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At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!

Does Reading Really Improve Your Writing?

reading-and-writing.jpgDoes Reading Really Improve Your Writing?

While our literature professors may have embedded this idea in our heads since middle school, the relationship between reading and writing is not as straightforward as it may seem. Yes, they are obviously closely related. But, it does not mean your interaction with one will affect your skill in the other.

As someone who has written for several organizations, newspapers and magazines for a fair amount of time and can barely get through half a book, I never understood the basis of this concept. And so, trying to decipher it was like a roller coaster ride.

Brevity blog: Seven Stages of Submittable

Alison-Lowenstien-at-Brevity-Blog.jpeg“Seven Stages of Submittable” by Alison Lowenstein, Brevity Blog.

Submitting:

After meticulously crafting a brief cover letter and biographical statement, you upload your work of creative genius, along with a twelve-dollar submission fee. You press submit and enter a period of limbo when you see the essay, along with your many other submissions–ranging from haikus to flash fiction, logged as Received.

Dreaming:

Every evening you visit the web page for the literary journal you submitted to and imagine yourself on their homepage. Fantasizing that within minutes of the essay being on the journal’s website you get a book deal or at least an inquiry from a literary agent… [Read full blog post]

Personal stories of the exodus from Christianity

Empty-the-Pews.jpg“Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church” – Even as the American Christian right maintains its power and influence — despite a recent dust-up with President Trump — its children continue to abandon the fold. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows that fewer Americans across the political spectrum are identifying as Christian, and the phenomenon is particularly pronounced among the young.

In “Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church,” mostly Gen X and millennial writers describe their disillusionment with the faith of their youth and their departure from their religious communities.

…But the collection’s overall framing seems to equate the bigotry and ignorance of some Christians with Christianity itself. As Schaeffer writes in his foreword, “The grim ‘witness’ of how Christians have behaved and voted is too heavy a blow for faith in magical thinking to survive.” Here his critique of the Christian right slides into an implied critique of belief (“magical thinking”). In the book’s final essay, Isaac Marion is even more explicit: “All religious belief is a game of pretend.”

The New Guard 2019 Contest Winners

The New Guard - 2019The New Guard Volume VIII features the winners of the Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knigtville Poetry Contest, as well as the contests’ finalists and semi-finalists.

Machigonne Fiction Contest
Judge Rick Moody
“The View From Beachy Head” by Thos. West

Knigtville Poetry Contest
Judge Patricia Smith
“Once Upon a Time” by Damen O’Brien

In addition to the winners, finalists, and semi-finalists, the issue also features a section of eleven letters to writers’ younger selves.

Larry Kramer Wishes More People Wrote About Gay History

The American People by Larry Kramer“Larry Kramer Wishes More People Wrote About Gay History” – his new book is “The American People: Volume 2.”

Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?

Gay history. Most historians taken seriously are always straight. They wouldn’t know a gay person if they took him to lunch. A good example is Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton, which doesn’t include the fact that he was both gay and in love with George Washington. Gore Vidal pointed this out to me.

Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?

Not for reading one but plenty of times for writing one. Gay writers writing about other gays is not exactly a winning audience. And gays are not the best buyers or readers of their own. In “Faggots,” I used my best friend for one of the leading characters because he told such good jokes that I used. He never spoke to me again after the book came out.

“What You Need to Be Warm” by Neil Gaiman

neil-gaiman

“What You Need to Be Warm” – Neil Gaiman Reads His Humanistic Poem for Refugees, Composed from a Thousand Definitions of Warmth from Around the World

A century and a half after Walt Whitman wrote, in the middle of a civil war, that “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Neil Gaiman takes up the question of our shared belonging in a project of uncommon originality.

Frost on the ground that stays in the shadows, waiting for us.
Wear a scarf. Wear a coat. Wear a sweater. Wear socks. Wear thick gloves.
An infant as she sleeps between us. A tumble of dogs,
a kindle of cats and kittens. Come inside. You’re safe now.

Missouri could jail librarians for lending ‘age-inappropriate’ books

jail librarians Jail Librarians… You just can’t make this stuff up!

A Missouri bill intended to bar libraries in the US state from stocking “age-inappropriate sexual material” for children has been described by critics as “a shockingly transparent attempt to legalize book banning” that could land librarians who refuse to comply with it in jail.

Under the parental oversight of public libraries bill, which has been proposed by Missouri Republican Ben Baker, panels of parents would be elected to evaluate whether books are appropriate for children. Public hearings would then be held by the boards to ask for suggestions of potentially inappropriate books, with public libraries that allow minors access to such titles to have their funding stripped. Librarians who refuse to comply could be fined and imprisoned for up to one year.

Bennington Review – Fall Winter 2019

bennington-review cover

“The Devotions” issue features fiction by Sabirah Orah Mark, JoAnna Novak, Pablo Piñero Stillmann, Su-Yee Lin, Roger Topp, and more; nonfiction by Jenny Boully, Spencer Reece, Joan Connor, Tyler Mills, D. Gilson, and others; film by Will Stockton; art by Jochern Hendricks; Sabrina Orah Mark in conversation with Vi Khi Nao; and poetry by Peter Cooley, Endi Bogue Hartigan, Matthew Henriksen, Dujie That, Steffi Drewes, G.C. Waldrep, Antonia Pozzi, Owen McLeod, Bronwen Tate, Cary Stough, Sarah Destin, Alisha Dietzman, Christian Wessels, and more.

