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CRAFT Literary – Summer 2019

craft literaryCRAFT Literary’s mission is to “explore the art of fiction with a focus on the elements of craft.” They do this through publishing fiction with commentary, pieces on craft, interviews, and more.

Recent publications include Cathy Ulrich’s flash fiction piece “Being the Murdered Extra.” Ulrich imagines the backstory for the quintessential crime show “dead girl.” Written in second person, readers are put in the place of the auditioning girl while still feeling disconnected (you’re dead after all) as the story moves on to breathe life into the background characters of the background character: her mother and her roommates. This story is accompanied by two paragraphs of commentary on the craft.

The “Craft” section of the website includes sections titled “Essays,” “Interviews,” “Books,” and “Roundups.” In “Books,” find reviews, and in “Roundups” check out lists like “TV Adaptations We Love” and “CRAFT Fiction by the Elements.” A recent interview with Ariel Gore is introduced by a bonus essay on Gore’s We Were Witches by interviewer Melissa Benton Barker.

Jody Hobbs Hesler in “If You Can Name It, You Can Fix It: A Craft Glossary” writes about the benefits of giving clear feedback during writing workshops. In the essay, she points out how it’s easy to provide feedback of what’s working, but harder to articulate what could use some help, so she offers her own help by pointing out some common issues such as “Cliches of the Body” or “Too Much Reality vs. Realism.” Hesler provides a convenient little glossary for writers and those who workshop.

CRAFT Literary provides a deeper look into fiction while offering writers plenty of material to help out with their own writing processes.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Blood Orange Review – Spring 2019

blood orange reviewThe latest issue of Blood Orange Review offers plenty of good writing, the nonfiction inviting readers to consider where they come from as the three writers do the same.

Melissa Matthewson answers the question of her essay’s title “Aren’t There Any Beautiful Things in Your Own Country?” with “Yes. No. Also, fewer.” A response to Susan Sontag’s “Unguided Tour,” Matthewson writes of the beauty living along the California/Mexico border, the beauty that continues to fade as time passes.

In “We Carry Smoke and Paper,” a desire to perform a Chinese red egg ceremony for her daughter’s one-month celebration leads Melody S. Gee to think about how she and her mother each fit into the label of “Chinese,” and how Gee particularly fits, raised in America for basically her entire life, daughter of a mother who single-handedly tries to keep her Chinese traditions alive. This is an insightful and revealing piece on cultural and familial identity.

Questioning familial identity is the backbone of “Crescent” by Rochelle Smith. The piece begins:“John Coltrane is my father. The jazz saxophonist, yes [ . . . ]. I’ve known this all my life. Or that’s not true, not all my life, really only since I first heard his music, which was in college.” Readers may have their doubts, but Smith backs up her claim with proof of how Kenneth, the man her mother marries, couldn’t possibly be her real father. “I’ll tell you two stories about Kenneth,” she says, letting the reader into her story, “and then you tell me.” But we find this is all wishful thinking, like the angsty teenage years where the flitting thought comes up: “maybe I am adopted—there’s no way I come from these people.”

Check out the nonfiction in the latest issue of Blood Orange Review and take some time to think about where you came from.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Apple Valley Review – Spring 2019

apple valley review v14 n1 spring 2019Our families and the people we care about affect much of how we feel or what we do in life, so it’s appropriate that many of the poems in the Spring 2019 issue of Apple Valley Review center on family.

Gail Peck’s speaker thinks of “The Perfume I Never Gave My Mother,” the scents of “flowers [ . . . ] desire [ . . . ] youth” clouding around her as her mother’s health fails, scents reminding her of the way her “mother loved flowers. [ . . . ] Always an arrangement / on her table that could take your breath away.” Mark Belair considers the silence and absence of his grandfather’s house after he dies, offering us a tiny glimpse through “the mail slot,” also the title of the piece. Seen through the innocent scope of the speaker’s childhood self gives us a refresher on loss as he fully understands it for maybe the first time.

Lynne Knight writes of two family members in her set of poems, her father in “At Twenty” and her sister in “After My Sister’s Mastectomy.” The former recounts a tumultuous relationship between father and daughter as she watches him angrily smoke cigarettes on the sidewalk below her apartment. Knight expertly captures the complicated push and pull of loving someone while hating parts of them at the same time:

hating his daughter
even as he loved her, for making him yield
to love’s weakness, its longing
for nothing to change.

The latter poem of Knight’s draws on images of outdoors and nature to explore the finiteness of life while encouraging us to appreciate the bits of beauty, wonder, and humor the outside world offers while we’re here.

In addition to these works, this issue offers much to discover, including two fiction pieces by Jeff Ewing and Jeff Moreland, poems by Doug Rampseck, and more.

 

Review by Katy Haas

American Literary Review – Summer 2019

american literary review spring 2019In the latest issue, American Literary Review brings readers the winners of the annual ALR Awards. The 2019 winners feature Ellen Seusy in poetry, Cady Vishniac in fiction, and Julialicia Case in nonfiction.

Seusy’s “The Spiral Jetty” is an ekphrastic poem about Robert Smithson’s titular art piece. Seusy’s speaker compares Smithson’s creation with six-year-olds creating bowls from mud and spit, pointing out how “It’s the making that matters most,” even now that “we’re / out of breath, still running. Still tasting / dirt and salt. The work holds water, still.” It isn’t the finished product or the public reception that matters most—it’s the act of creating.

The narrator in Vishniac’s “Bumper Crop” faces the consequences he’s created for himself. The main character—bitter and a bit insufferable after his recent separation from his wife—encounters chickens on the way to the daycare where he works, an interruption to his usual day of hitting on his co-teacher, being too protective of his son who attends the daycare, and holding grudges against children. Vishniac crafts an entertaining story with a satisfying karmic ending.

Karmic endings also come into play in Case’s “The Stories I Do Not Know For Sure.” The nonfiction piece centers on Case’s former coworker David and his wife Sandra. The two concoct stories about their lives, stories that eventually fall apart, revealing muddled truths underneath. Case ends the piece reflecting on the stories we tell and the realities they create, recreate, or destroy. The gripping piece almost reads like a thriller, each paragraph revealing a new detail about Case’s story and the stories David and Sandra weave.

