Visit Terrain.org for the new work on the site this month. Arne Weingart reviews The Tilt Torn Away from the Seasons by Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers and Melissa L. Sevigny interviews Pam Houston. Fiction by Beth Alvarado; nonfiction by Tamie Parker Song, Scott Russell Sanders, and Paul Riley; and poetry by Seth García, Garrett Hongo, Collier Brown, and more. In currents: Charles Revello, Patricia Schwartz, and others.
New work on the Fiction Southeast website from the past month, work by Christopher Murphy, Gauraa Shekhar, Ashley Havrid, Ben Sandman, Nicholas Dighiera, Michael Vojtech, and Nathaniel Edwards.
Deadline: Rolling
Brush Talks is a journal of creative nonfiction, photography, and poetry related to China. We are currently seeking submissions for our next issue, to be published in the fall of 2020. This can take many forms: general essays, travel essays, profiles, memoir, and narrative nonfiction. We seek submissions about places, people, history, culture, the arts, science and technology—anything related to China that is well written, creative, and true (we do not publish fiction). No submission fee. Please visit our website for more information and read the guidelines before submitting.
Choose your boyfriend in the “Secret Boyfriend” edition of Boyfriend Village. Work by JinJin Xu, Charles Theonia, Jai Hamid Bashir, Rone Shavers, Landa wo, and more. Plus “20 Atomic Sonnets,” a chapbook by Rosebud Ben-Oni and work by featured artist Nicole Won Hee Maloof. Find even more contributors at the Black Warrior Review website.
Deadline: October 5, 2020
Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize. Submissions open September 1, 2020. Judge Marcus Jackson will select one full-length manuscript for publication by Mad Creek Books, the trade imprint of The Ohio State University Press. In addition to publication under a standard book contract, the winner receives the Charles B. Wheeler prize of $2,500. A nonrefundable fee of $23.00 (or $11.50 for BIPOC poets) will be charged for each entry. All entrants receive a one-year subscription to The Journal. Visit our contest page for guidelines. (If it is a hardship to meet the entry fee, contact our editor (prize@thejournalmag.org) to discuss options.)
2River begins its twenty-fifth year with the Fall 2020 issue of The 2River View. New poems by Deborah Bacharach, Andrew Cox, Mario Duarte, Paul Jones, Richard Jones, Susan Landgraf, Bern Mulvey, Cecil Morris, Salawu Olajide, Ben Sloan, and Liane Tyrrel.
Deadline: Midnight on Halloween 2020
Raleigh Review is currently offering two contests. The RR Flash Fiction Prize is being judged by our esteemed Fiction team ($300 Grand Prize, $13 entry fee). Raleigh Review is also offering the Geri Digiorno Multi-Genre Prize with Dorianne Laux & Joseph Millar as the judges of the finalists. Think of our Digiorno Prize as a collage prize that includes at least two of the genres among poetry and/or visual art and/or flash nonfiction ($300 Grand Prize, $13 entry fee). Submissions close by midnight on Halloween. All entrants shall receive the prize print issue for free.
We with Raleigh Review believe that great literature inspires empathy by allowing us to see through the eyes of our neighbors, whether across the street or across the globe. We are currently open to general submissions for poetry and flash fiction through Halloween 2020 at Midnight. There is a small convenience fee to submit to our general submission categories. We encourage you to check out our free full-issue online archive to find out more about us: www.raleighreview.org. Our Spring 2020 issue features work by Sarah Hardy, Michael Horton, Alexander Weinstein, Kyce Bello, Sandy Longhorn, and many more.
Girls Right the World is a literary journal inviting young, female-identified writers and artists, ages 14–21, to submit work for consideration for its fifth annual issue. We believe girls’ voices transform the world for the better. We accept poetry, prose, and visual art of any style or theme. We ask to be the first to publish your work in North America; after publication, the rights return to you. Send your best work, in English or English translation, to girlsrighttheworld@gmail.com by December 31, 2020. Please include a note mentioning your age, where you’re from, and a bit about your submission.
Have you wanted to check out The Louisville Review but haven’t had the chance or the extra money to spare? Now is the perfect time to change that. The Spring 2020 issue is currently available for free download at The Louisville Review website due to COVID-19. Download your copy to read work by Carolyn Forché, Patricia Foster, James B. Goode, and more.
Guest Post by Chang Shih Yen
The Places I’ve Cried in Public is a young adult novel by British author Holly Bourne. This is not your typical young adult story about crushes and teenage angst. Teenage novels don’t usually come with a warning on the back cover, like this book does, that it contains material that some readers may find distressing.
In this book, Amelie fell in love with Reese, but now she can’t seem to get over him. So she’s going back to all the places where she cried in public to try and re-trace her steps, and see where her life went wrong. In the process, she’s learning about what love is not. This book is written in very British English and is set in places like London and Sheffield, but it deals with universal themes, like recognizing what is a healthy relationship, what is controlling behavior and abuse.
