“All of the work in this special Fall issue of Cold Mountain Review about a fair and just relationship between people and their society has great emotional impact,” writes Consulting Editor Vivian Shipley in her Editor’s Note. And the work strikes upon a variety of justice issues: the opioid crisis; transgender experience; the multitude of experiences of women from different identities, races, and classes; the continued impact of oppression created by colonial occupation; the impact of humans on the environment; ecological aspects; and the role of social media.

From her youth, Shipley shares, “I was taught that anything that had a negative impact on the dignity of life of any person, from their birth to their death, needed to be addressed and eliminated,” and concludes, “This timely and very significant issue of Cold Mountain Review explores many ways to achieve social justice in our currently bitterly divided country.”

See a complete list of contributors and read the full content online here.

Number 25 in the 2River Chapbook Series, Inscape, is a collection of poems by members of the Summer Poetry Workshop at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vermont. Facilitator and retired English lit prof Bill Freedman introduces the collection, talking about the past four summers he has spent leading the poetry writing workshop, Poetry as Personal Expression.

“There is brotherhood here,” Freedman writes, “the camaraderie of proud men similarly confined, some insist unjustly, stripped of agency and entitlement, vulnerable to an array of humiliations, yet determined to make this time not a suspension of their lives, but, if possible, a useful and worthwhile part of it. Their writing, this workshop, is, I think, for many, an important part of that.”

As with all 2River Chapbooks, readers can find this fully available online, downloadable as a PDF, and in the form of “Chap the Book,” which provides a PDF download that can be printed and folded into a chapbook.

Throughout 2018, Basalt Magazine  “committed to publishing a selection of poems from each month of Ian Boyden’s manuscript A Forest of Names. Over the course of a year, Boyden translated the 5,196 names of schoolchildren crushed in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. He then began a collection of poems, each written on the day of each child’s birth. An in-depth discussion of these poems can be read in Fault Line: An Introduction to A Forest of Names.”

In his discussion, Boyden explains how, had it not been for Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, the names of these children, and the government being held accountable for the shoddy construction of the schools where these children were killed, would have been lost.

As part of the curation of Ai Weiwei’s work related to the earthquake, Ian Boyden papered a wall with the children’s names, “a massive work on paper consisting of 21 scrolls, together measuring 10.5′ by over 42′ long.”

Boyden then discusses his work, taking the name of each child, the Chinese characters, and translating these into poetic renderings: “Holding the hopes implicit in each of these names in tension with the tragedy of the children’s deaths has also been a translations of one grief to another: perhaps this is the most accurate translation of all.”

The newest issue of The Malahat Review (#205) features LGBTQ2S?+ writers in a celebration of “Queer Perspectives.” Featured authors include fiction by Nathan Caro Fréchette, Christine Higdon, Matthew J. Trafford; creative nonfiction by Darrel J. McLeod, Anaheed Saatchi, Neal Debreceni, Deborah VanSlet; poetry by A. Light Zachary, Arün Smith, Kayla Czaga, Adèle Barclay, Arleen Paré, Nisa Malli, Charlie C. Petch, Sun Rey, and gorgeous cover art by Kent Monkman.

Malahat Lite, the publication’s virtual newsletter, features interviews with Billeh Nickerson, who discusses his poem/lyric essay “Skies,” and Francesca Ekwuyasi, who talks about her story “Good Soil,” both pieces included in this issue.

Over the past several months, writer Michael Nye [pictured] has been working to resurrect Story, which had originally been founded and edited by Travis Kurowski, and ceased publication in 2016. After working out the details with Travis, Michael laid all the groundwork to continue the publication in strong steed.

Nye’s experience with other publications has helped him understand the intricacies and necessities of running a quality journal. Previous managing editor of The Missouri Review and associate editor with Boulevard, Nye has had plenty of experience “steering ships”; this will be his first venture “building them.” He says, “I’ve always wanted to run a literary magazine and over the last fifteen years, I think I’ve learned enough to pull it off.” Travis has worked closely with Michael on the transition and remains involved as the editor-at-large.

In addition, Nye has drawn in a solid staff: Associate Editor LaTanya McQueen; Staff Andrew Bockhold, Brandon Grammer, Robert Ryan, and Brianna Westervelt; as well as a Board of Directors with Ruth Awad, Valerie Cumming, Keith Leonard, and Maggie Smith; and an Advisory Board with David Althoff, Jürgen Fauth, Stephanie G’Schwind, Roxane Gay, Jonathan Gottschall, Andrea Martucci, Speer Morgan, David Shields, Randi Shedlosky-Shoemaker, Jim Shepard, and Marion Winik.

