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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!

Glimmer Train June Fiction Open Winners :: 2012

Glimmer Train announced the winning stories for their June Fiction Open competition. This Fiction Open competition is held quarterly. Stories generally range from 2000-6000 words, though up to 20,000 is fine. The next Fiction Open will take place in September. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Stefani Nellen (pictured), of Groningen, The Netherlands, wins $2500 for “Men in Pink Tutus.” Her story will be published in the Fall 2013 issue of Glimmer Train Stories. [Photo credit: Niels Taatgen]

Second place: Tom Kealey, of Greensboro, NC, wins $1000 for “The Lost Brother.” His story will also appear in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

Third place: Ben Fowlkes, of Missoula, MT, wins $600 for “Something Something Land Down Under.” His story will also be published in Glimmer Train Stories, increasing his prize to $700.

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

Upcoming Deadline for the next Fiction Open competition: September 30, 2012

Pongo :: Working with Troubled Teen Writers

Based out of Seattle, the Pongo Teen Writing Project offers a wealth of resources for those working with young writers, especially in similar populations as Pongo’s focus – teens who are in jail, on the streets, or in other ways leading difficult lives.Pongo provides writing activities and other resources for teachers, counselors, and advocates working with teens.

The Pongo Project Journal is a regularly updated blog of youth writing and advocate experiences. The most recent post is “The Color of Their Lives” by Pongo mentor Vanessa Hooper. Vanessa writes about her experience working in juvenile detention. In addition to the dark internal storms of the teens’ childhood trauma, and the greyness of the institutional settings where the youth find themselves, the Pongo authors also have vital lights, as expressed in the hopeful process of poetry.

This Pongo story is part of the following KING5 TV special, by John Sharify and Doug Burgess, about the role of the arts for people who are struggling: It’s Just So Powerful. (Note: I started watching this, and couldn’t stop! It’s extremely well done, and Pongo is the first story in the show, so you can catch it right away.)

Pongo collects surveys from their authors when there’s time at the end of a session and learned that one-third of their writers had previously written only a little or not at all. Pongo has collected over 700 surveys from their young writers with the following STUNNING results:

100% enjoyed the Pongo experience
98% were proud of their writing
73% wrote about things they don’t normally talk about
86% learned about writing
75% learned about themselves
83% felt better after writing
94% expect to write more in the future
92% expect to write when life is difficult

To learn more, visit Pongo Teen Writing Project and tell others about the writing activities and other free resources on the Pongo web site!

Endings :: Other Voices, Canada

A post on Canadian Magazines blog let us know that Other Voices magazine of Edmonton has ceased publication. Started in mid 1988s, the magazine had a long history of publishing outside of the mainstream. Managing Editor Bobbi Beatty cited changes in the publishing industry and economy as two contributing factors to the decision to cease publication. The magazine website is no longer functioning.

Editor Changes: Iron Horse

In the most recent issue of Iron Horse Literary Review, Editor Leslie Jill Patterson announces that Managing Editor Brent Newsom, who also writes the Horselaugh column at the back of every issue, will be leaving for a tenure-track job in Oklahoma. “Brent has been a God-send to us this year,” she writes, “a young man quick to laugh and also real sly about calming tempters and quashing trouble in the office. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard as he and I did one day when proofing one of our issues. People passing by in the hallway must have thought we were drunk, howling as we were. I’ll miss him tremendously but am so happy for he and his wife, Amanda, as they start their lives as ‘real’ people, not poor, struggling students any more. Of course, it was only appropriate that Brent, with his sense of humor, created and wrote the Horse Laugh column at the back of every issue.”

She announces that there will be one more column from him in an upcoming issue, but then Iron Horse will start up a new column featuring the new managing editor, Landon Houle.

The actual issue includes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from Harryette Mullen, John Hart, Mike Alexander, Alison Stine, Jennifer Bullis, Josh Booton, Ashley Seitz Kramer, Sean Bernard, Karen Regen-Tuero, and Amy Monticello.