The winners of the ALR Awards are a great introduction to American Literary Review, and this year’s contest is currently open for submissions until October.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Three Poems by Jeannine Hall Gailey

spoon river poetry review v44 n1 summer 2019A recent series of poems by Jeannine Hall Gailey in the Spoon River Poetry Review is a testament to the tenacity of poetry and its poet. In her first chapbook, Female Comic Book Superheroes (Pudding House Publishing, 2005), I met Gailey as a stealthy kick-ass feminist poet. Her works were subtle but fierce, drawing character, voice, and reader into a collective sense of powerful control. Her following five books continued on this vein through recurring themes of mythology, fairy tale, feminism, science, science fiction, and the apocalypse. Through the years, I also kept up with her blog, where she shared her diagnosis of MS. But, as she first noted, back in 2013, “. . . I don’t want to define myself by this or any of the other weirdo health stuff I have. I am maybe a mutant, but I have a lot of good things in my life too.”

Continue reading “Three Poems by Jeannine Hall Gailey”

Salamander – Summer 2019

salamander summer 2019After twenty-seven years, Jennifer Barber has left her position as Editor-in-Chief of Salamander. In the Summer 2019 issue, readers can find a portfolio, edited by Fred Marchant, dedicated to Barber’s work with Salamander over the years.

Location is a strong theme among these poems. Martha Collins writes of Santa Fe in “Passing,” flashes of scene and memory flitting by as she walks us through the streets; Valerie Duff sits at the titular “Fry’s Spring Filling Station” in Charlottesville, VA and thinks of the passage of time; Danielle Legros Georges lands in Cap-Haitien, Haiti in “Green Offering”; Yusef Komunyakaa quietly reflects on the train stop at Liberty Airport in Newark, NJ; and Gail Mazur considers hiking Ice Glen trails in Massachusetts, thoughts of romanticism and friendship drawing her there. If you’re unable to get out and travel this summer, take a mini literary vacation through this selection of Salamander.

Between those stops on the map are other great poems including “Selected Haiku for Jenny” by Maxine Hong Kingston, a set of three-lined stanzas that seem almost like a writing exercise to urge her to write, as it begins “There are days of no poems. / Not even 17 sounds will come.” And then later “Haiku master: ‘No need / for 17 syllables. [ . . . ] / Be free.” In “Recovery,” Jeffrey Harrison writes of a familiar feeling for me: the fear of breaking a favorite coffee cup. In one moment, he thinks he’s lost it, and in the next it’s still there, “its yellow somehow brighter,” better now that he’s felt its loss.

There are plenty more poems to check out in this portfolio, a fitting good-bye for Jennifer Barber and her dedicated work throughout the years.

 

Review by Katy Haas

What Do You Do With Your Books?

anthony varalloCrazyhorse Fiction Editor Anthony Varallo’s Editor’s Note to the Spring 2019 issue couldn’t be more timely. In it, he recounts a conversation with a colleague asking, “What do you do with all your books?”

A conundrum for most NewPages readers, no doubt, since being book people still means holding onto physical copies of books, no matter how many e-versions we could be reading also/instead.

I once envisioned the perfect adulthood as being one surrounded by books. I guess I also should have envisioned the time to read them all! Much like the Twilight Episode, Time Enough At Last, we here at NewPages find ourselves surrounded by books and literary journals with barely enough time to glance the covers and contents before another batch arrives in the mail.

We do make time, however, to read, to write reviews, to appreciate others’ reviews, and keep up with the literary world in general. Still – here are all these physical books.

Varallo [pictured] writes, “For many years, I acquired books with the idea that I was building a library. A library that would give me pleasure for years, I’d hoped, or a library that might be useful to others . . . “

We had also held such visions at one time, purchasing a dozen or so quality bookcases and having some built in. They quickly filled the office and spilled into numerous rooms in our home. And who read them? Did we have time? Did they even “look good” ? As Varallo comments, “I tell my colleague about the tower of books on my nightstand, the one that stretches higher than my lamp. I describe the books stacked horizontally on my bookshelves, not in the artful, decorative style you sometimes see in glossy magazines; these are stacks of pure necessity. Books piled on top of other books, sometimes bending the covers of the books beneath them.”

This is the reality of ‘too many books.’ Yes, there is such a thing as too many books. And the truth of the matter in our case is, they should be freed onto others so that they can be read.

We cleared off the bookshelves in the office. Cleared out almost every bookcase in the house. We boxed up books and magazines and donated them to various libraries, colleges, universities and K-12 classrooms in our area and a bit beyond (Hello Alaska friends!). After this initial clearing out, we are still met with a steady stream of books and lit mags that come through. It is our work, after all.

What to do with them? We have a plan hatching and look forward to sharing it with you later this summer. In the meantime, What do you do with all your books?

Concho River Review – Spring/Summer 2019

concho river review v33 n1 spring summer 2019It doesn’t matter if you gravitate toward fiction, nonfiction, or poetry when cracking open a new issue of literary magazine—the Spring/Summer 2019 Concho River Review has you covered.

John Blair kicks off the issue with “The Glass Mountain,” a piece that drips dark energy. Ray’s young, troubled niece moves in with him and his wife after her mother dies. Sexual and violent tension build throughout the story, finally culminating in an explosion of darkness.

In nonfiction, Brandon Daily revisits a dark time in his own life in “A Moment In Our Life, Again,” an intimate taste of the turmoil a couple feels when trying for children and experiencing multiple miscarriages. Daily gives the point of view of the father in the heartbreaking scenario, his pain orbiting his wife’s. The piece takes place as Daily waits outside the bathroom door, waiting for bad news, and then moves backward to shed light on the years and previous miscarriages that led up to this one, the moment suspended, hanging over readers like a shadow.

The issue concludes with twenty-seven poems by twenty-seven poets. Some of my favorites include “Migratory Bird Count” by Walter Bargen, a light piece on perception; “Some Good News” by Grant Clauser who points out the little bits of human kindness and comfort we can cling to; “AX” by Timothy Krcmarik, a small study on the speaker’s five-year-old son; and “Hunger” by Elena Lelia Radulescu, wives’ tales exploring the delicate balance of loneliness. Regardless of which poem a reader decides to start with, all are straight forward narratives telling stories in clear voices.