This book is powerful and intense. It is a work of fiction, but it deals with real issues. It is a tough read, in the sense that you need to mentally prepare to read until the end. You feel like you have been punched in the stomach after reading this book. But it is a good book; it deals with important issues. This book should be required reading for all young women.
The Places I’ve Cried in Public by Holly Bourne. Usborne Publishing Ltd., 2019.
Reviewer bio: Chang Shih Yen is a writer from Malaysia, seeing through the pandemic in New Zealand. She writes a blog at https://shihyenshoes.wordpress.com/.
The Blue Mountain Review launched from Athens, Georgia in 2015 with the mantra, “We’re all south of somewhere.” As a journal of culture the BMR strives to represent life through its stories. Stories are vital to our survival. Songs save the soul. Our goal is to preserve and promote lives told well through prose, poetry, music, and the visual arts. Our editors read year-round with an eye out for work with homespun and international appeal. We’ve published work by and interviews with Jericho Brown, Kelli Russell Agodon, Robert Pinsky, Rising Appalachia, Nahko, Michel Stone, Genesis Greykid, Cassandra King, Melissa Studdard, and A.E. Stallings. www.southerncollectiveexperience.com/submission-guidelines/
Palooka is an international literary magazine. For a decade they have featured up-and-coming, established, and brand-new writers, artists, and photographers from all around the world. They are open to diverse forms and styles and are always seeking unique chapbooks, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, artwork, photography, graphic narratives, and comic strips. Give them your best shot! Don’t forget submissions are open year-round.
Guest Post by Carla Sarett
What with election hysterics and the COVID Blues, I was starved for a truly immersive read, and lo, Peter Cameron came to my rescue in What Happens at Night.
I’ve been a fan of Cameron’s elegant writing since, well, forever (if you have not read The City of Your Final Destination or Andorra, by all means, do so). Here, he takes Bowlesian themes (he does quote Jane Bowles, if there’s any doubt) but sprinkles them with kindness. Cameron’s mercifully free from the dour outlook on humanity that I’ve come to expect these days, and it makes this work enchanting in the best sense.
A not very happy New York couple wants to adopt a child, and in their quest, ends up in an icy “northern” foreign city, in a comically grand hotel (elaborately, but impractically, appointed). Nothing that happens from that point could possibly be predicted: the couple meets a faith healer, for one thing, and no, he’s not quite a fake. From there, the story by turns becomes surreal and funny and moving. The novel’s atmosphere is dark and cold, but its spirit is one of light, “a warm golden light.”
(I must also mention that the publisher has sprinkled the cover with a barely visible glitter. Perfect.)
What Happens at Night by Peter Cameron. Catapult, August 2020.
Reviewer bio: Carla Sarett’s recent work appears or is forthcoming in Third Wednesday, Prole, Halfway Down the Stairs, and elsewhere. Her novel, A Closet Feminist, will be published in 2022.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Don’t forget that Poetica Magazine is looking for works centered on the Jewish experience—open to all writers, of any affiliation, or any level of writing. All accepted works will be published on the website with author’s BIO and photo. This is an open edition until they have enough material to release a 120 page print edition. No fee to submit. Visit the website to submit via SUBMITTABLE form.
Don’t forget BLUELINE: A Literary Magazine Dedicated to the Spirit of the Adirondacks is seeking poems, stories, and essays about the Adirondacks and regions similar in geography and spirit, focusing on nature’s shaping influence. Submissions window open until November 30. Decisions mid-February. Payment in copies. Simultaneous submissions accepted if identified as such. Please notify if your submission is placed elsewhere. Electronic submissions encouraged, as Word files, to blueline@potsdam.edu. Please identify the genre in the subject line. Further information at bluelineadkmagazine.org.
Deadline: September 30, 2020
Submissions are open for the debut issue of The Twin Bill, a literary baseball publication. We are looking for essays between 600–1,000 words, fiction up to 3,000 words, and interviews with people in and around baseball. Please send submissions and pitches to thetwinbill@gmail.com. If you are interested in illustrating our pieces, please email us. All submissions will receive a personal response. There is no submission fee. For more details, visit www.thetwinbill.com/submissions/
Deadline: December 15, 2020
Submit your manuscript to Interim’s 3rd annual Test Site Poetry Contest! As our series title suggests, we’re looking for manuscripts that engage the perilous conditions of life in the 21st century, as they pertain to issues of social justice and the earth. The winning book will demonstrate an ethos that considers the human condition in inclusive love and sympathy, while offering the same in consideration of the earth. Because we believe the truth is always experimental, we’ll especially appreciate books with innovative approaches. The winner will receive $1,000 and their book will be published by University of Nevada Press in 2021.
