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Driftwood Press Announces Annual Anthology

Driftwood Press Annual Anthology release date logo image

The Driftwood Press editors just released this news: “We’re so excited to announce that Driftwood Press is transforming from a bi-annual literary magazine to an annual anthology. This change has been in the works for a long time, and we can’t wait to bring our readers over 200 pages in full color on a yearly basis, with our first anthology due out March 7, 2023!” The editors promise status quo on great content, just more of it, including stories, poetry, comics, interviews, and more. Subscription options will also reflect this change, and there is still one more biannual issue due out on July 1, which can be preordered here.

Discovering Not New Fiction

Guest Post by Raymond Abbott.

This book is not new, so what you get is not new fiction as the title suggests. New Fiction from New England was published in 1986 by Yankee Books in Dublin, New Hampshire. Twenty-nine stories and not a clunker in the bunch. All were originally published in Yankee Magazine back when Yankee published stories (fiction). It no longer does, and it is lesser in my opinion as a magazine for no longer doing so. The editor then was Deborah Navas, a skillful writer in her own right.

If you’re looking for variety, and solid storytelling, you will get it here, in abundance, that is if you can find a copy. But do try!

New Fiction From New England edited by Deborah Navas. Yankee Books, 1986.

Reviewer bio: Raymond Abbott lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

Brilliant Flash Fiction Releases Branching Out

book leaning against trunk of a tree surrounded by leavesOnline literary magazine Brilliant Flash Fiction has released is second print anthology! Branching Out: International Tales of Brilliant Flash Fiction is a collection of stories – all 300 words or less. These unique tales will entertain you while inspiring your own writing.

The anthology includes authors from Australia, Canada, England, India, Ireland, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Philippines, Scotland, and the United States.

Want a copy? Submit a $12 donation via the button on their homepage.

The Powow River Poets Anthology II Authors’ Reading

Able Muse Powow River Poets Anthology II Reading bannerAble Muse is hosting a reading with the authors of The Powow River Poets Anthology II on Sunday, June 27 from 3-4PM EDT. The anthology was published by Able Muse Press in January 2021.

The Powow River Poets are a gathering of widely published, award-winning New England Poets, centered in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Their members are also from the Boston area and as far away as New York and Maine. 27 of these writers, including Rhina P. Espaillat, A.M. Juster, and Deborah Warren, are represented in the second edition of this anthology.

The reading is hosted by anthology editor Paulette Demers Turco and features Rhina P. Espaillat, Michael Cantor, M. Frost Delaney, Jean L. Kreiling, Alfred Nicol, and Anton Yakovlev. There will also be a Q&A session with the editor and authors.

The reading is free to attend via Zoom, but you do need to RSVP.

Chatham University & Fourth River to Launch Jeffrey “Boosie” Bolden Series

Screenshot of Fourth River WebsiteThe MFA Program in Creative Writing at Chatham University and literary magazine The Fourth River have announced the creation of the Jeffrey “Boosie” Bolden Series. The first publication will be a special anthology called Black Visions. This anthology was conceived of and will be edited by the MFA Emerging Black Writers in Residence Cedric Rudolph and Caitlyn Hunter along with alums Samantha Edwards and Nicole Lourette.

About this anthology: Are you a black writer, or a writer who is black?

Black artists everywhere are all too familiar with this question and label on their work. Why are Black artists always called upon to write about the Black experience, about Black pain? Where are the discussions about craft, form, and futurisms? This anthology was born out of the need to create more space for Black voices; all Black voices. We want to see how your medium amplifies your voice and who you are as an artist, without the limitations of formality, genre, or subject. We are looking for the musicality, depth, and vibrancy that is Black art.

The anthology is accepting submissions through 11:59 PM on Friday, June 18 with expected publication in fall of this year.

The series is named after Chatham MFA alum and former Fourth River editor Jeffrey “Boosie” Bolden who refused to write prose or poetry restricted by genre and pushed himself to create hybrid flows fusing prose and rap. His mixtape-memoir Wolves was released in November 2020 after his passing in June of 2020.

There is no fee to submit to this anthology and accepted writers will receive a copy of the book and $50 honorarium.

Into The Void Releases We Are Antifa Anthology

Into the Void Antifa Anthology flierAt the beginning of the month, literary magazine Into the Void released it’s We Are Antifa: Expressions Against Fascism, Racism and Police Violence in the United States and Beyond. The anthology features creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry from diverse writers all over the world, i.e. the US, Canada, Ireland, the UK, Greece, Nigeria, and more.

Into the Void will be donating 100% of proceeds from the anthology’s sales to Black Lives Matter Canada. In order to maximize profits, the book will only be available via Amazon in ebook and paperback formats.

We Are Antifa was edited by Heath Brougher, Jay C. Mims, Amanda Gaines, Andrew Rihn, and Philip Elliot. It features “breathtaking writing condemning fascism, racism and state-sanctioned brutality through powerful expressions of grief, rage, hope and love.”