Nye has put his full faith and effort into this venture: “There is a tremendous amount to look forward to in the coming year. I am beyond thrilled to bring Story back. I do hope you’ll join us: we plan on being here for a long time to come.”

Readers can look forward to Story #4 released this February featuring new stories by Anne Valente, Claudia Hinz, A.A. Balaskovits, Phong Nguyen, Brett Beach, Jordan Jacks, Dionne Irving, Katherine Zlabek, and Marilyn Abildskov and debut fiction by Yohanca Delgado.

Frank O’Hara fans will appreciate the January 2019 issue of Poetry, which includes excerpts from A Frank O’Hara Notebook by Bill Berkson: “A fascinating account of Frank O’Hara in the prime of his creative life in New York, told through notes, images, and poems by his friend Bill Berkson.” Published by no place press, an imprint of MIT Press.

Glimmer Train Bulletin #144 continues to offer free craft essays from writers, some of whose works have been published in Glimmer Train Stories.

In his essay “Dialogue: Something to Talk About,“ Gregory Wolos writes: “Like everything else in a work of fiction, quoted words and phrases are inventions created to serve the purposes of the author. Paradoxically, because the meaning behind spoken language may be subtle, understanding it might demand more, not less, of the reader.”

“Playing the Odds” by Melissa Yancy [pictured] is a uniquely grounding and encouraging perspective on writers keeping their eye on their own hidden gems rather than the prizes of others: “We read author bios, convinced that Iowa, the Stegner, or the right borough in New York City will increase the odds. Then what is already in hand becomes currency that we trade in for that gamble.”

Readers can access the most current as well as a full archive of the Glimmer Train Bulletin here.

Reflecting on the 1974 publication Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers  and the work of its editors, Frank Chin, Jeffrey Paul Chan, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong, the Winter 2018 issue of The Massachusetts Review is an ambitious special issue dedicated to Asian American Literature: Rethinking the Canon.

Cathy J. Schlund-Vials [pictured] and Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, editors for this issue write in the introduction, “[. . . ] the present-day terrain of Asian American literature is characterized by a profound geopolitical diversity that encompasses to varying degrees and often divergent ends the multifaceted experiences of native-born, immigrant, and refugee subjects. Such diversity by way of location is matched by a complexity with regard to histories of racialization, war, displacement, and resettlement. Last, but certainly not least, as the work in this special Massachusetts Review  issue makes abundantly clear, Asian American writing — despite conservative claims ‘otherwise’ — is an integral part of the U.S. literary canon.” Read the full introduction here.

In addition to the full TOC, which can be seen here, the editors have included A Poetry Portfolio, “in the spirit of” poet Fanny Choi’s address, “(B)Aiiieeeee!: The Future is Femme and Queer” (included in the issue). To the “cis-het male vision of Asian American literature,” the editors offer: “this folio invokes a decidedly different Asian American poetic landscape than [. . . ] Aiiieeeee!  Its expansive focus includes queer, femme, gender nonbinary, mixed race, refugee, and adoptee poets of East, South, Southeast, West and Central Asian descent; its poems span diverse aesthetics, intersectional politics, and contradictory subjectivities. The guiding impulse is not merely illuminatory or inclusive, but decolonial. It asks us to see not only the erased but the practice of erasure and our respective roles in undoing that canonical violence – what more responsible reading and publishing practices might look like.”

 

Each issue of Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review includes four writers responding to a set of four questions on a select topic. The Fall 2018 issue features Kwame Dawes, BK Fischer, Tara Betts and Nikita Gill answering questions about the pressure for poets to act as their own publicists, the new media sense of ‘community’ and its effect on writing, the impact of ‘instant’ publishing (posting) on the writing and revising process, and how social media has changed how we define poems, poetry, and even writers.

The Fall/Winter 2018 issue of The Chattahoochee Review is themed on “Lost & Found.” Editor Anna Schachner [pictured] writes in the editorial: “In many ways, this issue’s special focus of ‘Lost and Found’ is an homage to the writing process itself – the many slivers of ourselves we concede when we write and  the inevitable discovery via writing. That emphatic ‘and’ is important because it suggests an organic progression: that to lose something is to also create space to find something else, not just in writing, but in our thoughts, our expectations, our relationships. So many of the submissions we received seemed to concur, as did so many of the pieces ultimately chosen and featured herein.”

Contributors include Cooper Casale, Margaret Diehl, John Hart, Lindsay Stuart Hill, Raina Joines, Timothy Krcmarik, David Rock, Sophia Stid, Brian Phillip Whalen, Jennifer Wheelock, Erica S. Arkin, John Brandon, Kieran Wray Kramer, Michele Ruby, Kevin Wilson, Ginger Eager, Jennifer Key, Caitlin McGill, Marilyn F. Moriarty, Raul Palma, and Rachel H. Palmer.

