Narrative 30 Below Contest Winners

Narrative has named the finalists and winners for their 30 Below Contest 2010 (All entrants in the Contest were between the ages of eighteen and thirty.):

FIRST PRIZE
Kevin González – “Cerromar”

SECOND PRIZE
Jacob Powers – “Safety”

THIRD PRIZE
Erika Solomon – “Rules for Jews in Damascus”

FINALISTS
Caroline Arden
Stephanie DeOrio
Katharine Dion
Kelly Luce
Michael Nardone
Hannah Sarvasy
Samantha Shea
Douglas Silver
Cam Terwilliger
Jessica Wilson

The Fall 2010 Story Contest, with a $3,250 First Prize, a $1,500 Second Prize, a $750 Third Prize, and ten finalists receiving $100 each. Open to fiction and nonfiction. All entries will be considered for publication. Contest deadline: November 30, midnight, Pacific standard time.

Tupelo Press Recieves NEA Grant

Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, announced that Tupelo Press has been approved for a grant of $20,000 to support production, publication and promotion of thirteen exceptional books of poetry, fiction, and literary nonfiction. Tupelo Press is one of 1,057 not-for-profit organizations recommended for a grant as part of the federal agency's first round of fiscal year 2011 grants. In total, the Arts Endowment will distribute $26.68 million to support projects nationwide.

Film :: Amazon Studios

According to Reuters: "Amazon starts Amazon Studios offering almost $3 mil for scripts and films; Warner Bros has "first-look" rights to produce."

Glimmer Train September Fiction Open Winners

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their September Fiction Open competition. This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers for stories with a word count range between 2000 – 20,000. The next Fiction Open will take place in December. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Lydia Fitzpatrick [pictured] , of Brooklyn, NY, wins $2000 for “In a Library, in Saltillo.” Her story will be published in the Winter 2012 issue of Glimmer Train Stories.

Second place: Andrea Scrima, also of Berlin, Germany, wins $1000 for “Leaving Home.”

Third place: Brenden Wysocki, of Marina del Rey, CA, wins $600 for “A Dodgy Version.”

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

Short Story Award for New Writers Deadline: November 30

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. Word count should not exceed 12,000. (All shorter lengths welcome.) Click here for complete guidelines.

Can Technology End Poverty?

The lead essay in the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of Boston Review forum by Kentaro Toyama, Can Technology End Poverty?, is available full-text online with responses from Nicholas Negroponte, Dean Karlan, Ignacio Mas, Nathan Eagle, Jenny C. Aker, Christine Zhenwei Qiang, Evgeny Morozov, and Archon Fung and a final reply by Kentaro Toyama. The forum is also open to reader responses.

Free Tanka Teachers Guide

Offered as a free PDF download from the Modern English Tanka Press (MET Press), Tanka Teachers Guide contains primary materials and resources about tanka poetry which educators and students may copy without seeking permission (Creative Commons License).

Modern English Tanka Press is dedicated to tanka education and welcomes innovative uses of their print and online resources: "We want to facilitate the use of our publications to the maximum extent feasible by educators at every level of school and university studies. Educators, without individually seeking permission from the publisher, may use our publications, online digital editions and print editions, as primary or ancillary teaching resources."

Penguin Classic Postcards

Penguin Books now has a collection of 100 postcards, each featuring a different and iconic Penguin book jacket. The Los Angeles Times has photos of a selection of these classic images.

NANO Fiction Prize Winner

Michael Palmer, winner of the Second Annual NANO Prize, has his winning piece, "Miles," in the newest issue of NANO Fiction (v4 n1).

The Immortality of Fairy Tales

"About 50 years ago, critics were predicting the death of the fairy tale. They declared it would fizzle away in the domain of kiddie literature, while publishers sanitized its 'harmful' effects. Academics, journalists and educators neglected it or considered it frivolous..." (Read the rest: Why Fairy Tales are Immortal by Jack Zipes from Globe and Mail.)

Poets Introducing Poets :: dg nanouk okpik

Poet Lore's Fall 2010 issue introduces the poems of native Alaskan dg nanouk okpik in their feature Poets Introducing Poets. Poet Lore Editors writer: "Nowhere are the effects of climate change more palpable than in the far North. Ms. okpik's ritualistic narratives - steeped in Inuit folklore and sobered by the rudimentary predicaments of survival - conjure up a way of life as miraculous and endangered as the Arctic itself. In 'Oil is a People,' she writes: 'I see the pipeline cracking, the Haul road / paved. I fall asleep as you are dancing / with the dead....' Is this a vision? A warning? The eerie lines do what poetry does best: unsettle us with the truth - and maybe move us toward it." Poet D. Nurkse introduces okpik's poetry, of which 12 pieces featured.

