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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!

Gulf Coast Poetry Editor’s Advice on Submitting Your Manuscript

In a second post in her series “My First Book of Poetry: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Independent Presses,” one of Gulf Coast‘s poetry editors, Frances Justine Post writes advice on submitting your manuscript to small presses on the magazine’s blog. “Independent poetry presses are publishing the most daring, mind-blowing work,” she writes. “As a whole, they are not concerned with making money like the publishing behemoths of yore. They are interested in finding voices that speak to them. One of those voices may be yours”

She also suggests submitting during an open call instead of for a book contest. The publishers will select their favorites, but when it comes down to it, the final judge makes the decision. It may not be the publisher’s top choice, but they support it. However, if you submit during an open submission, you’ll know that they are backing your book one hundred percent. “They have chosen you because they believe in you,” she writes. “In my experience, this makes all the difference. They want your voice in the world, so they will work really hard to make that happen.”

In the rest of the blog post, she offers more advice. And in the post before that, she discusses putting your poetry manuscript together. There is also promise of part III. Read Gulf Coast’s blog here.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

Tin House‘s summer reading issue is a beautiful oil on canvas painting by Jocelyn Hobbie titled Forsythia. Dig it? View more of her work on her website.

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If you’re not afraid of bears, PULP Literature‘s latest cover will make you question if perhaps you should be. A mutant, robotic bear stands out first, and all you can see of the dark army of bears behind it are their red dotted eyes. The work is by JJ Lee, and he also has another illustration inside the issue to accompany his writing “Built to Love.”

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Vallum‘s cover is a drive-in movie of sorts. It may be hard to see on the screen, but there are a bunch of matchbox cars lined up in front of an old television. I loved it even more when I read the title of the piece: “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” by Andrew B. Myers.

Wag’s Revue Contest Winners

Wag’s Revue recently sent out a note to congratulate the winner of their winter contest: first, Benjamin Harnett for his essay “Ghosts and Empties”; second, poet Kathryn Hindenlang; and third, Robert Johnson for his short story “Pay the Fish Lady.”

These pieces will appear in Issue 18. Issue 17 is now available.

Ascent Gets a Makeover

Ascent, an online magazine publishing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, has just finished a website redesign. “Founded by Dan Curley at the University of Illinois, Ascent … provokes and entertains the head as well as the heart,” they write. “Now housed at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and edited by W. Scott Olsen, each issue features dramatic poetry, thoughtful essays, and fiction with a solid narrative. We publish as many first-time authors as well-known names. We promise good company to our authors, and work that matters to our readers.” The screenshot on your left is their old design and the one to the right their new design. Check out the magazine and the redesign at readthebestwriting.com.

International Eco-Lit

Last year, World Literature Today posed a question on their blog, “Now we must write as if the planet were dying. What would you say to a planet in a spasm of extinction?” In a special section of the latest issue (May-August 2014), eleven writers share their responses from essays to poetry to booklists. Writers include Kris Saknussemm, Maya Khosla, Niyi Osundare, Wu Ming-yi, Michael Cope, Liu Ka-shiang, Ava Chin, Tom Zoellner, Eduardo Mitre, Pedro Shimose, and Amarsana Ulzytuev. Here is a sample from Cope’s “The Stream”:

How quickly the rain will cease
and the stream go back to sand,
the blooms wither to dust
in the wind, the diligent ants
bringing in their stores curl up
to be blown away, the shades
on the other shore dissolve into light;
and how lightly we will cross over,
with a single pace, our children
beside us or on our backs.

And here’s the opening of Zoellner’s “The Mountain That Eats Men”: “Come see the mountain. It dominates the Bolivian city of Potos

Glimmer Train March Family Matters Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their March Family Matters competition. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories about family of all configurations. The next Family Matters competition will take place in September. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Douglas W. Milliken [pictured], of Portland, ME, wins $1500 for “Blue of the World.” His story will be published in Issue 94 of Glimmer Train Stories.

Second place: Scott Gloden, of Chagrin Falls, OH, wins $500 for “What Is Louder.”

Third place: MK Hall, of Venice, CA, wins $300 for “Fortune & Riot.”

A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.

Deadline soon approaching for Short Story Award for New Writers: May 31. This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5000. No theme restrictions. Most submissions to this category run 1500-5000 words, but can go up to 12,000. First place prize is $1500. Second/third: $500/$300. Click here for complete guidelines.