An online journal “dedicated to short fiction,” Fiction Southeast features a monthly series of articles under the label of “Suggestions & Advice for Writers.” Recent essays include “On Writing” by Devin Matthews, “Death of the Short Story” by G. D. McFegridge, “I Denigrate Myself” by Evan Dunsky, “A Time for Fantasy” by Abagail Becastro [pictured], and “On The Artistic Temperament and a Writer’s Need for Privacy” by Pamelyn Casto.

Fiction Southeast essays/articles section also includes Writers Talking About Writing, which features author interviews, “The Story Behind the Story” and “Why I Write.” Other sections are Conference/Residency Spotlight, Developing a Writing Life, Editing/Publishing, Fiction & Culture, Reading Lists, Reviews, and the most unique essay grouping: Storytelling in Contemporary Video Games.

A lot going on for writers in this publication!

Based on Editor Victor David Sandiego’s intro commentary, it sounds like the Winter 2018 issue of Subprimal will be its last: “. . . this is the final issue of Subprimal Poetry Art/Music, at least for a while. I have decided to take a hiatus from publishing Subprimal for 2019, and – with truth to be told – perhaps forever. It’s been a lot of fun during the last five years connecting with so many wonderful authors and artists, but I want to spend more time concentrating on my own work.”

If you’ve not given this publication a look, do it now while you can. The time and effort put into visual and audio is astonishing. Not only do authors read their own works, but Sandiego creates musical compositions to accompany them. It’s one of the most unique publications I’ve experienced in my time with NewPages. While I’m sorry to see Subprimal cease, I wish Victor the best and look forward to seeing where his creative energies lead him!

In addition to the print annual, Mom Egg Review, offering “the best literary writing about mothers and motherhood,” also offers readers MER VOX, an online quarterly of creative writing, interviews, craft essays and more that focus on “motherhood and on the life experiences of women.” The December 2018 installment, Silver Linings, is one I think we can all appreciate, as Editors Jennifer Martelli and Cindy Veach introduce it:

“Since the 2016 election, the news has been mostly terrible. Both online and offline we have been barraged 24/7 by an overwhelming level of toxicity. We’d like to offer our readers a respite, however brief. For our December folio, we’re featuring poems that celebrate silver linings wherever they may be found: in those we love, in nature, in literature, in sisterhood, in memory.”

Featured poets include: Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Jen Karetnick, Allia Abdullah-Matta, Catherine Esposito Prescott, Radhiyah Ayobami, Julia Lisella, and Keisha Molby-Baez.

About Place Journal Editors Lauren Camp and Melissa Tuckey write in their introduction to the October 2018 issue themed “Root and Resistance”:

“As artists and writers, part of our task is to pay attention to and distill what is happening around us. In witnessing, we’re called to both lift what is beautiful and name what is unjust, to reclaim language from the powerful and give it back its humanity. For this issue, we were interested in works that get at the root of our current political disaster. We also wanted work that explored and reveled in our sources of support, interconnection, solace, and strength. We wanted work that could be useful to those of us engaged in this challenge who, on many days, feel exhausted, overwhelmed and disheartened. We wanted work that would challenge us to learn from perspectives outside of our own, that would help us understand history and how we arrived at this moment.”

Ultimately, they write, “The work we have received reminds us that we all need to nurture ourselves as much as we need to resist the threats to our culture. We need to hold to our strong communities, and also build new ones. Part of our efforts must be a turning back to ancestry and history, to see the germ of a struggle and the start of our futures. We need to look to the past to find the roots of the efforts to amend the present.”

A good way to start the new year.

 

“Alabama for Beginners,” Jean Ryan’s featured essay in a recent issue of bioStories caught my attention; as the editor describes it, “a love letter to her new home and the unexpected welcome she has found there.”

Ryan moved from San Francisco to Lilian, Alabama where she hopes her “modest savings will last longer” and she and her wife will “unearth the gay community—there must be one, some brave little enclave waiting for reinforcements.” But then, “On deeper reflection,” she continues, “maybe there is no enclave here, no separate community at all. Maybe these pockets are going the way of gay bars, no longer needed in this age of sexual fluidity, borders and labels all slipping away—now there’s a happy thought.” (I’m hoping those happy thoughts with you!)