A Map of the Lost World

A Map of the Lost World is literary blending of history and poetry through lyricism, realism, and, it would seem, an almost empathetic touch of irony that leaves the reader caught between literary landscape planes. The book is comprised of five parts (each of the parts and each of the poems, by the way, with utterly fantastic titles) that do not necessarily work to frame a specific narrative whole, yet they nevertheless contribute to A Map of the Lost World in specific ways. What author Rick Hilles does, then, is weave together the particular commonalities between these parts: unexpected geographies, small moments, specific people, connected anecdotes, stories, transliterated language. The real literary strength of Hilles’s writing comes from his broad familiarity with historical themes and his ability to connect individuals—and his readers—to those themes. Continue reading “A Map of the Lost World”

The Time of Quarantine

With increasing frequency, well-meaning friends have been sending me articles that encourage me to stop worrying about the next generation and just have fun. It’s not that they think everything will turn out OK, but rather, that we’re so far gone, there’s nothing to be done. It seems that groups of climate scientists are predicting our demise with a specificity and immediacy that would make an old-timey cult leader blush. The Water Wars are coming: look busy. Continue reading “The Time of Quarantine”

Intimate

Paisley Rekdal’s artistic book Intimate may be, at first glance, part of an indefinable genre. Flipping through its pages, one finds snippets of poetry, family stories, photos, and biographies. As the subtitle indicates, this is a textual and visual photo album of American family history. In her book, Rekdal challenges the definition of “American” family by examining race, lineage, and gender through the fictional biographies of Edward Curtis (a photographer of American Indians) and his translator, Alexander Upshaw, as well as scenes from Rekdal’s own life and the lives of her white father and Chinese mother. These biographies are interspersed with Curtis’s photographs and Rekdal’s poetry. She urges us to take accountability—not only for our dysfunctional family histories, but for the bloodied and prejudiced histories that belong to the American identity. Rekdal’s language is both delicate, and sharp—like a thin slice of glass cutting through our histories, our masquerades, our deceits. Continue reading “Intimate”

The World of a Few Minutes Ago

Jack Driscoll’s short story collection The World of a Few Minutes Ago reflects Michigan’s weather, concentrates on mostly blue-collar workers and trailer inhabitants, and offers a mostly masculine voice but also a beautiful lyrical style, describing the beauty of stars as well as perfectly capturing the lives of his characters and their personality clashes. His story structure is meticulous and convoluted as we twist from the characters’ sad hard lives toward a resolution of acceptance and sometimes release. Continue reading “The World of a Few Minutes Ago”

Forms of Feeling

This book is ostensibly an essay collection, but poet and creative writing teacher John Morgan has also filled the pages with poems, biographical information, journal entries, book reviews, interviews, and reading and writing instruction. These various elements within the same volume combine to create an intimate portrait of the poet and his spirituality, teaching methods, family life, writing practice, and interactions with nature and place. Continue reading “Forms of Feeling”

Sea and Fog

In the morning as I walk to work down the streets of San Francisco and the endless movement of fog and wind brings the crisp salt air in from off the bay water, setting it to swirling about the buildings and sidewalk, I’m oftentimes reminded of how much this really is a beach town. Etel Adnan’s Sea and Fog is an extended series of lyric meditations contemplating human desire, loss, war, art, and much more through the lens of writing towards this landscape, though Adnan’s own daily observations take place from her home in Sausalito across the bay. In these definitely ordered, yet infinitely variable, short prose-blocks, consciousness is fully immersed in the act of writing as motifs and concerns overlap and reoccur. There’s guiding awareness that “here,” wherever we may find ourselves, remains a definitive spot in observable time: “There’s a moment to the moment. We’re in the world.” Continue reading “Sea and Fog”

The House of Jasmine

Egyptian prize-winning novelist Ibrahim Abdel Meguid’s The House of Jasmine, though set in the ‘70s during Anwar Sadat’s presidency, has a lot of resonance for Egypt’s current Arab Spring. Shagara, a low level employee of Alexandria’s shipyard, reflects in his own petty thievery the corruption not only of his shipyard administration, but that of the Sadat regime. As the translator Noha Radwan explains, this novella is “a story of deception and fraudulence, planned by a scheming administration and carried out by a disenchanted and dejected population.” Shagara redeems himself in the reader’s eye because of his love of beauty, his simple desires, and his own self-criticism. Continue reading “The House of Jasmine”