2014 december Awards

Only on their second issue of the revival of december, the editors publish the winners of their 2014 writing awards. The Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize was created “to recognize and honor the role played by Sherwin Jeffrey (S.J.) marks in establishing this magazine’s poetry aesthetic, which endures today.” Stephen Berg, founder of the American Poetry Review and close friend of Marks, served as the judge this year. “Berg made choices that Marks might easily have made himself. Both poems confront gritty realities of isolation and mortality, eschewing sentimentality while holding fast to notions of hope and determination.”

Winner
Greg Jensen: “Anybody Mentions the Pope”

Honorable Mention
Dina Elenbogen: “A New Year”

Finalists
Jack Anderson, David Clewell, Hannah Cohen, Michael Collins, Michelle Deatrick, Dina Elenbogen, Eric Greinek, Marcia Hurlow, Daisy Kincaid, Donald Levering, Moira Linehan, Colleen McElroy, Annette Opalczynski, Jill Osier, Frederick Pollack, Marcia Popp, Kathleen Tibetts, Kari Wergeland, Sarah Winn

The Curt Johnson Prose Awards in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction is named after Johnson who edited the magazine from 1962 until 2008. “He filled the magazine with the work of writers and artists he knew and those he’d never met, concentrating on work he felt deserved, even needed, to be heard.” Mary Helen Stefaniak served as the fiction judge this year and “adhered to values almost identical to those Johnson espoused over the years.” And William Kittridge judged the nonfiction, which both pieces he says are “studies in the ways we become emotionally isolated”

Fiction Winner
Jim Nichols: “Owls”

Fiction Honorable Mention
Michael Fertik: “Hunting in Nangarhar”

Creative Nonfiction Winner
Garet Lahvis: “NQR”

Creative Nonfiction Honorable Mention
Jenny McKeel: “Saigon”

12th Annual BrainStorm Poetry Contest for Mental Health Consumers and Survivors

The winners of the 12th Annual BrainStorm Poetry Contest have been announced and included in the Spring 2014 issue of Open Minds Quarterly. “The winning poems exhibit strength in imagery, attention to the sound of language, and left the readers with a sensation long after they were read.” The honorable mentions include “an echo” by Sophie Soil, “As She Gently Brushed My Hair” by Sandy Jeffs, “With a huge love shattering my heart” by Georgina Paul, and “Medicated” by Sandy Jeffs. Here are the winners along with a sample of their poetry:

First Place
“Quebec City” by Ashley Laframboise

Sitting in your warm apartment, with
snow falling outside frosty windows, you
are wearing purple leg warmers over blue jeans, and green
slippers that used to be your grandmother’s.
You are singing along to
French folk music I’ve never heard before, and lazily
sucking on an electronic cigarette that smells of
honey.

Second Place
“Airport, Heavy Water” by Tyler Gabrysh

Tiny moon shadows plop on my dash;
an orchestral pitter-patter
forming the dew we never see born

Maybe once this was enthralling;
now it’s a swirl of overtaxed night
and dilated mourning.

Third Place
“Waiting to be Found” by Aaron Simkin

The night the meaning dissolved, it was just for me the
heads turned in the cars as I ran from the neon green street signs
a doomed cipher roaming the barren Winnipeg winter night
a prisoner of the light,
bathing in a conspiracy of clues derived from the indelible public grain,
no movies on the marquee at Portage Place,
just question marks like silver lights clawing at the clouds,

I Was a Teenage Girl, Apparently

The cover of the current issue of Dogwood is a still frame from a work-in-progress short, animated film by Nina Frenkel and Lyn Elliot: I Was a Teenage Girl, Apparently, the story of a woman who goes back in time to visit her teenage-self. In the back of the issue of Dogwood is a small interview with each of these featured artists:

Elliot, the writer, said that the collaboration is really helpful for her because she can still direct an animated film despite her “complete lack of drawing ability.” She writes, “I like making very short films; many of my films are five minutes or shorter. SO it seemed to me that my writing and directing impulses could be well0suited to short animation, where virtually anything you can imagine can be made to happen onscreen.”

Frenkel, the animator, says that they are using the “tradigital” style of animation; “it’s a combination of traditional frame-by-frame animation drawing using a digital tool.” This allows it to have “the looseness of the drawn style with the efficiency of the computer.”

