Broadsided Press has recently added a section to their site: Teach. It's a growing area of their work and will feature lesson plans for teachers interested in using broadsides in the classroom. It currently includes plans for Grades 6-8 and Adults/University: "Broadsides as Adventure and Architecture," "Writing a Photographic Poem," and "Graduate Poetry Workshop - 4 Weeks on Ekphrasis." The content is appropriate for working in a structured educational setting or in a community center or other organization of writers. For teachers, Broadsided Press welcomes you to share your lesson plan/article for publication consideration.
Carve Magazine, which offers readers new "honest fiction," poetry, nonfiction, illustrations, and interviews in its quarterly print publication has even more to offer in its online Carve Classroom.
For teachers, Carve can re-print bulk orders of back issues (most of which are sold out in single copy), and also provides free lesson plans for single stories online. The lesson plans are availabe to download as Word documents and include a link to the story, some of which feature audio readings. The plans include group activites, discussion prompts, and critical reading and writing exercises. Just in time for the new school year!
For writers, Carve offers online writing classes exploring elements of craft. Writers can choose a self-study or community platform option, with six weekly lessons composed of assigned readings, notes on a particular craft element, questions to apply to the assigned reading, and writing exercises to practice the craft. Self-study students receive guided feedback on the reading and writing assignments (NOT manuscript critiques). The community platform options utilizes Wet Ink for a full course interaction with peers.
Also available for writers is a manuscript critique service, and for readers and writers alike, there is a free sign-up for Carve Tips for Writers delivered weekly to your mailbox or using RSS Feed or Apple News.
Much to be discovered and enjoyed at Carve!
Perfect for the start of the new school year - whether or not you're a student! The Southeast Review is offering its second Writer's Regimen for poets, essayists, and fiction writers who would benefit from incorporating structure into their daily writing practice - or perhaps get a daily practice started! Editor Dorothy Chan explains:
This October, The Southeast Review 30-Day Writer's Regimen returns with daily prompts, daily exercises, and daily quotes to cure your writer's block and give you an endless source of creative inspiration! We've added daily themes, so get ready to immerse yourself into different worlds every day! We're also proud to announce craft talks by esteemed writers Ching-In Chen, Kao Kalia Yang [pictured], Sam Herschel Wein, and Timothy Liu. Registration is open now. This October, write lots of short stories and poems you'll be proud of. We hope you enjoy our regimen!
In addition to all the daily features, Writer's Regimen offer flashback craft talks from previous WRs for "more writing heavyweights" as well as a free copy of The Southeast Review.
For a PDF sample of the first regimen day, click here. Chan says, "This summer we've decided to innovate the regimen by including themes, and you'll notice the theme of Day 1 is 'secrets.' These themes will carry on for a few days and each day, subscribers will experience a variation of that theme. Other themes include translation, the body, Hollywood, and seduction."
A while back, NewPages introduced Under a Warm Green Linden online poetry journal which had expanded its publication efforts to include environmental activism under its "Green Mission." This mission promises to donate a portion of its proceeds to reforestation efforts (through the Arbor Day Foundation and the National Forest Foundation).
To date, Under a Warm Green Linden has funded the planting of 170 trees, and with the help of poetry lovers, hopes to continue this effort. One easy way to participate is by purchasing their limited edition broadsides which accompany each new journal issue. These are bea-u-ti-ful prints - I know because I have purchased every one of them! They are reproduced on high quality paper, full color, carefully packaged for safe shipping and, best of all, SIGNED by the authors. Pictured: "Song of Extinction" by David Axelrod.
Under a Warm Green Linden has also begun publishing chapbooks and has two available for purchase: Tempo Rubato by Boyer Rickel, A Place Where One by Barbara Cully, and bonehouse by Erika Brumett (forthcoming).
Broadsided Press art and poetry collaboration posters are available for free download and postering all about town as well as in PDF to share electronically.
August's Broadsided collaboration with words by Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello and art by Elizabeth Terhune resulted in "Ghost Mantis."
In addition to their ongoing CFS, Broadsided is looking for "multilingual writing" for a special edition: "Many writers grow up in or become part of families and communities that speak more than one language, and at Broadsided Press, we think that’s worth celebrating. In this special 'Broadsided Responds' feature, we will offer a folio of work that speaks between and with multiple languages."
Following the suspension of the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature, The New Academy was created "to warrant that an international literary prize will be awarded in 2018, but also as a reminder that literature should be associated with democracy, openness, empathy and respect."
Librarians from across Sweden were invited to submit nominations of authors for the prize; voting opened to the global public on July 10 and will close on August 14.
The top four nominations from this long list will receive final assessment for the award by an "expert jury" comprised of: Jury President Ann Pålsson, editor and independent publisher; and Jury Members Lisbeth Larsson, Professor of Literature, Gothenburg University; Peter Stenson, editor and critic; and Gunilla Sandin, librarian director.
The winner will be announced October 14.
If you're traveling anywhere near Montgomery, Alabama, consider spending the night in the former home of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald which now houses the Fitzgerald Museum and a two-bedroom apartment. "This historic home houses the only dedicated museum to F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald in the world. The family lived here from 1931 until 1932, writing portions of their respective novels, Save Me The Waltz and Tender Is The Night, during their time here."
The apartment is listed on Airbnb and can be rented for $150 a night. Guests can also visit the museum during its open hours, maybe helping make Montgomery your destination!
As a kid (and adult for that matter) who was forever unable to remember her numerical lock combinations, what3words is the most brilliant invention of all time. And who among us readers/writers can't absolutely fall in love with this concept: The entire planet mapped out in three meter squares with each one assigned a unique three-word sequence.
Download the app to your phone, and no matter where you go, you can find you three-word location. Give your three-word location to someone, and they can find you!
I can only imagine that some poets have already gotten a hold of this and are integrating it into their writing - right? How about engaging young students in both geography and writing. Come up with three words, put them in, and see where that location is - the possibilities are endless and exciting! Check it out for yourself!
Not to rush your summer, but July 4th signals the opening of registration for the annual August Poetry Postcard Festival!
This is a FAVORITE event for me and many others who have been doing it since it started over ten years ago, as well as for newbies - who are always welcome to join!
Visit Paul E Nelson's webpage for full instructions, but the basic premise is this: Registrants are grouped with 31 other participants and each group member gets a list of names and addresses. You start with the name below yours on the list and each day, write a poem on a postcard and send it to that person. The next day, you go to the next name on the list, write, send, repeat.
The idea is to be spontaneous in writing these poems. They aren't supposed to be prewritten (although some folks do type or reprint for the sake of legibility), and as much as possible, written in the moment. In the past, I've known a writer to focus on colors as a theme, another randomly landed on a word in the dictionary and made that their inspiration. Since the only requirement is to write and send a card a day, the rest is up to each writer's imagination and motivation. The postcards can be anything at all - some people make their own, some use photos, others are cheesy tourist postcards, some are vintage - it's totally up to the sender.
There is a $10 registration fee to help handle the oversight. I'm happy to pay this, and the domestic and occassional international postage - considering how much I spend on conferences each year, some of which I walk away from wondering what I gained from them. The APPF has never disappointed. Not only has it inspired my own writing in numerous ways, there is something so uniquely enjoyable about going to the mailbox each day, wondering what I might be gifted from another poet out there somewhere in the world.
Challenge yourself to do this. Participate. Enjoy it. Struggle through it. At the end of the month, you'll feel enormous satisfaction and even a bit a sadness that it's over.