Both poetry and prose in this issue of Concho River Review promise readers a satisfying selection.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Converse College Low-Res Celebrates Ten Years

lisa hase jacksonWish I could have been at this party: Ciclops Cyderie and Brewery in Spartanburg, SC created a beer release of “Sense and Sprucability – A Writer’s Tale,” based on a recipe by home brewer Jane Austen to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Converse College Low-Residency MFA. At the same event, South 85 Journal, the semi-annual online literary journal published by the MFA program, welcomed Lisa Hase-Jackson [pictured] as their new Managing Editor. Hase-Jackson is herself a published poet and served as Review Editor of 85 South Journal  in the past. Read more about the upcoming change here.

Bending Genres Monthly Online Workshops

nancy stohlmanBending Genres online literary journal offers monthly online weekend genre workshops. For $111 each, writers can sign up for “Mutate Through the Five Elements: Flash Your Fleshy Pearls” July 12- 14 with Meg Tuite, “Opening the Back Door: Absurdism as a Way to Truth” August 23 – 25 with Nancy Stohlman [pictured], and “Human Typography: Sculpting Surprising, Broken – and Real – Characters for More Compelling Stories” September 20 – 22 with Robert Russell. For more information about each workshop and registration, click here.

About Place and Dignity as an Endangered Species

about place journalPublished by the Black Earth Institute, dedicated to re-forging the links between art, spirit, and society, the May 2019 issue of About Place is themed “Dignity As An Endangered Species.”

Issue Editor Pamela Uschuk notes that the editors “chose work that addressed the question, what is dignity?” from the starting point that “dignity is endangered during these times.” Assistant Editor CMarie Fuhrman asserts, “It is necessary that we begin to define, for ourselves and as a Nation, that which makes us human, humane.” And Assistant Editor Maggie Miller explores the concept of dignity and closes her preface: “With chin up, shoulders back, we too go forward – with dignity given not  taken away.”

Contributors to the issue include Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, Jacqueline Johnson, Patricia Spears Jones, Fenton Johnson, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Linda Weasel Head, Kelle Groom, Maria Melendez Kelson, Cornelius Eady, Sagirah Shahid, Inés Hernández-Ávila, Gerald L. Coleman, K.LEE, K. Eltinaé, and Kimberly Blaeser.

Submissions for the next issue of About Place Journal are being accepted until August 1, 2019 on the theme: “Infinite Country: Deepening Our Connection to Place, Culture and One Another.” Editor Austin Smith and Assistant Editors Taylor Brorby and  Brenna Cussen Anglada.

Driftwood Press – Issue 6.1

driftwood press v6 n1 january 2019In 2018, Driftwood Press began accepting graphic work for their book publishing arm, and as readers wait for their chance to pick up a new graphic novel, they can check out the graphic work in the literary magazine. The current issue published at the start of 2019 features three selections in graphic works: “LaughTrack” by J. Collings, “The Salton Sea” by Cindy House, and “Émigré Animals” by Jason Hart.

In “The Salton Sea,” House writes of her young son who, after refusing to complete a project, is given an alternate assignment at school. House’s eager willingness to patiently teach her poet son how to navigate in a world that doesn’t completely suit him is palpable in her poetic language and minimal illustrations, a touching piece.

Hart uses topiary animals to explore the immigrant experience in “Émigré Animals,” a man showcasing his resiliency as he creates the animals of his home country along the streets of his new home. The images of this comic reminded me of a children’s book, and I could easily see Hart’s topiary artist inhabiting a longer, expanded story.

“LaughTrack” is creative in its wordlessness; the only dialogue in the comic are streams of “hahahaha” laughter written in red. A man, miserable in his day to day life, feeds off the laughter he gleans from others, culminating in one final letdown. Despite the sullen tone hanging over the comic, the bright colors and sketchy lines make for a visually enjoyable read.

None of the three comics in Issue 6.1 of Driftwood Press are alike. Each brings something different to the table—different art styles, writing styles, subject matter—and I look forward to discovering even more comics offered in future issues and novels from Driftwood Press.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Editors Talk Poetry Acceptances

The editors of Frontier Poetry, in keeping with their mission “to provide practical help for serious writers,” especially emerging poets, has a series of interviews – Editors Talk Poetry Acceptances – with “great editors from around the literary community.” Frontier Poetry asks for “frank thoughts on why poems may get accepted/rejected from their own slush pile of submissions, and what poets can do to better their chances.”

esther vincentAdding an interview almost every month, Frontier Poetry has so far interviewed Kristin George Bagdanov of Ruminate Magazine, Rick Barot of New England Review, Chelene Knight of Room, Esther Vincent [pictured] of The Tiger Moth Review, Talin Tahajian of Adroit Journal, J.P. Dancing Bear of Verse Daily, Gabrielle Bates of Seattle Review, Melissa Crowe of Beloit Poetry Journal, Marion Wrenn of Painted Bride Quarterly, Hannah Aizenman of The New Yorker, Anthony Frame of Glass Poetry, Luther Hughes of The Shade Journal, Don Share of Poetry, Sumita Chakraborty of Agni, Jessica Faust of The Southern Review, and Kwame Dawes of Prairie Schooner.

“Where Am I?” by Heather Sellers

true story i27 2019If my mother and I walk out of a store into the center of the mall or exit a building onto any town’s main street, there’s a 95% chance she’ll ask me which way we came from and which way we’re now headed. If we park in a crowded lot, she follows as I lead to her hidden car. When I’m with her, I am the navigator, the way-finder.

In Issue 27 of True Story, Heather Sellers explores a ramped-up version of this particular problem with “Where Am I?”

The 33-page nonfiction piece begins in an airport, Sellers struggling to find her way out to her car. From here, we work back, finding this was always an issue, cultivated when she was young as her mother struggled with mental illness and her father with alcoholism. Knowing which way to turn, when it’s okay to turn on a red light, how to navigate a college campus or a familiar neighborhood, recognizing faces—this is all foreign to Sellers. However, Sellers writes all of this straightforwardly and clearly as if she’s describing how we can make it out of an airport, a route we can effortlessly follow, her words a way-finder at our side.