The project was funded by Kickstarter and should be completed by late summer. For more information about the project, visit their Kickstarter page.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

While in other parts of the country Spring may have come earlier, in Michigan, our trees have only just started to bloom. So in honor of our first real week of Spring and warmer weather, here’s all the covers this week that are both striking and Spring-filled.

Concho River Review‘s Spring 2014 cover couldn’t be more inviting. The photograph is by Danny Meyer.

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The Aurorean‘s Spring/Summer 2014 issue features “Flowering Tree at Emily Dickinson’s House” by Cynthia Brackett-Vincent.

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So Exit 7‘s cover isn’t quite the aesthetic as the other two, but nothing sounds better now than a nice bike ride. The art is Simple by Jeff Cohen, and his piece Berlin with Bicycle is on the back cover.

Psychopomp’s Transparency

The two editors of Psychopomp literary magazine, Cole Bucciaglia and Sequoia Nagamtsu, posted a blog post revealing the whole submission process. They say that they both read every piece and try to get to it within 10 to 14 days, labeling each piece “no,” “yes,” or “maybe.”

“For me, language is very important,” writes Nagamatsu. “A close second is an awareness of form. A well-crafted submission that reads well (and sounds good) is going to be met with more sympathy on my end. Those stories, regardless of whether or not I’m interested in the subject matter, almost always get a closer read.”

And Bucciaglia confirms that they both have similar tastes. “I think one of the ways in which we different is that I tend to favor stories that are a little sparer with their language,” she writes. “We get a lot of very poetic and lyrical pieces, but I’m very wary of stories in which every line is painstakingly written to evoke heart-aching Beauty. I get more excited about fairy tale-esque stories that are economic with their language. I think shorter pieces tend to get away with sustained lyricism more, which is why we do take many short pieces.”

To read more about the process as well as about the magazine itself, click here.

Writing with At-Risk Youth: The Pongo Teen Writing Method

From Richard Gold, founder of Pongo Teen Writing Project, Writing with At-Risk Youth: The Pongo Teen Writing Method (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2014) is Pongo’s primary teaching tool, the basis of Pongo’s training and given to all workshop participants. It describes the context of trauma in the lives of youth, explains the particular role of poetry, provides the specifics of Pongo’s teaching methods, and tells how to design your own writing project.

The Pongo Teen Writing Project is an 18-year-old nonprofit in Seattle that provides therapeutic poetry programs to youth who’ve suffered childhood traumas, such as abuse and neglect. Pongo has worked with over 6,000 youth inside juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters, psychiatric hospitals, and other sites. The Pongo website features writing activities, poetry, and teacher resources.

Drinkable Book Provides Clean Water

WATERisLIFE has created the first-ever manual that teaches safe water tips and serves as a tool to kill deadly waterborne diseases, The Drinkable Book. Created by Chemist Dr. Thersea Dankovich, the text of the book is been printed with food-grade inks that teach safe water habits and are printed on technologically advance filter paper capable of killing water-born diseases. Each page can provide someone with up to 30 days of clean water, and each book with up to 4 years of clean water.

2013 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize Winners

The Spring 2014 issue of The Missouri Review features the winners of the 2013 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize:

Fiction
Melissa Yancy: “Consider this Case”

Essay
Dave Zoby: “Cafe Misfit”

Poetry
Kai Carlson-Wee: 5 poems

“Kai Carlson-Wee, focuses on the gritty, visceral details of growing up on the West Coast as two brothers scavenge grocery store Dumpsters, dead rats rot in an alley and a severed head is found in a playground,” writes Speer Morgan in the foreword. “Carlson-Wee expands moments of growing up into a larger contemplation of the human condition, including our desire for transcendence despite our physical limitations and time’s inevitable passing.”

Nano Fiction Celebrates Short Story Month

The editors of NANO Fiction ask you to join in celebrating National Short Story Month by getting your  flash on! Visit the NANO Fiction website each day for a new writing prompt, some of which will be linked to a selection of editors’ favorites published in NANO Fiction. At the close of the month, NANO will re-release the prompts along with their linked stories with a dozen never-before-seen new prompts in an anthology. The anthology can be pre-ordered – free to educators with an .edu email address (e-mail your request to them) and only $10 to others.

Redneck Noir Literature :: A Movement?

