Issue 27 on the theme of ‘Geography’ is now online. Poetry by D A Prince, Lynne Lawner, George Moore, Ruth O’Callaghan, Rebecca Gethin, Finola Scott, Phil Vernon, Grant Tarbard, John Grey, Simon Perchik, Alistair Noon, Kelley White, Kristine Johanson, Chris Pellizzari, Joe Crocker, Caroline Davies, Philip Burton, Paula Aamli, Stuart Mckenzie, Toby Jackson, and more. See a full list of contributors at the Allegro Poetry Magazine website.
Sometimes after reading a story, I want to know more about it—what the inspiration was and what went into writing the piece. Southern Humanities Review quenches that thirst for answers in their “Features” section on their website, providing the occasional interview with a contributor of their print journal. Right now, readers can find an interview with Leslie Blanco, whose short story “A Sane Person Doesn’t Do Something Like That” is in Volume 54 Number 2 of Southern Humanities Review. The story “examines the strain in the marriage of Yvelis and Hector during the Cuban Revolution.”
Blanco and interviewer Caitlin Rae Taylor discuss the motivations behind the actions of the story’s characters, and the research that went into writing this piece. Here’s what she says about her attitude toward research:
The truth is, I love research. I love the melodrama of history and the magic of stepping mentally into another time, so I did a ton of research. Even as I type the answers to these questions, a vast “sensory” landscape covers one wall of my office, representing research for a novel set just after the revolution. It is a map of Havana with pushpins in all intersections of significant historical moments, surrounded by photos depicting the everyday people swept up in those events, complete with their glorious beehives or their iconic beards.
The interview finishes in a more general area. Taylor asks Blanco what she’s currently reading, what current projects she’s working on, and what advice she’d give to writers “who want to write fiction set against historically significant events,” making this interview an interesting read even for those who have yet to take in “A Sane Person Doesn’t Do Something Like That.”
Online literary magazine Brilliant Flash Fiction has released is second print anthology! Branching Out: International Tales of Brilliant Flash Fiction is a collection of stories – all 300 words or less. These unique tales will entertain you while inspiring your own writing.
The anthology includes authors from Australia, Canada, England, India, Ireland, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Philippines, Scotland, and the United States.
Want a copy? Submit a $12 donation via the button on their homepage.
If you didn’t already know, literary magazine Variety Pack will release what they call “Mini Packs” on occasion. On August 30, they released Mini-Mega Pack: 6×6. This features six poems from six separate poets to whet your appetite between the releases of Issue 5 (don’t forget to check that out!) and Issue 6 (due out at the end of October).
The six poets featured in the Mini-Mega Pack are Kayla Keyes, Will Cordeiro, Ben Nardolilli, John Sweet, Peter Mitchell, and Adrian Sobo. So jump online and check this mini delight out and don’t forget they are accepting submissions through September 15.
The 2021 Ambit Competition winners have been announced! The theme of this contest was METAMORPHOSIS.
Michael Salu selected “To The Cow, The Trees” by Georgina Parfitt as the winner of the Stories Competition. “Welcome Kanye!” by Luke Jackson took home second and “Oak Peg” by Edward Hofman won third place.
Honorable mentions include Joanne Hayden’s “Wingbeat”; “Metamorphosis” by Xan Nichols; “It’s Complicated” by William Macbeth; “Metamorphosis” by Amelia Sparling; “Snow” by Amanda Hodes; “I want, I want” by Sharmini Wijeyesekera; “Another Life” by Laura Plummer; “Secrets of a Stitchbird” by Jess Richards; “Made to Love Magic” by Sophie Goldsworthy; and “Re-branded: My Careworker’s Uniform” by Deborah Nash.
Michael Salu was also the judge of the Art and Illustration Competition. This marks the first time this category was featured. The inaugural winner was Lucy Gray’s “Being Blue.” Second prize went to “Metamorphosis” by Yeshé Thapa Magar and third prize went to “A Pair of Glasses, A Blue Handbag and an Elegantly Coiled Tail” by Nina Carter.