As I age, I also consider other places to resettle, and for anyone who is contemplating a move, this essay of discovering a new place – especially one so different in so many ways – was a nudge of encouragement. Learning the people, the places, the flora and the fauna, and, most essentially, the rediscovery of your own being amid a new environment:

“Each morning my wife and I have coffee on the back patio and watch the sun come up through the pines. As we often come out before dawn, I sweep a flashlight beam across the cement, making sure we don’t step on something that, like us, is not looking for any trouble, just a place to call home. The other day I saw a black wasp fly out of a small hole in the frame of my deck chair, reminding me of the swallows next door that made a nest in the open sewer pipe of the home under construction. You can find at least three wide-eyed frogs perched inside my hose reel box any time you lift the lid. Not for a minute does even the smallest crevice go to waste. There is panic in the air, the hum of a million creatures trying to stay alive.”

bioStories is an online pubiication of nonfiction that publishes a new feature every week then collects them into two semiannual issues.

The Greensboro Review Editor Terry L. Kennedy writes in his introduction to issue #104 about trying to determine what makes “a good story” and the idea of creating a checklist for submissions:

“A checklist for ‘a good story’ might make my editorial deliberations easier, but it wouldn’t be good for my staff or for the magazine. And I’m not so sure readers really want exact restrictions on a story, not anymore. What if a story has a memorable setting but there’s no plot, nothing happens? A la Seinfeld. Where does that leave us? There are too many intangible aspects with which to blur the lines. . . I guess what I’m working my way around to is this: it’s not that I’m incapable of creating a checklist as that I don’t really believe, in my editorial heart of hearts, that I should. In the end, the best stories might just be the ones that do the things we thing a short story writer shouldn’t attempt. But by doing them well, they win our hearts and make us shout, ‘This one; this is the one!'”

With each new issue of its online poetry journal, Under a Warm Green Linden issues one of the poems as their featured broadside, signed by the author, available for purchase.

Regular readers know I’m a sucker for signed broadsides, and these are no exception. They are gorgeous, quality prints on solid stock and carefully packaged for secure shipping. I own every one in this series and FULL DISCLOSURE: I have paid for every one. This is NOT an ad, but an honest “I LOVE THESE and want to share this with you” post.

“Narcissus on the Hunt” by Rachel Bullis can be read here (Issue 6, Winter 2018), and was particularly striking to me as a teacher of mythology. I will definitely be sharing this one with my students.

The journal is free to read online; the broadsides cost $10 each or 3 for $25 with proceeds going to support Under a Warm Green Linden’s Green Mission reforestation efforts. To date, the publication has “planted 205 trees in collaboration with the Arbor Day Foundation and the National Forest Foundation.”

With each new quarterly issue, Asymptote online publication of poetry, fiction, drama, nonfiction, interviews, and translations offers “an educator’s guide for those wanting to teach pieces from that issue. Each guide offers a thematic breakdown of that issue’s content, relevant information about the context of various pieces, and possible discussion questions and exercises.”

The guides offer lesson plans on topics which incorporate the pieces from the issue, indicating appropriate learner level (middle school, high school, upper-level high school, college/undergraduate, etc.) as well as discipline when applicable (such as AP History, Beginner French Students).

Asymptote also invites educators to “Lend a Hand” assisting with pedagogy and feedback on the lessons provided.

It was a bit shocking to see a 2019 dated publication already, but it’s true: We’re there. 

2nd River View offers a selection of poetry online, some with author-recorded readings, as well as a current and full archive of their chapbook series. These chapbooks can be read online, downloaded in full-page PDF, or “Chap the Book,” which opens as a PDF in booklet form (for printing and saddle stitch fold/staple). What a great (FREE) resource for teachers! Things Impossible to Swallow by Pamela Garvey is their latest chapbook.

Here’s a sampling of some of the works from their Winter 2019 issue:

I want to stay in the house all day
and read poetry from a time
when people rowed out in little boats.

From “Accident” by Nancy Takacs

January sleek gray sky, the clouds diffuse
the sun to one dull eye, & my body quiet
with goat milk skin, makes a slim seed
in thin sheets and cotton bedspread.

From “On Sunday Morning, Church Bells” by J.J. Starr

. . . I wonder if
the evening stars will be

missing behind the clouds.
I want to tell the clouds
to be gone or to get out of the way.

I want to wrap my hands
around them so badly

without hurting them.

From “Behind the Clouds” by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal
[pictured: portrait by Karen J. Harlow]

In her editorial to The Fiddlehead‘s Autumn 2018 issue, “Whatever We Need It To Be,” Creative Nonfiction Editor Alicia Elliott opens the publication’s first “all creative nonfiction issue” with a story about presenting on a panel with three other CNF writers. Asked the opening question: What is Creative Nonfiction?, “All four of us exchanged a look. I laughed nervously, as I tend to do when I’m not sure how to answer a question. The seconds passed.”