In the latest issue of The Chattahoochee Review, Ron Cooper hosts a conversation with Paul Ruffin and Eric Miles Williamson about a possible movement called “‘redneck noir,’ composed of writers strewn across the country—from the Bible Belt to the Rust Belt, from the Appalachians to the Sierra Nevada—who are from poor backgrounds and proud to write about them.” Cooper asks Williamson if he considers it a movement:

“It’s never been a movement. This has nothing to do with a bunch of–what do you want to call us?—rednecks, white trash, working poor… None of us likes any of these terms.” He explains how it has to do with the availability of higher education. At the end of WWII, people could afford to go to school under the GI Bill. “This is now ending, however,” he says. “With the defunding of state colleges and universities, tuition is no longer affordable for working-class kids. If I were eighteen today, I’d have to stay a construction worker. … The era, about fifty years, of the working-class novel, the working-class writer or artist of any sort, will be over when my generation dies.”

It’s an insightful and interesting interview, well worth the read whether you are into the genre (? movement?) or not.

Also in this issue are contest winners Jeremy Collins (nonfiction) and Alexander Weinsten (fiction) as well as work from Stephanie Powell Watts, Tori Malcangio, Michael Noll, Bipin Aurora, Jessica Piazza, Okla Elliot, and more.

May is National Short Story Month

Inspired by April’s National Poetry Month and thanks to the StoryADay in May writing challenge, May has started to become identified with the short story. This is now the second year of an organized International Short Story Month. Visit Short Story Month website for ideas on how to celebrate this month as a writer, publisher, teacher, librarian, bookseller; resources for finding short stories to read; listing your own story sources. You can also find follow the #ShortReads hashtag on Twitter (started by publisher AAKnopf) and sign up for the mailing list to receive all the news about International Short Story Month. “And most of all, read a great story today.”

American Life in Poetry :: Jeanie Greensfelder

American Life in Poetry: Column 477
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

When a poem has a strong story to tell, the simplest and most direct language is often the best choice because the poet may not want literary effects to get in the way of the message. Here’s a good example of straightforward language used to maximum effectiveness by Jeanie Greensfelder, who lives in California.

Sixth Grade

We didn’t like each other,
but Lynn’s mother had died,
and my father had died.

Lynn’s father didn’t know how to talk to her,
my mother didn’t know how to talk to me,
and Lynn and I didn’t know how to talk either.

A secret game drew us close:
we took turns being the prisoner,
who stood, hands held behind her back,

while the captor, using an imaginary bow,
shot arrow after arrow after arrow
into the prisoner’s heart.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2012 by Jeanie Greensfelder from her most recent book of poems, Biting the Apple, published by Penciled In, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Jeanie Greensfelder and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Alaska Quarterly Review – Spring/Summer 2014

Good grief, literally. Don’t let the vibrancy of those yellow umbrellas on the cover lull you into a state of blissful aesthetic appreciation; a hard rain’s gonna fall. The short stories, nonfiction, and poetry in the Alaska Quarterly Review’s (AQR) latest issue are soaked with serious consequence, with writers delving into the subjects of madness, financial distress, war, disease, alcoholism, and plain old existential funk. Only the writers’ leavening of such heavy subject matter with great humor, insight, and tart individuality kept me from developing a low-grade Zoloft habit while making my way through the 300-plus pages of this literary squall. Continue reading “Alaska Quarterly Review – Spring/Summer 2014”

The American Poetry Review- March/April 2014

The name Donald Sterling underlines an un-sterling moment in ‘post-racial’ America, delivered in sound bites that, in many ways, reveal sensibilities lurking beneath the ‘post’ in post-racial. Sterling’s girlfriend or personal assistant, V. Stiviano, was the messenger, thanks to mobile devices that heighten our desire to spy on intimate conversations. Indeed, Stiviano had the ball; and then came the slam-dunk that catapulted the message to first-class scandal. Soon, race as topic of discussions and conversations in living rooms and social media is on center stage once again, quietly intrusive, at times, to a point where it taints the spirit of any material you’re reading in the context of race. Continue reading “The American Poetry Review- March/April 2014”

Anak Sastra – April 2014

Anak Sastra is an online magazine that provides a platform for Southeast Asian writers to publish their work in English. It is also a place for “expats, tourists, and regional connoisseurs” to share their experiences in the area. And while I came in with little to no knowledge of Southeast Asia, I still took away important insights. Continue reading “Anak Sastra – April 2014”