Honorable mentions include “Metamorphosis, 2020” by Neelam Bhullar; “Snake Seed” by Matthew Richardson; “Metamorphosis” by Lisa Kalloo; Hannah Millar’s “An Altered Network”; “Rebirth” by Aisling McGee; “Shapeshifter” by Susanna Burton; “Eyes of Sierra Padre” by Chris Vaughan; “Posture ay punctuate collection” by Ben Thompson; and “A Transformation, from the ‘Seventh Swan’ a forgotten folk tale by Sasha Alfille, Wormhearts” by Essy Syed.
Kim Addonizio was the judge of the Poetry Competition. She selected Laurie Ogden’s “What we are given” as the winner. Sarah Gibbons’ “Things hang well on me now I’m so beautifully sad” took home second and E. Walker’s “Deux ex Cochlea” won third.
Honorable mentions include “Girlhood” by Stephanie Powell; “Kerkyra, Corfu” by Johan Huybrechts; “Chrysalis” by Mark McGuinness; “Corot’s Berthe” by Elisabeth Murawski; “too small” by Elisabeth Murawski; “Growing a Face” by Mary Mulholland; “Hanging with Rexie” by Elisabeth Sennitt Clough; “That Kiss in Padua” by Kit Ingram; “What the River did Next” by Anne Bailey; and “Poema” by Alix Willard.
Online literary magazine The Boiler has an exciting interview series “Under Pressure.” This series highlights previous contributors and focuses on elements of craft and process – excellent reading for both writers and readers.
You can currently find interviews with Dana Alsamsam, Esteban Rodriguez, Kayleb Rae Candrilli, Jenny Molberg, Stephanie Cawley, Alyse Bensel, Dorothy Chan, Anthony Cody, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Marlin M. Jenkins, Todd Dillard, K-Ming Chang, Michael Torres, Dorsey Craft, Tatiana Ryckman, Alan Chazaro, Malcolm Friend, Sara Lupita Olivares, Roberto Carlos Garcia, Melissa Wiley, Jody Chan, Naima Yael Tokunow, Kelly Grace Thomas, and Jessica Abughattas.
Yesterday CRAFT announced the winners of their inaugural CRAFT Creative Nonfiction Award. This year’s contest was judged by Joy Castro.
Winners
“The Ties That Bind” by Tammy Delatorre
“What You Don’t Know” by Claire Fielder
“Catalogue for a Coming of Age” by Liz Harmer
Editors’ Choice Selections
“The Untimely Collaborators” by Sara Davis
“Face, Velvet, Church, Daisy, Red” by Marilyn Hope
These placing pieces can be read on CRAFT‘s website. There, you’ll also find a list of finalists, the rest of the longlist, and honorable mentions, as well as information about this year’s judge.
Able Muse’s guest judge Mark Jarman has chosen Kelly Rowe’s poetry manuscript Rise Above the River as the winner of the 2021 Able Muse Book Award. Rowe wins $1,000 and publication by Able Muse Press in spring/summer 2022. View Rowe’s bio and samples from the work.
Stay tuned for announcements of the 2022 awards and don’t forget to get your copy of the 2020 winner, Say What You Will by Len Krisak which will officially be released in November.
In this issue of Qu Literary Magazine: fiction by Sarah Starr Murphy and Andi Diehn. Nonfiction by Joseph Cuomo. Poetry by Ron Riekki, Sydney Haas, Katie Ellen Bowers, Darius Atefat-Peckham, Michael Buckius, Rae Hoffman Jager, Austin Garrett, Amanda Hartzell, and Hannah Cohen. See what else is in this issue at the Qu website.
“Moving On.” Inside: First fiction by Danica Li. Alex Ramirez on boxing, defeat, and Diego Corrales. Poetry by Bruce Campbell, Tiana Clark, V. Penelope Pelizzon, and Nancy Reddy. Stories by Samantha Xiao Cody, Shakarean Hutchinson, Daphne Kalotay, and Becky Mandelbaum. See what else you can find in this issue at the Missouri Review website.
The Summer 2021 issue of The Malahat Review features poetry by Elena Bentley, Patricia Caspers, Leah Callen, Christina Shah, Jamella Hagen, and Saeed Tavanee Marvi. See what else you can find in this issue at The Malahat Review website.
A new issue of The Dillydoun Review is only a couple days away, but don’t miss Issue 7 with poetry by Julie Benesh, Robert Beveridge, Eve Chilali, Robin Gow, Lily Mayo, Anita Nahal, and more; prose poetry by Cecilia M. Gigliotti; nonfiction by Jeff Lawenda; and more. See what else you can find at The Dillydoun Review website.