Guest Post by Eron Henry
Eight men became American presidents without being elected to the office. All acceded to the role after the incumbent was assassinated or succumbed to illness.
In Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America, Jared Cohen provides historical details of their achievements and failings. Most were unprepared for the top office because they were uninterested, though a few coveted the presidency.
Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman were extraordinarily successful. The former succeeded William McKinley Jr. who was assassinated, and the latter Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died of longstanding ailments. Except for the Vietnam War debacle, some believe Lyndon Johnson would be among the greatest presidents ever. He became president after the assassination of John Kennedy.
The most disastrous was Andrew Johnson, who became president after Abraham Lincoln was gunned down. The first to be impeached, Johnson reversed policies by Lincoln to help the nation heal after the bloody civil war. He set the stage for Jim Crow, initiating a century of intense discrimination against African Americans that boiled over into the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
Cohen demonstrates the importance of presidents choosing able persons as their deputy. Not all vice presidents were chosen for their ability but as a compromise candidate to appease interest groups or various constituencies in their party.
In the times we live, Cohen’s Accidental Presidents may prove especially insightful.
Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed Americav by Jared Cohen. Simon and Schuster, April 2019
Reviewer bio: Eron Henry is a communications consultant. He blogs at https://oletimesumting.com.
Buy this book at our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Guest Post by Susan Kay Anderson
Brian Matta’s superbly inventive Stuck, Stutter, Persist is like stepping into a room only to have a secret door open, revealing an entity who will communicate with you, maybe bonding with you forever and ever. This entity is expressed as a stutter, but is the inexplicable making itself known. What is signified by a glitch, a pause, a repetition, or an echo is really something very different. But what?
In the poem, “Check out that breech” the main character is the stutter (sound) “—ch” and it is heard throughout in a list of material items; “chest . . . brunch . . . chapel” which seem ordinary and unsuspecting but invoke a stutter near the end of the poem. The stutter asserts itself here and in each poem in this marvelous and tantalizing book, not as “—ch” but as a different stutter sound in each poem.
These stutters (these poems) slowly become fodder for existential contemplation. Much like the world Gregor in Kafka’s novella, The Metamorphosis, experiences, we see that this world also needs no introduction once you start reading. The stutter does persist to draw out and slow down the experience of dramatic life events and serves to underscore and even lead the poems away from simple explanation.
When I first began reading Stuck, Stutter, Persist, I was intrigued because it seemed weird and a sort of strange homage to anger or patience or both. But it is much different because it is masterfully poetic in its unblinking regard of the parts of life which fly by so fast that only a stutter can catch bits of them before they are lost.
Stuck, Stutter, Persist by Brian Matta. Black Centipede Press, 2019.
Reviewer bio: Susan Kay Anderson’s first book of poems is Mezzanine. Anderson was the poetry editor of Big Talk, a free publication in the early 1980s featuring Pacific Northwest punk bands. She has a poem forthcoming in Sleet Magazine’s Winter Issue, “The Inside Edition II” and Please Plant This Book Coast To Coast, Virginia Brautigan Aste’s memoir, will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2021. Her recent work can be found in Calibanonline, Gnashing Teeth, Lily Poetry Review, Mojave River Review, NewPages What Am I Reading?, Panoply, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Porter Gulch Review.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Wordrunner eChapbooks‘ 40th issue, the Summer 2020 fiction echapbook: The Estrangement Effect: Stories by Rebecca Andem. The five stories in Andem’s collection explore the startling, disconcerting, unsatisfying, and liberating moments in which we understand that the most central relationships in our lives are inhabited by strangers, strangers we are deeply connected to, be they lovers, spouses, parents, siblings or children.
Submissions accepted year-round.
The CHILLFILTR Review strives to bring the best new art to a worldwide audience by leveraging best-in-class technology to create a seamless and immersive web experience. We welcome submissions from all walks of life, and all perspectives. We are committed to inclusivity and kindly welcome work from marginalized voices. All featured works will receive an honorarium of $20 per 1000 words and will be published online at The CHILLFILTR Review as well as on our Apple News Channel. Readers can vote for their favorites, and year-end “Best Of” winners will receive an additional $100 cash prize.
The Fall 2020 issue of Willow Springs features Joseph Millar, Ramona Ausubel, Jessica Lee Richardson, Andrew Furman, Lawrence Lenhart. Plus Sarah Bates, Dmitry Blizniuk, Bruce Bond, Maggie Graber, Matthew Lippman, J. Estanislao Lopez, Owen McLeod, John A. Nieves, John Sibley Williams, and more.
