competition is held three times 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 2018. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

1st place goes to Corey Flintoff [pictured] of Cheverly, Maryland, who wins $2000 for “Early Stages.” His story will be published in Issue 103 of Glimmer Train Stories. This will be his first major print publication.

2nd place goes to Irene Doukas Behrman of Portland, Oregon, who wins $500 for “Permission.”

3rd place goes to Itoro Udofia of Oakland, California, who wins $300 for “To the Children Growing Up in the Aftermath of Their Parents’ War.”

Here’s a PDF of the Top 25.

Deadline soon approaching! Short Story Award for New Writers: February 28
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 over 5000. No theme restrictions. Most submissions to this category run 1000-4000 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 Missouri Review v40 n4, 2017 features intriguing cover art by Su Blackwell entitled "Heroines of Literature," a finely crafted paper sculpture. More of Blackwell's work can be viewed on her website.

According to Editor and Founder Robert Stapleton, Booth 11 is a "stunning collection of contemporary femal writers. The issue includes new fiction, nonfiction, poetry comics, lists, and interviews by such esteemed authors as Emily St. John Mandel, Joyce Carol Oates, Marya Hornbacher, Elizabeth Strout, Krista Christensen, Aubrey Hirsch, Brenda Shaughnessy, and so many more. This full-color literary journal offers a powerful argument for the strength of female authors working in American letters." Beginning it all: cover art by Tara McPherson.

The cover image by Lucy Engelman made me open Issue 15 of Creative Nonfiction's monthly publication, True Story,  the opening paragraph of "This Is My Oldest Story"  by Emily Brisse made me drop everything and just read. It begins: "In May of 1992, a little before the end of fourth grade, my best friend Kristy and I and a few others from our street - Ryan, Tim, Tom, maybe Naomi - hopped on our bikes and started riding. Most of us had younger brothers, and we left them at home. We didn't tell our parents we were going. They thought we were in the basement of Tim's house, playing Tetris, and although their anxiousness had relaxed by inches over the past two and a half years, we knew that any request to bike farther than the outlined boundary of our street would receive a firm no. So we just went."

 

Olives are a succulent fruit, each containing a seed with which to grow more nourishing deliciousness. What better inspiration, then, for MORIA, the new literary publication from Woodbury University, where an olive grove once stood on the land that now houses this Californian educational institution.

Faculty Editor of MORIA Literary Magazine, Dr. Linda L. Dove, tells me MORIA refers to a special type of olive tree in ancient Greece that is protected by the government. “As a tree sacred to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, the original ‘Moria’ was believed to have been planted by her at the Parthenon and includes the meaning ‘to be part of’ something larger than itself. Here at the literary magazine, we recognize and celebrate that Woodbury University is a part of a tradition of learning that is larger than itself, just as literature and the writers who make it are part of a tradition of creative engagement and cultural production that is larger than any one individual alone.” Beautiful.

The Malahat Review issue #201 (Winter 2017) includes two prize winning works:

Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction
Selected by Steven Price
"Faster Horses" by Katherin Edwards

Constance Rooke CNF Prize
Selected by Brian Brett
"Flaubert's Hummingbirds" by Nancy Holmes [pictured]

Read more about The Malahat Review prizes as well as interviews with each of the winners here.

 

In her craft essay in the February 2018 #133 issue of Glimmer Train's Bulletin, Danielle Lazarin tells readers to "Question Everything" as she does in her own drafting process. Her essay opens:

"On some days, my writing notebooks look like an inquisition, my pages topped and ended with questions: in all-caps, underlined, circled. Many are small: What do the kids want to be called? What is her work? Handwriting=obsessive or careless? Maybe she cries on the subway home, after dinner? But they're big, too: What is true, the memory of it, or the moment? Is she lacking? DO WE REQUIRE HOPE?  Though they may appear frantic, a series of scribbled questions aren't signs of confusion or desperation but of sufficient curiosity on my part to propel a story forward. At every stage of my work, questions are my most essential writing tools. I use them to move through to the other side of murky. It's only by stepping into that unknown and uncomfortable space repeatedly during my process that I can become more deliberate in the story I'm telling."

Also included in this month's GT Bulletin are Thomas Fox Averill's "Writing Archival Fiction" and Aline Ohanesian "On Rejection." The Bulletin is free to read online and have delivered monthly to your e-mail.