Journey to the Sun

In Journey to the Sun, the author tells of his travels at age thirteen to the “Source of All Life.” The book is difficult to categorize; no ready vessel of satire, political tract, manifesto, spoof, spoken word will corral it, but there is shouting, exuberance, spontaneity of energetic discovery in short narrative phrases: OK!, alight! alight!, Gold & Heat & Progress for all! 4x4x4!, you are not the FIRST!, you are not even the TRILLIONTH!, this is AMERICA!, Double Slash Zero! The human VOICE is heard in this writing. The book begins with an Invocation: Continue reading “Journey to the Sun”

The Diesel

First published in Beirut in the mid-90s, Thani Al-Suwaidi’s The Diesel was labeled a “shock-novel” by early critics; this novella’s protagonist shifts gender identity and moves in a world of desire that spans not only the range of hetero- and homosexual yearnings, but stretches to encompass the sea and the sun. The book has since gained acceptance, and, according to translator William M. Hutchins, Al-Suwaidi has become an important Emirati author. As the United States continues to awaken from cultural isolationism and its political activists are inspired by uprisings in the Gulf region, this important translation is more relevant to English-speaking audiences now than when the book was first written. Continue reading “The Diesel”

The Black Forest

Christopher DeWeese’s The Black Forest is a book that falls into a family of highly imaginative, surreal, dream-like poetry collections that seem to be especially trendy lately. I’m certainly not complaining. Many of my favorite books of poetry fall into this family, like James Tate’s Return to the city of white donkeys and Zachary Schomburg’s The Man Suit. Continue reading “The Black Forest”

The Russian Writer’s Daughter

Never judge a book by its title. The Russian Writer’s Daughter sounds like one of the far-too-many tragic family histories of life and creativity during the Soviet Union. And while Lydia Rosner is the daughter of Russian writer Abraham Sokolovsky (changed to Sokol upon immigrating to America in 1917), her accessible, thoughtful memoir is an American one, specifically a New York City one. She focuses on her own life and that of other Russians in the United States, at one point taking aim at another famous Russian writer’s daughter, Alexandra Tolstoy. Rosner and her father deride the charity Tolstoy founded and the White Russians (anti-Communist Russian immigrants) who take advantage of it as “fake.” Continue reading “The Russian Writer’s Daughter”

Bonsai

Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra’s first novel, Bonsai, for all its short length (83 pages), is easy to read, dense with events if not with explanations, and intriguing. The chapters are short, the prose clear but remote from the “characters,” who the author claims are not characters but only given names for convenience’s sake. He also tells us which characters are not important even though he gives information about them. Of necessity, the reader slides over these bewildering directives to get two main themes—lying and love. Overriding all is a love story between Emilia and Julio, who meet at age fifteen in a Spanish class. Continue reading “Bonsai”

Contest Winners: Mudfish

The newest issue of Mudfish features the writing and winners of the 10th Annual Mudfish Poetry Prize. The winners were selected by Mark Doty.

First Place
Alison Jarvis: “Elegy for a Drummer”

Second Place
Angelo Nikolopoulos: “Take the Body Out”

Third Place
Nancy Hechinger: “Fireworks on the Fourth in the Town of Margaretville”

Other writers that appear in this issue include Cherri Randall, Jan Ball, Stephen Sandy, Gertrude Morris, Peter Layton, Deborah H. Doolittle, Lyn Lifshin, Kevin King, Dwayne Thorpe, Simon Perchik, Sarah Wyman, Jeff Crandall, Greg Brownderville, Terry Phelan, Tess Carroll, Tim Erickson, Marina Rubin, Sara Sousa, Linda Larson, Henrietta Goodman, Angela Kelly, Brad Buchanan, Carol Matos, Madeline Tiger, Robert Steward, and many more.

Current Western TV Special Issue

The Summer 2012 issue of Western American Literature features Current Western TV. “The essays in this special issue,” says Guest Editor Michael K. Johnson, “suggest the range and diversity of western television. The issue seeks to expand the concept of the genre Western and to expand our understanding of the “place” of the Western. There series here combine or draw from multiple genres (police procedurals, biker tales, documentaries, reality TV, etc.) to create new versions of the Western, and they sometimes expand the setting of the Western to include places other than the traditionally defined American West.”