The Antioch Review – Summer 2019

antioch-review civer

The Antioch Review Summer 2019 issue opens with postmodernist African-American painter and printmaker Emma Amos’ 1957 Antioch College senior paper about her education as an artist whose works are currently scheduled to go to the Smithsonian. Investigative reporter Jay Tuck’s “Mankind’s Greatest Challenge: Artificial Intelligence” is a well-founded call for caution in what has become the wild west of virtual reality. Mika Seifert’s “Old Timers” will send chills up your spine and “Coming in on Time” by Stuart Neville will have you reaching for tissues. Our poetry selection rounds out this issue that once again delivers the best words in the best order.

2019 Rattle Poetry Prize Winner & Finalists

Rattle - Winter 2019Pick up the Winter 2019 issue of Rattle for the Rattle Poetry Prize winner and finalists.

Winner
“Stroke” by Matthew Dickman

Finalists
“Punch Line” by Kathleen Balma
“Bonanza” by Susan Browne
“Mother and Child” by Barbara Lydecker Crane
“Foreign-ness” by Maya Tevet Dayan
“Cathedrals: Ode to a Deported Uncle” by Daniel Arias Gómez
“The Never-Ending Serial” by Red Hawk
“Gender Studies” by Sue Howell
“From Oblivious Waters” by Kimberly Kemler
“Red in Tooth and Claw” by James Davis May
“Self-Portrait, Despite What They Say” by Gabrielle Otero

Along with the winner and finalists, there are twenty-three other poets included in this issue in the “Open Poetry section.”

“How does one not write a depressing book about depression?”

Book cover of The Scar by Mary CreganCaoilinn Hughes talks with Mary Cregan about her new book The Scar. …But this book is far more than a memoir: it is the result of decades of research on the medical history of the diagnosis, as well as the classification and treatment of depression and melancholia. To this rigorous and fascinating scholarship, Cregan has added the work of a variety of artists—from the ancient Greeks to Leonard Cohen. No surprise, then, that she teaches literature at Barnard College.

For a long time I couldn’t figure out how to write the book because the subject is seen by most people as “depressing.” How does one not write a depressing book about depression? Add to that the trigger of the death of an infant, and it seemed a daunting thing to invite readers to enter into. Death, grief, suicide, illness: these are subjects that a lot of people prefer to avoid thinking about.

Two Poems by Bill Snyder

Weber - Fall 2019

Magazine Review by Katy Haas

The Fall 2019 issue of Weber includes two poems by Bill Snyder: “Redundancy” and “Home.”

Snyder travels through time in these poems. In “Home,” he brings us to 1972 as he hitchhikes to his father’s house in Florida to surprise him with his arrival, and in “Redundancy,” he brings us to 1995 while he plays Scrabble with his mother.

Snyder writes with clarity, each poem rich with description that never bogs the message down. Each feels like a tiny short story, grabbing readers and pulling them into the scene. We are sitting at the table with his mother, “sunlight seeping in.” We are standing on the side of the road waiting in the humid air for a car to stop, “the sun behind a Burger King, Kentucky Fried, / all the rest.”

These poems are a pleasure to read, an intimate gaze at the familial bonds of Snyder’s speaker.

Caitlin O’Neil Wins Danahy Fiction Prize

Caitlin O'Neil [cropped headshot]The editors of Tampa Review are pleased to announce that Caitlin O’Neil, of Milton, Massachusetts, has won the thirteenth annual Danahy Fiction Prize for her short story entitled “Mark.”  She will receive an award of $1,000, and the story will be published in the forthcoming Spring/Summer issue of Tampa Review.

O’Neil is a graduate of the MFA program at Columbia University and currently teaches in the English Department at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She says that her winning story came directly from her life experiences as a college professor and as a human being living in America today.

“I watched multiple school shootings unfold on television with sadness and fear,” O’Neil says. “Given the gridlock around gun control, I began to think about what a world that had adjusted to guns and gun violence might look like.”

O’Neil’s story is set in a near-future in which guns become an even more pervasive part of the culture.

Learn more about the winning story and the runners up here: tiny.cc/danahyprize13.

NewPages January 2020 Digital eLitPak

NewPages has sent out our monthly digital eLitPak to current newsletter subscribers this afternoon. Not a subscriber yet? Sign up here: npofficespace.com/newpages-newsletter/.

Besides our monthly eLitPak featuring fliers from literary magazines, independent presses, and creative writing programs and events, we have a weekly newsletter filled with submission opportunities, literary magazines, new titles, reviews, and more.

Check out the current eLitPak below. You can view the original newsletter email here. Continue reading “NewPages January 2020 Digital eLitPak”

2019 Zone 3 Literary Awards Winners

Zone 3 - Fall 2019Find the Fiction and Poetry winners of the 2019 Zone 3 Literary Awards in the Fall 2019 issue. Winners were chosen by the genre editors.

Fiction
“Five Variations on Parnell’s Blues” by Matthew Fiander

Poetry
“Sandy” by Jasmine Dreame Wagner

For more contest winners, readers can pick up the Spring 2019 issue to check out the winner of the nonfiction prize: “In Praise of the Plains” by Sarah Fawn Montgomery. The Literary Awards are currently open until April 1.