Event Dates: January 18-23, 2021; Location: Virtual
Application Deadline: November 10, 2020
17th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival in Delray Beach, Florida, January 18-23, 2021. Focus on your work with America’s most engaging and award-winning poets. Workshops with David Baker, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Traci Brimhall, Vievee Francis, Kevin Prufer, Martha Rhodes, and Tim Seibles. Six days of workshops, readings, craft talks, panel discussion, social events, and so much more. One-on-one conference Faculty: Lorna Blake, Sally Bliumis-Dunn, Nickole Brown, Jessica Jacobs, and Angela Narciso-Torres. Special Guest: Gregory Orr and the Parkington Sisters. Poet At Large: Brian Turner. To find out more, visit www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org. Apply to attend a workshop!
This issue’s featured interview: “Digging for Gold,” an Interview with Don Kesterson by Terresa Cooper Haskew. Fiction by Ethan Forrest Ross, Michael L. Woodruff, NV Baker, and Rita Ariyoshi. Poetry by Steven Ablon, Mark Burke, Chris Capitanio, Llyn Clague, Shutta Crum, Darren C. Demaree, Craig Evenson, Barbara Greenbaum, Angela Gregory-Dribben, Katrina Hays, Scott T. Hutchison, and more. Also in this issue: a selection of book reviews.
We’re beyond excited to bring you new work from Alicia Ostriker, Diane Seuss, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Jos Charles, Yalie Kamara, David Naimon, and Jordan Jace. We’re also extremely excited to feature poetry by Asa Drake, Thomas Dooley, Mary Biddinger, Kevin Prufer, Maya C. Popa, Jordan Keller-Martinez, and more, prose by Emily Yang and Andreas Trolf, and art by Caroline Zhang, Taylor Wang, Ariel Kim, and others. Read more at The Adroit Journal website.
Deadline: February 2, 2021
NYQ Books is seeking submissions for an anthology to be titled Without a Doubt: poems illuminating faith. Submissions will remain open until February 2, 2021, but may close early should the anthology fill. We are seeking poems that explore faith rather than tell. We seek poems that demonstrate a new and fresh understanding of faith. Poems that rise above religion and redefine spirituality. Poets from any spiritual tradition are welcome. Nontheists and Freethinkers are encouraged to submit. Historically marginalized voices are especially welcome. We are not looking for poems that proselytize. Please see our webpage for complete guidelines.
Deadline: October 1, 2020
Submissions open for creepy and dark flash fiction, prose poetry, and art for the October 16th issue of Club Plum. Blood and monsters are welcome as long as you write them well, as are things felt but not seen. Fear in the silent spaces. Not quite sure if it is horror? Send it along. Staunchly non-horror pieces are welcome for this issue as well, but send sappy elsewhere. Send sad. Send strange. Send beauty that is destined to doom. See clubplumliteraryjournal.com for submission requirements.
Deadline: Rolling
Every year, the University of Arkansas Press accepts submissions for the Miller Williams Poetry Series and from the books selected awards the $5,000 Miller Williams Poetry Prize in the following summer. For almost a quarter century the press has made this series the cornerstone of its work as a publisher of some of the country’s best poetry. The series is edited by Patricia Smith. The deadline for the 2022 Prize is September 30, 2020. For more information visit uapress.com.
What happens when you repeatedly tell a teen they can’t do something? Of course, they will find a way to do it, which, in the case of Editor-in-Chief Benji Elkins, resulted in The Milking Cat, an online publication of comedy in all forms, from written works to movies to comics and more.
The name itself has a comedic referent, as Benji explains, “’The Milking Cat’ is a reference to the 2000 film Meet The Parents where Ben Stiller’s character lies about milking a cat on a farm that has no cows.” Benji found the scene especially humorous and decided to name the website as a testament to it. “Also,” he adds, “it rolls off the tongue once you get used to it.”
Behind the name, the mission of The Milking Cat is to provide an outlet for aspiring teen comedians, but the initial motivation stemmed from an experience Editor-in-Chief Benji Elkins faced. “It goes something like this: In ninth grade, there was a stairwell that consistently had pencils stuck in its ceiling. When I returned to school in the tenth grade, the pencils were completely gone! All that remained was the scarred terrain of pencils that once were. As a result, I wrote a comedic piece featuring the pencils’ removal entitled ‘COLLECTIVE STUDENT BODY ART PIECE DESTROYED BY SCHOOL.’ However, when the school newspaper refused to publish it, I asked that they create a humor column. When they refused that, I asked his school’s activities director if I could start a humor paper. When they refused that as well, I decided I would simply have to do it myself.”
Putting together a humor publication editorial staff is a delicate balance between skill sets. Benji Elkins [pictured] says he has always enjoyed both writing and making jokes at the dinner table. “I’ve been involved in other (and much more serious) teen literary magazines through the submission of my own work,” Benji quips, “and therefore like to believe I ‘know the industry.’ But I’ve also been an active member in my school’s literary magazine. Currently, I’m the co-Editor-in-Chief. Otherwise, I’m simply a fan of writing and comedy and a huge fan of trying to put the two together.”