The Baltimore Review is pleased to present their Summer 2021 issue with poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction by: Jeffrey Bean, David Bergman, Stephen Cramer, Vishnas R. Gaitonde, Robin Gow, Claire Kortyna, Kelley J. P. Lindberg, Jarid McCarthy, and more. See a full list of contributors at The Baltimore Review website.
Issue 38 of The Adroit Journal is out! Poetry by David Hernandez, Mark Doty, Patricia Liu, Margaret Ray, Chris Santiago, Maja Lukic, Rachel Long, Mai Der Vang, Rebecca Morton, Rita Dove, and more; prose by Tucker Leighty-Phillips, Raye Hendrix, Krystle DiCristofalo, and Perry Lopez; and interviews with Rachel Yoder, Forrest Gander, Brandon Taylor, and Shangyang Fang. Read more info at The Androit Journal website.
I was surprised by the change of scenery when visiting 2River View’s website. The online literary journal just had a small makeover. Like before, the new design spotlights the four latest publications but they’re now at the center of the homepage with larger thumbnails of their always stunning featured art. The rest of the layout is mostly the same, but there is less text on the homepage, bringing the focus to those issues. So what are you waiting for? Go check out them out at their newly designed home!
On August 17 literary magazine The Common featured a conversation between Ilan Stavans and Haoran Tong on poetry and the use of multiple languages. Besides talking on how language is used and how they consider it in their own work, you also get to learn how they grew up and learned their languages from it being completely natural with no dominance of one language over the other to acquiring a new language as being an invasion.
My English education, in contrast, focused more on practical dialogues than on literature. English was taught to me as a useful tool to acquire more knowledge, but Chinese was me. This probably explains my initial reluctance to use English elements in Chinese poems, or vice versa. Moreover, I seriously scrutinized my poems, out of guilt, for any “latinized” syntax that sounded “unChinese.”
Stavans and Tong also talk on “decidophobia” and how common it is now when in societies today choices are constantly demanded and their is always the underlying fear that you may make the wrong one.
Decidophobia is a common social trait, especially in capitalist societies: we are constantly demanding ourselves to make a choice. This, obviously, comes with the fear of making the wrong one. Is it possible to have too many choices before us? Should one try to avoid such a situation? Probably not.
And if you are interested in translation versus translingualism, Stavans and Tong have a lot to bring to the table on the subject as well: “Whereas translation tells, explains, or instructs, translingual writing shows, infuses and liberates.” Check out the interview in it’s entirety.
Walter M. Robinson was selected by guest judge Megan Stielstra as the winner of River Teeth‘s 2020 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. His book, What Cannot Be Undone, will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in Spring 2022. Stielstra writes that Dr. Robinson’s book gave her was “the deep humanity of the people called to save our lives.” Dr. Robinson also received a cash prize of $1,000.
The 2021 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize officially opened on August 1 with a deadline of October 31. The guest judge is award-winning author Rigoberto González. The winner receives $1,000 and book publication by The University of New Mexico Press.
Runner Up
Souvenirs from Paradise by Erin Langner
Three Finalists
Afterlight by Joshua Bernstein
How to Live by Kelle Groom
Swampitude by Quitman Marshall
Five Semi-Finalists
The Mothers by Rebe Huntman
Homemaker by Jessica Johnson
From Your Friend Carey Dean by Lisa Knopp
Poisons of War by Sabrina Veroczi
The Mary Years by Julie Marie Wade
Able Muse has just released the announcement of their 2021 Write Prize for Poetry and Fiction winners. The submissions were judged anonymously by the Able Muse Contest Committee and the final judges, William Baer (fiction) and Jehanne Dubrow (poetry).
Amina Gautier’s “We Ask Why” wins the Write Prize for fiction. Baer said the piece is “a deeply moving story that raises serious questions about personal identity and parentage.” The winning story will be published in the Winter 2021/22 edition of Able Muse.
FICTION HONORABLE MENTION:
FICTION SHORTLIST:
E. D. Watson’s “Twelfth of May” wins the Write Prize for Poetry. Dubrow states “What I so appreciate abut this poem is the wryness, its gift for evoking landscape…and the speaker’s sudden hunger in the early aftermath of trauma.” The winning poem and the finalists will be also be published in the Winter 2021/22 issue.