After tracing back to examine the possible source of this predicament, she puts a name to it: prosopagnosia or topographical agnosia. Once it has a name, it’s easier to understand and cope with, which leads to the deeper point of Sellers’ piece. In witnessing others struggle, she notes that she’s not uniquely alone, and she realizes the compassion and patience she shows others lost with or around her. This sympathy is missing when dealing with her own directional mishaps, the rest of the piece a steady reminder for readers to treat ourselves and others with more compassion as we find our ways through the world.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Speer Morgan on the Resiliency of Literature

SpeerMorganThe basic stories in much of our canon of literature are hardly subtle. Their power and wisdom come from the discoveries about human nature and behavior through characters and their struggles. Beware of pride-bound, stubborn, pigheaded leaders—yes and beware of the idea that the themes of classic literature are “irrelevant” today. The resiliency of literature comes also in the clear and perfect expression of the moments and moods of life through language, many examples of which cannot be forgotten—Hamlet with the skull of his jester, Keats and his nightingale, or the sheer poignancy of Nick Carroway at the end of Daisy’s dock, looking out on the green light, thinking “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Speer Morgan, “Collisions,” The Missouri Review, Spring 2019

CFS Contemporary Chicanx Writers

cutthroatCutthroat: A Journal of the Arts is collaborating with Black Earth Institute on the publication of a major anthology of contemporary Chicanx writers. Until August 1, 2019, they are accepting submissions of Chicanx poetry and prose from across the country.

The editors for this collection will be Luis Alberto Urrea, Pam Uschuk, Matt Mendez, Beth Alvarado, William Pitt Root, Carmen Calatayud, Carmen Tafolla, Octavio Quintanilla, Theresa Acevedo, Denise Chavez and Edward Vidaurre.

Submission Guidelines: “We are looking for Chicanx writers of poems and prose, from the rasquache to the refined. We want writing that goes deep into the culture and reveals our heritage in new ways. We want experiences, from blue collar gigs to going into higher education and pursuing PhDs. We want work that challenges. That is irreverent. That is both defiant and inventive. That is well-crafted. That is puro Chicanx. We acknowledge Chicanx is an attitude that may intersect with Latinx.”

For more information, visit the Cutthroat website.

“Pro-Choice Stories” – Jellyfish Review

jellyfish review blogIn response to the recent abortion bans in the United States, Jellyfish Review has been publishing a series of “Pro-Choice stories” with their usual selections. In the days surrounding the bans, my social media accounts exploded with people in my life coming forward with their own abortion stories, each of their needs and wants behind their choices unique. The Pro-Choice stories of Jellyfish Review mimic this: varying voices and points of view from different walks of life, all of them valid.

“Now That I’m Being Honest” by Holly Pelesky is addressed to the child the narrator planned to abort and didn’t, back before she found her voice, highlighting how important the ability to make a choice is in a life. In “A Fetus Walks into a Bar,” Jonathan Cardew’s imagined fetus is cold-blooded and gun-toting, leading readers to consider the rights afforded gun owners vs. uterus owners.

“None of It Was Easy” by Meghan Louise Wagner is a short, thirteen-part nonfiction piece that walks through each step, from the first hint that Wagner is pregnant to the afternoon the day of her abortion, ending with the sentence “I felt sick and empty but, most of all, I felt relieved,” her relief palpable.

Filled with tension is “The Morning After” by Andrea Rinard, a mother supporting her daughter after her daughter’s assault, the desire to protect her battling with the knowledge that she must let her daughter make her own choices.

The stories continue, each different, each important. The editors include links to pro-choice organizations after every piece, inviting readers to continue to support the choices others make for their bodies, all as different and important and valid as the stories Jellyfish Review presents.

 

Review by Katy Haas

Writers Consider #MeToo Now

Perle BessermanThe Courtship of Winds each issue asks five questions of writers whose work has previously appeared in the online publication. The Winter 2019 Digital Forum invited Perle Besserman [pictured], Sandra Kohler, Denise Kline, and Jennifer Page to respond to questions to discuss how they see the #MeToo movement now – post initial profound effect, post backlash, post Kavanaugh hearings, and post Christine Blasey Ford testimony.

The writers each responded to five questions posed by the editors, including the Kavanaugh hearings, Trump’s mocking Al Franken’s stepping down, “utilitarian calculus” as addressed by Sonia Sadha, the impact of movements like this, and any inherent ‘dangers’ for men and women in our current climate of accusations and speaking up.

Sven Birkerts on Writing and Connection

sven birkerts agni“In my view, writing, at least literary writing, is not just a matter of inventing out of whole cloth or drawing on things we remember, but also of accessing sought-for words and connections. Do we, when we’re writing, reach in  to actively find the parts of our next sentences, or are those ‘given’ to us? It often feels like the latter, which naturally makes me wonder through what agency. As Joseph Brodsky wrote somewhere, life is a gift, and where there is a gift there must be a giver.”

Sven Birkerts, “Losing, Finding, Improvising,” Agni 89

“A Fractured Atlas” by Alex Clark & “Remember the Earth” by Angelique Stevens

booth v13 winter 2019The cover of Booth’s Winter 2019 issue invites readers in with little square scenes of bright colors and caricatures, with text promising the Nonfiction Prize winners inside. Of the four pieces selected by Judge Brian Oliu, two touched me most: “A Fractured Atlas” by Alex Clark and “Remember the Earth” by Angelique Stevens.

In the first, Clark recounts the fractured memory of being molested as a child by a friend’s father. Points of view are manipulated. “Her” becomes “you” which sometimes slips into first person: “you grow my nails out.” Throughout the piece, names are redacted, reduced to “(    )” for the friend and “//    //” for the father/abuser. The switches in POV, these redactions, font changes, and layering of text and image parallel the ways memory works. Details are left out, forgotten, rearranged, repeated, layered with other memories. Each page feels like decoding a map, like uncovering a new memory, a truly inventive piece of nonfiction.

