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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!

Back to the Future: TKR Adds Letterpress

The Kenyon Review Editor David H. Lynn’s editorial in the newest issue (spring 2010) comments on the “future of literary publishing.” TKR itself went part-digital a while back with KROnline to complement TKR in print, as well as adding a daily blog, online book discussions, and collaborating with JSTOR to complete an electronic archive.

Lynn comments, “It surely would have been easier simply to continue printing this journal four times a year and leave it at that. But I’m convinced that sooner or later, such isolated publications will come to seem anachronisms, curiosities, not vibrant players in the literary community.”

But far from being a full-fledged missive on going digital, Lynn recognizes the continuing place of ink and paper in our lives, its historical relevance, and its place in the lives of future readers and writers, which is why TKR will be launching a small letterpress operation. “Even as we develop literary media for the future, I believe it’s our responsibility to keep the old technologies, teaching our associates where all the current publishing structures originated. Letting them get their hands dirty.”

TKR is planning printing opportunities for their summer program, and looks to add chapbooks and broadsides in the future, “just for the fun of it.”

Scrabble Lets Nouns Play

“The rules of word game Scrabble are being changed for the first time in its history to allow the use of proper nouns, games company Mattel has said. Place names, people’s names and company names or brands will now count.” Hmph. Are they going to start including an apostrophe so McDonald’s can be spelled correctly?

Flyway Redefining Enviromental Writing & Contest Winners

Flyway: A Journal of Writing and Environment Managing Editor Liz Clift writes: “Flyway begins its 16th year, we reflect on the meaning ‘environment’ takes on for different people. Traditionally, environmental writing refers to writing about nature, often as an advocate of the natural world. With this in mind, it’s easy to view the manmade world as less important and thus deny it a place within the environmental literature canon. However, environmental writing now includes urban and other manmade environments as legitimate components of modern human experience. This issue of Flyway explores both human and nonhuman environments, because we shape the environment that shapes us.”

This issue also features winners of their “Home Voices” writing contest: Kathryn Sukalich (1st place), Kimberly L. Rogers and Rachael Button (honorable mentions), and their “Notes from the Field” writing contest: Cassandra Kircher (1st place) and Gabriel Houck (finalist).

Nominate 40 Under 40: the Future of Feminism

From the Feminist Press:

The Feminist Press is 40 years old in 2010 – what better way to honor the past than by celebrating the future! We are searching for 40 fabulous feminist women and men* to honor as the “40 Under 40” to pay attention to in the future.

Help us choose the women and men of talent and commitment who best represent what feminism is all about: gender equality and social justice.

We are looking for people in all fields: the arts, community organizing, social justice, medicine, law, politics, business, philanthropy, etc. Please be sure to include contact information for your nominee(s).

All 40 honorees will be acknowledged at our 40th anniversary gala at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC on October 18, 2010. And when you send us your nominations, you’ll be entered in a raffle to win a ticket to the gala.

We’ve made history as the world’s oldest continuing feminist publisher. Send us your suggestions for “40 Under 40” and be part of the next 40 years and beyond.

Email your suggestions to Maryann Jacob Macias, Development Manager: mjacob-at-gc.cuny-dot-edu by Friday, May 14.

*Most of our honorees come from the northeast U.S. We wish we could fly people in from further away. Please donate if you can, to help us honor women and men from around the U.S. www.feministpress.org/support-us

Inkwell 2010 Contest Winners

Manhattanville College’s Inkwell Spring 2010 features a number of winners of their 2010 competition:

Poetry Winner: Starkey Flythe
Honorable Mention: Jim Knowles
Notable Finalists: Phillis Levin, Rachel Michaud, Dan Preniszni, Alinda Wasner (Fall 2010)

Fiction Winner: Aram Kim
Honorable Mention: E. B. Moore
Notable Finalists: Joan Corwin (Fall 2010), Starkey Flythe (Fall 2010), Daniel Austin Warren

Elizabeth McCormack Master of Arts in Writing Poetry Winner: Kristina Bicher
Elizabeth McCormack Master of Arts in Writing Fiction Winner: Terry Dugan

How Did You Meet?