POETRY FINALISTS:
POETRY HONORABLE MENTION:
Stay tuned for the 2021 Able Muse Book Award announcement.
Endings & Beginnings. Fiction by Sruthi Narayanan, Titus Chalk, Michael Nye, and others; creative nonfiction by Katie Culligan and Kirsten L. Parkinson; and poetry by Chelsea Wagenaar, Richard K. Kent, Grant Clauser, John A. Nieves, Chelsea Bayouth, Emma Aylor, Suzie Eckl, Magpie Miller, Christen Noel Kauffman, Carol Guess & Rochelle Hurt, and more. See more contributors at the Nimrod website.
In this issue: fiction by Kristi Humphrey Davis, Brett Dixon, Ankur Razdan, Babak Movahed, Douglas K. Currier, and David Sapp; poetry by Michael S. Glaser, Buffy Aakaash, Ellen Austin-Li, Rachel Barton, Anthony Butts, Ted Clausen, Richard Cole, John Cullen, Holly Day, John Philip Drury, Susan Entsminger, Craig Evenson, Ken Fifer, Kasha Martin Gauthier, Carol Hamilton, Ken Holland, William Snyder, Jr., William R. Stoddart, Maryfrances Wagner, Kari Wergeland, Nicole Walker, Richard Widerkehr, Beth Oast Williams, and more. See who else you can find in this issue at The Main Street Rag website.
See what Grand Little Things has published in the past month: poetry by Jane Kennedy Mitchell, Steve Mentz, Sean Patrick, David Russell Mosley, Evan Vandermeer, Ken Gosse, Tonya Walter, Amanda Ryan, Martin Potter, and Bob McAfee. Get more info at the Grand Little Things website.
In this issue, Vanessa Nirode deciphers the vague alteration notes left for the often-over-looked, behind-the-scenes tailors for television shows. Benjamin Woodard gives a breath-taking account of Barry, a man in his mid-50s, who acts impulsively while out for an evening stroll with his wife. Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour writes about what happens when you try to love someone who thinks he doesn’t deserve to be loved. Learn more about this issue’s images at the Cutleaf website.
Literary magazine CARVE offers the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest annually in the spring with winners appearing in their fall issue. The contest awards $3,000 across five prizes and is open to stories written in English from around the world.
The 2021 contest was judged by Leesa Cross-Smith who chose the top three prizewinners.
First – $2000: “Habits” by Morgan Green in Abington, PA
Second – $500: “The Pit” by Chris Blexrud in New Orleans, LA
Third – $250: “Field Dressing” by Mariah Rigg in Eugene, OR
Editors’ Choice – $125: “What Happened with the Librarian?” by Haley Hach in Rhinebeck, NY
Editors’ Choice – $125: “The Kingdom of the Shades” by Nina Ellis in London, UK
Finalists
“Disappear” by Patricia King
“Eyrie Hours” by Stephanie Pushaw
“Mapping the New Hell” by Shana Hartmann
“Those People” by Melissa Gardea
“St. Felix Dance & Bowl” by Joshua Wales
Find Willow Springs Fall 2021 is out. New poetry by Roy Bentley, John Blair, Bruce Bond, Kathryn Hunt, Melissa Kwasny, Sandra McPherson, Melanie Tafejian, Lyuba Yakimchuk, and more; fiction by Robert Long Foreman, Amanda Marbais, and Wendy Elizabeth Wallace; and nonfiction by Andrew Farkas, Jeremy Alves da Silva Klemin, and Holly Spencer. Plus closing the issue: an interview with Kevin McIlvoy. Read more at the Willow Springs website.
Featuring some wonderful poetry, fiction, and narrative nonfiction from: Katie Berta, Krysta Lee Frost, Huan He, Laetitia Keok, Alyse Knorr, Kyle Liang, Zefyr Lisowski, lisa luxx, Livia Meneghin, Meghana Mysore, and more. See additional contributors at the wildness website.