It’s not that they weren’t prepared for the question, Elliott explains, or hadn’t joked about the challenge of defining the form. “Unfortunately,” she tells readers, “I still don’t have a very good definition.”

But, like so many of us, she goes on to share, “Ever since I fell into Creative Nonfiction a few years ago, I’ve been enthralled by the genre’s possibility, its malleability, the way it requires you to push beyond what’s in front of you and see what’s hidden underneath.”

This all-CNF issue, with works chosen from over 600 submissions should indeed provide us all with a broadened understanding of CNF, as Elliott hopes, but at the same time, “ironically, will probably make defining CNF as gloriously fuzzy for you as it is for me. That’s okay, though. It’s part of the genre’s charm.”

Read the full essay here.

From Speer Morgan’s “Forward: Practical Living,” which opens the Fall 2018 (41.3) issue of The Missouri Review:

“Trends in international politics toward right-wing nationalism, racism in endlessly renewing guises, and the pursuit of material short-term gain regardless of what it does to the earth’s environment and national budgets: all these things make me wonder how well we remember our history beyond last year or even last month. The end of World War I led to an utterly changed, financially crippled world; World War II resulted in the physical destruction of much of Europe and between fifty and eighty million dead, only to be followed by a series of cold and hot wars arising partly from long-misguided imperial assumptions. This nation now has a president who among other things denies climate change, while the largest wildfire in California history burns along with sixteen others and the highest mountain in Sweden just lost its stature because it has melted so much this year.

“Current politics and culture wars are surely a passing phase, like the reign of the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. When Dorothy throws a bucket of water on her, the witch will surely melt. Surely. However, given how little we appear to remember about history, one wonders if we will have to go through some cataclysm before we go for our buckets.”

Read the full essay here.

Heading down its home stretch, Glimmer Train Bulletin continues to offer writers and readers the inside scoop from authors. December’s bulletin features “Go Small to Go Big” by Jane Delury [pictured], which advises writers who feel “overwhelmed with your novel or story draft” to set it aside and go back to basics: the sentence. And Matthew Vollmer’s essay, “The Literary Masquerade: Writing Stories Disguised As Other Forms of Writing,” encourages that “this interplay that results from a story and the particular form it appropriates can be exciting for both writer and reader.” 

Read both essay in full here, where you can also find a full archive of bulletin back issues.

Until November 29, The Common Foundation is holding its annual Author Postcard Auction: “Bid for a chance to win a postcard from your favorite author, handwritten for you or a person of your choice. A wonderful keepsake, just in time for the holidays. Author postcards make great gifts! All proceeds will go toward The Common’s programs. These include publishing emerging writers, mentoring students in our Literary Publishing Internship program, and connecting with students around the world through The Common in the Classroom.”

Featured authors include: Aja Gabel, Aleksandar Hemon, Andre Aciman, Andrew Sean Greer, Anne Tyler, Ann Patchett, Caitlin Horrocks, Carmen Maria Machado, Claire Messud, David Sedaris, Elliot Ackerman, Esi Edugyan, Garth Risk Hallberg, George Saunders, Harlan Coben, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Lethem, Joseph O’Neill, Julie Orringer, Kelly Link, Kiese Laymon, Min Jin Lee, Nathan Englander, Nell Freudenberger, Rabih Alameddine, Rachel Kushner, Rebecca Makkai, Rivka Galchen, R.O. Kwon, Tommy Orange, Tom Nichols, and Viet Thanh Nguyen.

“Cadets are keen observers of social cues from their professors, retracting behind the protective formalities of rank at the first whiff of ‘agenda,’ regardless of its political stripe. It’s easy enough, and they have little social capital invested in the humanities. Nor do they know many people who do. . . . Unlike most of us, though, Cadets will flat-out ask in public how reading poems matters to future practitioners of their trade.

It’s a sincere question, a vital one. It belonged in the public sphere the first time I heard it in October 2016. . . . poetic speech can, at its thorniest, frame problems that cannot be reduced to partisan accolades, commodification, claptrap. It can render the crisp shadows of power under the thorns.

But this is work. Like most hard work, it is also humbling, if not downright humiliating.”

From “That Which is Difficult: Poetry at West Point” by Matt Salyer
Published in Plume: Online Poetry Magazine, Issue #87, November 2018

Bellevue Literary Review Editor-in-Chief Danielle Ofri welcome readers to the 35th issue with a newly redesigned journal, “a remarkable collaboration with students at the Parsons School of Design, under the direction of their teacher, the incomparable Minda Gralnek. The students were given free rein” to change the seventeen-year-old design that has been slowly morphing over the past few years: “. . . we moved from archival photos on the cover to contemporary art, in order to broaden our reach.”