Joy Harjo: ” Everyone wants a place where they feel safe”

Joy Harjo An American SunriseYou once said that poetry “directly or inadvertently mirrors the state of the state.” And I wonder what you think the state of the state is right now?

Everyone wants a place where they feel safe, where they feel like they might know what’s going to happen tomorrow and that they could wake up in a universe in which they feel supported. Where we know we can practice our ways and not be jailed or censored or anything. Most people want that. But I think the state of the state is marked by a great insecurity, a great insecurity running through everyone, whatever so-called side you’re on. And so I think people are really looking for connection and trust to build some kind of stability — and for some kind of leadership in which we have leaders who are trusted because they have a history of compassion, of knowledge, and they’re willing to work across any kind of political lines. Those are real leaders. The real leaders care about the people, not about the opinion of those who are going to give them money for their campaigns. Read more…

Let’s All Read More Fiction

Birdie short fiction in The Atlantic magazineOver the centuries, The Atlantic has prized great storytelling. Now we’re setting out to publish fiction with far greater frequency than we’ve managed in the past decade, starting today with “Birdie,” a new story by Lauren Groff.

Contemplative reading might be viewed as a minor act of rebellion in the internet age. At a time when every available surface is saturated in information, it sometimes seems as though facts are absorbed osmotically, even accidentally, just by moving through space and time. And although the internet is not the perfect opposite of the novel, as some people have argued, it makes fairly efficient work of splintering attention and devouring time. Literary reading—of fiction and of poetry, the kind of reading that commands moral and emotional reflection—is far too easily set aside.

Frontier Poetry Partners with Antioch University LA for New Fellowship

Frontier Poetry Antioch MFA Fellowship PrizeOnline literary magazine Frontier Poetry announces a new fellowship in partnership with the creative writing program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

The Antioch-Frontier Fellowship allows the winner to experience one of Antioch University LA’s MFA residencies first-hand. This includes 10 days of intense learning and immersion with mentorship and community opportunities. The fellow can choose between the Summer 2020 residency or the Winter 2021 residency.

The fellowship will cover travel expenses and lodging. Also, it awards a $1,000 cash prize to cover any additional expenses. The Winner will also be published on the Frontier Poetry website. February 15 application deadline. The Editors of Frontier Poetry and staff of Antioch University will select the winner. Learn more about the fellowship at Frontier Poetry‘s website.

Ruminate – Winter 2019/20

Ruminate - Winter 2019/2020Magazine Review by Katy Haas

Each issue of Ruminate opens with “Readers’ Notes,” a response from a variety of readers/writers on the issue’s theme. This is one of my favorite parts of the issue—the little snippets of connection. The Winter 2019/20 theme is “Shelter,” and thirteen readers write in with their thoughts on the subject.

It’s interesting to see the variety of approaches writers take as they cover this topic. A few speak of physical structures that offer shelter. Benjamin Malay writes of an abandoned farmhouse found while hitchhiking; Duane L. Herrmann’s shelter is a screened-in porch during childhood; and Sharon Esterly writes of a DIY Cold War bomb shelter. Moving away from man-made structures, Rebecca Martin observes a child’s own body being their shelter; Liz Degregorio’s shelter is “the kindest lie” her father could tell her as a child; and Sarah Swandell’s shelter is a womb.

Each of these pieces is short and succinct. All grab attention and hold fast as readers unfold the layers that reveal the shelter within. The Readers’ Notes section serves as a great opener for Ruminate, both as a warm-up for the rest of the issue, and as a way to jog one’s own creativity, prompting consideration on how we too might briefly write on the given topic.

A Short History of Presidential Election Crises

Short-History-Presidential-Election-CrisesIn A Short History of Presidential Election Crises (City Lights Publishing), Constitutional scholar Alan Hirsch addresses these issues with urgency and precision. He presents a concise history of presidential elections that resulted in crises and advocates clear, common-sense solutions, including abolishing the Electoral College and the creation of a permanent, non-partisan Presidential Election Review Board to prevent or remedy future crises.

The Massachusetts Review Seeks Native-Authored Work for Special Issue

The Massachusetts Review Issue 60 cover Literary magazine The Massachusetts Review is kicking off the new decade with a special issue, the first of its kind for them. They seek new Native-authored fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for their first-ever issue with a Native focus.

Scheduled for publication in December 2020 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the Plymouth Landing, guest editors include Tacey Atsitty (Amenorrhea), Laura Furlan (Indigenous Cities: Urban Indian Fiction and the Histories of Relocation), and Toni Jensen (From the Hilltop). Send queries and submissions for this special issue to MRPlymouth400@gmail.com.

MR, celebrating 60 years of publication, is a journal committed to social justice and equality and regularly publishes poetry, fiction, artwork, and essays. Check out their current call for submissions as well as their website to learn more about them.

Main Street Rag – Interview with Cathryn Cofell

Main Street Rag - Fall 2019The Fall 2019 Issue of The Main Street Rag includes an interview with Cathryn Cofell. The interview touches upon career, inspiration, and the Cofell’s submission process.

Cofell was named the winner of the 2019 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award and readers can also find three of her poems in this issue: “Rush Hour,” “What I Learned from My Father,” and “Resignation Notice.”

Stick Figure with Skirt, the winning book, was released in November 2019 and is available at the Main Street Rag bookstore. Readers can also find additional sample poems from the book at the store.