The Summer 2021 issue of Snapdragon is out. This issue is filled with poetry, creative nonfiction, and photography from around the globe. This year, we’re focused on the stages of grief and using art to explore the various complexities of grief. This is our second issue of the series, and the theme is “anger.” But, rest assured, though the issue explores the raw pain of anger, it explores it beautifully and artistically. Read more info at the Snapdragon website.
The latest issue of Hole in the Head Review features work by Sheleen McElhinney, Cindy Buchanan,, David Dixon, Miriam N. Kotzin, Jocelyn Ulevicus, Kenneth Rosen, Cal Freeman, Jefferson Navicky, Julio Maran, Jill DeGroff, Lisa Bellamy, Tania Runyan, Jacklyn Hogan, JC Reilly, Cynthia Good, Christopher Rubio-Goldsmith, Dan McLeod, Jean Kane, and more. Find a full list of contributors at the Hole in the Head Review website.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas.
128 words. That’s what Cathy Ulrich gives us in “I Do Not Want to Live Without You.” Just 128 words. And somehow that’s exactly enough.
We’re introduced to characters in a motel and the motel’s swimming pool, a quick snapshot but a vivid one. The narrator says, “maybe later there will be consequences and police cars, maybe later it will be like our parents said,” and this is the perfect amount of information to allow readers to put together a backstory for this snapshot.
Is it the backstory Ulrich imagined when writing this piece of flash? Is the backstory you assign it the same as mine? Maybe or maybe not. And that’s what I love about it. There’s beauty in the language used and beauty in what’s kept from us.
“I Do Not Want to Live Without You” by Cathy Ulrich. Flash Frog, June 2021.
Last night Club Plum Literary Journal announced their 2021 Best of the Net nominees!
Fiction:
“U. Vulgaris” by Mary Alice Long
“The Swing” by t.m. thomson
Prose Poetry
“Natures Mortes” by Katherine Cart
“escape” by L. Kardon
“Downpour” by Lorette C. Luzajic
“How to Make a Shroud” by Kristen Roach
“If This Is the Truth” by Sean Rys
Art
“Plums” by Ann-Marie Brown
“The Jellyfish Invasion of Asbury Park” by Joe Lugara
“Blithe #2” by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
You can check out these nominated pieces at the journal’s website.
This month’s feature includes a selection of Veronica Golos’s work. The poet is also interviewed by Amy Beeder. Sonia Greenfield reviews Finding Token Creek by Robert Alexander. In nonfiction: “The Only Critic” by J.T. Barbarese. Check out some of this issue’s poets at the Plume website.
River Heron Review Issue 4.2 has launched and is ready for you to read and enjoy. Issue 4.2 includes the work of 20 poets: J.I. Kleinberg, Tresha Faye Haefner, Dean Schabner, Wendy Steginsky, John Sibley Williams, Maliká Duff, Hannah Larrabee, Julie Cooper-Fratrik, and more. See a full contributor list at the River Heron Review website.
In this issue, John Davis, Jr. shares four poems beginning with a praise to the coast in “Inland: A Breakup Letter.” Matt Cashion relishes in the complexities of human nature that emerge when a mysterious light source appears in the sky in “See You Soon?” And Meredith McCarroll extols the virtues of packing lightly while always having precisely what you need in “Bags.” See what images are in store for you at the Cutleaf website.
In this issue: short stories by and interviews with Matt Jones, Vanessa Bernice De La Cruz, Jose Diego Medina, and Amanda Hartzell. New poetry by Eric Bodwell, Despy Boutris, Katherine Riegel, and Eric Wang. New nonfiction by Ashley Memory and Craig Coray. See what else is in this issue at the Carve website.
Next month, Snapdragon will resume hosting their Art & Healing Popups. The donation-based online events feature a different artist and artistic practice each month. The series was on pause for the summer, but will return on Sunday, September 12 with “Introduction to Zentangle” with Vanesa Simon.
You can RSVP for this event to receive a reminder when it gets a little closer at Snapdragon‘s website. While you’re there, you can see what materials you’ll need, as well as a list of past events.
If you aren’t subscribed to Ruminate‘s newsletter (you probably should be), they announced in their July 31 edition that Jess Jelsma Masterton is joining their team as Editor. She was unanimously elected to the position due to her “compelling vision for the magazine” and care for the staff, readers, and their mission.