In “Remember the Earth,” Stevens explores the idea of death, of what and who we leave behind. After her sister Gina’s suicide, she faces their tumultuous relationship and the years, months, and days that lead up to Gina’s death. She tries make sense of the timeline that brought both of them there. A tender and intimate work, Stevens packs so much raw emotional energy into one short piece, I had to read it in little bursts.

Both deserved of placing in the Nonfiction Prize, Clark and Stevens peel back layers of their memories. While constructed completely differently, both give stark and honest examinations of a moment in each of their lives.

 

Review by Katy Haas

David Lynn Steps Down from Kenyon Review

Having served as editor of Kenyon Review since 1994, David Lynn will be stepping down next spring. The publication board, staff and college will be setting a timeline for the application process to consider candidates this upcoming fall or winter. The submission period for this year will be limited as a result of this transition. “In anticipation of a new editor’s arrival, we must maintain space in upcoming issues, so we will be limiting our open period of submissions to September 15-October 1, 2019,” writes Alicia Misarti, The Kenyon Review Director of Operations.

Fortunately, Lynn plans to remain active at Kenyon College, as the college president Sean M. Decatur notes, “We’ve already been in conversations on some ideas about other initiatives involving writing and literature for the College.”

Our thanks to David Lynn for his years of commitment to the literary community as editor, and our best to all at Kenyon Review during this time of change.

“Gentrification” by Tiana Clark

southeast review v37 n1 2019Spanning four pages of The Southeast Review (37.1), Tiana Clark’s “Gentrification” conjures up hidden details, the poem’s speaker talking in wisps, the ghosts of a summer past haunting the neighborhood in East Nashville where she used to live and which has now been gentrified. The speaker discusses the ways in which her body—a woman of color’s body—fits into this forgotten space:

                  and I had never tried cocaine before,
        until you tricked me [ . . . ]
and other men laughed and you laughed and I laughed too,

but I didn’t know what was so funny. I didn’t know
when something was at my expense. I was the only girl there too.
                I’ve always been the only girl there
    inside a house with men, being duped by men, waxing their backs [ . . . ]

Repeatedly, she finds herself in moments like this, moments of emotional or physical violence: her boyfriend feeds her then calls her fat, she does drugs in a backseat, she has drunken fights in the street, she reveals the “vulnerable part” of her neck as she once “grasp[ed] at white men for attention,” her body becoming another gentrified space.

The scenes come quickly as if Clark is quickly scrawling these memories down before she can forget them, wrapping readers in the heat and tension of that summer, unflinching as she reveals the underbelly, the ugliness, the truths about her home and herself. Take some time to sink into “Gentrification,” then, like me, check out Clark’s books of poetry: I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (University of Pittsburgh Press, September 2018), and Equilibrium (Bull City Press, 2016).

 

Review by Katy Haas

CNF Tiny Truths Tweet Contest

Creative Nonfiction invites writers to follow @cnfonline on Twitter, then tell a true story in the length of a tweet with #cnftweet to have that writing considered for publication in the “Tiny Truths” section of the print magazine.

karen zeyThe Spring 2019 issue includes fourteen tiny essays on a range of topics including ‘caregiving for a parent with dementia’ (ChrisGNguyen), finding a single cigarette butt in the driveway every day (GitaCBrown), a family’s welcome back “as if no time had passed” (MPMcCune2), going home “in my dreams” (sevans_writer), ‘a musician explaining his song title’ (ZippyZey aka Karen Zey – pictured), doing the hokey pokey so as not to look a fool (by ridiculoustimes) and memories stirred by listening to the news (mjlevan).

The Cape Rock – Number 47

cape rock 2019It only takes looking at some of the poem titles in The Cape Rock #47 to get that this slim volume published out of Southeast Missouri State University is poetry by and for the people: “Dad’s Skoal Can” and “Song of the Opossum” by January Pearson; “Toilet Cubicle” by Steve Denehan; “Trimming My Father’s Toenails” by Cecil Sayre; “Long Distance Dating for the Elderly” by Mark Rubin. Not meaning to be dismissive in perhaps attributing these works as common, the craft and skill exhibited in them speaks to the draw of the publication and the selective capabilities of a strong editorial staff.

There are many single stunning contributions: Danielle Hanson’s poem titled “How to Tell This Wilted Dogwood Petal From Starlight” continues “Both have fallen from some level of sky. / Lay down and let’s discuss this rationally.” commanding the reader’s experience of the tangible and intangible; the three lines of “Years Later” by Ryan Pickney will leave readers speechless; Jeff Hardin’s “This Only Place” examines a series of moments under the poet’s microscope, opening, “This easy weightlessness along the earth I owe / to having heard the heron‘s wings the moment / it alighted then decided otherwise and lifted off.”

Offering multiple poems by individual writers is a welcome attribute, and the closing four by Claire Scott exemplify the ability of many of the poets included to manage a range of subject and style. Her poignant “At Eighty” reads at a bit of a romp thanks to line breaks like:

webs stitched
with tar
nished moments
emptied
of light
spun with mum
bled strands
of prayer to
missing gods
shape
less days

At 86 pages, 43 poets, 69 poems: The Cape Rock is a venerable journal of poetry that both makes connections and distinctions.

 

Review by Denise Hill

Cave Wall Poetry Revision Issue

cave wallCave Wall 15 includes a focus on revision. The ‘artwork’ for this issue consists of fifteen early draft images of some of the poems included. The cover art is actually Emma Bolden’s draft of “Easter Sunday.” Other authors whose drafts are included: Matthew Thorburn, Billy Reynolds, Chelsea Wagenaar, Jessica Cuello, Peter Kline, and Molly Spencer.

In addition, Cave Wall interviewed poets from this issue about their revision process and published those as a PDF on their website. Poets interviewed include Kasey Jueds, Matthew Thorburn, Tori Reynolds, Emma Bolden, Christopher Buckley, Molly Spencer, Billy Reynolds, Peter Kline, Carrie Green, Elizabeth Breese, John Sibley Williams, Chelsea Wagenaar, Lola Haskins, and Celisa Steele.