Ploughshares, Spring 2010, edited by Elizabeth Strout, opens with her introduction, not just to this issue of the journal, but to Journals. She writes of her first awkward year away at college, where (like so many of us) she believed others to be so much more confident, comfortable, and learned. She slinks into the library and dashes to the first stacks, the periodical section, where she finds familiar magazines: “But I found a whole row of other things. Journals, some thick, others quite thin, lay on a tilting shelf with their faces toward me. Some had colorful covers, some had very simple and unassuming covers. Inside them–the type pressed into the paper, so that even touching them brought a certain thrill–I found story after story, poem after poem. Who knew? I had not known.”

Do you remember discovering literary magazines? It seems most of us do not know them until our college years, and often times by accident. I have made it my “mission” as a teacher to introduce my students to literary magazines, to make the introduction formal, purposeful, and as often as possible. To put a magazine into a young reader’s hands and say, “Read this, I’d like to know what you think of it.” And to be rewarded, time and again, as I was the time I put a copy of Agni into a student’s hands. She returned next class, looking at me wild-eyed, and said, “I never knew writing like this existed.”

And it is to the credit of editors as much as writers that this kind of writing “exists” and can be put into the hands of readers of all ages. New Red Cedar Review Managing Editors Ashley Luster and Emily Wollner comment: “As we embraced our roles as managing editors of Red Cedar Review, the journal that we had grown to love over the past few years, we made it a priority to define the nature of the material with which we were working. What does it mean exactly to be a literary journal? Associated commonly with dusty library tomes and complex pleonastic prose, the ‘L’ word is one that often frightens away people who lie outside of its writing communities and seemingly elite social circles. It seems, though, that the literary merit of a creative piece is not necessarily a consequence of its form or its language, but is something that lies within the way these factors work in tandem to present an idea. In this way, we strove to expand the definition of literary in this issue of RCR to include any spark of creativity that lends itself to ink and paper.”

Knockout LGBTQ Youth Suicide

Knockout is doing its part to fight suicide in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth population. Five percent of the proceeds from sales of the Spring 2010 (3.1) issue will go to The Trevor Project, which operates the only nationwide, around-the-clock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for LGBTQ youth. For more information, visit thetrevorproject.org.

Film :: Brontë Bonnet Dramas Forthcoming

From the TimesOnline: BBC Films, with the American company Focus Features, is first out of the traps. Jane Eyre is five weeks into a nine-week shoot in Derbyshire. Film4’s Wuthering Heights, made with Ecosse Films, the British company behind Nowhere Boy, is scheduled to start filming in Yorkshire next month…Alison Owen, the producer of Jane Eyre (and mother of the singer Lily Allen), said: “There is something about the current situation that the world finds itself in where the Brontës more suit the mood of the moment [than Austen]. Jane Austen is a lighter cut than the Brontës, who are much more brooding and bleak.”

Bellevue Literary Review Prize 2010 Winners

Bellevue Literary Review, Spring 2010, features the 2010 BLR Prize Winners in this, the fifth year of the literary competition. Selected from over 900 submissions by judges Phillip Lopate, Tony Hoagland, and Gail Godwin, the Marcia and Jan Vilcek Prize for Poetry was awarded to Amanda Auchter, the winner of the Carter V. Cooper Memorial Prize for Nonfiction was awarded to Joan Kip (Mark Holden, Honorable Mention), and the winner of the Goldenberg Prize for Fiction was awarded to Larry Hill.

Art :: Kara Walker

Visit The Georgia Review to view silhouette art by Kara Walker, featured both online and in the newest issue (Spring 2010). From the portfolio introduction:

Critics have assigned labels ranging from “provocative” to “exploitative” to Walker’s overall project. At the crux of this controversy is the silhouette itself, which reduces a subject to the least possible amount of information and forces the viewer to rely on stereotypical hints—clothing, hairstyle, exaggerated physical characteristics—leading toward two-dimensional “truths” that make explicit the work’s deep sense of ambiguity. Viewers must become (discomfortingly) reductionist themselves; Walker offers no choice but to understand and then implicitly to accept the stereotypes in order to identify her characters.