Masterton has previously worked on the Cincinnati Review where she served as an Assistant and Associate Editor. She has also recently completed her PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Cincinnati. Her own fiction, nonfiction, and audio works can be found in recent issues of The Arkansas International, The Southern Review, and The Normal School.
Interim Editor Jen Stewart Fueston will work with Masterton to ensure a smooth transition before returning to her board position later this fall.
The team at Ruminate are committed to being an independent magazine with the freedom to cultivate their authentic selves through nourishing conversations, actions, and art that spiritually sustains and are excited to continue their united journey with Masterton at the helm.
Able Muse has announced its next reading will take place Saturday, August 21 from 3-4PM EDT. This will be a virtual event with a Q&A with three Able Muse authors.
The lineup consists of Maryann Corbett, Frank Osen, and Matthew Buckley Smith. Corbett has had three titles published by Able Muse Press with the most recent being In Code published last year. Frank Osen was the winner of the Able Muse Book Award 2012 while Matthew Buckley Smith won the award in 2011.
The event is hosted by Ellen Kaufman whose book Double-Parked, with Tosca was published by Able Muse Press earlier this year.
As with their past readings, admission is free, but you do need to register to save your spot!
If you missed out on the last reading with David Alpaugh, James Kochalka, and Sydney Lea, they have uploaded the recording to their official YouTube channel.
Creative Nonfiction is currently having a sale on back issues, subscriptions, books, and merchandise through August 10 to help make room with the new magazine debuting this fall.
This means a digital subscription is available for just $3/month or $25/year! Plus, you can get back issues of CNF for just $2.50 and back issues of True Story for only $1!
Love their line of books, but haven’t snapped up the title you want yet? Books are starting as low as $8. How about getting a gift for a teacher who is gearing up to go back to school soon? Check out the anthology What I Didn’t Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher.
Love t-shirts? They are on sale, too. You can get them in white, blue, black, and red and they are only $4.
Plus, if you subscribe today as a Supporting or Sustaining subscriber (these options aren’t part of the summer sale), you gain priority registration for their fall roster of online courses, which is a pretty nice perk. So if you’ve been on the fence about subscribing, maybe it’s time to take the plunge?
upstreet 2021 is out. New fiction by Sam Fletcher, David Hammond, Emily Lackey, Sarah Mollie Silberman, and more; nonfiction by Gail Hosking, Beth Kephart, Allen Price, Nadya Semenova, and others; and poetry by Katharine Coles, Jennifer Franklin, Jessica Greenbaum, Rachel Hadas, Richard Jones, Sydney Lea, D. Nurkse, Yehoshua November, Nicholas Samaras, Jason Schneiderman, Sean Singer, Mervyn Taylor, Anton Yakovlev, and more. Read more info at the upstreet website.
The August issue of The Lake is now online featuring Joe Balaz, Rachel Burns, Clive Donovan, George Franklin, Peter Grandbois, Nels Hanson, Sheila Jacob, Jennifer A. McGowan, Yvette Naden, Carlos Reyes, George Ryan. Check out this month’s reviews at The Lake website.
The Summer 2021 issue of Emerald City is out. New work by Brittany Ackerman, Dante Di Stefano, Melissa Feinman, Frenci Nguyen, Francesca Halikias, Liam Strong, T.D. Johnston, Sarah Rose Cadorette, and Michael Putnam. More info at the Emerald City website.
New on bioStories so far this year: Tim Bascom “At Ease,” Emma Berndt “Wisdom from the Alligator Purse,” Deborah Burghardt “Leaving Mum Behind,” Joe Dworetzky “Big League,” Patricia Feeney “Holy Mother,” Karen Foster “Carrying Sam,” J. Malcolm Garcia “The Reporter and the Reporter’s Mother,” and more. See a list of all of 2021’s contributors so far at the bioStories website.
The Massachusetts Review aids readers in learning more about the writers they publish on their MR Online component. In a section called “10 Questions,” contributors answer the same ten questions. Because these are the same ten questions and are not personalized, the interviews are all pretty casual, but they do offer insight into writing rituals and inspiration.
Contributors also answer the question, “What did you want to be when you were young?” I loved seeing the variety of responses and especially appreciated Amanda Hawkins’s answer:
When I was seven I wanted to be sixteen so I could drive. When I was ten I wanted to be a writer. When I was thirteen I wanted to be an English professor. When I was seventeen I wanted to be a person who kept lentils and and rice in jars. When I was twenty I wanted to be a baker. I’m not sure looking back if I’ve been determined or just unimaginative, because I’ve done all these things to some degree, but not exactly in that order.