‘We Are Meant to Carry Water’ by Carlson, Reed, and Dibella Seluja

We Are Meant to Carry Water

Guest Post by Kimberly Ann Priest

“Are we only bone, skin, and urge?” asks the speaker in The Great Square That Has No Corners. I am beginning to wonder if the answer to that question is affirmative. Yes. As I write this, I am sitting in my living room on a Tuesday afternoon in October, mid-way through another semester teaching, and realizing that, this autumn, I have over-committed myself . . . again.

As projects begin to pile up and my network grows, while responsibilities increase and my own poetry demands that I give it more of my attention, I have to let some things go. After four years reading and writing about new works by various authors and publishers, this will be my last review for NewPages. It’s time, once again, to listen to my body and check my urges. And, how fitting that I should end my review history with a review of a collaborative manuscript by three clearly very talented women who have written an elegant collection of poems on assaulted womanhood—a topic that continually shows up in my own work. Drawing from mythology, Tina Carlson, Stella Reed, and Katherine Dibella Seluja have woven a modern (though not modernized) conversation between Helen, Leda, and Lilith, and they have done so with such precision, such tastefulness, such raw beauty. Continue reading “‘We Are Meant to Carry Water’ by Carlson, Reed, and Dibella Seluja”

‘Night Sky with Exit Wounds’ by Ocean Vuong

Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean VuongGuest Post by Andrew Romriell

Ocean Vuong’s collection of poetry, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, is a masterpiece that illustrates the most vital and sincere hardships of humanity in astonishingly few words. Leaping from free-verse to prose poetry, from stringent format to broken syntax, Vuong fashions here a collection of inclusion.

We open on “Threshold,” a poem where Vuong introduces his themes of body, parenthood, sexuality, and history. He warns us from the very beginning that “the cost of entering a song—was to lose your way back.” Vuong asks us to enter into his words and lose ourselves there. And we do, poem after poem, until we close on Vuong’s book with the penultimate piece, “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong.” In this poem, we read an assumed message from Vuong to Vuong where he tells himself “don’t be afraid,” and to “get up,” and that the most beautiful part of his body “is where it’s headed.” Before this, we’ve read pages of poetry full of pain, fear, and shattering, but here, Vuong embraces himself—and us alongside him.

“Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong,” like all the poems in Night Sky with Exit Wounds, rings with pain, wonder, regret, and history. Yet, there is also hope here, and I would say this is the theme of Vuong’s work: hope, inclusion, and change. Vuong takes us through a journey, shatters our expectations, holds our hearts, tells us to get up, and that, like him, we can survive the voyage.

Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong. Copper Canyon Press, April 2016.

About the reviewer: Andrew Romriell is a creative writing student at Utah State University.

2019 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction Winner

Colorado Review - Fall/Winter 2019The featured fiction piece in the Fall 2019 issue of Colorado Review is the winner of this year’s Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction: Bryna Cofrin-Shaw’s “Loss and Damage.”

Joan Silber selected the winner, and says of her selection: “How many writers could turn a conference on climate change into a very smart tale of sexual intrigue? It has ideas (all too rare in fiction), irony so good it’s unexpected, and great characters.”

Pick up a copy of the latest issue of Colorado Review to take in this story and the rest of the quality work inside the issue, or check out the winning piece online.

The Music And Morality Of Beethoven’s Mighty Ninth

Beethoven's Mighty NinthFrom NPR Music Deceptive Cadence. These important adoptions and adaptations of Beethoven’s Ninth inspired me to create a new project, “All Together: A Global Ode to Joy,” marking the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020.

The fact that this unique composition has inspired the imagination, hopes and aspirations of so many people from such diverse backgrounds led me to imagine a 21st-century rendering of the symphony – one that could bring to life the journey of the entire piece and capture the essence of the specific community where it is performed.

Lynda Barry: Making Comics

Lynda Barry Marking ComicsLynda Barry’s Making Comics is a how-to graphic novel guide for people who gave up on drawing. Lynda Barry says that everybody has an innate ability to draw, which most people abandon in their youth; comics are gestures of the human hand, and the act of writing is likened to the art of drawing. Making Comics explores the process of expanding the life of drawings, and fusing symbols for character building. A term is introduced for reimagining the happenings of one’s life: autobifictiontionalography.

Great interview with Lynda Barry by Michael Silverblatt on Bookworm KCRW.

More here: Lynda Barry’s New Book Offers a Master Class in Making Comics

 

‘Out of Speech’ by Adam Vines

Out of Speech by Adam VinesGuest Post by Adrian Thomson

Adam Vines’s Out of Speech, a poetry collection comprised of ekphrastic poetry based upon famous paintings as well as personal experience, draws on Vines’s travels from southernmost Argentina to the Louvre. Each poem begins by naming the art piece it takes as a subject, then moves toward unpacking their visual elements often through fascinating uses of enjambment.

More than just describing the artwork, Vines peels away surfaces to encounter shavings of shocking humanity lying beneath. In “My View From Here,” a poem responding to Yves Tanguy’s Les Vues, Vines sees an abstract red vista of segmented alien pillars the cancer polyps hidden in a barstool acquaintance he meets by chance outside the gallery. “Holes and Folds,” based on the group portrait The Swing by Jean Honoré Fragonard, finds a narrator focused on the most innocent of the lounging young men in order to question his objectives as a hand slides up a woman’s dress.