Ruminate Short Story Prize Winners

The spring 2010 issue of Ruminate (issue 15) features winners of the 2010 Short Story Prize, as judged by David James Duncan. First prize winner Shann Ray’s story, “The Miracles of Vincent Van Gogh,” and honorable mention Nels Hanson’s story, “Now the River’s In You,” both appear in this issue. “Nothing to Fear,” by Susann Childress received second prize, and publication will be forthcoming.

2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winners Announced

2009 Book Prizes Winners:

•Biography: Linda Gordon, Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits (W.W. Norton & Co.)

•Current Interest: Dave Eggers, Zeitoun (McSweeney’s Books)

•Fiction: Rafael Yglesias, A Happy Marriage (Scribner)

•Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: Philipp Meyer, American Rust (Spiegel & Grau)

•Graphic Novel: David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp (Pantheon)

•History: Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950 – 1963 (Oxford University Press)

•Mystery/Thriller: Stuart Neville, The Ghosts of Belfast (SOHO Press)

•Poetry: Brenda Hillman, Practical Water (Wesleyan University Press)

•Science and Technology: Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom (Basic Books/Perseus Book Group)

•Young Adult Literature: Elizabeth Partridge, Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary (Viking Children’s Books/Penguin Group)

•Robert Kirsch Award: Evan S. Connell

•Innovator’s Award: Dave Eggers

Passings :: Alan Sillitoe

The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Runner carried me through many a mile in my life: “Novelist Alan Sillitoe has died at the age of 82, his family said. The Nottingham-born writer, whose novels marked him out as one of the Angry Young Men of British fiction who emerged in the 1950s, died at Charing Cross Hospital in London…”

Glimmer Train New Writers Award

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their Short Story Award for New Writers. This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. The next Short Story Award competition will take place in May. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Selena Anderson [pictured], of New York, NY, wins $1200 for “Here Come the Brides.” Her story will be published in the Summer 2011 issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

Second place: Chase Dearinger, of Edmund, OK, wins $500 for “The Numbskull Piece.”

Third place: Brenna Burns, of New Haven, CT, wins $300 for “River Sans Prière.”

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

Deadline soon approaching!

Family Matters: April 30

This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories about family. Word count should not exceed 12,000. (All shorter lengths welcome.) No theme restrictions. Click here for complete guidelines.

Win a Copy of Annalemma

Annalemma‘s issue six is the magazine’s first themed issue, “Sacrifice,” and features images of a variety of art forms by a variety of artists coupled with each written work featured. Want to free copy? Annalemma will give one away to the winner of their Twitter contest. Followers just need to tweet: “I’d be willing to give up (insert noun here) for the new issue of #Annalemma” The best tweet wins. Deadline: Sunday (4/25) at midnight EST.

The Future of Book Publishing

In case you missed it: Bob Edwards Weekend, April 24-25, 2010, features two interviews of interest to writers and readers, and is part one of a three-part series, so stay tuned!

“Publishing industry visionary Richard Nash, will kick off our series on The Future of Book Publishing. Nash is the former publisher of the independent Soft Skull Press and founder of the new social publishing house Cursor.”

“Peter Brantley is the director of the Bookserver Project at the Internet Archive. As part of our series on the publishing industry, Bob talks with Brantley about the effects of technology on the future of reading, writing, and selling books.”

The program is available for download.

Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present

Currently at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in Chicago – Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present – a live exhibition that can be viewed online during museum hours: “Marina Abramović will perform in the Marron Atrium at MoMA throughout the duration of the exhibition, starting before the Museum opens each day and continuing until after closing.”

Is Your Blog Lit-Worthy?

From Stephen Knezovich, Associate Editor / Mentoring Director, Creative Nonfiction:

Recently, the NY Times’ Paper Cuts blog ran an interesting piece about whether or not a blog could rise to the level of literature (http://tiny.cc/thr48). Their answer, ultimately, was no, but the editors at Creative Nonfiction are trying to remove this “less-than” tag many ascribe to the form. For the past three years we’ve been featuring blog posts in our publications, and we are currently seeking narrative blog posts to reprint in our next issue (#39: Summer Reading; forthcoming July 2010).