This issue combined with these Q&As would make an excellent teaching resource!

“Dayspring” by Anthony Oliveira

anthony oliveira dayspringIt was the illustration by Ricardo Bessa that originally drew me to Anthony Oliveira’s [pictured] short and poetic “Dayspring.” The image caught my eye as I scrolled down the front page of Hazlitt: browns and tans and reds, one man lying on another’s chest, their beards brushing; the embracing figures exude warmth and intimacy as sunlight filters through leaves above them. The story behind this depiction imagines (an unnamed) John, “the disciple whom he loved,” as Jesus’ lover in the days before the crucifixion.

Writing in short poetic bursts, Oliveira roots the story in two religious parables or folktales, one involving a donkey, the other involving a nun. The conversation shows Jesus’ words in red, the two speaking in modern vernacular, including “dudes” and “what the fucks,” making the characters more relatable. The red is striking on the screen whenever Jesus speaks, and these two stories give us something to come back to—something to be anchored to in the chaos that follows.

I couldn’t help thinking of Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles while reading “Dayspring” as both pieces of writing display a mythological queer relationship of love and gentleness with a strong foreshadowing of violence and tragedy. Knowing the story of Jesus and his crucifixion, you can guess where Oliveira ends up taking us: to Gethsemane where everything falls apart, where Jesus is arrested, and the chain of events leading to his death begins, only this time we see it through the eyes of the one he loved.

While the piece is short and a sparsely written, the language is strong and beautifully built up. Oliveira writes with a poetic voice that eases readers in and creates the warmth that Ricardo Bessa’s illustrations kindle.

Rattle Tribute to Instagram Poets

rattleThe Summer 2019 issue of Rattle includes a “Tribute to Instagram Poets.” The editor’s preface explains that the poems were originally published on Instagram, which uses captions that are included along with the poems. The editors assert that the poems were selected based “on their own merits and not the popularity of their authors.”

Some works include long poetic commentary, such as Benjamin Aleshire’s “Good Manners,” while others, such as Luigi Coppola’s and Jeni D La O’s only include a user name and series of hashtags. When applied, the hashtags range from simply labeling the obvious (#poetry #poem) to adding to the poetic image/text in the Instagram, as in Vini Emery’s: “All of the things that have been done to me have been done with out me.” hashtagged: #disassociation #trauma #power. Because the image is of handwritten text, it’s actually difficult to decipher if there is a space or not between “with” and “out,” which seems fitting for the work that this should be ambiguous.

Still other poems, such as Raquel Franco’s, add comment text without hashtags: “You are more than paper thin. / You are more than sad girl. / You are ink + paragraphs, / an anthology of purpose.” with “You are more than your circumstance.” as added comment.

A unique feature to include in this issue of Rattle, and one that opens whole new dialogues for poetry writing, reading, and analysis.

Review by Denise Hill

Looking for a Lit Mag to Run?

scott douglassIn his Spring 2019 “Welcome Readers” section, founder and editor M. Scott Douglass explains his plan to “retire from editing” Main Street Rag.

In making such a proclamation, Douglass comments, “the assumption is that you (I) are/am going out of business. That’s not the plan.” Having already sold off the production equipment for the publishing arm of MSR, Douglass is moving to the next step: “find a suitable replacement to edit the journal (and possibly books). I’d like to be able to bring this person along slowly, train them in the use of software, deadlines, scheduling, etc., but as soon as you hang a sign that says, ‘Looking for new leadership,’ again, everyone thinks you’re on your deathbed and avoids you.”

“We’re not dying. I’m not dying. We have no debt, so we’re not in financial difficulty.” Instead, Douglass notes, after nearly twenty-five years, it’s just time for him to focus on his own “muse” and get out from behind the desk to travel more.

“So, if you know someone looking to take over a literary house who’s willing to put in some training time, send them my way. There may be a place for them here.”

 

A Gettysburg Tribute to Peter Stitt

peter stittIn 2016, Peter Stitt, founding editor of The Gettysburg Review, retired as editor-in-chief and Mark Drew stepped into the role. In May 2018, Stitt passed away at age 77.

The Winter 2018 issue features a tribute to Stitt, with contributions from Floyd Collins, Sidney Wade, Philip Schultz, Linda Pastan, Albert Goldbarth, Christopher Howell, Hope Maxwell Snyder, Michael Waters, Rebecca McClanahan, and a closing poem by Peter Stitt, “Winter Search.”

Kenyon Review Nature’s Nature

kenyon reviewKenyon Review Editor David Baker opens the May/June 2019 issue with his commentary on the annual “Nature’s Nature” theme. In response to our having witnessed “the Trump administration take further steps to release two hundred thousand more acres of public land—this time in Utah along the Canyonlands and the Green River—to ‘development,'” Baker notes that “Greed, stupidity, and fever for power are not new to our country or even our species—read Shakespeare, Dante, Homer—but the velocity of unfixable damages and the extent of losses are without precedent.”

Baker asks, “Are we one or two generations away from the point of no return for environmental stability? Is ours the last generation with hope of preventing or slowing a massive disaster? Is it too late? The calculations come every week, with variables, but the constant alarm is the same.”

This is what compelled him, he recounts, “to curate a special feature on ecology and poetry . . . I wanted to showcase new poems that resisted such forms of power and that named one by one the spectacular, beautiful, and often endangered citizens of the natural world.”

Now an annual issue, the writers featured each year are purposefully diverse in that the publication does not choose the same authors to appear more than once. The compilation features twenty-seven new poems, one essay, and two portfolios of artwork. For a full list of content with some selections available to read online, visit the Kenyon Review.

The Common Stories from Syria

commonIssue No. 17 of The Common includes a special portfolio of stories from Syria, with works by Luqman Derki (Trans. Jonathan Wright), Shahla Al-Ujayli (Trans. Alice Guthrie), Mohammad Ibrahim Nawaya (Trans. Robin Moger), Raw’a Sunbul (Trans. Alice Guthrie), Haidar Haidar (Trans. Jonathan Wright), Odai Al Zoubi (Trans. Robin Moger), Colette Bahna (Trans. Robin Moger), and Ibrahim Samuel (Trans. Maia Tabet), as well as artwork from Syria, courtesy of the Hindiyeh Museum of Art.