“While this issue celebrates the rebirth of the television Western in new twenty-first-century forms, the essays also suggest the necessity of critical engagement with a genre that continues to return to us a complicated, sometimes contradictory, alternately progressive and regressive reflection of our own cultural moment.”

Essays featured in this issue come from Jennifer Schell, Kerry Fine, Justin A. Joyce, Sara Humphreys, and book reviews are contributed by Cynthia J. Miller, Corey Dethier, Sue Matheson, Holly Jean Richard, D. B. Gough, Leonard Engel, Melinda Linscott, and John Hursh.

Screen Reading: Online Lit Mag Reviews

You asked for it, NewPages delivered! Now get in there and read Screen Reading – reviews of online literary magazines. Since our last update, Editor Kirsten McIlvenna has been busy reading and critiquing Treehouse, SNReview, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Plume, The Puritan, Contrary, Fox Chase Review, Ragazine.cc,  The Baltimore Review, Wag’s Revue, Blue Lake Review, and Tampa Review Online.

Thank you to those of you who have dropped us a line letting us know how much you appreciate this weekly column. Readers find it helpful for locating good reading and writers like getting a professional opinion of the publication for submission consideration.
NewPages continues to provide thoughtful reviews on these online publications as well as our regular monthly feature of literary magazine reviews and book reviews.
Good reading starts here!

Portland/Brooklyn Mix Tape

Tin House‘s current issue features a supplemental “mix-tape” and fold-out poster (featuring art from the cover). The editors say, “How could we put out a Portland/Brooklyn theme issue and not include a soundtrack?” This “mix-tape” soundtrack can be listened to and downloaded here.

Tin House editors said, “We invited Brooklyn-based feminist noise-rockers Amy Klein and Catherine Tung of Hilly Eye and, from the City of Roses, the ambient electro-acoustic musician Liz Harris, of Grouper, to curate an epic mix that captures the sonic landscape of our hometowns. ‘The music coming out of Brooklyn is receiving a lot of attention right now,’ notes Klein and Tun. ‘Perhaps because it is being produced by a particularly young, particularly entrepreneurial set. Competition is stiff, which breeds technical and artistic savvy.’ To wit: Fiasco, TEEN, and ‘Magnetic Island, which melds math-rock rhythms with mind-expanding flights of guitar.'”

The Bands

Brooklyn
Shellshag
Magnetic Island
Queening
Fiasco
Hilly Eye
Devious
Teen
Dan Friel

Portland
Pulse Emitter
Ilyas Ahmed
Golden Retriever
Operative
Indignant Senility
Mirroring
Privacy
Cloaks

Writing featured in the issue includes work from Hannah Tinti, Jon Raymond, Adam Wilson, Evan Hughes, Vanessa Veselka, Ben Lerner, Ursula K. Le Guin, Karen Karbo, Salma Abdelnour, and more.

Worst Opening Lines

For a little Friday Fun – read the winning entries of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Sponsored by the English Department at San Jose State University since 1982, this self-proclaimed “whimsical literary competition” challenges writers to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. There are lots of categories (such as Crime, Romance, Mystery, Sci Fi, Western, etc.) with winner and runners-up as well as “Dishonorable Mentions.” It’s a lot of fun – and for you teachers out there – a great teaching tool!

Solstice Contest Winners

In the most recent issue, Solstice publishes the work of their 2012 contest award winners and finalists. They also feature a poem by Stephen Dunn after whom the poetry prize was named. Editor Lee Hope says to “plunge into this special Summer Issue and explore the depth and richness of our writers!”