The title is a response to Donald Trump’s declaration that the US will be designating Antifa as a terrorist organization. The editors encourage readers to check out “A Brief History of Anti-Fascism” in Smithsonian Magazine to better understand why they published this anthology and “how anti-fascism and anti-racism are inextricably linked in the fight against oppression and supremacy.”

Scared in the Air

Guest Post by Chang Shih Yen

Flight or Fright is an anthology with one theme: scary things that can happen while flying. This anthology is edited by the king of horror writing, Stephen King. This seemed like a good book to read in lockdown when international air travel is almost impossible.

There are 16 short stories and one poem in this anthology. There are old stories by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) and Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) written before air travel even became a thing. There are two new stories written specifically for this anthology. One by Stephen King is a story about air turbulence. The second new story is by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King) whose story is about passengers in a plane while a nuclear war starts on earth mid-flight. There are also classic short stories by the likes of Ray Bradbury and Roald Dahl. Dahl draws on his own experience as a fighter pilot in World War II. Some stories tell the reader its content in the title, like “Zombies on a Plane” by Bev Vincent and “Murder in the air” by Peter Tremayne. There are all sorts of terrifying tales in this collection, with topics ranging from monsters, time travel, war, and murder, to falling out of the sky.

This was a satisfying read if you’re looking for something scary. There are stories like “The Fifth Category” by Tom Bissell, which haunts you and gets in your head and stays with you long after the last page is turned.

Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales edited by Stephen King and Bev Vincent. Cemetery Dance Publications, September 2018.

Reviewer bio: Chang Shih Yen is a writer from Malaysia, seeing through the pandemic in New Zealand. She writes a blog at https://shihyenshoes.wordpress.com/

Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.

Best American Essays 2020 Sponsor Spotlights

Best American Essays 2020Congratulations to two of NewPages sponsored magazines for having selections included in the Best American Essays 2020 due out on November 3, 2020. This year’s anthology was curated by guest editor André Aciman and series editor Robert Atwan.

“My Pink Lake and Other Digressions” by Alison Townsend was originally published in an issue of Cimarron Review. Jerald Walker’s “Breathe” was featured in New England Review 40.3.

A Call to Artful Rebellion

Guest Post by Erin H. Davis

A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South, edited by Filipino-American author Cinelle Barnes, showcases some of the brightest and most poignant work of southern writers of color. Published by Hub City Press located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, this anthology features authors from various backgrounds and ethnicities who, in the joyful spirit of Southern America, explain the idea of a “new” south, an ever-evolving triumph against traditional stereotypes and racial discrimination.

Barnes, anthology editor and author of memoir Monsoon Mansion and Malaya: Essays on Freedom states, “I decided that every one of my projects . . . would be an invitation for other people of color to come, to be visible, and to thrive here [The American South].” Her anthology certainly does just that, and she’s not afraid to let traditionally taboo subjects rise to the surface, bleed through the page, and strike the heart of the reader—independent of race or class.

For example, Soniah Kamal in “Face” explores her personal grief and the collective spirit of women of color as they experience the horrors of miscarriage and the social stigmas attached to the female body. In a similar vein, Devi S. Laskar’s “Duos” dives into the idea of living a dual life between dominant white culture and the culture of the home. She writes, in stunning prose, “Often, I smiled. I learned later that is what primates do when threatened: grin.”

A Measure of Belonging is a stark reminder that, behind the draping magnolias and weeping willows, the south has a loaded history, the effects of which still ripple through today’s society. Cinelle Barnes’ anthology is but one call to awareness, a call to artful rebellion.

A Measure of Belonging: Writers of Color on the New American South Edited by Cinelle Barnes. Hub City Press, October 2020.

Erin H. Davis is an MFA (fiction) graduate student at the College of Charleston. She was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina.

Best Microfiction 2020

Best Microfiction 2020Mark your calendars! The Best Microfiction 2020 anthology is slated for release this April from Pelekinesis Press. The series is edited by Meg Pokrass and Gary Fincke. The guest editor this year was Michael Martone.

Featured in this edition is work originally published in Cherry Tree, E. Kristin Anderson’s “Ted Cruz Attends a Goldfish Funeral” and Catherine Edmunds’ “Her Wing”; Apple Valley Review, “Teeth” by Tim Fitts; Kenyon Review Online, “Thaddeus Gunn’s “An inventory of the possessions of William Kevin Thompson, Jr., age 19, upon his expulsion from the family residence on October 20, 1971”; Anomaly, “This Is A Comb” by Leila Ortiz; Into the Void, JJ Peña’s “the summer heat feels just like love”; The Sonder Review, CC Russell’s “Caught”; and much more.

Pre-order yourcopy today and support the awesome journals these pieces were originally published in.