Other recent interviewed contributors from the Summer 2021 issue include Mike White, Bettina Judd, Adrian Matejka, and Joshua Garcia.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas.
Shoshana Akabas begins “By the Creeks of Wyoming” with just a hint of what’s happening: “Aspen leans over and says, ‘You know, Natalie’s telling everyone about your brother,’ [ . . . ].” Who is Natalie and what’s going on with the narrator’s brother? Akabas hooks us into the story and then reels slowly, the answers appearing one by one, so brief they could almost be overlooked.
While the story of what happened to the narrator’s brother becomes distorted through the gossip of Natalie, the narrator’s friend who is slowly drifting in a different direction now that they’re in high school, it becomes clearer for the readers each time the narrator responds to the classmates who have heard the gossip. I loved this slow burn, the piecing together of the puzzle until the full picture is revealed.
The narrator’s brother plays a large role in the story, but Akabas chooses never to actually place him in the story. He’s always on the other side of the door or wall, an unreachable and almost legendary figure.
Melancholy and rife with the emotional ups and downs of high school, “By the Creeks of Wyoming,” is a quick yet beautiful read.
“By the Creeks of Wyoming” by Shoshana Akabas. AGNI, 2021.
Our first issue of volume three is ready and free to read on our site. Find work by Jenny Hykes Jiang, Jacqueline Staikos, Tara Isabel Zambrano, Lindy Biller, Christina Yoseph, Akhim Alexis, Richard Lingo, and more. Find a full list of contributors at the Chestnut Review website.
Ruminate has announced the winner, runner up, and honorable mention for their 2021 William Van Dyke Short Story Prize. The final judge of the prize this year was Kelli Jo Ford whose debut novel Crooked Hallelujah made waves last year.
First Place: “The Florist” by Alex Cothren
Second Place: “A Guide to Removal” by Amber Baleser-Wardzala
Honorable Mention: “Kantingo Carried 16,980 Tons and a Gentleman” by George Choundas
These stories will be published in the Fall 2021 issue of Ruminate due out in mid-September. The issue is currently available for pre-order, so don’t forget to reserve your copy today if you aren’t a subscriber already.
Stop by and peruse our ever-growing Summer Online Edition! Escape into the world of “Dispatches from the Poetry Wars” as presented in an interview with creators Michael Boughn and Kent Johnson. Turn a corner with Kent and enter the synchronous world of César Aira in “How I Became the Narrator of a César Aira Novel.” Reviews of poetry by Nico Vassilakis; nonfiction exploring Black Mountain writers John Wieners and Larry Eigner; and more. See what else is online at the Rain Taxi website.
The July/August issue of the Kenyon Review features work by two poets who piercingly explore race and historical memory at a time when these issues seem more urgent than ever before. The noted writer Paisley Rekdal offers three poems from the online project “West: A Translation.” The issue also includes two poems by Bryan Byrdlong, whose work interrogates the figure of the zombie as it relates to Blackness and Black precarity in the face of white supremacy, and as a general symbol for those struggling with marginalization. Plus work by Betsy Boyd, Perry Lopez, Christopher Blackman, Kelsey Norris, Austyn Gaffney, and more. Read more at the Kenyon Review website.
In this summer issue of Kaleidoscope, we have personal essays, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, a book review, a dance feature, and information regarding the release of the documentary film Fierce Love and Art. Featured essay by Kimberly Roblin. Featured art by Diane Reid. Additional work by Mariana Abeid-McDougall, Dyland Ward, Carrie Jade Williams, and more. See a further list of contributors at the Kaleidoscope website.
In this issue, Jesse Graves delves into that complicated space where family connects with history and place in three poems that begin with “An Exile.” Ace Boggess tells the story of the winding road the carries eight men to a West Virginia penitentiary in “Welcome to Rock Haul.” Amy Wright remembers the summer after her brother died from cancer, and the line of communication that opened, in “Life After Death,” an excerpt from her forthcoming book Paper Concert: A Conversation in the Round. Read more at the Cutleaf website.