Bluestem – Spring 2014

The latest issue of Bluestem, based out of Eastern Illinois University, offers a hefty selection of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and art working in a broad spectrum of styles and aesthetics. The journal isn’t filled exclusively with big-name solicitations, but the range of work it includes is refreshing and strong. Continue reading “Bluestem – Spring 2014”

Cave Wall – Fall 2013

The editor’s note in the latest issue of Cave Wall focuses heavily on the idea of time. The way it shifts all around us in an amorphous cloud, it seems that all we really have to hang onto is the moment right in front of us, to the beauty or pain of each experience as it happens. Memory, growth, and understanding come into play throughout, making for a quick read that’s both relatable and stirring. Continue reading “Cave Wall – Fall 2013”

Columbia Poetry Review – 2013

When you read the 2013 issue of Columbia Poetry Review, sink into a comfortable chair without distraction and be willing to spend time with imagery that stimulates and verse that reconsiders how we define poetry and its evolution. If you are like me, you’ll want to read this issue a number of times to return to images that intrigue, disturb, or entice in poems structured and unstructured, evocative of surrealism in its almost purest form. Continue reading “Columbia Poetry Review – 2013”

Court Green – 2014

Journals published annually like Columbia College of Chicago’s Court Green find themselves in the unenviable position of trying to capture and sustain a reader’s good will and attention during the long wait between issues. Court Green makes all this look easy, staying fresh in mind on the strength of its lively, unpretentious poetry and the unique artifact its editors create with each issue’s “dossier” on a special theme or topic. This year’s “dossier” on New York School poet James Schuyler, which takes up roughly half of the issue, truly harnesses the unique potential of the format, drawing together poetic homage, letters, photographs, flyers, the reflections of associates and admirers, as well as a small selection of Schuyler’s uncollected poems. This enigmatic bundle paired with over one hundred pages of new poems by an array of established and idiosyncratic poets is sure to demand prime coffee table real estate in perpetuity. Continue reading “Court Green – 2014”

Creative Nonfiction – Spring 2014

Writers for this issue were asked to tackle the subject of “Human Face of Sustainability.” It was a widely interpreted phrase, as proven by the included interview and ten essays. Individual subjects range from cancer-causing carcinogens and their effects on both children and our ecosystem (“Acts of Courage” by Mary Heather Noble), to a bicyclist’s perspective on individual activism (“Trapped” by Sarah Gilbert), to how one of the poorest cities in America is working on changing for the better (“Iyabo is Yoruba for ‘The Mother Has Returned’” by Amy Hassinger). Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction – Spring 2014”

Denver Quarterly – 2014

Unlike most literary journals, which separate their content into specific genres, the Denver Quarterly has a much simpler table of contents. The writing in this journal is lumped into two categories: “Work” and “Conversation.” The content of the “Work” section is creative work, e.g. prose and poetry, while the “Conversation” section consists of interviews, critical passages, and the like. Continue reading “Denver Quarterly – 2014”

The Fiddlehead – Winter 2014

The Winter 2014 issue of Fiddlehead turns on moments of awareness of awareness, capturing the instants we catch ourselves catching ourselves, revelations of self to self, to the reader, and to other characters. It’s charming, this subtle focus moving from piece to piece, from poem to prose to poem to poem, and the sequence suggests this international journal from the University of New Brunswick is edited with precision. Continue reading “The Fiddlehead – Winter 2014”

Glass – January 2014

It is with sad hearts that the editors announce that this will be the last issue of Glass: “We love Glass but we must acknowledge the amount of work it takes to keep it going,” they write. It’s always sad to see magazines fold, but I’m glad that they are making the effort to keep all the past issues accessible: “we want to make our commitment to our poets clear: we will make sure your work stays published and stays available for your readers.” Continue reading “Glass – January 2014”

Green Blotter – 2013

The slim, 8×8 format of Green Blotter was what first attracted me to this publication. It is some kind of revival publication of the Green Blotter Literacy Society of Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania. I wish I knew more about its history, but despite nearly four pages of separate editorial commentary from two co-editors-in-chief, readers outside of the community will be equally at a loss. I consider myself a connoisseur of editorials (as one editor to another), but these four pages could have been better devoted to a combined effort of a page, personal thanks on a dedication page, and some more solid information for readers about what this is as a publication with some history. Given the fact that this takes up 10%+ of the writing space in the publication, it deserves comment. Continue reading “Green Blotter – 2013”