Artistic Merits of Fictive Sex

What is Good Sex vs. Bad Sex writing in literary fiction? Is there even a "need" for fictive sex in this day and age?

"Nobody needs it anymore", says Rhoda Koenig [co-founder, along with Auberon Waugh, of the Bad Sex Award]. "Not that long ago, people would read quality fiction (as well as, of course, lots of rubbish) to discover what actually went on during sex, how people did it. Virgins wanted information, and experienced people wanted inspiration. If you were too young or poor to buy pornography or instruction books and had to go to the library, it was a lot less embarrassing checking out Lady Chatterley than a sex manual."

Read more: Bad Sex Please, We're British: Can Fictive Sex Ever Have Artistic Merit? by Arifa Akbar for The Independent.

Iran Poetry Volume

The Atlanta Review has announced that their spring IRAN Issue will be published in an expanded book version by Michigan State University Press, similar to the IRAQ Issue (Flowers of Flame) published in 2008.

American Short(er) Fiction Prize Winners

American Short Fiction's Shorter Fiction First Place Winner Jen Percy ("Field Trip") and Second Place Winner Hillery Hugg ("The Tomb") have their works published in most recent (Fall 2010) issue of the magazine.

Fifth Wednesday Guest Editors

Fifth Wednesday Journal has announced its guest editors for their spring 2011 issue: Guest Poetry Editor: Michael Anania and Guest Fiction Editor: Carolyn Alessio.

Brave New World Banned

Nathan Hale High School (Seattle) has banned Aldous Huxley's classic novel Brave New World. Oh, it is indeed a new world - though I'm not so sure it's brave.

Are Lesbians Going Extinct? Part Two

Trivia: Voices of Feminism 11, edited by Lise Weil and Betsy Warland, is the magazine's longest issue published to date and the second in a two-part series featuring writers responding — in prose and poetry — to the question "Are Lesbians Going Extinct?".

Contributors include Sima Rabinowitz, Verena Stefan, Kate Clinton, Lauren Crux, Sarah Schulman, Susan Hawthorne, Arleen Paré, Renate Stendhal, Urvashi Vaid, Erin Graham, Bev Jo, Christine Stark, Elana Dykewomon, Sharanpal Ruprai, Elizabeth X, Lyn Davis, Monica Meneghetti, Betsy Warland, Lise Weil, Harriet Ellenberger, and Michèle Causse.

Editor-in-chief Lisa Weil will be stepping down with this issue and the magazine is in search of new leadership. Information about the changeover and contacting the publication is available at the close of Weil's editorial.

Tribute to Ai

The most recent issue of Cimarron Review is a tribute to the poet Ai (1947 - 2010). Nonfiction includes works by Lisa Lewis, Guest Editor whose work "Ai in Oklahoma" opens the issue, Dagoberto Gilb ("Poet Ai" available online), Clay Matthews, Chip Livingston, Rigoberto González, and Janet Varnum's interview with Ai. Works of poetry include authors Yun WangMonique S. Ferrell, Labecca Jones, Jeff Simpson, Kimiko Hahn ("Theft" available online), Samantha Thornhill, Patricia Smith ("The Day Before What Could be the Day" available online),Cyrus Cassells, Ralph Burns, Oliver de la Paz, and Marilyn Chin ("Naked I Come, Naked I Go" available online). Cover image by Christopher Felver - “The Poet Ai at the Los Angeles Book Fair.”

Narrative Poetry Contest Winners

Narrative Magazine Second Annual Poetry Contest Winners

First Place: Kate Waldman
Second Place: Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
Third Place: Ezra Dan Feldman

Finalists:
Mermer Blakeslee
Laton Carter
Katharine Coles
Maria Hummel
Gray Jacobik
Jenifer Browne Lawrence
Lynn Melnick
Steve Price
Marsha Rabe
Christie Towers

The Narrative Magazine Fall 2010 Story Contest is still open to fiction and nonfiction. All entries will be considered for publication. Deadline: November 30, at midnight, Pacific standard time.