Alongside his efforts is friend and colleague Dan Soslowsky, who, “after coming down from the high of winning his third-grade art contest, needed something to keep his cartooning skills sharp.” As Dan tells it, “I originally turned down my offer to be the Senior Editor and Head of Illustration and Design for The Milking Cat, but ultimately gave in after receiving a box of chocolates, flowers, and a 2018 Mercedes-AMG® GT C Coupe on my doorstep with a note signed ‘With love, Benji.’” In addition to his role with The Milking Cat, Dan is the Head Editor of the Humor Section in his school’s newspaper as well and is involved in numerous other art-related extracurriculars.
The final editorial staffer is Noah Stern, who “has been an avid fan of comedy since his parents let him watch their DVD box set of the Family Guy Star Wars parody episodes.” Noah is the head of the satire section at his school paper as well.
Additionally, “in case anyone was wondering,” Benji included, “all of the Editors’ favorite apparatus on the Bop-It machine is Twist-It.”
The learning curve for running their own publication was steep, as Noah shares the greatest hurdle they have faced was “bringing The Milking Cat to the level it is at today. Originally, The Milking Cat submissions were open to anyone of any age, but in retrospect, we cast the net too wide. We would rarely get submissions or viewers and as a result, the main people submitting were mostly us three editors. We pushed ourselves to write something every week, and it was increasingly stressful. However, when COVID-19 hit, we decided to kick it up a notch and grow our team – specifically around teens like us. We rebranded as a ‘by teens, for teens’ comedy website and began receiving many staff applications and comedy submissions. As a result, the greatest joy we’ve all experienced probably comes out of our greatest hurdle; the thing we love most about the site is giving teens around the world the opportunity to not only to read comedy, but also to provide them the opportunity to create it themselves as well.”
Readers of the publication, which posts new content every Monday evening, can expect to find content related to sports, politics, riffs on classic literature – “all sorts of readers can find a comedic piece that fits their specific interests,” Noah assures. “We triple-dog-dare you to pick any piece at random, and no matter which you stumble upon, you will find something thoughtful, well-written, and (hopefully) funny.”
In addition to the editors’ contributions, recent content includes:
Julianna Reidell – Hamlex Commercial: A commercial screenplay for the new prescription drug inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Asher Hancock – I Tried 5 Dark Web Dating Sites and was Pleasantly Surprised: A lonely romantic reviews various shady dating sites such as SatanMate.com and WeHaveCandy.com.
Sascha Nastasi-Feinburg – Pad+ Casting Calls: A mock casting call asking for actors to fill roles in the next big WattPad novel adaptations, including “I Fell in Love with a Cannibal because I Thought He Was a Vampire.”
And a sampling of humor by title alone:
Man Plays Air Guitar With All The Wrong Notes
The Life of an Undercover Dental Student
High School Student Shocked To See Chemistry Teacher Peeing In Middle Urinal
Teenaged contributors who are not a part of The Milking Cat Staff are welcome to submit works. Submissions are collectively reviewed by the Editors on its publication status. If accepted, the work is uploaded verbatim to the site. Pieces written by staff members are reviewed by Staff Curators who make edits and suggestions that the author can accept or reject before publication.
Looking to the future, Benji says, “Our plans for this summer include The Milking Cat Comedy Competition, where teens around the world can submit humorous pieces of any kind for the chance to win special prizes from 4 Ivy League Humor Magazine and the satirical site The Hard Times, such as up to $350, merch from the various humor magazines, workshop sessions, and much more! We also hope to establish ourselves more among teens as a regular place to read comedy from their peers. As for long term plans for the publication, we will keep doing it as long as it keeps bringing us joy (and it is).”
Here’s to a lifetime of joy for The Milking Cat!
The Malahat Review hosts a Novella Prize biennially. The 2020 winner opens the Summer 2020 issue. Judges Samantha Jade Macpherson and Naben Ruthnum selected “Yentas” by Rebecca Păpucaru.
Of “Yentas,” the judges said: “‘Yentas’ is a nostalgia-free portrait of girlhood lived among the Jewish communities of 1980s Montreal. The novella’s evocation of the cruelties and kindnesses of teenage friendship, territorialism, and enmity is built in prose as funny as it is precise. Rebecca Păpucaru’s treatment of culture, ethnicity, and religion as complex structures informing protagonist Karen’s family and social life achieves impressive depth and nuance. Through Karen’s eyes we are totally immersed in a rich and bubbling teenaged world. Visceral and enchanting, a truly fantastic read!”
At The Malahat Review‘s website, readers can check out an interview with the winning author.
Application Deadline: January 1.