Hunger Mountain – Winter 2013/2014

Hunger Mountain announces itself quietly. The cover looks like a mixture of a chess piece and a road map. Reading the issue’s first poem, Annie Lighthart’s “White Barn”, prepares me for pieces featuring a home on the range, or of lives lived under a guise of simple lives and simple times. There are no flashy mechanics to the journal itself—the art is in black and white, the poetry and fiction well-worded and sometimes blunt, and the creative nonfiction as well as the young adult offerings all carry voices frank and honest. Fiction editor Barry Wightman even states it in his foreword letter: “You may ask yourself, ‘what’s this all about?’ . . . Horses. Horses. Horses. Horses.” I was prepared for horses. But what I received was much more than that. Continue reading “Hunger Mountain – Winter 2013/2014”

International Poetry Review – Fall 2013

I cannot remember when I have ever made reading poetry in translation part of my reading habits, but after the experience of reading this issue of International Poetry Review, I am humbled and convinced that I have been missing out on unique and profound experiences with poems that are significant and at times transcendent. Continue reading “International Poetry Review – Fall 2013”

New Orleans Review – 2014

Do dimensions matter? Most literary journals are considerably taller than they are wide, often in the 6 by 9-inch range. The New Orleans Review is a compact 5-3/4 by 6-3/4 inches. For this reader, the size has a focusing effect that magnifies the significance of the words, for better or worse. Also as a result of size there are only seven offerings therein, perhaps a budgetary decision, but in any case one that channels attention towards the text. Two short stories, conventional in structure but not in their degree of excellence, contend with five pieces that variously blur the lines between poetry, prose poems, fiction, and essay. Continue reading “New Orleans Review – 2014”

Off the Coast – Winter 2014

This issue of Off the Coast carries a cover theme of “Ice Fishing,” but I am under the firm belief that was somebody’s joke to play on an outdoorsman like myself. Luckily, I really enjoy poetry, and this issue contains 41 poetic offerings for readers to peruse. None of them deal with the directive of “Ice Fishing,” but for a bad pun laced with reality, I will say that the issue felt to be casting about a bit. Continue reading “Off the Coast – Winter 2014”

Olentangy Review – Spring 2014

The cover of this issue is a photograph of what appears to be the end of a spinning tunnel in a fun house. The end is in sight, but getting there is the hard part. There isn’t much to hold onto, and your travel is shaky. The same could be said of the experiences people face both in life in general and in this issue of Olentangy Review. Continue reading “Olentangy Review – Spring 2014”

Poetry Northwest – Fall/Winter 2013/2014

If you read only one issue of a literary magazine this year, let it be this issue of Poetry Northwest, if only to read Stanley Plumly’s gorgeous essay “The End of Keats.” Plumly writes with gentle reverence of the poet who famously died too young, in poverty and failure. Plumly’s writing kept me reading to the end of Keats’ life, and I learned so much. At the end of the piece, Plumly shares his view of Keats’s short life and painful death and writes that the tragedy “lies in the not knowing; or worse, knowing the wrong thing.” He goes on to say that “that is true for most of us: we never know, we never really know the long consequences.” This theme runs through the essay and through many of the poems in the magazine that also deal with truth and the experience of dying and how the living deal with it all. In many of the poems in this issue narrators speak to lost loved ones in sadness and in hindsight at what might have been missed in lives ended too soon. Plumly’s essay is a perfect ending to this issue that deals with endings. Continue reading “Poetry Northwest – Fall/Winter 2013/2014”

Southern Humanities Review – Fall 2013

The Southern Humanities Review, published at Auburn University and affiliated with the Southern Humanities Council, is a humanities journal with a Southern flavor, not a review of the humanities in the South. This means it publishes fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews that may or may not be anchored in Southern culture. For example, the lead piece, an essay by James Braziel titled “The Ballad of JD,” is set in Georgia and Alabama and is rich in down-home, colloquial language and detail. “I’ve seen him drinking Thunderbird before, what we call hog liquor back home because it smells like a pig farm and gasoline and faintly of overripe oranges,” he reports of a man who has nearly burned himself up in an apartment fire. JD, the title character, works at the pulpwood yard and sometimes at loading watermelons badly, a nobody whose anonymous, hard life makes him, paradoxically, memorable. To tell his story, Braziel takes the long way around, making the side trips as important as the destination, the way Southerners do. So the essay is both set in the South and is Southern in its delivery. Continue reading “Southern Humanities Review – Fall 2013”