Though it would be great if you passed word along to New Pages’ readers, what we’d really love are nominations from folks, like yourself and the other NP contributors, who are truly plugged into the online literary community, and we hope that you will send us your suggestions.

What we’re looking for: Vibrant new voices with interesting, true stories to tell. Posts must be able to stand alone, 2000 words or fewer, and posted between November 1, 2009 and March 31, 2010. Deadline for nominations is 12 pm EST, Monday, April 26, 2010.

To nominate a blog post or for more info, go here: http://www.creativenonfiction.org/blog/blog_nomination.html

[Pass it on Bloggers.}

Women Writing on Today’s American Family

Submissions are being sought for an anthology about writing and publishing by women with family publication experience. Possible subjects: markets; using life experience; networking; unique issues women must overcome; formal education; queries and proposals; conference participation; self-publishing; teaching tips. Family in creative nonfiction, poetry, short stories, novels.

Practical, concise, how-to articles with bullets/headings have proven the most helpful to readers. Please avoid writing too much about “me” and concentrate on what will help the reader. No previously published, co-written, or simultaneously submitted material.

Foreword by Supriya Bhatnagar, Director of Publications, Editor of The Writer’s Chronicle, Association of Writers & Writing Programs, George Mason University.

Afterword by Dr. Amy Hudock, co-founder of Literary Mama, an on-line literary magazine chosen by Writers Digest as one of the 101 Best Web Sites for Writers.

Co-Editor Colleen S. Harris is a 2010 Pushcart Prize nominee. Her book of poetry, God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems (Bellowing Ark Press, 2009), was a finalist for the Black Lawrence Book Award; These Terrible Sacraments, is forthcoming in 2011. Colleen has a MFA degree in writing and has appeared in The Louisville Review, Wisconsin Review, River Styx, and Adirondack Review, among others. She’s included in Library Journal; and Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages.

Co-Editor Carol Smallwood is a 2009 National Federation of State Poetry Societies award winner included in Who’s Who of American Women who has appeared in Michigan Feminist Studies, The Writer’s Chronicle, The Detroit News. She’s included in Best New Writing in Prose 2009. Her 23rd book is Writing and Publishing: The Librarian’s Handbook (American Library Association, 2010). A chapter of newly published Lily’s Odyssey was short listed for the Eric Hoffer Prose Award.

Please send 3-4 possible topics you would like to contribute each described in a few sentences and a 65-75 word bio using the format like the bio’s above. Please send by May 24, 2010 using FAMILY/your last name on the subject line to smallwood@tm.net. You’ll receive a Go-Ahead and guidelines if your topics haven’t been taken. Contributors will be asked to contribute a total of 1900-2100 words. You may contribute one article 1900-2100 words or contribute two articles that combined equal 1900-2100 words. Those included in the anthology will receive a complimentary copy as compensation.

Kore Short Fiction Award Winner

Heather Brittain Bergstrom’s(Yuba City, CA) manuscript, “All Sorts of Hunger,” was chosen out of 250 submissions by readers and final judge Leslie Marmon-Silko as the winner of the Kore Press 2010 Short Fiction Award. Finalists were: “Return,” by Sharon May and “Mr. Smith’s Tip-Top Tale of Woe and Horror,” by Nancy Holyoke.

Job :: Waldorf College

Waldorf College seeks a full-time Assistant Professor of English to teach writing and direct first-year composition. A Ph.D. in composition / rhetoric is preferred, though a terminal degree in a closely-related field will be considered with extensive teaching experience and an evidenced passion for teaching first-year students. Responsibilities include directing the first-year composition sequence and (possibly) the campus writing center, as well as teaching developmental writing and composition. A secondary interest in introduction to literature, global literature, advanced composition, writing center tutor training, English secondary education, or online teaching is preferred. The position carries a 4/4 load, with release time depending on duties. Evidence of superior teaching is essential. Position begins August 2010. Review of applications continues until position is filled.

More information about Waldorf College can be obtained at www.waldorf.edu.

Application by persons in under-represented groups is particularly encouraged.