Vines’s visual inspection of minutiae leaves his reader questioning the subjects presented in the paintings. Will the awoken businessman in Hopper’s Excursion Into Philosophy leave before his lover stirs? What has made his countenance so dour? What of the open book forgotten on the bed? Is his shoe slipping into, or out of the light? The reader feels unsure even after turning away, and Vines leaves them contemplating in silence.

Out of Speech by Adam Vines. LSU Press, March 2018.

About the reviewer: Adrian Thomson is a creative writing student at Utah State University.

Divine Medicine: A Natural History of Beer

Natural-History-of-Beer.jpgIn the beginning was beer. Well, not quite at the beginning: there was no beer at the Big Bang. Curiously, though, as Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall point out in A Natural History of Beer, the main components of beer—ethanol and water—are found in the vast clouds swirling around the center of the Milky Way in sufficient quantity to produce 100 octillion liters of the stuff…

In America, where there was no such tradition, the movement was more heterogenous. It has found its public, though: by now there are 5,000 craft brewers in the United States producing 20,000 brands of beer. It is one of the bright spots in America’s otherwise dismal recent history.

2019 Curt Johnson Prose Award Winners

december‘s Fall/Winter 2019 issue features the winners and honorable mentions of the 2019 Curt Johnson Prose Award in Fiction and Nonfiction.

This year’s Award in Fiction was judged by Rita Mae Brown, and the Award in Nonfiction was judged by Amy Chua. Contest Editor Lauren Lederman introduces the winners, and readers can find a full list of finalists inside the issue.

2019 Curt Johnson Prose Award in Fiction
First Place
“The Land Behind the Fog” by Andrea Eberly
Honorable Mention
“The Augmentation Dilemma” by TN Eyer

2019 Curt Johnson Prose Award in Nonfiction
First Place
“Gumdrop Electric” by Sarah Treschl
Honorable Mention
“The One Who Didn’t Stay” by Samantha Rogers

Ekphrastic Work in Valley Voices

Valley Voices brings readers a special edition on ekphrastic poetry with the Fall 2019 issue. Fifty-seven poems by forty-two poets follow the theme, and John J. Han pens the essay: “A Verbal Response to Visual Art: The popularity, Types, and Composition of Ekphrastic Poetry.”

Opening the issue is a sort of call and response between husband and wife duo Leo Touchet and Elizabeth Burk in “Louisiana: A Duet of Photographs and Poems.” Touchet’s photographs serve as inspiration for Burk’s poetry. After the selection, the two speak with Editor John Zheng about their work, both as individuals and as a creative pair.

Zheng introduces the issue with, “[ . . . ] ekphrastic expressions are not simple interpretations; they are, instead, reinterpretations that experiment with imagination, language, and synesthesia in the creative process of writing poetry.” Check out the creative experimentations in the Fall 2019 issue and let it inspire you to experiment with your own ekphrastic work.

Down Girl by Kate Manne Wins APA Book Prize

Author Kate Manne
Kate Manne

Kate Manne, associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, has won the 2019 Book Prize from the American Philosophical Association (APA) for her Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny.

In Down Girl, Kate Manne calls attention to an underappreciated question in the literature: how should we understand misogyny? She advances a new account of it to make sense of some of the most fundamental issues in feminist thought and political philosophy.

Three Questions for Joy Harjo in WLT

World Literature TodayLearn a little more about current U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo in the latest issue of World Literature Today. In addition to a featured poem by Harjo, “Bless This Land,” there is also a mini, three-question interview with the poet.

Harjo answers the questions:
What recent book has captured your interest?
What outside the realm of literature has drawn your attention of late?
What current writing projects do you have underway or have planned in the near future?

The interview is brief but informative and gives readers jumping off points for what to pick up next.

Plume Publishes 100th Issue

Plume lit mag

Plume has hit quite a milestone this month. Their December 2019 issue is their 100th publication. As usual, they bring readers a fine selection of poems (some with audio recordings), a smattering of book reviews, and one essay. However, they stray from their usual format with their featured selection. While readers will normally find one poet interviewed with a selection of their poetry in this section, this month the staff has chosen to feature favorites selected from the past 100 issues.

These selections include: Rasha Abdulhadi (Issue 88), Angie Estes (Issue 46), Stephen Dobyns (Plume Anthology Number 7), Amy Beeder (Issue 67), Tom Sleigh (Issue 17), Justyna Bargielska translated from Polish by Benjamin Paloff (Issue 77), and Stephen Dunn (Issue 2).

If readers are feeling especially ambitious, they can find their own favorite poem among the full archive of all these past issues.

2020 PEN America literary awards longlists

pen-america-2020

2020 PEN America literary awards longlists will confer over $330,000 to writers and translators whose exceptional literary works were published in 2019. Spanning fiction, nonfiction, poetry, biography, essay, science writing, translation, and more, these longlisted books are dynamic, diverse, and thought-provoking examples of literary excellence.

‘Gifts for the Dead’ by Joan Schweighardt

gifts for dead schweighardtSometimes our best is not good enough. We make mistakes. The most painful ones are those that harm a loved one. Stress and grief leave us in agony, and we play our choice repeatedly wondering if we made the right decision. We cannot let ourselves off the hook either merely because we are human.