Story – 2014

The inaugural issue of this stellar new litmag “devoted to stories of all kinds, focusing on a single theme each issue” is a double steal. To access Side B from Side A, readers have to turn the volume (the same size and shape as The Believer and Creative Nonfiction, two similarly innovative mags) over and upside-down. In either side, said reader will find herself “innovated” and turned more than a bit upside down, on purpose and with undeniable, delighted affirmation. I can imagine a cadre of new readers sitting around a table drinking wine and rehashing this issue with high gratification deep into the night. Continue reading “Story – 2014”

subTerrain – Spring 2014

subterrain-n66-.jpg

Subterrain

Volume 7 Number 66

Spring 2014

Review by Sherra Wong

subTerrain has a youthful feel. But rather than the ages of the characters or speakers themselves, the feeling is borne more of a sense of dislocation and disorientation. Even when they are seen in an adult habitat—job, relationship, a rhythm that most of the over-25 set settle into—the bleakness, the weirdness, and the whimsy in these pieces recall an eighteen or twenty-two-year-old’s fantasy of what life may turn out to be like down the road, if they remain on the edge of convention either internally or in society and haven’t become more content than they are now. Perhaps the fantastic and the rootlessness are a product of the issue’s theme, “This Carnival Life,” which throws up and tears down an entire mesmerizing world in the space of a few days. And true to the chaos in a carnival, subTerrain isn’t interested in tidy structures. The stories end abruptly, the poems demand considerable powers of association from the reader, the commentary can take leaps of logic, and the book reviews sometimes grope unsuccessfully for the right word. Yet the talent of these writers is evident; the skill they have for creating worlds is a promise for greater things to come.

Continue reading “subTerrain – Spring 2014”

1966 – Spring 2014

If Miya Pleines’s “These Orbits, Crossing” is the first thing you read from 1966 (it’s the first piece in this issue), I promise you’ll continue on. Mixing research about flying and falling, alongside memories of her grandfather, Pleines crafts an essay that isn’t just a memoir; it connects to all of us: Continue reading “1966 – Spring 2014”

Flood-Dispersed Books Become Art

Photos from artist Micah Bloom’s Codex project (“involves film, photography, and installation”) is included in Ruminate‘s Spring 2014 issue. I encourage you to take a look as his artwork will hit the souls of any writer or reader. ” In an artist’s note he writes about how growing up, his family instilled in him a certain respect for books: “In our home, books were elevated in the hierarchy of objects; in their nature, deemed closer to humans than furniture, knickknacks, or clothing. Under these impressions I was forced into this relatinship with displaced books.” His work uses the books that were “strewn in streets, across roadways, along railroad tracks” after the Souris River ravaged Minot, North Dakota in June of 2011. “These books were vessels—surrogates of human soul, these shelters—housing our heritage—displaced, now driven over by boomtown commuters and shredded by oil tankers on their way from the Bakken oil fields. It was this surreal situation that stirred me to alter the fate of these books.”

And although I truly wish more information about the actual art rendering was including, it’s a pleasure just to flip through the pages. You can find a little more information by watching their (already funded) kickstart video.

The Briar Cliff Review Awards

The 2014 issue of The Briar Cliff Review marks another year for its contest winners. Here are the first prize winners with a short quote from their work (which can be found inside the issue):

Fiction Contest Winner
Leslie Kirk Campbell: “Thunder in Illinois”
   
   “He’s not a gambler but he’s made his own secret bet. If he wins, he won’t need to go back to Bangkok. If he loses, well, his bag is still packed.
     ‘What did you say, Lenny?’
     ‘I said I can die as soon as I get more points that you, dear. And I’m a hair’s breadth away from that moment.'”

Nonfiction Contest Winner
JLSchneider: “Call Me T

Fiction Issue :: The Southampton Review

The newest issue of The Southampton Review is a special fiction issue. To conclude the editor’s note, Lou Ann Walker writes, “This fiction issue, edited by Susan Scarf Merrell, is devoted to the obsessive myopic passion of all artists, and particularly novelists and short story writers. ‘…because,’ as Luthi notes, ‘a writing life can help it all make sense.” And Merrell writes in her note that “As you page through this fiction issue of TSR, you will find a wide variety of storytelling styles . . . Famous writers and young students appear here, grappling with the questions that most interest and concern them . . . Funny, sad, painful; experimental, traditional, flash—no matter what form the stories here take, or what tales the authors choose to tell, each one has truth at the core of its created world.”