Bookstore for Sale

"Citing health reasons, the president of the Globe Corner Bookstore said yesterday that he plans to sell the 28-year-old Harvard Square travel book and map specialty shop and online store." (Reading more: Boston.com)

Remembering Bill Bauer

The latest edition of Fiddlehead (Autumn 2010) includes "Remembering Bill Bauer (1932 - 2010)" an editorial by Brian Bartlett. Bill Bauer had been Co-Editor, Assistant Poetry Editor, and Poetry Editor for nearly ten years, then Fiction Co-Editor for two years, and published two full-length collections of poetry with Fiddlehead Poetry Books, along with several other collections of poetry and short stories. Bill Bauer was lost to his battle with cancer in June of 2010.

The editorial is followed by several of Bauer's poems, including one previously unpublished work.

Some Advice on ePublishing

Previously mentioned in a post on the C4 Fiction Anthology, this online "bonus" published by the editors of C4 provides some honest insight on publishing and distributing an e-book: Publishers Lie and Other Lessons Learned from Publishing "The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology". It's the kind of advice people look for.

CV2 Celebrates 35 Years

Canadian poetry lit mag Contemporary Verse 2 is celebrating 35 years of publishing. The newest issue (Summer 2010) is the first of two issues looking back over these three and a half decades - starting with "The Early Years" - the first ten years of the journal's history. Included is an interview with Robert Enright, "CVII's first book review editor and one of its founding staff," and "some of the archival materials still in CVII's posession, including originals of the late bpNichol - editorial reports and the one poem published by CVII."

CVII is also planning a number of celebratory events and a coast to coast reading tour. Check their website for more information.

Barns + Poetry + Art = Cool Stuff

Artist Bill Dunlap was selected recently to do a series of murals on barns across Maryland. Each mural will be a text and image piece featuring poetry. The project is organized by the University of Maryland Art Gallery in College Park, and is called "Poetic Aesthetic in Rural Maryland."

Why barns and why poetry? Dunlap writes on his blog, "I think it’s because they go so well together. This is a chance to bring art out of galleries and urban settings and put it in rural areas where it is rarely seen. And those kinds of peaceful settings are perfect places to take in a bit of poetry as well."

Dunlap has completed the first mural on a barn near Gaithersburg, MD. The barn is owned by a company of glass blowers called The Art of Fire. The painting is 10 ft tall and about 43 ft long and features the poem "Lost" by David Wagoner.

Dunlap plans to complete five more murals throughout 2011.

ALA Stonewall Book Award

The first and most enduring award for GLBT books is the Stonewall Book Awards, sponsored by the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table. Since Isabel Miller's Patience and Sarah received the first award in 1971, many other books have been honored for exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered experience.

A Richard Wilbur Symposium

Field's Fall 2010 issue features a symposium on the work of Richard Wilbur, including his poem "The Beautiful Changes," with essays by Bruce Weigl, Annie Finch, Steve Friebert and Stuart Friebert, DeSales Harrison, David Young, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Carole Simmons Oles, and Stephen Tapscott.

Soft Skull Press Closes New York

"Soft Skull Press, the indie publisher that was rescued from financial ruin when it was acquired by the Berkeley-based publisher Counterpoint in 2007, became a West Coast outfit on Friday after 17 years in New York with the closing of its office in the Flatiron District. Both of its full-time staffers, editorial director Denise Oswald and associate editor Anne Horowitz, were laid off, and titles that were already in the pipeline have been reassigned to editors at Counterpoint..." Read the rest on The New York Observer Media Mobster.

New Lit on the Block :: and/or

Editor-in-Chief Damian W. Hey, Art Editor George Kayaian, Literary Editor Tracy Kline, and Managing Editor Mike Russo are the working force behind and/or, a PDF (Issue) and print journal "for creative experimental writing and/or innovative graphic art."

Hey writes in the editorial for the first issue: "What is experimental to one person may be old hat to another. In general, we have sought to include works that represent as broad an experimental spectrum as possible. We have given preference to those works that provoke the reader or the viewer to question some aspect of tradition, convention, or expectation. We have looked for writing that teaches the reader how to read it, and art that teaches the viewer how to view it. And, in our evaluation of submitted work, we were not beyond the occasional outburst of: we know the good stuff when we see it!"