Fiction Prize
Judge: Jennifer Haigh

First Place: $1,000
Amy L. Clark: “Rheumatic Fever”

Runner-Up
Cameron MacKenzie: “Ruffly Like Christmastime”

Finalists
Silvia Moreno-Garcia: “Translucent Skin”
Morgan Smith: “Messengers of God”
Janet Hilliard-Osborn: “In the Shade of the Black Walnut Tree”

Stephen Dunn Poetry Award
Judges: Kathleen Aguero and Danielle Georges

First Place: $500
Mike Nelson: “Via Dolorosa”

Runner-up
Emily Van Duyne: “I Blame the Ronettes”

Finalists
Don Colburn: “Technicalities and the Heart”
Kristen Havens: “Centinela”
Read Trammell: “Fisherman on the Pier”

Nonfiction Prize
Judge: Jerald Walker

First Place: $500
Dawn Haines: “Aleatorik”

Finalists
Gaynell Gavin: “A Failure of Narrative Distance”
Deborah Taffa: “On Bison Skulls and Trains”

Fence Editor Changes

The editor’s note in the most recent issue of Fence comes from Fiction Editor Lynne Tillman in honor of it being her last issue. “This is my fifteenth issue, and my last,” she says. “I figured it was time, which is a conveniently abstract way of saying a lot and not much. As editor, I satisfied a desire to get first-timers published. I loved bringing well-published writers into Fence, and having them share the Table of Contents with newer ones. I looked for and published many stories in translation. As editor, I could select pieces by different kinds of writers, who had varied approaches to prose and narrative. All of this made me very happy.”

“It was an honor being the fiction editor of Fence, and I thank Rebecca Wolff for the chance. What will come can only be terrific—and different. Vive la.”

This issue itself contains work from Denis Johnson, Paul Lisicky, Marin Buschel, Judith Goldman, Geoffrey Nutter, Cathy Eisenhower, Rosmarie Waldrop, Keith Waldrop, Daniel Tiffany, and more.

Baltimore Review’s Print Issue

Since transitioning to an online magazine, The Baltimore Review publishes their first cumulative print issue, which includes work from their first two online issues. “In the future, our annual print issues will include the work from all quarterly issues,” the editor’s note indicates. “We hope that you will enjoy the array of voices in these pages. There is music in the language here. There are stories you will remember for a long time.”

Included in the print issue is the 2011 Short Fiction Competition’s first place winner Linda Barnhart’s “The New Victorians.” There is also writing from the Room Theme Contest:

First Place
Emily Roller: “Improvement”

Second Place
Jen Murvin Edwards: “Come In, Come In”

Third Place
Heather Martin: “On Maimeó”

Other contributors to the issue include Ned Balbo, Harry Bauld, Nathan Gower, Josh Green, Paul Hostovsky, Tim Kahl, Todd Kaneko, Michael Kimball, Peter Kispert, Beth Lefebvre, Christopher Lowe, Jen Michalski, Devin Murphy, Andrew Purcell, Seth Sawyers, Catherine Thomas, Angela Narciso Torres, Michelle Valois, James Walser, Stephen J. West, Gregory Wolos, and many more.

True Crime Creative Nonfiction Issue

The most recent issue of Creative Nonfiction is all about true crime. “In this issue,” says Editor Lee Gutkind, “we have some pretty compelling, real-life, true crime essays: ‘Origami & the Art of Identity Folding,’ by AC Fraser, winner of CNF’s $1,000 ‘True Crime Essay Contest’ prize, takes us inside the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Fraser served time for identity theft. In ‘Grave Robber: A Love Story,’ Joyce Marcel recalls her 30s, when, having run away from an unhappy marriage, she supported her travels for several years by buying and selling and smuggling ancient ceramics from Peru.”

“‘Leviathan,’ by David McGlynn, is the story of a brutal triple-murder of the author’s close friend, age 15, and his brother and father, while ‘Addict,’ by Lacy M. Johnson, tells the mind-boggling story of how the writer’s ex-boyfriend kidnapped her and bolted her to a chair he built in a basement apartment. And that’s just in the beginning.”

“Finally, Steven Church’s ‘Speaking of Ears and Savagery’ is a sprawling discourse on Mike Tyson, Travis the Chimp, Van Gogh, David Lynch and more, exploring our conflicted relationship with brutality.”

“The rest of the issue circles around this same theme, exploring our fascination with true crime stories and tales of true violence. Harold Schechter, the author of many carefully researched true crime stories, starts off the issue with a long view of the true crime genre, which, he argues, dates almost as far back as type. In this issue’s Encounter, Donna Seaman talks with Erik Larson, author of ‘The Devil in the White City’ and ‘In the Garden of Beasts,’ about the work he puts into his meticulously researched best sellers. There’s also a thoughtful round-table discussion about the challenges of writing honestly—and ethically—about violence.”