The Common website features full content online as well as a supercool interactive map [pictured] of the issue – click on the geographical marker and get a photo and link to the content.

For teachers: The Common offers supplementary teaching materials for each issue. A classroom subscription includes two issues for every student and an in-person or Skype visit from Editor in Chief Jennifer Acker or a participating author.

Happy Anniversary Raleigh Review!

raleigh reviewWith its Spring 2019 issue, Raleigh Review celebrates nine years of continuous publication. As they head into their tenth year, Editor and Publisher Rob Greene notes, “we realized it was time to reward our staff members who do the work on the magazine, so in addition to increasing the amount we’re paying to our poets, writers, and visual artists by a third, we are finally beginning to take small strides to help reward our telecommuting and highly skilled editorial staff who are based throughout the country and at times the world.”

Congratulations to Raleigh Review for providing a venue for writers, artists, and readers – and sharing how important financial support and subscriptions are to our community!

What Makes Sky Island Journal Unique

sky islandJason Splichal, Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Sky Island Journal writes in his opening letter to Issue 7: “We are different from other literary journals in so many ways. While we appreciate and respect the paths that other publications have taken, it has been clear from the beginning that the path less taken will always be our path. The rugged independence and relentless tenacity required to stay on that path helps us to be mindful; every step we take should be made with kindness and humility. Reading and responding to every submission, then having the ability to share the work of writers from around the world with readers from around the world, are privileges beyond the telling. We’re so grateful for our contributors and our readers.”

Writers on Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens, etc.

suzanne highland wsProduced within the MFA at Eastern Washington University, Willow Springs literary magazine features writers from their current print issue online.

Featured from Willow Springs 83 are four poems by Maggie Smith (an interview with her is included in the print publication), “The Collector” by Suzanne Highland, “The Year We Lived” by Breanna Lemieux, and “Bless the Feral Hog” by Laura Van Prooyen.

With each feature, the author offers notes on the work as well as whatever random musings they might want to include under the fun title “Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens. etc..”

In her responses, Suzanne Highland [pictured] shares, “I have two tattoos: one says ‘in medias res and the other says ‘(write it!).’ I’m wildly attached to both, but one would have to be to get tattoos like those in the first place, I think.”

Ruminate on 50

Reflecting on Ruminate’s 50th Anniversary issue, Editor Brianna VanDyke writes that when Thích Nhất Hạnh was asked, “Is there a purpose for wearing the robe other than to clothe your body?” He replied, “To remind yourself that you are a monk.”

brianna van dyke

“I wonder,” VanDyke goes on, “if one day you or I might also be asked a question about reminding ourselves of who we are.” 

She goes on to explore what those ‘reminders of self’ might be, adding, “something about this dream I hold, that these pages continue to be a reminder for fifty more good issues, how the very best stories and art and poems remind us of who we are, why we matter, our longings, our deepest work this day.”

Hear, hear!

Colorado Review Editor’s Blog

Editorial insights abound at the Colorado State University Center for Literary Publishing Editor’s Blog. Home of the Colorado Review as well as several esteemed annual literary prizes, Center Director Stephanie G’Schwind has both breadth and depth in her staff contributors.

colorado reviewRecent posts include:

“Looking toward Spring with Place-Based Writing” by Editorial Assistant Jennifer Anderson

“Revisiting the Holocaust Metaphors of Sylvia Plath” by Editorial Assistant Leila Einhorn

“Procedures for the Slowpoke Poet” by Associate Editor Susannah Lodge-Rigal

“On Love Poetry” by Associate Editor Daniel Schonning

The blog also features links to monthly podcasts: February 2019 Podcast: Writing on Mental Health with Margaret Browne; January 2019 Podcast: Horror Poetry with Emma Hyche; and more.

Check it out here. 

The Boardman Review – Issue 6

boardman review i6If your interest is in the outdoors as well as the arts, something fresh and new, The Boardman Review is an excellent choice. Subtitled “the creative culture & outdoor lifestyle journal of northern Michigan,” this print and digital journal includes literature, music, lifestyle profiles, and documentaries that focus on the work and lives of creative people who express their love of the outdoors without trying to promote their talent. This last issue of 2018 provides a promise of even more fascinating work during the coming year.

Continue reading “The Boardman Review – Issue 6”

Georgia Review Stephen Corey Steps Down

After announcing in November 2018 that he would be stepping down as editor of The Georgia Review, Stephen Corey offers readers an update on his departure in the Spring 2019 editorial: 

steve coreyAs I write now, during the middle days of February, hard upon our Spring 2019 deadline, the dice are still not fully cast for my successor or my exact departure date – and so I will be brief again: the earliest I would step away is 1 June, at which time our Summer 2019 issue will literally be in press and the preparation of the Fall 2019 contents will be in full swing, so my ghost will be around for at least some aspects of the latter. The goal for me, for the rest of the Georgia Review  staff, and for the University of Georgia, is a transition that will be as smooth as possible for our submitters, contributors, and readers.

I will close with a few words (because I have been asked for them) about the why  of my departure from the place of employment to which I have given more than half of my life, and which I have served through almost  (just one year shy of) half of the journal’s life. I’ve been pondering and preparing for a couple of years, with no pressure from anyone other than myself. I’m seventy, I’m healthy, I have several books of my own writing to finish and begin – and I haven’t even toured Great Britain yet, that realm so vital from early days to my being drawn into this literature/reading/writing/editing life.

To be continued…

S.C.

W.S. Merwin in Memoriam

merwinThe Kenyon Review offers readers In Memoriam, “a space for remembering notable contributors to the pages of KR. We regret the loss of their voices from the world of arts and letters.”

In honor of W.S. Merwin, Kenyon Review  Poetry Editor David Baker writes, “No contemporary poet’s work has meant more to me than W. S. Merwin’s. We first met in 1979, when I was a twenty-four-year-old high school English teacher in Jefferson City, Missouri; we played pool at Dave’s Bar in Kansas City one night, and he told me I shouldn’t go do my PhD but stay out of academia and write.”