The first 100+ page issue of and/or features works by Carol Agee, Tanner Almon, George Anderson, Michael Andreoni, Jenn Blair, Ric Carfagna, James Carpenter, Brian Cogan, Kirk Curnutt, Nicole Dahlke, Arkava Das, Tray Drumhann, Joseph Farley, Adam Field, Howie Good, Thomas Gough, Aimee Herman, Jared Joseph, Mark L.O. Kempf, Ron. Lavalette, Donal Mahoney, Ricky Massengale, RC Miller, Antoine Monmarche, Kyle Muntz, Christina Murphy, Matt Parsons, Dawn Pendergast, Michael Lee Rattigan, Francis Raven, Mary Rogers-Grantham, Christine Salek, Chad Scheel, James Short, Bruce Stater and Lori Connerly, Felino A. Soriano, Orchid Tierney, David Tomaloff, Echezona Udeze, Justin Varner, and Christopher Woods.

The journal seeks submissions from writers and/or other sorts of artists whose work openly challenges the boundaries (mimetic, aesthetic, symbolic, cultural, political, philosophical, economic, spiritual, etc.) of literary and/or artistic expression. The deadline for Volume 2 is March 1, 2011.

No More White Elephant Gift Exchanges?

Amazon patents a bad gift defense system to stop bad gifts before they're even sent.

Word & Film Website

Random House has created a new website Word & Film: The Intersection of Books, Movies, and Television and includes trailers and interviews for both theater films and television.

Brownstone Books Closes

Bed-Stuy Do or Die: Brownstone Books in Brooklyn, NY shuts down.

Assistantship in Community Poetics

Mills College (Oakland, CA) Graduate Assistantship in Community Poetics - a new two-year, full-tuition assistantship to one student pursuing an MFA degree in poetry beginning Fall 2011. Deadline for application is December 15.

On Teaching and Pain

"What teacher has not felt this pain—the pain of the audible yawn from the kid in the back row just as you launch into the lesson you worked on for an hour and a half—or worse, the lesson you spent only ten minutes preparing and are now feeling vulnerable about? This is not acute pain, not the pain of discovering that a student has craftily plagiarized an essay for your class, or reading a mean-spirited comment on a course evaluation, or being insulted to your face. This is the low-grade fever, the chronic hypertension of teaching, the apathy, dismissiveness, and dehumanization I suspect are part of most teachers’ everyday lives."

From Strange Flowers and Gubbinals: On Teaching and Pain by Frank Kovarik

Read the rest - it does offer hope.

C4's Best of the Web Fiction Anthology

Chamber Four Fiction Anthology: Outstanding Stories from the Web 2009/2010 is available for free download (PDF and mulit-eReader formats) and includes 25 stories chosen by C4 editors for their "availability online and that hard-to-define but unmistakable hallmark of quality." Full table of contents and author bios, as well as bonus content (interviews with Angie Lee, Roy Giles, Andy Henion, Scott Cheshire, and "Publishers Lie and Other Things We Learned From Publishing 'The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology'”) is available on C4's Anthology page.

Authors whose works were chosen for the C4 Anthology: Andrea Uptmor, Angie Lee, Scott Cheshire, Alanna Peterson, Eric Freeze, Steve Almond, Sarah Salway, Svetlana Lavochkina, Valerie O’Riordan, L.E. Miller, B.J. Hollars, C. Dale Young, Andy Henion, Aaron Block, Steve Frederick, Trevor J. Houser, Roy Giles, Emily Ruskovich, David Peak, Castle Freeman, Jr., Ron MacLean, Corey Campbell, Taryn Bowey, Michael Mejia, William Pierce.

Passings :: JP Farrell

Publisher of Atonal Poetry Review, John Patrick (JP) Farrell had been hospitalized since October 19 and passed away Wednesday, November 3, 2010. Messages for the family can be left on the Vaughan Funeral Home website.

Hint Fiction on NPR

'Hint Fiction' is the latest in literary downsizing: 25 words or fewer that hint at a story. Read/listen to the 'long' story of Robert Swartwood call for submissions the the anthology the that resulted - along with several examples (full-text, of course).

Essay: Reine Dugas Bouton "My Inner Latina"

"I’m a mix, a Mediterranean cocktail of sorts, like many people in New Orleans. My dad’s French and Italian; my mom’s Spanish with a touch of Welsh. The closest link I have to my ethnicity is my cousin in Los Angeles. Lisa is proud of her Latina heritage — she lives it. She spends time with her boisterous, voluble, in-your-face, never boring family; they dance at parties, make tamales for the holidays, speak in English with Spanish words sprinkled like bits of jalapeño into a salsa verde. Proud of who she is, Lisa’s got a spicy personality and speaks rapid fire."