Ofri assures readers that “it’s the literary content that really makes the journal, and we’d never conflate content with presentation. Cooks, though, know that food is always just that much tastier when you pull out the special-occasion china. So we offer up this first course to you, and hope that you find it savory – inside and out.”

This issues theme , “Dis/Placement,” brings together an introductory essay by Ha Jin, as well as new writing from Barron H. Lerner, Myra Shapiro, Hal Sirowitz, Sue Ellen Thompson, Eric Pankey, Dan Pope, Rachel Hadas, Prartho Sereno, and others, as well as cover art by Jonathan Allen.

BLR is looking for submission on the theme “A Good Life” – deadline January 1, 2019.

In his introduction the the Fall 2018 issue of Creative Nonfiction, Editor Lee Gutkind writes on the theme Risk as it relates to a writer’s life: “. . . although we may be safe from physical harm, all of us who write know that every hour we devote to our notepad or keyboard, every moment we stop and think and dwell on the thoughts and ideas that will, in one way or another, find life on a page or computer display, involves monumental risk.”

Read the full essay here.

“And the question is why are people so numb? I think they are awakening, and I’m very happy about that. But awakening has been so slow. And that’s the dark age. People are having a hard time gaining knowledge and wisdom. The educational systems are completely unreliable and full of land mines for most people. So, yes, it is a dark age, and you can only hope people will come out of it, but they have to turn off gadgets and start to talk to people. And the time is very short.”

From “A Conversation with Alice Walker” by Erik Gleibermann, World Literature Today, November-December 2018.

The issue also includes an excerpt from Walker’s “My 12-12-12” and a web exclusive interview “Translating Alice Walker: A Conversation with Manuel García Verdecia,” by Daniel Simon.

With its most recent edition, Black Warrior Review introduces the renaming of their online edition of the publication: Boyfriend Village.

The name comes a story written Zachary Doss, “The Village with All of the Boyfriends.” Zach was an editor with BWR  and beloved member of the literary community. He passed away in March 2018.

Brandi Wells writes, “Zach loved BWR before, during, and after he was editor there. It makes sense that he might be woven into the infrastructure in this way. I hope it is a space for weird voices and writers who are trying something new, something surprising.”

She offers readers this excerpt from Zach’s story: “The Village with All of the Boyfriends is where all of your boyfriends wind up eventually. You built this Village for them and they can’t leave and neither can you. You are not allowed inside, but you wait in the desert at the edge of town.”

Driftwood Press is kicking off their new Seminar Series with a five-week online Erasure Poetry Seminar lead by Jerrod Schwarz [pictured], instructor of creative writing at the University of Tampa. The seminar covers the history, practice, and importance of erasure poetry. The format is weekly video, writing prompts with feedback, a class-only Facebook group and YouTube channel. The course fee includes a copy of A Little White Shadow  by Mary Ruefle. Students will contribute to a Showcase Booklet which will be made available for free on Driftwood’s website and via their social media outlets.

Writers interested in attending the seminar must apply with writing sample and statement of interest no later than October 31. After selection, the course will run from November 12 – December 14.

Glimmer Train may be winding down, but its Bulletins with craft essays from writers continues a stongly as ever. The October 2018 installment features:

Writing Immigrant Stories by May-lee Chai [pictured]: “For American authors writing about a multicultural, globalized world, the issue of translation is unavoidable: what to put into English, what to leave in a mother tongue, and how to render the mixed-English that often is used in immigrant families.”

Novel and Story by William Luvaas: “For years, the novel was dominant, with its loud, broad-shouldered personality. Novel was so self-assured—something of a bully, really—while Story scurried about, mouse-like under the furniture, speaking in a whisper, fearing Novel would step on it. Then something unexpected happened.”

Tobias Wolff (from an interview by Travis Holland): “So when I would read a great story of Ray Carver’s, like ‘Errand’ or ‘Cathedral,’ my thought would be, ‘I want to write this well.’ Not write like him, because I knew I couldn’t. That was his world, his voice, all that.”

This and all previous bulletins are archived here.

“Literature is not efficient,” writes New England Review Editor Carolyn Kuebler in the Editor’s Note to V39 N3. “Reading it, writing it, and publishing it all require a seemingly unreasonable investment in time. Journals like ours take part in this economy of inefficiency by keeping our doors open to writing from everyone, everywhere.” She goes on to discuss the weight placed on editors to make selections from thousands of unsolicited submissions, which open publications with good reputations face.