Molly Beth Griffin Wins Children’s Lit Prize

Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature was awarded to Molly Beth Griffin for her novel Silhouette of a Sparrow. Molly Beth Griffin is the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Grant, a graduate of Hamline University’s MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and a writing teacher at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.

“Silhouette of a Sparrow is a coming-of-age story about the search for wildness in a confining time—a tale of a young woman discovering both the art of rebellion and the power of unexpected love. Sent to spend the summer with distant relatives at a resort hotel in Excelsior, Minnesota, sixteen-year-old Garnet Richardson—budding ornithologist; reluctant troublemaker; adventurous spirit—quickly compiles a list of all the things she wants to do: sneak into the new amusement park, wander the countryside looking for new birds, and somehow convince her mother to let her attend college. It’s 1926 and Garnet is well aware of the world’s expectations for her: after this summer with her relatives, she is to marry, settle down, and become a housewife. But what no one expects—least of all Garnet—is that she’ll fall in love with the beautiful and daring Isabella, a flapper at the local dance hall. It is she who will give Garnet the courage to take control of her own life and pursue her dreams.”

The title will be released next month by Milkweed Editions.

Literary Postcard Story Contest Winners

Geist announces the winners of their 9th Annual Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest. “For eight years now,” the editors say, “Geist has been asking writers to send in short stories inspired by postcard images. This year Geist shook things up by asking contest entrants to write short stories inspired by postcards they had made themselves, or by images in the public domain.”

1st Prize
“Spooning” by Davey Thompson and Cameron Tully

2nd Prize
“The Paper Dress” by Susan Steudel

3rd Prize
“Layover” by Michelle Elrick

Honorable Mentions:
“Kiwi” by Britta Boudreau
“Spit-Wet Fingers and a Kiss” by Carin Makuz
“Members” by Jannie Edwards
“Schrödinger’s Cat” by Jessica Michalofsky
“Space Aliens” by R. Daniel Lester
“After Lydia” by Raoul Fernandes
“String Theory” by Salvatore Difalco

You can read the winning stories online here. The three prize winners are also in print in Geist 85.

Interview Section in CALYX

With the print of their newest issue, CALYX announces and presents a new section to the magazine: an interview section. This issue features an interview by one of the CALYX editors Bethany Haug with Rebecca Lindenberg, author of Love, An Index (McSweeney’s, 2012). The interview discusses Lindenberg’s new book, her inspiration for poetry, and how her experience of gender has shaped her identity as a writer.

Lindenberg says, “Well, in the sense that [gender] has centrally shaped my identity as a human, I’d say it shapes my identity as a writer quite a lot. And like it or not, I think the truth is that in writings as in all things, women and their work still encounter a degree of mostly unconscious skepticism from people—male and female—who are in positions to select or publish (or praise) our work, or give us jobs, or claim us as influences.” She goes on to say, “I aspire to be the same kind of poet as I am a woman/human—educated, inventive, generous, curious, ethical, attracted to quick wit and drawn to big, ambitious ideas, and maybe a little sassy, when the price is right.”

Senior Editor Rebecca Olson says, “You can continue to look forward to this interview section in future issues where we’ll feature discussions with the best and brightest women writers and artists today.”

The rest of the issue features poetry, prose, and art from Lisa Bellamy, Susan Nisenbaum Becker, Jung Hae Chae, Sandra Cisneros, Vanessa Hua, Julie Lein, Stephanie Glazier, Judy Halebsky, Jody Joldersma, Theresa Anderson, Katie Cercone, and more.

Blue Mesa Contest Winners

The new issue of Blue Mesa Review features the winners of the magazine’s 2012 Fiction and Poetry Contest. The fiction contest was judged by Kate Braverman, and the poetry contest was judged by Dana Levin.