Excerpt from "My Inner Latina: Dancing toward a lost heritage" by Reine Dugas Bouto, published online in Etude: New Voices in Literary Nonfiction.

Narrative Literary Puzzler Haiku II

This week, Narrative's Literary Puzzler invites participants to their second Haiku competition; send in a poem incorporating the theme of the fall season. Deadline: Noon on Sunday.

Contemporary Poetry Review Relaunch

Ernest Hilbert editor of the Contemporary Poetry Review from 2005 until 2010, bids the publication farewell as it "relaunches" into a new era as on online publication.

Censorship in Iran Publishing

"Figures from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance show that the country has some 7,000 publishing firms. Take just two of these companies - one of them says it has about 70 novels and short story collections currently pending approval from the censors. The other says it has had between 50 and 70 books awaiting review at any one time for the past two years.

"Censors...go through already published works as well as the never-ending flow of new ones, checking line by line to see whether they were compatible with the "core Islamic values" the new administration wanted to assert.

"In practice, though, the censors only look at literature, books on art, and works on literary criticism and theory, which account for about 40 per cent of all books published in Iran."

Books Stuck in Iran's Censorship Quagmire
By Omid Nikfarjam; source: Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR)

Los Angeles Review on What Editors Have Read Too Much Of

The Los Angeles Review has posted "Freele Pesters: Installment 3" - notes from the third week of their fiction workshop. This one includes Fiction Editor Stefanie Freele Pesters in conversation with Nancy Boutin, Prose Editor, and Joe Ponepinto, Book Review Editor, answering the question: "What styles or techniques (prose) have you read too much of? not enough of?"

Also included is Heather Freese (Contributor – “The Popular Girls’ Guide To Sticking It To Your Friends” LAR Issue 6) answering the question: "Should a reader have to 'understand' a story?" as well as other questions on issues of style and technique (including the use of second person).

Week Two focused on "Narrative Tension and Anticipation in the Short Story" and Week One on "The Importance of Beginnings" - both of which can be found in the Archives.

Franzen Fans

The newest issue of College Literature (General Issue 37.4 / Fall 2010) includes the essay "Assessing the Promise of Jonathan Franzan's First Three Novels: A Rejection of 'Refuge'" by Ty Hawkins (Ph. D., Saint Louis University). Frazen's works cited in the essay: The Twenty-Seventh City, Strong Motion, The Corrections, "Mr. Difficult" and "A Word About This Book," both from How to Be Alone: Essays.

Adam Gussow and Blues English

Adam Gussow: Ole Miss English prof by day, blues man by - well - day also: “I’ve always had a dual interests between the blues and literature,” Gussow said. “I treat blues lyrics like lyric poetry. I try to keep a balance situated between performance and critique.” Gussow's solo album, Kick and Stomp, has just been released.

The Healing Muse - Content of Common Experience

In the Editor's Note for the Fall 2010 issue of The Healing Muse, Deirdre Neilen writes, "Our lives have their own unique roads to travel, but when the detour called Illness enters, we soon learn we have joined, willingly or unwillingly, a very large community with a language and a culture of its own that demands our attention and commitment...we become adept negotiators of hospital mores and insurance protocols, of treatment modalities and drug therapies; the mildest among us morph into warrior-advocates for our loved ones; we stand shoulder to shoulder with our nurses and physicians, our therapists, and our own research. And we write about the bartering, the begging, the rage; we're not too proud to pray, to swear, to do whatever it takes to get a cure, an extension, a hope. We suffer - either as the person who is ill or as one who witnesses and cares for that one.

"Yet all this suffering somehow does not destroy us; we endure, and we incorporate it into the life we are trying to save, to maintain, to extend..."

And so begins this issue of The Healing Muse in recognition of its content, and the content of each and every issue. Hard core. Truthful. Honest. And recognizable, 'relatable' to so many of us.

New Letters - Fat America Thin Literary Art

In "Grounded: An Editor's Note" (full text online) in the newest edition of New Letters (v76, n4), Robert Stewart says, "As America gets fatter, it seems to want its art to become weightless."

Ouch. But true. Read on.

