Sunday, February 26, 2012

TFR Tribute to Jeanne Leiby (Repost)

The newest issue of The Florida Review features a thoughtful and heartfelt editor's note: "In Memory of Jeanne M. Leiby, 1964-2011" written by friend and colleague Jocelyn Bartkevicius. Volume 36 is a double issue dedicated in memory of Jeanne.

This blog has been updated. Since posting it, I have gotten the url for the tribute from Chris Weiwiora, so that will now take readers directly to the text. Chris also share a link to a site that he organized back in the fall with some other UCF students of Jeanne's: "For You They Call" (from Whitman's "O Captain, My Captain" poem). Thank you Chris.

Free Calls for Submissions Advertising

NewPages accepts calls for submissions to the NewPages Classifieds. All calls for submissions which fit our guidelines and which have no fee for writers are free ads.

Writers: Please visit the NewPages Classifieds for the most up-to-date listings of calls for submissions, contests, new publications, and more!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Reginald Shepherd Poetry Prize Winners

The Spring 2012 issue of Knockout Literary Magazine includes the winners and runners-up of the 2009 The International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize as selected by Carl Phillips:

First place winner: "Occupation" by Kelly Madigan Erlandson
Second place winner: "Archaic Bronze" by Christian Gullette
Third place winner: "Wood" by Larry Bradley

First runner-up: "Modern Ripple" by Rickey Laurentiis
Second runner-up: "August, near Arles" by Richard Foerster
Third runner-up: "Faggot" by Rickey Laurentiis

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Thank You Ilya

Special thanks to Ilya Kaminsky for his reading at Saginaw Valley State University in Saginaw, Michigan last night. What a treat to see him and hear him read in our own back yard. For the time, we forgot about the cold dreary damp of winter, rapt in his lyrical recitations. Still not familiar with Kaminsky? Check out his book Dancing in Odessa from Tupelo Press, and hear him read "Author's Prayer." That's how I got hooked. See you in Chicago, Ilya!

Harvard Review Contributor Data

Harvard Review Editors Christina Thompson & Laura Healy take a playful but serious look at who gets published in HR in their editorial for issue 41 - beginning with how pieces find their way to the publication (via referrals, conferences, previous contributors, and slush). And, as the editors note, because they had so much fun looking at those numbers and creating a corresponding pie chart, they went on to review other data for which they also create pictorial representations: Contributors by Gender & Genre; geographic distribution of current contributors; and age & gender of contributors (topping 200 is Alfred de Vigny, French Romatic poet b. 1797). Take a look at the editorial here.

Tiny Lights Personal Narrative Essay Winners

Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative includes the winners of their annual essay contest, which includes a "standard" category (under 2000 words) and a "flashpoint" category (under 1000 words):

Standard Essay Winners
First Prize: "O, Engineer!" by Anna Belle Kaufman
Second Prize: "Floating" by Tim Bascom
Third Prize: "Nisqually Fish Fling" by Adrienne Ross Scanlan
Honorable Mentions: "Submarine Dreams" by Ed Miracle and "Lost. Found" by Christine Watson

Flashpoint Essay Winners
"Forgiveness" by Mary Zelinka
"I Tell You Something" by Jessica McCaughey
"Rock Bottom" by Marcelle Soviero

A full list of finalists in available on the Tiny Lights website.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Motionpoems: Poetry + Short Film

Motionpoems broadens the audience for poetry by turning great contemporary poems into short films for big-screen and online distribution.

In 2008, animator/producer Angella Kassube animated one of Todd Boss’s poems. The results were so compelling that Boss and Kassube began introducing other poets to other video artists. A year later, a public screening at Open Book in Minneapolis drew a standing-room-only crowd of 150+ to see 12 pieces they dubbed Motionpoems… and a new hybrid form was born. Since then, motionpoems have appeared in mainstream media, blogs, YouTube, international film festivals, art galleries, and on Vimeo.

Past poetry contributions include the works of Thomas Lux, Deb Kirkeeide, David Mason, Robert Bly, Jane Hirshfield, Angella Kassube, K. A. Hays, and many more.

All motionpoems are available for online viewing with the option to subscribe for monthly update notice when new videos become available.

New Lit on the Block :: The Ocean State Review

The Ocean State Review is a new annual print publication from the University of Rhode Island English Department.

Editors include Peter Covino (advisory), Mary Cappello (advisory), Ryan Trimm (advisory), Jay Peters (managing), Don Rodrigues (managing), Nicki Toler (senior), Max Winter (senior), Jacob Nelson (associate), and David O'Connell (associate).

Managing Editor Jay Peters writes that "by producing a high-quality publication of contemporary literature, The Ocean State Review provides an annual record of URI's continued engagement with regional, national and international literary communities. Central to this engagement is the journal's affiliation with URI's annual Ocean State Summer Writing Conference."