“Because of this openness to new writing, we have to say ‘no’ far more often than we say ‘yes,’ which can give writers a kind of ‘who do they think they are’ feeling of resentment. It also sets literary editors up as gatekeepers, as if reading and evaluating manuscripts were in some way equivalent to being a bouncer at an exclusive nightclub or a troll under the bridge. To me, the problem with the image of a gatekeeper is that it implies that the lit mag is some steadfast entity that simply exists, and that editors are only blocking the way to it. But without the efforts of those same people who are reading the manuscripts, there would be no there there.”

Instead, Kuebler entreats readers (and writers) to consider “lit mags and their staff of editors and readers in terms of service,” with many of those working behind the scenes doing so for little or no pay, and putting “aside their own agendas and literary preferences, and often their own writing, in service of another’s.”

I get it. I hope others do, too. Thanks Carolyn – and countless other editors, readers, and all of those who give selflessly in the service of literature to make these publications ‘there.’

As always, Brevity’s craft essays cover a wide range of topics to interest any/every writer of “concise literary nonfiction,” and then some. The September 2018 installment features “Schizophrenia, Dandelions, Cookies, Floods and Scabs: Alternate Approaches” by Elizabeth Robinson; “Picturing the Hybrid Form” by Rebecca Fish Ewan [pictured], which offers readers “an illustrated crash course on graphic memoir”; and an exploration of “the interplay of language and visual arts” with Beth Kephart’s “Paynes Gray: When Watercolors Become Words.”

Congratulations to Boulevard on its 100th issue of fiction, poetry and essays. Special to this issue is a craft interview with Jane Smiley in which she discusses the “necessary ingredients” that went into the structure of her Last Hundred Years trilogy, what she was “obsessed with” when writing, and the impact of winning the Pulitzer. Also included is the Boulevard’s regular Symposium feature on the topic “Writing In the Donald Trump Age.” Contributors include Shara McCallum, Phong Nguyen, Daniel M. Mendoza, René Martínez, Meron Haredo, and Robert Zaller.

The Fall 2018 Still Point Arts Quarterly is a special issue titled “Four Freedoms Reinterpreted.” Editor Christine Brooks Cote writes in her introduction that the concept was inspired by Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 speech in which he specifically identified freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. She explains:

“Two years later The Saturday Evening Post  published four paintings by Norman Rockwell, each devoted to one of the Four Freedoms. There were accompanying essays written by respected writers of the day. Now seventy-five years later, it seems appropriate to revisit these ‘essential’ freedoms and think about where we stand today. . . This special issue is filled with art and writing from people who have something to say about freedom. It is both a celebration of who we are as a country and a cry for attention to the ways in which the foundations of our country are threatened. I hope you will be moved by this outpouring of love for our country and concern for our future.”

Readers can view a generous sample of the publication here.

Edify Fiction is seeking submissions for two upcoming themed issues. For the December 2018 issue, they are accepting pieces surrounding the topics of Christmas, holiday, and winter. Their January 2019 issue looks at all things teen – from teen writers to bullying, peer pressure, emotions, first love, best friends – and more.

When I asked Edify Fiction Editor Angela Meek [pictured] about the teen-themed CFS, she replied, “I was inspired recently to make a themed issue about teen concerns because of a story we recently accepted that incorporated the author’s own experiences as a teen and how those challenges shaped him. As a mom with a teen who is starting to stretch those wings and find her way in the world, I thought it would be a good time to have a dedicated issue.”

The call is a broad one, and Meek says they want it that way: “We’re pretty open as long as it is has a teen flavor to it – growing up, relationships, bullying, sports, siblings, dealing with parents, dealing with living in a divorced family, acceptance, school – you name it. As long as it is related to teens in some manner, any topic is welcomed. We also would love to feature as many teen writers as possible – from never-been-published to those writers who know their way around the writing world.”

For more information, check out Edify Fiction on Facebook and Twitter. Their general submissions guidelines can be found here, which apply for the themed issues as well. Deadline for both these themed issues is October 31, 2018.

I think most of us know some old home – a beautiful relic of an era long gone by that we believe holds family stories as well as secrets. And, sadly, we also watch many such structures rot away, lost in court battles or just cost of upkeep, often times being razed with whole histories erased with them. Georgia-based writer and documentary photographer Kathleen Galvin followed one such home for over a decade and tells the story of her attempts to salvage its history in Temptation to Trespass: A Photo Essay published in Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built + Natural Environments. Though the end result may not provide all the stories and secrets, such efforts give a last chance, perhaps a final story, to these great community structures.