In Joan Schweighardt’s Gifts for the Dead, Irishman Jack Hopper arrives home barely alive and without his brother. What could he have done differently? Guilt-ridden, he needs time to sort through the events in South America’s jungle. In the meantime, his mother and his brother’s sweetheart, Nora, nurse him back to health. They wait patiently to learn specifics of Bax, Jack’s brother. To make matters worse, Nora eased Jack’s pain and he liked it. He had always secretly cared for her more than he should have. As time passes and Jack heals, and the two grow closer until they take a trip to South America where Nora then learns the truth.

Schweighardt is masterful at historical fiction and Gifts for the Dead is an example of her skill. Not only does she entertain with accounts that examine the perplexities of being human with its heartening moments and struggles, but she also inspires thoughts about the human condition.

How does one justify bad choices simply because they are human? Why can we not be better than that, and what about the good that comes from bad choices as a result? Will Jack Hopper find that good thing?

Gifts for the Dead is a thoughtful and entertaining read, especially for those who enjoy historical adventure mixed with suspense and a little romance. A wild escapade that thoroughly entertains.

 

Review by Christina Francine
Christina Francine is an enthusiastic author of a variety of work for all ages. When not weaving tales, she teaches academic writing at the college level. She’s also a licensed elementary teacher. Picture books: Special Memory and Mr. Inker. Academic: Journal of Literacy Innovation.

“Echoes” by Edward Hower

blackbird echoes howerStepping back in time to 1960s-Manhattan, author and former supernumerary actor with the New York City Opera Company (NYCO), Edward Hower reminisces of sharing the stage with the magnificent, world-renowned coloratura soprano, Beverly Sills in “Echoes.”

Readers, performers, and devout season ticket holders alike are presented with backstage passes to one of the most opulent, velvet-covered theaters in the world. Hower’s recollections are so detailed that we can smell the sweat seeping through the make-up, pantaloons, and Roman breastplates.

Through a tender, adoring lens, Hower observes how Sills’s pianissimos float through the air forever, with descents so dazzling that guests are left liquified. Questions of purpose and place are contemplated in between the echoes of scales and vibratos: whom to love and how to love them, refusing to give up by giving in, and to what ends one must sacrifice for the sake of maintaining their integrity. As audience members we too may feel, as Hower expresses, “the tremor of applause rising through us” as we seek triumphant courage amid the tyranny of doubt on the stages of our own lives.

 

Review by Camille Sleight-Price

‘Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets’ by Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin

poems for writing prompts for poets fox levin 2ndedIn the second edition of Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2019), authors Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin provide 18 entertaining and motivating prompts that range from the light-hearted to the serious and challenging. Drawing on both traditional forms and contemporary experiments, the authors encourage the use of found text, song titles, facts, and quotations. They propose scenarios and invite a poetic response. They even show how to “translate” the text of a poem written in a language you can’t read! Each prompt is followed by suggestions for getting started and sample poems written in response. What distinguishes Poems for the Writing from other poetry-prompt collections is that most of the sample poems are by undergraduates, community workshop participants, and some working poets. The responses are fresh, energetic, and unexpected.

This is an excellent book for poets and for teachers of poetry. The authors, both poets and teachers themselves, have selected prompts that work well in the classroom—for poets at any level and just about any age. They encourage emotional orientations, helping the students to plumb their personal experiences—and with just enough structure to help students struggling to organize and articulate emotional responses. But all of this comes with a touch of levity. Like Fox and Levin’s own approach to teaching, the book is friendly, open, and eclectic. The results are a testament to the extent to which prompts can trigger new and imaginative insights and jog one out of a routine approach to the blank page. Prompts are entry points—doors and doorknobs, as the authors put it—to new rooms, new emotional and intellectual spaces. The results are likely to be both surprising and satisfying.

 

Review by Antonia Clark
Antonia Clark has taught poetry and fiction writing and is co-administrator of an online poetry forum, The Waters. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, Smoke and Mirrors, and a full-length poetry collection, Chameleon Moon (2014, 2019), and the forthcoming Dance Craze. Her poems and short stories have appeared in numerous print and electronic journals, including The Cortland Review, Eclectica, The Pedestal Magazine, and Rattle, and she has reviewed poetry collections for The Rumpus, Literary Bohemian, Wild Goose Poetry Review, and IthacaLit. Toni lives in Vermont, loves French picnics, and plays French café music on a sparkly purple accordion.

“B.K.” by Robert James Cross

fiction international i52 2019“B.K.” by Robert James Cross stands out in Issue 52 of Fiction International. Instead of straightforward text on the page, he utilizes other means: telegrams, “handwritten” and typed letters, an illustration, and official documentation.

The story unfolds in messages between Michael and Linda, siblings growing up without parents and left to rely on each other. Their letters take place from 1963 to 1967. In between the chatter about family, the two discuss their current historical events of John F. Kennedy’s death and the Vietnam War. Between this all, their love for each other brightly shines through.

The variety of means of communication makes the piece visually appealing and turns the idea of storytelling through letters on its head. Seeing these written or printed items given a physical form makes the piece feel more real and personal. Cross’s bio claims he is “under the influence of the unconventional,” and that definitely shows in this piece.