Send letter of application addressing the qualifications above, a current vita, teaching philosophy, teaching evaluation summaries (if available), three letters of recommendation, and copies of graduate transcripts to Dr. Robert Alsop, VPAA, Waldorf College, 106 S. Sixth Street, Forest City, IA 50436 or via e-mail to academicaffairs@waldorf.edu.

VidPoetry

You still have several days left in this celebration of National Poetry Month to enjoy Diesel Bookstores 30 Videos in 30 Days. Just like it says, each day for the month of April they are uploading a video reading. Selections range from Rumi to Roger Creely to William Blake to Molly Bendall. Sometimes you see the readers, sometimes you don’t – but the select non-traditional sceneries make for interesting interpretations of the works. My favorite so far is Anna Kaufman’s delivery of Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse.” Nice.

Jobs

Rowan University Instructor/Assistant Professor, Creative Writing, Full-Time Temporary. May 1

The English Department of Bowling Green State University seeks strong applicants for the College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Visiting Writer. June 14

Teacher & Program Coordinator in Writing for UW-Madison Continuing Studies. Work in a team environment teaching and creating online and in-person workshops. May 7

The Liberal Arts Department at D’Youville College is seeking an Assistant Professor of English beginning August 2010. Linda Moretti, Office of Human Resources. May 1

McNeese State University‘s Department of English and Foreign Languages and the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing seek an Assistant/Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing, Fiction. Amy Fleury, Department of English and Foreign Languages. April 21

The University of Wisconsin-Marathon County and the University of Wisconsin Colleges English Department invite applications for a position as full-time lecturer. Charlene Schmidt. May 16

New Lit on the Block :: Assisi

St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York has published their first issue of Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts & Letters. The biannual, online magazine “will offer an eclectic mix of essays (both academic and personal), short fiction and poetry. . .photographs, drawings and other art works.”

Included in the first pdf issue are works by Sharmon Goff, Linda Simone, Julie L. Moore, Virginia Franklin, Marissa C. Pelot, Carol Berg, Christopher Woods, Amber Jensen, Carol Carpenter, Arthur Powers, Joseph Somoza, Virginia Franklin, Mitch Levenberg, Kate Bernadette Benedict, Srinjay Chakravarti, Jonterri Gadson, Elizabeth Oakes, Diana Woodcock, Kristina Roth, Helen Ruggieri, Virginia Franklin, LB Sedlacek, Lyn Lifshin, Barbara H. Edington, Mary MacGowan, Andrea O’Brien, Francis Raven, Cherri Randall, Tatiana Forero Puerta, Obododimma Oha, Louis E. Bourgeois, Kevin Brown, and Anna Catone.

Assisi is currently accepting submissions for their second issue.

NewPages Updates :: April 19, 2010

Newly added to The NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines:

The Umbrella Factory
Two-Bit Magazine – fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, serialized novels/novellas, graphic novels, comics, academic papers, reviews, essays.
Nowhere Magazine – travel writing
Mud Luscious Press
The Writing Disorder
Gertrude – poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, novel excerpts, interviews, art
Whiskey & Fox – poetry, theory, and queer-heterotopoi
Nashville Review – fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, drama, music, audio, and more

Newly added to NewPages Guide to Writing Conferences, Workshops, Retreats, Centers, Residencies & Book & Literary Festivals:

Fernie Writers Conference (CA)
War, Literature & the Arts Conference

The Antioch Review – Winter 2010

This issue’s theme is “Celebrity Houses. Celebrity Politics,” framed by an essay of the same name by Daniel Harris, who has written widely on popular culture. Harris explores the blurred lines between celebrity as a Hollywood-esque phenomenon and celebrity in political life (stars who become spokespersons for “causes,” politicians who flaunt their looks, wealth, and social lives as if they were stars of stage and screen). He considers the relationships between Republican ideology and our fascination (obsession) with the Hollywood elite, a link that is falsely depicted as antagonistic – and more dangerous than it at first appears. Continue reading “The Antioch Review – Winter 2010”