One of the first creative writing programs in the country, UNC Greensboro’s MFA is a two-year residency program offering fully funded assistantships with stipends and health insurance. Students work closely with faculty in one-on-one tutorials, take courses in poetry, fiction, publishing, and creative nonfiction, and pursue opportunities in college teaching or editorial work for The Greensboro Review. More at mfagreensboro.org.
The Greensboro Review invites submissions for our annual Robert Watson Literary Prizes in Poetry and Fiction. Send us your previously unpublished poems or stories, now through September 15! Winners each receive a $1,000 cash award and publication in the journal; subscribers submit for free. To learn more, read past winning works, and submit, visit: greensbororeview.org/contest/.
Gival Press is hosting four contests between 2021-2022: the Gival Press Novel Award, the Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award and the Gival Press Short Story Award, and the Gival Press Poetry Award. The Novel Award deadline will be May 30. 2022; the prize is $3k and book publication in 2023. The Oscar Wilde Award for the best LGBTQ poem deadline will be June 27. 2021; the prize is $500 and online publication. The Short Story Award deadline will be August 8, 2021; the prize is $1,000 and online publication. The Gival Press Poetry Award deadline will be December 15, 2021; the prize is $1K and book publication in 2022. For complete details on each contest, visit: www.Givalpress.Submittable.com.
There is plenty for readers to check out in Issue 34 of The Adroit Journal, including the results of the Adroit Prizes.
Poetry Winner
“On Their Birthday, Suge Knight & My Daddy Discuss Forgiveness” by Tariq Thompson
Poetry Runner-Up
“Cha” by Stephanie Chang
Prose Winner
“Valley of Saints” by Yasmeen Khan
Prose Runner-Up
“A Dominicana’s Guide to Surviving a PWI” by Coral Bello-Martinez
In addition to these winners, you can also find a selection of high school and college students who placed as finalists.
Deadline: Open August 24 – September 21
The Hamilton Stone Review opens for submissions for the Fall 2020 Issue #43 on August 24, 2020 and closes September 21, 2020. Submissions may close early if the issue fills. Poetry submissions should be emailed only to Roger Mitchell at hsrpoetryroger@gmail.com with “HSR” in the subject line. Fiction and nonfiction submissions should be emailed only to Dorian Gossy at HSRproseDEG@gmail.com. For more information, please see www.hamiltonstone.org/hsr.html#submissions.
Deadline: October 1
Winners in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction receive a $5,000 cash prize, publication, promotion, and a virtual event to be determined. Submit one piece of fiction or nonfiction up to 8,500 words or up to 10 pages of poems. Regular entry fee: $25. All-Access entry fee: $30. Each entrant receives a one-year digital subscription to the Missouri Review (normal price $24) and the forthcoming digital short story anthology Strange Encounters, forthcoming from Missouri Review Books. (normal price $8.95). All-Access entrants receive full access to our ten-year digital archive. All entries considered for publication. Deadline: October 1. www.missourireview.com
Guest Post by Laura Plummer
When I first read Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness in 2010, Obama was in the beginning of his first term as president. Many white Americans believed his election was a sign that our country was now post-racial, that equality had finally been achieved. But that was a myth, as Alexander explains in painstaking detail. Using the statistics of the day, she lays bare the racism embedded in our criminal justice system, which she likens to modern-day slavery.
This year, I decided it was a good time to dust off Alexander’s work, to see how its distressing statistics had improved over the past ten years. The answer was, tragically, not enough. Blacks still face more discrimination than other races in every phase of the criminal justice system—from stops and arrests to sentencing and parole. They are still the primary targets of the fictional “War on Drugs,” which was invented as a legal means to put large numbers of Black people behind bars. They are still locked in to what Alexander calls a “permanent undercaste.”
The New Jim Crow came out before the 2013 killing of Trayvon Martin birthed #BlackLivesMatter, before the 2014 killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. It was before the killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans sparked worldwide protests against racist policing, before Black Lives Matter became a global movement. While the discrimination against Black people in America is much the same as when the book was published, the public support for protecting and defending Black lives has grown exponentially. The ground is fertile for all Americans who value justice to demand a new reality. To quote Dr. King, no one is free until we are all free.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. 2010.
Reviewer bio: Laura Plummer is an American freelance journalist and writer from Massachusetts. Read her work at lauraplummer.me.
Buy this book from our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Guest Post by Michael Stutz
The surf might be the same on every shore, but its sound is different on Cape Cod than anywhere. And I miss it—it’s been a handful of years since I’ve been there, so in a mood of summer longing and nostalgia I turned to Thoreau’s Cape Cod, an 1883 edition that’s looked fine in my library for years but that I’d never touched.
It’s a good read. The chapters are like thick travel essays, of the kind I vaguely remember in those paper things they used to call magazines, back before the net age. Like the longreads that now sometimes fall into our phones.