Read the rest of Baker’s comments here along with Merwin’s works published in KR and a link to video interview with KR editor David Lynn and David Baker upon Merwin’s accepting the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement in 2010.

GT Craft Essays at the Tipping Point

siamak vossoughiGlimmer Train March 2019 Bulletin offers an interesting selection of craft essays, each just at a tipping point of controversy.

“Words, and Barry Hannah, the Guy Who Taught Me to Love Them” by Marian Palaia shares how Hannah’s voice and vernacular influenced her early on, although now she comments, “if Barry were writing the same stuff now, I can’t imagine how he’d get away with it.”

Devin Murphy’s “We All Do It! Don’t We? The Art of Reading Like a Thief” examines the fine line of “Did I plagiarize the novel I’d read?” He comments on his own teaching and trying to help student writers “understand the value of actively reading for material that will help them deepen their own stories.”

“What interests me about politics in fiction,” writes Siamak Vossoughi [pictured], “is how it informs the lives of characters.” In his essay, ‘The Political Lives of Characters,” he asserts, “A writer only runs the risk of being preachy or dogmatic if he or she makes a character of one political belief less three-dimensional and human than that of another.”

 

Read Rattle Young Poets

rypaSubscribers to Rattle poetry magazine get bonus in their mailbox with each spring issue: Rattle Young Poets Anthology. If you’re not a subscriber, RYPA can be ordered separately for just $6.

The 2019 issue is a 48-page chapbook of work by twenty poets age fifteen or under, but don’t let the age line fool you. Rattle editors write that this “is not a collection just for kids—these are missives to adults from the next generation, confronting big topics with fresh eyes and a child-like spontaneity.”

Contributors include Lucia Baca, Angélica Borrego, Olivia Bourke, April Chukwueke, Lexi Duarte, Josephina Green, C.A. Harper, Lily Hicks, Angelique Jean Lindberg, Rylee McNiff, Ethan Paulk, Lydia Phelps, McKenzie Renfrew, Ellie Shumaker, Emmy Song, Rowan Stephenson, Saoirse Stice, Zachary Tsokos, Layla Varty, and Simon Zuckert, with cover art by Noralyn Lucero.

Submission deadline for the next issue is October 15, 2019.

Alison Luterman Takes on Jussie Smollett

alison lutermanSince there is always a lag time created between contemporary news issues and publications of poetry, Rattle has created a quick-streaming solution.

Poets Respond takes weekly submissions (before midnight on Fridays) for works “written within the last week about a public event that occurred within the last week.”

The poems then appear every Sunday on the Rattle homepage. The only criteria for the poem, the editors assert, is quality, “all opinions and reactions are welcome.”

Selected poets receive $50, with poems sent before midnight on Sunday and Tuesday considered for a “bonus” mid-week post.

This week’s selection is “In Defense of Those Who Harbor Terrible Ideas at Tax Time” by Alison Luterman [pictured], in which, yes, she considers “the young black gay actor who orchestrated / a fake hate crime against himself. / It must have seemed like such a good idea to him / at the time,” and later in the poem offers, “I have to forgive this young man his terrible / idea, I have to because, in my own way, I’ve been him.” 

For more information about Poets Respond and an archive of past works, click here.

Ecotone Body Issue Walks the Talk

ecotone body issue“Oh, plastic, scourge of the Anthropocene, shaped into adorable shapes and dyed multifarious colors; plastic, who will be with us forever: it’s easy to forget about you, but when I remember you’re here, I’m annoyed and freaked out all at once.”

The opening line of From the Editor: Material Life by Anna Lena Phillips Bell creates a link between the theme for the Fall/Winter 2018 issue of Ecotone: Body and our cultural abuse of plastics. Taking their own use to task, Ecotone announces with this issue they will no longer be shipping the magazines in ‘polybags,’ and the cover of the publication itself will now be an uncoated stock. Walking the talk!

And the contents of the publication focus on “The Body” including campus-carry laws, Indigenous students, the safety of women’s bodies, queer identity, birth and postpartum depression, and much more.

See a full list of contributors and read partial content here.

Cold Mountain Review on Justice

vivian shipley“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.

The Florida Review :: Latinx Feature

nicole oquendoCo-edited by Nicole Oquendo [pictured], Editor Lisa Roney introduces the newest issue of The Florida Review  (42.2) in the “Editor’s Note: Heritage, Family, Respect: Who Controls the Narrative?”

“It’s with great pride and humility that we bring this array of poems, stories, memoirs, and both filmic and visual art to our readers – we believe that it represents a new generation of self-aware and multi-faceted creators who sometimes seek shelter under the umbrella of ‘Latinx,’ but who refuse to be defined by any label. [. . . ] They are, in fact, quintessentially American, representing the hybridity that makes our literature so strong on this continent, filled with varieties of experience and exhibiting styles that have been learned from an array of cultural sources and then innovated upon.”

Selections highlight heritage, family, parent-child relationships, disability, divorce, and grieving. In several contributions, language and representations in history are examined, with all the works asking, “Who controls the narrative? What do words mean? If we know that they are subject to twisting, then how do we trust any story, any poem, any sentence?” Roney comments, “All of use, it seems, are grappling with these questions.”

Contributors to this issue include Juan Carlos Reyes, Brooke Champagne, Steve Castro, Chris Campanioni, M. Soledad Caballero, Sara Lupita Olivares, Ariel Francisco, Leslie Sainz, Valorie K. Ruiz, Naomi A. Shuyama Gomez, Alana de Hinojosa, Maria Esquinca, Michael J. Pagán, Lupita Eyde-Tucker, Trinity Tibe, Karl Michael Iglesias, George Choundas, Pedro Ponce, Paul Alfonso Soto, Cindy Pollack, Pascha Sotolongo, Cassandra Martinez, Julia María Schiavone Camacho, Ivonne Lamazares, and Michael Betancourt.

Inscape Poetry Chapbook

inscapeNumber 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.

Ian Boyden :: A Forest of Names

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.”

ian boydenIn 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.”

Contemporary Queer Writing in Canada

malahat reviewThe 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.

The Return of Story

michael nyeOver 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.

story 4In 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.