Wordrunner eChapbooks publishes an annual themed anthology, taking submissions just prior to publication, but also then publishes two e-chapbooks of fiction each year. While they have a submission fee, they are also a paying market (with a better return than I’ve been getting for playing the lottery lately). “Our aim is to make high quality writing available free or at very low cost, much like the original chapbooks that were hawked in the streets of 18th and 19th century London for pennies,” the editors note. Yet web publishing opens up all kinds of new options for digital-aged readers: “In many issues, hyperlinks to photos, videos, background articles, maps, poetry, and artwork add new dimensions to the online reading experience.”

The current chapbook is Ovenbirds and Other Stories by Dorene O’Brien, with a full archive of previous e-chapbooks and anthologies going back to 2008. Submissions for the spring anthology will open January 1 with submissions for the e-chapbook fiction series running from May 1 – June 30. Lots of time to get your manuscripts ready!

“Rejection doesn’t have to be the end of the line” according to Carve Magazine. To which end, they include the coolest column in each issue: Decline/Accept, with commentary from a writer whose work, originally declined by Carve, has been accepted elsewhere. The author writes about their rejection/revision/acceptance, a snippet of the original work is included with Carve editors’ comments as well the snippet revised (if applicable) along with editors’ comments from the publication that accepted the work.

The Summer 2018 issue features Kelly Hill, whose story “The Bearded Loon” was published in the July 2017 issue of Upstreet. Hill comments on the rejection and subsequent acceptance, “I’ve been doing this writing thing long enough to understand that the story I set out to tell is not always the story I write or the story that others ultimately read. I’m always thankful for good feedback from insightful readers, although any feedback can be useful if it helps you mentally justify your stylistic choices.”

Decline/Accept is a great craft component for readers and writers alike, and you can see a full listing with links out (when available) to the final published work here.

IKEA CHOICES
by Ryan Thorpe

The family of three examines
the dining table for four,
calculating out their marriage
prospect. They are unsure
of the wood’s soft shine,
doubting it will survive past
two winters. . . 

[Love the way this poem ends. Read the rest in the Apple Valley Review online Spring 2018 issue.]

After nearly 30 years of continuous publication, Glimmer Train has announced that they will be closing shop after this next year of publication. Submissions are still being accepted to finish out with issue #106, but after that, sisters Linda Swanson-Davies and Susan Burmeister-Brown – or as we call them, The Glimmer Train Sisters – plan to retire the publication entirely.

While they have received many offers and inquiries to let others take over the renowned journal, The Sisters had already decided against this option. In a form letter response to such inquiries, The Sisters. . . 

Continue reading “Goodbye Glimmer Train”

In addition to celebrating its tenth anniversay of publication, the newest issue of Canada’s Hamilton Arts & Letters (11.1) is also a celebration of Bertrand Russell and the 50th Anniversary of the Russell Archives.

Guest Editor Rick Stapleton [pictured] writes in his introduction, “In 1968 McMaster University purchased the first instalment of the archives of Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), a vast collection of letters, manuscripts, photographs, books and other personal material of one of the 20th century’s greatest philosophers, writers, and peace activists. At the time, the 96-year-old Russell was in need of funds to support his peace work, and McMaster’s university librarian, William Ready—renowned for his ‘buccaneering’ style of acquiring collections—was able to bid successfully for the archives. Now, 50 years later, we celebrate that event with this special issue of Hamilton Arts & Letters magazine, devoted to Bertrand Russell.”

The issue is packed with poetry, artwork, and articles, including an Interview with Kenneth Blackwell, the original Bertrand Russell archivist by Wade Hemsworth; “’I Have Never Been a Complete Pacifist’: Bertrand Russell on Peace and War in the Twentieth Century” by Andrew Bone; “Bertrand Russell and The Revolution in Twentieth Century Philosophy” by Nicholas Griffin; “A Rivalry? – Russell’s Lovers, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Lady Constance Malleson” by Sheila Turcon; “Hanging out with Bertrand Russell” by Terry Fallis; and “Bertrand Russell: Remembering a Public Intellectual for Our Time” by Henry A. Giroux.

Hamilton Arts & Letters is an online publication; the full issue can be accessed here.

 

The Aquifer, the online journal of The Florida Review, is now accepting film and video work as they expand their visual arts and new media offerings for readers. 

“We are looking for experimental works of film or video that are 15 minutes or less and utilize moving images as a means to poetic expression, formal exploration, or abstract and open-ended narratives. Compelling, personal works that push the boundaries of cinematic convention will also be considered for publication.”

For more information, see the Aquifer announcement.

[The Florida Review 42.1 2018 cover art: Dengke Chen, “Tank Man,” digital illustration]