Each chapter is on some subject or portion of the Cape. Thoreau explains that the book was the result of his own travels there, and right away in reading it, I see it turns out I’ve spent almost the exact amount of time there as he did: three distinct visits, totaling about three weeks. I’ve written about Cape Cod before—much of it yet unpublished—but this reminds me that I’ve got more to write even if I never return.
My visits weren’t as gruesome as his—the book nearly begins with scores of dead bloated bodies tumbling in with the tides, and with Thoreau seeing headless bodies on the dry-sanded shore, and beaches lined with coffins and unrecognizable victims of mean shipwrecks. In my modern visits there was none of that. In fact, it seemed that everyone could live to be old and wrinkled as walnuts if our common plagues like cancer and car accidents were avoided.
Otherwise, the people he describes and the old haunted streets and the treeless shores are much like the Cape I know. Like him, I agree that October is the time to be there—the Cape is haunted, the shore moans with ghosts, and that’s the best time to catch them.
Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau. 1865.
Reviewer bio: Michael Stutz is the author of Circuits of the Wind, the story of the net generation. His writing has appeared in many journals and magazines.
Buy this book at our affiliate Bookshop.org.
Deadline: Rolling
Now reading for Volume Ten, our Winter/Spring 2021 issue. Please visit us to read our previous volumes filled with poems from poets the world over, from the first-published to the most acclaimed in literature. A unique voice is highly prized. Be bold, uncensored, take risks. Our hallmark is “STRONG Rx MEDICINE.” We are the home of the long poem! No restrictions as to subject matter, style, or length. Published biannually online. Submissions accepted through our online submission manager, Submittable; a submission fee is charged. theamericanjournalofpoetry.com
The MFA in Creative Writing at Minnesota State University, Mankato seeks to meet the needs of students who want to strike a balance between the development of individual creative talent and close study of literature and language. The program helps to develop work in the genres of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Students typically spend three years completing coursework, workshops, and book-length theses.
Current faculty includes Robin Becker, Candace Black, Geoff Herbach, Diana Joseph, Chris McCormick, Richard Robbins, and Michael Torres. Recent visiting writers include Juan Felipe Herrera, Marcus Wicker, Leslie Nneka Arimah, Danez Smith, Layli Long Soldier, and Ada Limón.
Students have the opportunity to grow within a rich and active community of writers with the Good Thunder Reading Series, the Writers Bloc Open Reading Series, and working on literary magazine Blue Earth Review.
Stop by their listing at NewPages to learn more.
Stop by and visit the August Book Stand at NewPages. This month, you can check out five featured titles, as well as a selection of new and forthcoming books to add to your to-read list.
The poems in Elsewhere, That Small by Monica Berlin are “intimate, contemplative, seeking out the smallest folds of language,” and urge readers to really listen to what they’re taking in.
The Exquisite Triumph of Wormboy by James Kochalka and Sydney Lea follow the exploits of a worm who embarks on an adventure of rescue.
In The History of Our Vagrancies by Jason Irwin, readers can find “comfort, companionship, longing, and then suddenly an acute sorrow that somehow makes us want more of the whole tragic beautiful thing.”
Jon Boilard’s Junk City is set in San Francisco, following characters that roam in a shadowy world but, from time to time, find slivers of light.
The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith & Spirit edited by Leah Silvieus & Lee Herrick spotlight 62 poets of Asian descent. These poets create a varied and nuanced portrait of today’s Asian American poets and their spiritual engagements.
You can learn more about each of these New & Noteworthy books at our website and find them at our our affiliate Bookshop.org. You can see how to place your book in our New & Noteworthy section here: https://npofficespace.com/classified-advertising/new-title-issue-ad-reservation/.
Beginning Dates: July 27; Virtual
Registration Deadline: Rolling
Don’t forget Willow Writers’ Workshops is going virtual this summer and fall! They are offering workshops, providing writing prompts, craft discussions, and manuscript consultations. All levels are welcome. Three different courses are being offered: Desire to Write? An Introduction to Creative Writing; Flash: Writing Short, Short Prose; and Writers Workshop on Thursday Nights, a six-week course focusing on short stories. Summer dates began July 27. The facilitator is Susan Isaak Lolis, a published and award-winning writer. For more information, check out willowwritersretreat.com.
New online publication based at Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service (CSDS) at Northeastern University in Boston, Pensive, seeks work that deepens the inward life; expresses range of religious/spiritual/humanist experiences and perspectives; envisions a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world; advances dialogue across difference; and challenges structural oppression in all its forms. Also seeking work for feature section on Black Lives Matter. Send unpublished poetry, prose, visual art, and translations. Especially interested in work from international and historically unrepresented communities. No fee; currently non-paying. Submit 3-5 pieces via pensivejournal@gmail.com. Questions? Contact Alexander Levering Kern, co-editor or visit pensivejournal.com. Deadline: November 15, but submissions reviewed and accepted on rolling basis.