Cross isn’t the only one getting creative in this “Body” themed issue. Plenty of other writers push the limits of their craft, including Carol Guess & Aimee Parkinson in “Girl in Medical Trials1” Ivars Balkits in “Brain Talking to Brain,” and D.E. Steward in “CRISPR.” In Issue 52, Fiction International offers readers a group of talented writers unafraid to push boundaries.

 

Review by Katy Haas

 

“The Suit” by Julie Marie Wade

american literary review suit wade“The Suit,” published in the Spring 2019 issue of American Literary Review, is an essay by Julie Marie Wade in which Wade questions, but never resolves, what it means for her to be born in a female body.

Much of the essay is set in scene and centered around a tight-fitting suit that Wade’s mother is committed to squeezing her husband—Wade’s father—into. When Wade’s image-obsessed mother is not home, her father splurges on James Bond films and hotdogs and explains to Wade that “every man wants to be James Bond,” even though he doesn’t believe he will ever be similar to the handsome agent.

Meanwhile, Wade’s mother encourages Wade to nominate her as “Most Inspirational Mother,” via a department store writing contest. Between scenes, Wade gives us drafts of her contest submission where she wrestles with representing her mother in “equal parts nice and true.” Wade tries to define her mother as a woman who “can see through who people appear to be and identify who they might be.” In these drafts, we understand that although Wade praises her mother, she also examines how her family relationships influence the way she approaches her own identity.

Through metaphor, shopping with her parents, and contest drafts, this coming-of-age essay is a story that explores gender identity in a home that explicitly encourages traditional roles.

 

Review by Alyssa Witbeck Alexander

“Saturn Devouring His Son” by William Walker

southern humanities review v52 n3 fall 2019In the Fall 2019 issue of Southern Humanities Review, William Walker concocts a suspenseful, haunting tale with “Saturn Devouring His Son.”

The short story brings readers out into the country where William and his mother live. The piece begins: “A car idled at the end of our driveway, and its lights were setting the living room curtains aflame. Somebody was out there walking around, but we could only make out the silhouettes stepping and out of the high beams near the pine trees.” The first pages continue with suspense as the two wonder if it’s William’s father outside watching them, the mother and son then learning how to shoot a gun in self-defense and surrounding themselves with familial support.

We’re momentarily lulled into putting our guards down as Tom Kaczynski comes into the picture, inserting himself as the new father figure to William and the new lover to his mom. William’s annoyance at his presence takes over the piece. Even as Tom takes measures to make the family safer, William’s dislike for Tom eclipses the worries of William’s dad.

However, the story reaches a brutal, explosive climax, shocking readers back into the state of tension from the beginning of the piece and we must watch as William tries to sort through his feelings in the days after tragedy strikes. Walker writes with clarity and detail, causing me to double check which genre I was reading several times. Was this fiction or nonfiction? At times I could believe either, a testament to Walker’s skill.

I recommend reading this story with several lights on, and only after you’ve double-checked the locks on your doors.

 

Review by Katy Haas

‘The Stillness of Certain Valleys’ by David Salner

stillness of certain valleys salnerDavid Salner‘s The Stillness of Certain Valleys is impressively sustained. I could quote memorable lines from every poem. “Beer for Breakfast” is a pitch-perfect opening poem, and the subsequent sequence “A Dream of Quitting Time” is very strong.  Then comes the agonizing “Goodbye to My Big Toe.” Salner writes with gritty authority about many kinds of work, including a stint as a cab driver in “Like Silver,” as well as in steel mills and coal mines. Now that world is in a state of collapse, hence “water drips from a tipple / to wild strawberries sprouting from rail beds” in the title poem. I admire the moving way he evokes the dignity of a working man in “Horse Trailer with Beans”:  “nothing / but the dirt under his nails / and who he is.” This first section concludes with the understated “Steel Lunch Pail.”

The second section begins with a boy learning to be an artist, which could be the poet himself or Winslow Homer: “He creases uniforms, / inks the hollow of a gully.  With purple shadows / he molds the blunt, half-buried stones.”  Then come a series of poems about major American figures: Whitman during the Civil War, Melville brooding on human pain, Frederick Douglass working at the dry docks in Fells Point.

The third section features poems about his grandparents and growing up, before returning to the world of work, which Salner always depicts with convincing precision. Near the end in “The Lakefront Closes at 8 PM,” the poet notices as he walks to the parking lot how the weeds have “white flowers.” It’s that impressive eye for telling detail that make the whole collection a compelling and convincing read. Salner has been there, done that. As Whitman once said, “I am the man. I was there.”

 

Review by William Heath
William Heath has published three books of poetry, The Walking Man, Night Moves in Ohio, and Leaving Seville; three novels, The Children Bob Moses Led, Blacksnake’s Path, and Devil Dancer; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest; and a collection of interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone. 

 

SHR Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Winners 2019

jake adam york blogReaders can find the 2019 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize winner and finalists in the Fall 2019 issue of Southern Humanities Review. The contest honors the late Jake Adam York [pictured], and the winner of the contest receives $1000 in addition to publication. This year’s contest was judged by Vievee Francis.

Winner
“Burning Churches” by Dante Di Stefano

Finalists
“Transubstantiation” by Jubi Arriola-Headley
“All-American Mexican” by Michael Torres
“A Different Alphabet” by Susan Cohen
“Near Miss” by Allison Adair

The Fall 2019 issue also features four pieces of fiction and two pieces of nonfiction, as well as work by five additional poets.