Fiction Contest Winners
First Place: Tom Watters with “National Steel”
Second Place: Alison Hess with “Admission”

Poetry Contest Winners
First Place: Cynthia Monroe with “Lemon Fervor”
Second Place: Benjamin Garcia

New Delta Review – June 2012

This issue of New Delta Review (NDR) features the winners of the 2012 Matt Clark Prize in Fiction and Poetry and Creative Nonfiction Contest. This contest is in honor of Matt Clark, a coordinator of creative writing at Louisiana State University that died from colon cancer at the age of thirty-one. “Fascinated by tall tales and urban legends, Matt was in the process of inventing a new kind of Southwest magical realism, part Mark Twain, part Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In his honor, NDR sponsors the Matt Clark Prize in fiction and poetry.” Continue reading “New Delta Review – June 2012”

La Petite Zine – August 2012

This issue, themed 21st Century Cosmic Cool, was excitedly announced by the editors to be released on the same day as National Sponge Cake Day. In a newsletter, they even shared a gif in celebration, telling readers to come read the “spongiest litmag on the internet.” Although, spongy isn’t exactly the word I’d choose to describe this issue. La Petite Zine isn’t soaking up every poem it encounters, only the interesting, fresh, and arresting poems. Continue reading “La Petite Zine – August 2012”

Tampa Review Online – August 2012

After only seconds on the site, what immediately drew me in was the scrolling images of art by Trent Manning—who works with mixed media and recycled materials—and Jon Rodriguez. In an interview with Rodriguez, the Tampa Review Online asks about the inspiration behind his “seemingly tragic” characters, to which he replies “Each character has their own distinct traits that reflect different aspects that mirror where I’m currently at in life. Some are hopeful and some are tragic. These characters act as a way to share a deep truth about myself, in hopes of helping people see a truth in them.” And this is certainly true for writers as well as we pick up on our own lives and emotions to inspire our work. Continue reading “Tampa Review Online – August 2012”

Wag’s Revue – Summer 2012

The Wag’s Revue certainly offers something different, writing and art that you won’t find in most journals. In the editors’ note, they say, “What we’re saying is what art has always said: insert yourself (fingers, tongue, then pulsing heart) through us to discover what warm depths lie beyond. We just want to get your brain wet. Call us crazy for trying.” Continue reading “Wag’s Revue – Summer 2012”

The Baltimore Review – Summer 2012

This issue sizzles, ignites, burns, and lights a literary fire with the special theme of “Heat.” The contest winner, Ann Cwiklinski, contributes a third-person narrative about a woman who takes her children for a day at the beach, but she cannot relax as she is constantly on the lookout to keep her children safe. Yet, as the sun blazes down on her, she is drawn to the water. She wants to take a swim by herself and perhaps disappear. Titled “Selkie,” this story came from Cwiklinski’s research about Irish folklore: “These weren’t romantic fairytales, but matter-of-fact stories about some local woman who jumped into the sea one day, her mild eccentricities finally making sense to her neighbors: ‘Shoulda known that she was part seal!’” Continue reading “The Baltimore Review – Summer 2012”

Ragazine.cc – July/August 2012

Ragazine.cc is chock-full of pieces to feast your eyes on: art, photography, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, interviews, reviews, and columns. There are two great poems by Nicole Santalucia. The first, “Emptying Out the House,” drew me in with the first three lines: “The only thing we found under her bed / was a note taped to the bed frame / that said who should inherit the mattress.” And her poem “What Stands Behind Me Now” has wonderfully captivating images: Continue reading “Ragazine.cc – July/August 2012”

Fox Chase Review – Summer 2012

Fox Chase Review covers a wide range of poetry in which there is probably a poem for every one of us. While I didn’t love all of it, there were certainly several poems and poets in this issue that I loved. Stevie Edwards contributes two poems that really hit me in the gut. First is “What I Can Say I’ve Left, What I’ve Mourned”: Continue reading “Fox Chase Review – Summer 2012”

The Puritan – Spring 2012

After falling behind for a small amount of time, The Puritan is now back up and running, this time with a new reading format. Available to read online or as a PDF, this issue offers a number of poems, fiction pieces, and interviews. The magazine features writing that “may push toward the symbolic frontier, challenging limitations and forging into previously unexplored aesthetic territory. But it may also revisit and revitalize traditional forms.” Continue reading “The Puritan – Spring 2012”