Readers of The Ocean State Review can expect to find "two hundred eclectic pages by well-established and newly emerging writers and artists." OSR publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and artwork.

The inaugural issue features works by Thomas Salamun, Denise Duhamel, Richard Hoffman, Louise DeSalvo, Robin Hemley, Julia Glass, and many others. The second volume will be released in June with plans for the journal to develop the capacity to accept online submissions.

Submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, our currently being accepted until February 15; submission by post only at this time.

1,001 Awesome Words Contest Winners

Issue 6 of PANK Magazine includes the winners of the 1,001 Awesome Words Contest, 2011:

Tyler Gobble, "To Toss is to Life"
Erin Fitzgerald, "No One Cares About Your Problems"
Naomi Day, "A List of My Shortcomings"

Monday, February 20, 2012

Lit Mag News & Bits

Chris Hildebrand is the new Managing Editor for New Madrid, the national journal of the low-residency MFA program at Murray State University.

The First Line has gone "Lorax Friendly" and can now be read on Kindle.

Winter 2012 will be the final print issue of Alimentum Journal: The Literature of Food as they move to online only.

Above and Beyond:

PMS poemmemoirstory last year at their publication party held a collection drive of new children's books to give to the Aid to Inmate Mothers Story Book Project at the Tutwiler Women's Prison in Alabama. They collected over 30 books for moms and kids to read together and hope to continue supporting this program.

Thanks to their supporters, CALYX: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women donated 300 copies of their newest book Who in This Room: The Realities of Cancer, Fish, and Demolition by Katherine Malmo to oncology departments, hospitals, women's centers, and support groups in Oregon, Washington, and nationwide.

New Lit on the Block :: The Golden Triangle

The Golden Triangle is published three times per year and is available online, and via iPad and iPhone Apps. Readers can expect to find "fresh, risk-taking, original poetry, fiction, and non-fiction coupled with intelligent design."

Editors Jessica Schulte and Sasha VanHoven tell me that "The Golden Triangle was created by struggling writers and literary nerds trying to make it in 'the real world' of writing. With the decrease in printed publications, competition to get in became harder, and yet while digital journals were taking off, they severely lacked legitimate design. We decided to become the solution ourselves, offering a digital space for the under-exposed voices of our peers that cared for aesthetics as well as the community behind it."

Contributors in the first issue include Howie Good, Corinna Ricard-Farzan, Jon Gingerich, Brittany Shutts, Lauren Chimento, William VanDenBerg, Corina Bardoff, Justin Mantell, Joanna C. Valente, Devan Boyle, Ansley Moon, and Taylor Saldarriaga.

With ambitious plans for the future, Schulte and VanHoven are looking to become a fully functioning small press within the next five years, in both digital and print media.

The Golden Triangle is open to all genre forms within poetry, fiction, and non-fiction; work that "blurs genre lines and takes risks," is welcome, but editors "warn against 'post-post-post modernism' type work." Only previously unpublished works considered; simultaneous submissions are "a-okay," as long as editors are notified immediately. The next deadline is March 3rd, 2012.

Lois Cranston Prize Winner

The poem of the 2011 Lois Cranston Memorial Prize Winner is featured in the newest issue of CALYX (27.1): "The Apple Orchard" by Bethany Reid. Honorable mentions by Beth Ford, J. Angelique Johnson, and Amy Schutzer (as well as the winning poem) are available on the CALYX website.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

New Lit on the Block :: Beecher's Magazine

Beecher's Magazine is the graduate student-run literary journal at the University of Kansas (KU) MFA program. The print annual has an editorial board, which for 2011-2012 includes Iris Moulton and Ben Pfeiffer (co-editors); Mark Petterson (fiction); Amy Ash (poetry); and Stefanie Torres (nonfiction).

The impetus for Beecher's served to expand the options and offerings in the KU MFA program. Pfeiffer writes, "Our program was geared almost exclusively to teaching, not to publishing or to editing; in order to give the students a chance to try out this vocation, we thought having some kind of graduate student-run literary journal was important. So a bunch of students rolled up their sleeves and set to work. The administration supported us with money, but all the heavy lifting was done by students. Beecher's One is the result."

The publication features stories, poems, essays, and interviews. The inaugural issue includes works by Alec Niedenthal, Rebecca Wadlinger, Joshua Cohen, Rhoads Stevens, John Dermot Woods, Phil Estes, Creed J. Shepard, Lincoln Michel, Adam Robinson, Stephen Elliott, Yelena Akhtiorskaya, John Coletti, Colin Winnette, Dana Ward & Stephanie Young, James Yeh, Alexis Orgera, Rozalia Jovanovic, Ricky Garni, and Justin Runge.