The issue starts its fiction with Edwidge Danticat and “Je Voudrais Etre Riche: A Trickster Tale.” Here’s how it begins so that you can get a taste: “It was too good not to be true. Two women. One black. One white. One old. One young. The young black one, pregnant, with a slightly shrieking wailing voice. The old white one hunched over under a red, ankle-length coat, and a fog of white hair creep out under a crocheted mauve beret.

Rhino Contest Winners

The new Rhino announces and publishes the winners of their 2014 contests.

2014 Founders’ Prize
Winner
Jose Antonio Rodriguez – “Poem in honor of the one-year anniversary of my sister Aleida’s death, which is five days away”

Runners-up
MaryJo Thompson – “Body Breakers”
Adam Scheffler – “Americas”

2014 Editors’ Prizes
First Prize
Brandon Krieg – “Comedy of Mirrors”

Second Prize
P. Scott Cunningham – “Planet Earth”

Honorable Mentions
C. Ann Kodra – “Dowsing”
Octavio Quintanilla – “Tell Them Love is Found”

2014 Switcheroo Winner

The Broadside Press annual Switcheroo poetry winner is “Disappear” by Philip Schaefer, whose work has been matched with the artwork “Another Portal” by Maura Cunningham. The broadside is available for free, full-color download from the Broadsided website. Public posting encouraged! Finalist “Before Man” by Lauren Wolk is also available for reading on the website.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

The artwork on the latest issue of Phoebe is by Jaime Bennati, an artist who “makes the viewer question our relationship to things we keep and discard daily” by using materials often overlooked. The center of the issue features more of her work as well as a self-written how-to guide so you can try a piece of your own. Her included collection comes from using bus tickets that were discarded. “On average about 200,000 were discarded per day.” As a person who makes jewelry out of discarded materials, I’m intensely interested in her work.

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The Fall 2013 issue of Kestrel features artwork by Julie Anne Struck titled A Story which is photo transfer, ink, collage, and colored pencil on panel. It’s great to look at up close. Struck “has always touched upon and explored anything that illustrates her interest in dissolving boundaries and celebrating connections between fine art, design, writing, and other creative disciplines.” More of her work is featured in full color inside the issue.

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Not only are the colors and the actual skill of this cover art for Ruminate fascinating, but Sarah Megan Jenkins’s Jean Lafitte Swamp (acrylic and mixed media) feels like today in Michigan. The trees are gloomy, the world looks sad after a harsh, long winter, but the sun is coming up and there’s hope on the horizon.

Poetastic Wants Your Poetry Video Recording

Poetastic is a new poetry website curating “transformative video recordings of poetry readings.” The video submissions are of reciters reading and recording themselves reciting other people’s poetry, transforming meaning for the listener/viewer.

Poetastic is a project created by Harrod J Suarez, Assistant Professor of English at Oberlin College, but in terms of this project, it “is best understood as a category comprised of a legion of collaborators, contributors, and co-conspirators.” Submissions are accepted on a rolling deadline.

Poetastic provides guidelines for recording as well as resources for finding poems to read and record. Participants must be at least 18 years old.

Celebrating William Stafford at 100

Guest Editor Israel Wasserstein puts forth North Dakota Quarterly‘s newest issue that celebrates William Stafford at 100. “Stafford’s poems stayed with me in their quiet resolve, and their commitment to his values, to the elegance of plain speech, and to finding that which is holy in one’s experience,” writes Wasserstein. “All of which to say, when the opportunity arose to edit he William Stafford Celebration issue . . . I was thrilled.” As a closing note, he writes, “I hope that you will find in these pages proof of the continuing relevance of Stafford’s words and life, and of the powerful, moving, and diverse work being done by those whom he has influenced. I hope that you will find these remarkable works celebratory, even when they face tragedy and loss, even when they are at their most serious.”

The issue itself features work from Paulann Petersen, Regina and Tim Gort, Jeff Gundy, Philip Metres, Fred Whitehead, Richard Levine, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Mark Dudley, Abayomi Animashaun, Linda Whittenberg, Karin L. Frank, Meg Hutchinson, and so many more.