Willow Springs Issue 81 features this brightly colored image, originally a 13 x 13 silkscreen. The "inside cover" replicates this image, but with "Spokane Garbage Goat" replacing the issue number. I had no idea what this was, so promptly headed to Google, where I learned of the iconic status of said goat. Absolutely delightful, as is artist Chris Bovey's work, more of which can be found at Vintage Prints.

Rebecca Berlin's marker on paper "Circles That You Find" brightens the cover of the Spring 2018 (#26) issue of Copper Nickel. See more of her work at Rebecca Berlin Art.

Keeping with vibrant colors, The Fiddlehead Winter 2018 (# 274) issue features Monika Wright's "With Powerful Intention" acrylic on canvas. In her artist's statement, Wright comments, "With organic shapes, fluid light, lines and circles, I am employing universal symbols of unity, wholeness and infinity connected by lines, representing the boundaries which separate us, but which also highlights our shared path." See more of her work here.

Winners and finalists for the 2017 Able Muse Write Prize for Poetry and Fiction are featured in the Winter 2017 issue of Able Muse: A Review of Poetry, Prose & Art.

Write Prize for Fiction
Final Judge: Jill Alexander Essbaum
Winner: "Target" by Leslie Jill Patterson

Write Prize for Poetry
Final Judge: Annie Finch
Winner: "Fall Rewinding" by D. R. Goodman [pictured]
Finalists: Ann M. Thompson; Scott Ruescher; Rob Wright

For a full list of honorable mentions and short list selections, visit the Able Muse 2017 Write Prize announcement page.

The Florida Review Editor and Director Lisa Roney in the 41.2/2017 issue Editor's Note writes in a recurring thread about the U.S. prison culture, her early experiences knowing young people who went in and out of jail, and - of all things - changing the publication's submission policy to accept traditional postal submissions from those without Internet access, "whatever the circumstances might be." This, of course, would open submissions to our nation's incarcerated population who are not allowed access to the Internet.

About the Special Section on Prison, Roney writes, "we include writing by prisoners, as well as their family members and friends. It is the presence of this Triumvirate (victims, prisoners, family and loved ones) that testifies to the widespread tragedy that violence, addiction, and poverty and their results have become in this country - and our constant sense that there must be some better way. Writing, of course, is one of those better ways."

The Winter/Spring 2018 issue of Gulf Coast features the winners of their 2017 Gulf Coast Prizes contest:

Poetry
Judged by Cate Marvin
"The Weather Underground" by sam sax

Nonfiction
Judged by Diane Roberts
"The Peacock and the Bell Captain" by Spencer Wise

Fiction
Judged by Chinelo Okparanta
"That Boy Could Run" by Rudy Ruiz [pictured]

For a full list of honorable mentions and biographical information on each writer and judge, visit the Gulf Coast Prize page.

Intellectual Freedom Blog hosted by the Office for Intellectual Freedom, a unit of the American Library Association, provides "a venue for coverage of time-sensitive news in intellectual freedom and librarianship." The topics, however, are of interest to a much wider audience, including writers, readers, and academics - teachers, students, and administrators. Recent post titles include: "Is There a Connection Between Mental Health and Intellectual Freedom?" by Allyson Mower; "‘The Post,’ the Pentagon Papers, and the Era of Fake News" by Robert Sarwark; "Xicanas/Latinas and Intellectual Freedom in College: When Reading is Political" by Eva Rios-Alvarado; "Reading as a Mirror: Banning the New Jim Crow in New Jersey Prisons" by Jane’a Johnson [pictured]; and weekly roundups of Intellectual Freedom News.

Readers may already be familiar with The Massachusetts Review, the quarterly print journal founded in 1959, but did you know they also have digital projects available?

Working Titles are e-publications of prose which are too long to be printed in the quarterly. Published bimonthly, there are three ways to purchase and download Working Titles. Recent publications include Table for One by Yun Ko Eun translated by Lizzie Buehler, The Keepers of the Ghost Bird by Jenn Dean, The Leader by Nouri Zarrugh, and more.

Readers can also find Digital Chapbooks, showcasing art and poetry from past special sections and art inserts throughout the years of the journal. These features are free to read and easy to access, a good way to spend some time.

While you’re checking out the current “Truth” issue of The Massachusetts Review, be sure to see what digital offerings are up for grabs.