Beecher's Magazine has just selected the winners of their first contest, and editors and staff are preparing for AWP 2012 in Chicago. Issue #1 of Beecher's Magazine was a limited run and has sold out, but the second issue is underway.

Beecher's accepts poetry, fiction, and nonfiction via Submishmash for both print and online (forthcoming) consideration.

Dos and Don'ts for AWP Newbies


From LA Times Books Blog Jacket Copy, I saved this post by Carolyn Kellogg from last year, and it's time to revisit it: 21 dos and don'ts for an AWP newbie. My favorite is lucky #13 "DO: Give yourself plenty of time to walk around the conference exhibit floor." Of course, this is where you'll find NewPages! At tables M8 & M9.

New to NewPages

New additions to The NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines:

971 Menu [O] -fiction, nonfiction
and/or [P] - poetry, fiction, comics, visual art
Under the Gum Tree [O]
Peripheral Surveys - poetry, fiction, nonfiction, photography
Mangrove [O/P] - undergraduate poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art
Peripheral Surveys [O] - poetry, fiction, nonfiction, photography
Thrice Fiction [O] - fiction
Valparaiso Fiction Review [O] - fiction
Ink Tank [o] - poetry, prose, editorials, essays, multimedia
Carbon Copy Magazine [P] - poetry, fiction, nonfiction, drama, visual art
Heavy Feather Review [O] - poetry, fiction, nonfiction
IthacaLit [O] - poetry, nonfiction, art
Penduline [O] - poetry, fiction, nonfiction, artwork
HOOT [O] - a postcard and online review of poetry and prose

[O] = mainly online
[P] = mainly print

New additions to Literary Links - hybrid and experimental online and print literary endeavors that do not adhere to traditional models (magazines, publishers, booksellers), but still meet criteria for recommendation.

The Danforth Review - fiction
Every Day Fiction - Short fiction in your inbox, Daily!
Every Day Poets - poetry
Kindling - poetry, prose, black & white art
mixer - literary genre
OccuPoetry - poets supporting economic justice
Pigeon Town - nonfiction, photography
Safety Pin Review - A weekly of short fiction
Third Space | Soapnotes - stories from the bedside
Truck – monthly blog of guest edited poetry

Newly added to the NewPages Guide to Alternative Magazines:

Multicultural Review - dedicated to reviews of a better understanding of diversity

Newly added to NewPages Guide to Independent Publishers & University Presses:

Trembling Pillow Press - poetry, translations, critical/historical essays, chapbooks
Parthian Books - (UK) poetry, fiction, nonfiction
Pond Road Press - poetry, chapbooks

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

New Lit on the Block :: Literary Juice

Executive Editor and Founder Sara R. Rajan and Assistant Editors Dinesh Rajan P and Andrea O'Connor are the force behind Literary Juice, an online bimonthly publication of works in a wide variety of genres, including comedy, romance, and fantasy. A unique feature in Literary Juice is "pulp fiction": stories written in just 25 words - no more, no less - with one-word titles.

Rajan founded Literary Juice as "a creative outlet for both established and emerging poets and writers, as well as an avenue for readers looking to indulge their imaginations in a world of absolutely remarkable and unforgettable talent." As such, audiences will read works by "authors who are bold and not afraid to cross into unconventional territory. Literary Juice showcases poetry and works of fiction that are dramatic, playful, and even outright weird!"

Contributors to the first issue include Craig M. Workman, Joel Bonner, Jennifer McIntosh, Amy Agrawal, Storm J. Shaw, Pamela Evitt-Hill, Jessie Duthrie, Angela Huston, Sarah Helen Bates, Amanda Little Rose, W. Walker Wood, E. Drape, Michelle L. Hill, Vita Duva, Matthew L. Wagner, Sydney Rayl, Jerry Judge, Helen Stamas, John Grey, George Freek, Liz Minette, Aurélie Asseo, Keith T. Hoerner, Jared Pearce, and Hans H.

As Literary Juice further expands, the editors will "continue to strive in establishing a creditable artistic domain featuring writers from all backgrounds, writers with diverse methods of storytelling and an unparalleled use of language.

Literary Juice allows electronic submissions only. Response time can take up to 3 months. No simultaneous submissions or works that have already been published elsewhere.

Constance Rook CNF Prize Winner

The Malahat Review Winter 2011 includes the 2011 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize winner “Hoarding” by Anne Marie Todkill. The Malahat Review website also includes a Web exclusive: Interview with Anne Marie Todkill and a link to another review with the author in The Martlet.

Art :: I Just Don't Read Like I Used To

In this series, I Just Don't Read Like I Used To, featured in Atticus Review, artist and writer Cheryl Hicks "cut strips of text from classic novels that have been made into film and used the pieces to create portraits of the characters. This project is a commentary on the way media has changed the experience of literature."