Plume – Number 13

I have been reading this issue of Plume now for a couple of weeks, each time going in to reread the poetry, catch parts of it I might have missed. Each piece has its own unique pull, making this issue of Plume one for everyone. But as a monthly magazine, a new one will be our shortly, so make sure to read this one soon. Continue reading “Plume – Number 13”

The American Poetry Review – July/Aug 2012

The latest American Poetry Review has an immensely quotable essay by C.K. Williams “On Being Old.” In it, he says he doesn’t “blab” about poets whose work he doesn’t like. He once, to his current chagrin, dismissed the work of the great Elizabeth Bishop. He writes, “I think we all tend to believe we can see through the vagaries of our moment to some absolute standard of judgment—this must be a characteristic of human consciousness itself—but the conviction is absurd.” Continue reading “The American Poetry Review – July/Aug 2012”

Artful Dodge – 2012

If I had to choose a metaphor for the 2012 issue of Artful Dodge, I’d liken it to one of those brown paper grab-bags they sell at the dollar store. You know the ones—unmarked and mysterious, they could contain something awesome just as easily as they could contain something you could just as well live without. This issue is a huge literary grab-bag, containing a wide assortment of essays, fiction, poetry, and art spanning a varied range of themes and subject matter. Some of the work is surprising, gripping, and moving, while others, not quite as much. Continue reading “Artful Dodge – 2012”

Atlanta Review – Spring/Summer 2012

In Atlanta Review, it’s all poetry, all the time. No visual art or prose (save for the editors’ introductions and contributor notes) finds its way into this journal. With all this space, the editors will consider up to five poems by a single author for a given issue, and they take pride in publishing the works of both new and established authors. The editors evidently prefer brief works and excerpts: in such a small space, 59 poets (in addition to Kabir, Tukaram, Akho and Nandeo, who turn up in translation) and 92 poems appear. On its website, the journal is described as “a haven for our common humanity, the things that unite us across the boundaries of nation, race, and religion.” Each Spring/Summer issue therefore devotes space to literature from a single nation. Continue reading “Atlanta Review – Spring/Summer 2012”

Conclave – Spring 2012

Conclave is a journal that revolves around strong characters in poetry and fiction, so don’t let the lady on the cover of the latest issue scare you away. Think of her as a concierge waiting to show you to your room. But this isn’t your typical hotel. Here you will rub shoulders with guests from out of space and time. Some of these guests are (or were) real people staying for the night while others come from the imaginations of talented writers. Continue reading “Conclave – Spring 2012”

The Examined Life – Spring 2012

In May of this year, my pregnant daughter’s friend lost a baby two weeks before its due date. My daughter sobbed the news to me via cell phone, gasping, “I feel so guilty that I’m still pregnant!” Five weeks later, two days after she gave birth to a healthy girl, I dismounted badly from a horse; my blown knee collapsed under me, and I knew, horribly, that my grandmothering summer was over, faded into surgery and rehab. Continue reading “The Examined Life – Spring 2012”

Fox Cry Review – 2011

I have a soft spot for university literary journals. Maybe it’s because I have a closer connection to these folks because I was a college student not too long ago and know what it’s like to wade through the slush pile in a tiny room at night with only a Snickers bar to keep me going. Continue reading “Fox Cry Review – 2011”

Garbanzo – 2012

Garbanzo is out to break some rules. I find this refreshing in the relatively staid world of literary magazines. Perhaps it’s my background in zine publishing that makes me sympathetic to those willing to buck the trends. First of all, this inaugural issue comes handsomely clothed in a silkscreened dust jacket. How many lit mags have you seen lately with a dust jacket, silkscreened or not? That’s what I thought. Garbanzo is also bound with fancy rivets and includes an attached ribbon bookmark (a thoughtful and handy feature). On the inside there are a few fold-out pages, and even some handwritten poems that nicely break up the otherwise printed text. So, this is a nice-looking publication, a labor of love. I can’t help wondering how long the editors will be able to maintain this level of quality for their limited run print editions (they also publish a digital version), but I will suspend my doubts for now. Continue reading “Garbanzo – 2012”