“Call of Duty” by Amy Long

diagram call of duty longIssue 19.4 of DIAGRAM gives us “Call of Duty,” a riveting essay that explores the juxtaposition of needing and wanting. In this piece, Amy Long shares her experience with the unintended effects caused by opioid addicts for those who truly need the medicine and the lengths she went to in order to find relief from her own pain. Through beautiful and sharp phrases such as “I’ve betrayed the one person who really trusts me,” “I don’t want to turn into that patient,” and “I don’t lose everything. I don’t lose anything,” we get a sense of the narrator’s pain and the mask that she puts on and lives with in order to keep the trust of the people who matter most to her.

As most essays in DIAGRAM, Long’s relies on form and structure to move deeper the fear of judgement and misunderstanding. The essay comprises words, printed and cut up, that have been scanned onto paper in unique designs. Glassine envelopes are replicated in the story as well, providing more words, thoughts, and stories that are kept safely at first, but eventually spill freely onto the page. Stories such as these cannot be contained. We see, too, that through the use of font size, italics, wisely placed words, and bolding, Long remains apprehensive about the revelation of such truths; she still struggles with making any sense out of them. Only by letting the story spill out of the glassine packet does she even begin to make sense of what has happened to her body, her health, and her future.

 

Review by Tyler Hurst

“The Business of Killing Tony” by Greg November

boulevard v35 n1 fall 2019Greg November opens the Fall 2019 issue of Boulevard with “The Business of Killing Tony.” After initially skimming the first sentences as I paged through the issue, I found it nearly physically impossible to stop reading: “Tony’s death—the first one, I’m talking—last a week. We had nothing to do with that one, Gwen and I, at least not directly.”

The story follows three siblings, the narrator Don, Gwen, and Tony, in the days and weeks following Tony’s death and subsequent resurrection and even more subsequent deaths. Prior to the death, their relationships are strained: Don is detached from the other two siblings as he separates from his wife and moves into a new condo; Tony, addicted to drugs and alcohol, orbits as the family black sheep; and Gwen halfheartedly takes on a motherly role as she attempts to organize an intervention for Tony (which is where he dies the first time) and get Don to participate. Tony comes back with a newfound clarity, death becoming the push he needed to finally sort himself out. But he has one problem: he wants to stay dead and can’t.

November’s characters are wry and detached, and the universe he’s created is lightened with dark humor. The siblings react to the news of Tony’s resurrection relatively level-headedly and are brought together by this new task of killing Tony again and again. There are moments November works in feeling, though he never careens into sappy sentimentality. The plot is inventive and interesting, readers not knowing quite what to expect out of a universe where a man can come back to life and make ties between the lands of the living and dead.

“The Business of Killing Tony” is a great opener for this issue of Boulevard and I look forward to checking out more work by November.

 

Review by Katy Haas

“Bought and Sold” by Renata Golden

true story i30In “Bought and Sold,” Issue 30 of True Story, author Renata Golden locates herself in the complicated history of the American West after inheriting two half-acre ranchettes outside of Deming, New Mexico.

Purchased in 1969 by her father, a man ready to leave the ordeals of the Chicago Police Force behind him, the land promised a “welcoming warmth.” Fifteen years after his death, Golden steps on ground that had been handed down to her as the American narrative of land leading to wealth and a better life. Instead, the barren landscape and hard crusted earth force her to confront “how primitive land could be.”

Though her father believed the winds of the West “carried a hint of hope instead of despair,” as Golden mines the history of her inheritance, she discovers the injustice, violence, and death inflicted on the natives and land grant owners who first called the land home.

Despite framing each scene of the essay with excerpts from historical documents, Golden writes, “I know that some voices have been lost to the winds that carry a palpable sense of grief. I do not know the truths of the past. I know only the stories told around campfires and corrals, in letters and ledger books, that have survived. Stories repeated became history.”

 

Review by Emily James

Nimrod International Journal – Awards Issue 2019

nimrod v63 n1 fall winter 2019The current issue of Nimrod International Journal is entirely made up of the winners, finalists, semi-finalists, and honorable mentions of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction and the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry.

Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction:
First Prize
“Capybara” by Jonathan Wei

Second Prize
“This Might Hurt Some” by John Tait

 

Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry:
First Prize
”Negligee and Hatchet: A Sonnet Crown” by Robert Thomas

Second Prize
“The Adorned Fathomless Dark Creation,” “Getting Out,” “Boys Beyond June,” and “Legend” by Matt W. Miller

 

The Fall/Winter 2019 issue features over thirty writers, a diverse selection of fiction and poetry. A full list of contributors, including a handful of excerpts, can be found at the Nimrod International Journal website.

Brilliant Flash Fiction FEED US Contest Winners

bff contest blog

Brilliant Flash Fiction recently announced the winners of the FEED US Writing Contest, held between June and September this year. Judge Kathy Fish selected three prize winners.

First Prize
“TALKING” by Shikhandin [pictured]

Second Prize
“Two Ostomates” by Alexis Wolfe

Third Prize
“Mother’s Milk” by Anastasia Kirchoff

Find the three winning stories, the shortlisted stories, and the longlist at the Brilliant Flash Fiction website. There you can also grab a copy of their first anthology: Hunger: The Best of Brilliant Flash Fiction, 2014-2019.