Copper Nickel – 2009

Copper Nickel 12 isn’t a theme issue, but a theme of sorts emerges nonetheless, or at least an organizing principle that is highly appealing and largely successful – how do we relate to the things, the stuff, the variety and quantity of forms and objects around us, human and non-human. It begins with the gloriously evocative cover photograph by Chris Morris from his series “Forgotten History.” Six additional photos in the series appear in the issue, along with the photographer’s remarks. The photos document abandoned homesteads in the area where Morris grew up, and capture the decay (which he does beautifully) and the photographer’s sense of “personal connection” to these “spaces.” Each is a vast landscape of what is missing and yet still exists, highlighted by an outdated or antiquated object (the rotary phone on the magazine’s cover). Continue reading “Copper Nickel – 2009”

Event – 2009

I look forward to Event’s nonfiction contest issue every year, and it’s always worth the wait. In addition to the three winning essays, this issue includes the work of ten poets (who couldn’t be more different from each other); three fiction contributors; and a number of reviews. Contest judge John Burns, executive editor of Vancouver Magazine, describes his winning selections, quite accurately it seems to me, as works that “speak truths privately experienced, publicly recounted…told with creativity, absolutely, but also, we trust, with fidelity.” We can’t, of course, know if this is true, but these writers (Eufemia Fantetti, Katherine Fawcett, and Ayelet Tsabari) make me believe that it is so, which amounts to the same thing. Continue reading “Event – 2009”

The Florida Review – Winter 2009

Photographed in sepia tones, a man holds a globe while facing the camera. John Bohannon’s cover plays with expectations of scale. It seems to evoke mastery, to suggest that man is large enough to contain the world in his hands, that the immense has suddenly become bearable. The latest volume of The Florida Review, however, often confirms that we are still very much of the world rather than standing somewhere beyond its concerns. Continue reading “The Florida Review – Winter 2009”

Green Mountains Review – Winter 2009

The Green Mountains Review, published by Johnson State College in Vermont, is a haven of poetry, fiction, essays and book reviews of substantial quality. A literary magazine with an impressive history, the GMR is known for publishing the likes of Julia Alvarez, Galway Kinnell, Mark Doty, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Joy Harjo over its twenty-plus years of showcasing both established and up-and-coming writers. Continue reading “Green Mountains Review – Winter 2009”

The Idaho Review – 2009

This tenth anniversary issue opens with founding editor Mitch Wieland’s summary, among other remarks, of one marker of his journal’s success: from the first nine issues, nine stories or poems were reprinted in major awards anthologies (best ofs, etc.), another 15 stories were short-listed for these prizes. The Editor’s Note is followed by tributes from more 19 writers to the late Carol Houck Smith, editor at W.W. Norton & Company for 60 years. Maxine Kumin writes that Houck Smith was “everything an editor should be: compassionate, demanding, supportive, and seldom wrong.” Joan Silber remembers that she “loved her writers and she loved her city.” Charles Baxter praises Houck Smith’s worldliness, something he considers essential in a “fine editor.” Continue reading “The Idaho Review – 2009”

The Louisville Review – Fall 2009

Spalding University (where the journal is published) guest faculty editors Kathleen Driskell, Kirby Gann, Charlie Schulman, Luke Wallin, and guest editor Betsy Wood, a Spalding University MFA Program alum, have selected the work of 22 poets, four fiction writers, an equal number of nonfiction writers, two playwrights, and five young writers (for the “Children’s Corner”) for this issue. There is much solid, competently composed work here from writers who publish widely and consistently in fine journals. Continue reading “The Louisville Review – Fall 2009”

Mantis – Summer 2009

Mantis editor Bronwen Tate describes the issue’s contents as “exciting” in her Editor’s Note. An understatement if I have ever read one. The journal is, in fact, exhilarating, captivating, inspiring, and highly original. In addition to new poems from Clayton Eshelman, Adam Clay, Sina Queyras, and Gretchen E. Henderson, this issue features translations – in discrete, handsomely collected groupings, all beautifully translated – of the work of Italian poet Alda Merini, German poet Veronka Reichl, and poet Andrei Sen-Senkov (originally from Tajikistan, now a resident of Moscow), and a special section “Remembering Celan”; a fascinating series of 10 interviews by Elizabeth Bradfield and Kate Schapira “Temporarily at Home: Poets on Travel and Writing”; and smart reviews of books I might not know had been published, were it not for Mantis. The magazine is produced with a kind of subtle elegance and graphic flair seldom encountered and is impressive and polished from the selection of contents to their careful and appealing presentation. Continue reading “Mantis – Summer 2009”