This issue of The Malahat Review features the 2020 Novella-Prize-winning “Yentas” by Rebecca Păpucaru, Daniel Allen Cox’s “The Glow of Electrum,” Mike Alexander’s “An Afternoon Gentleman,” Matthew Hollett’s “I’m Sorry, I Have to Ask You to Leave,” Ronna Bloom’s “Legend of Saint Ursula,” Alamgir Hashmi’s “Anywhere, 2019,” and Kate Felix’s “Beneath the Pond.” Also in this issue: Sarah Tolmie, Xaiver Campbell, Sarah Venart, Theressa Slind, Chris Banks, Daniel Sarah Karasik, Sarah Lord, Ron Riekki, Paul Vermeersch, and Alisha Dukelow. Plus, a selection of book reviews, and cover art by Sharona Franklin: “Mycoplasma.”
The July/August edition of Hippocampus Magazine is still live! Featuring creative nonfiction by Lisa K. Buchanan, Max King Cap, Amy Cowger, Erica Plouffe Lazure, and others. See more contributors at the Mag Stand.
In the newest issue of Carve, find short stories by Caleb Tankersley, Danielle Batalion Ola, Ronald Kovach, and Kirsten Clodfelter, as well as interviews with the authors. New poetry by Jane Zwart, Abbie Kiefer, Collin Callahan, and James Ducat, and new nonfiction by Feroz Rather and Kabi Hartman. In “Decline/Accept,” is “Clean Kills” by Greg November. Read more at the Carve website.
The Writer’s Hotel‘s three writing conferences will be hosted virtually in October instead of in NYC like normal this year.
The All Fiction Writers Conference will take place October 14-20. The schedule has been redesigned to offer their attendees the very best service possible. Major workshops will be capped at nine people instead of their usual fourteen.
2020 faculty this year includes Rick Moody, Jeffrey Ford, David Anthony Durham, Robyn Schneider, Michael Thomas, Ernesto Quiñonez, James Patrick Kelly, Elizabeth Hand, Francine Prose, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, Sapphire, Elyssa East, Kevin Larimer, Jennie Dunham, Steven Salpeter and TWH Directors Shanna McNair and Scott Wolven. Deadline to apply is August 22.
The Nonfiction Weekend Conference will be held October 1-5. Application deadline is August 28. Faculty includes Meghan Daum, Mark Doty, Carolyn Forché, Richard Blanco, Hisham Matar, Michael Thomas, Beth Ann Fennelly, Molly Peacock, Honor Moore, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, Elyssa East, Jonathan M. Katz, Kevin Larimer, Stephen Salpeter and TWH Directors Shanna McNair and Scott Wolven.
The Poetry Weekend Conference will take place October 22-26. Deadline to apply is September 1. Faculty includes current U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, Marie Howe, Heather McHugh, Terrance Hayes, Mark Doty, Cornelius Eady, Deborah Landau, Tim Seibles, Valzhyna Mort, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Camille Dungy, Javier Zamora, Alexandra Oliver, Kevin Larimer, Jenny Xie, TWH Directors Shanna McNair and Scott Wolven.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
At a time when I felt incredibly alone, Ira Sukrungruang kept me company with his collection of essays, Buddha’s Dog: & Other Meditations. I stayed up all night reading it, telling myself I’d just read one more essay and then sleep and before I knew it, the book was finished and dawn was right around the corner. So now when I again feel those nagging feelings of loneliness, I was excited to see he had a new nonfiction piece in the Spring 2020 issue of Crazyhorse to help fill in the spaces around me: “Eulogy for My Father.”
This eulogy is written in short, one-sentence paragraphs that rapidly fall down the sixteen pages they occupy. “Let me start again,” he repeatedly states and follows another thread as he sorts the complicated thoughts and feelings surrounding the relationship he had with his father, his father’s absence, and the ways in which these feelings now echo over his relationship with his son.
The piece is honest and tender, bringing tears to my eyes by the time I reached the end and his final “restart.” It was nice seeing Sukrungruang once again show off his mastery of the nonfiction form. Even sitting with his grief, it was also nice to feel close to something for the moment.
Originally titled Sojourn, Reunion: The Dallas Review is a literary magazine which has been publishing exceptional short fiction, drama, visual art, poetry, translation work, nonfiction, and interviews for over twenty years. Their mission is to cultivate the arts community in Dallas, Texas and promote the work of talented writers and artists both locally and around the world.
Reunion is published by The School of Arts & Humanities, home of the creative writing program of the University of Texas at Dallas. They publish an annual print volume as well as featuring a new piece of work monthly on their website. You can view past interviews with writers on their website as well.
Stop by their listing on NewPages to learn more.