Narrative Magazine – Spring 2010

This is simply the best online literary magazine in the country today. New stories are provided every week from a stellar list of writers, and a wide variety of material is presented on a rotating basis – fiction, nonfiction, poetry, interviews, cartoons, book reviews, and other features. And now they have taken the evolutionary step of becoming the first lit mag on Amazon’s Kindle. As I have stated before, if you wish to see the future of online publishing, read this magazine. Continue reading “Narrative Magazine – Spring 2010”

New Millennium Writings – 2010

The 2010 edition of New Millennium features a reprint of a profile/interview with the late John Updike by the magazine’s editor, Don Williams, originally published in 1996; a Poetry Suite of work by 51 poets and the short-short fiction, fiction, nonfiction, “Special Obama Awards,” and poetry winners in the magazine’s highly popular contests. Award-winning works are accompanied by author photos and statements. For the most part, prose contributions favor casual and natural voices, credible and authentic dialogue, well rounded plots, logical and familiar narrative impulses, and preoccupations that may be shared familiarly by many readers. Continue reading “New Millennium Writings – 2010”

Oleander Review – Fall 2009

“Make it good. Do what you have to do to make it good.” That’s jack-of-all-genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, teaching, publishing) Ander Monson’s perfect answer to interviewer Shaelyn Smith’s question about process. And it describes the work in Issue 3. The interview with Monson is terrific. Anne Carson and Bob Currie’s “Wildly Constant” is wildly fascinating with its blurred text, revision-like elements (cross outs, arrows, notes) and Carson’s signature economy, those compact little lines that contain whole worlds. Continue reading “Oleander Review – Fall 2009”

Pleiades – 2010

Let me be honest: I’ve always had a crush on Pleiades. This venerable journal publishes so much consistently good writing, especially poetry, that it is a pleasure to dive into the words between its covers. At 280 pages, it is bigger than a lot of books being published today; like a good novel, it can be zipped through, or relished over a longer period of time. Continue reading “Pleiades – 2010”

Ruminate – Winter 2009/2010

A large format, staple-bound magazine of “fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and visual art that resonates with the complexity and truth of the Christian faith,” Ruminate is published in Fort Collins, Colorado. “Each issue…speaks to the existence of our daily lives while nudging us toward a greater hope.” This issue’s theme is “Earnest Jest,” which editor Brianna Van Dyke describes as a way to consider the “paradox that weighty truths can come from humor; knowledge from fools; and that very act of play is wisdom.” The theme is played out in the work of 14 poets, two fiction writers, and two visual artists. Continue reading “Ruminate – Winter 2009/2010”

Water~Stone Review – 2009

Named after the Philosopher’s stone used in alchemy to create gold and unite matter and spirit, the Water-Stone Review does exactly what its name suggests – with paper and ink, it unites language and soul, words and spirit. This multi-genre review is diverse, fresh, artful, and exceptionally crafted. At the risk of sounding the fluff alarm, I have to say that the Water-Stone Review is truly golden. Continue reading “Water~Stone Review – 2009”

White Fungus – Number 10

If you hadn’t considered traveling to New Zealand, White Fungus will make you want to go. Not because this New Zealand-based magazine provides a picture of the landscape, though the cover is a lovely and unconventional painting of flowers in the park at Wellington, Aotearoa; and not because the inside cover graphic depicts the ocean in its sparkling turquoise glory; and not because the many ads for art galleries show that the visual arts are flourishing there. But because the poems, interviews, fiction, and essays here will let you know that New Zealand is a place for serious thinking about politics, cultural realities, social dilemmas, historical realities, the arts, and the power of language to render these subjects with a kind of dynamism and urgency that can often be missing in literature as in life. (And the design and graphics are terrific, too.) Continue reading “White Fungus – Number 10”