"Kindle-like products seem fine enough, but marketing has induced many people I know into feeling guilty for continuing to prefer regular books and journals. I believe that physical matter in literary art, as in the universe, cannot be destroyed. One must know how, and sometimes where, to look. My institution’s library just celebrated the installation of a book 'robot' — sealed up, like Poe’s Fortunato, in a cave-like room—where the library will seclude a promised 80 percent of its books and print journals, accessible for request but not for browsing. We can browse cataloguing-in data; but books and journals on shelves, in aisles, belong to the physical world, due for a change. The library has its reasons, as a friend points out, trying to fulfill contradictory missions: to provide access and also preserve the materials. Articles and chapters on library reserve for student reading now must be digitized; so none of my own students need get up and actually enter the library. This weightlessness, I admit, weighs on me..."

And there's more. Read the rest here.

NewPages Literary Magazine Reviews Posted

Check out the latest great post of NewPages Literary Magazine Reviews, including both new and established publications in print:

Annalemma
Chinese Literature Today
Crazyhorse
Fourteen Hills
The Meadow
Minnetonka Review
Natural Bridge
Paterson Literary Review
Salt Hill
Santa Clara Review
Santa Fe Literary Review
The Seattle Review
Yellow Medicine Review

If you are interested in writing literary magazine reviews for NewPages, visit the Reviewer Guidelines.

The AGNI Portfolio of African Fiction

Coedited by E. C. Osondu and William Pierce, the AGNI Portfolio of African Fiction is a landmark gathering of stories from Djibouti, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, the Gambia, and elsewhere. "The AGNI Portfolio of African Fiction creates an unexpected portrait of the African continent—political, sexual, religious, commercial, and literary — by writers such as Abdourahman A. Waberi, Henrietta Rose-Innes, Helon Habila, Doreen Baingana, Chuma Nwokolo, Jr., and Monica Arac de Nyeko." The portfolio will connect AGNI’s two venues this fall: half of the stories appearing in AGNI 72 (now available for purchase), and half available full text at AGNI Online.

Gulf Coast Prize Winners

The newest issue of Gulf Coast (v23 i1) includes the 2010 winners of the Gulf Coast Prize:

Judith Kroll, Nonfiction Winner, "Happy Families"
Sara Batkie, Fiction Winner, "Cleavage"
Anne Marie Rooney, Poetry Winner, "Flower sonnet"

Poets on Family Incarnations

Guernica November 2010 includes "Deepening into Humanness" - guest Editor Emily Fragos introduces six poets who write about family incarnations — Matthew Zapruder, Cynthia Cruz, Gabriel Fried, Mark Wunderlich, Lynn Melnick, and Jennifer Franklin.

"The poets I have chosen as Guernica’s November guest poetry editor use 'family' in a variety of ways. But they all make the personal universal and the intimate a revelation, and they do this without self-pity or sentimentality. I was drawn by the deepening into humanness in each poem—lucid yet somehow mysterious—yet these poets did not try to be mysterious, which would have come across as pretentious and dishonest."

Creative Nonfiction Mentoring Program Classes

As part of their Mentoring Program, Creative Nonfiction will be offering two 10-week course taught by Anjali Sachdeva:

Basics in a Nutshell will introduce writers to the basics of creative nonfiction, exploring both the techniques used to gather information and the literary skills needed to turn bare facts into personal and compelling essays.

Writing the Personal Essay takes a close look at the writing and research skills needed to write a memoir or personal essay and refines them over the course of 10 weeks.

A complete outline of course content is available online. Registration is limited to 12 students each.

Narrative Spring 2010 Story Contest Winners

The Narrative Spring 2010 Story Contest Winners' stories are now available to read online. Winners and finalists:

FIRST PLACE ($3,250)
Scott Tucker, "I Would Be Happy to Leave This Asylum"

SECOND PLACE ($1,500)
Peter Grimes, "Victoria"

THIRD PLACE ($750)
Megan Mayhew Bergman, "Birds of a Lesser Paradise"

TEN FINALISTS ($100 each)
Elizabeth Benedict
Mary Costello
Marta Evans
Katherine Jaeger
Elias Lindert
Alexander Maksik
Jerry Mathes II
E. V. Slate
Lynn Stegner
Lori Tobias

The Obscure Reference: Sony Walkman in Literature

Who knew Sony's Walkman would one day become an obscure reference in literature...

Digital Poetry Exhibition

Jason Nelson has built an exhibition of digital poetry interfaces on heliozoa. Nelson writes, "In the simplest terms Digital Poems are born from the combination of technology and poetry, with writers using all multi-media elements as critical texts. Sounds, images, movement, video, interface/interactivity and words are combined to create new poetic forms and experiences. And when a piece like 'game, game…' attracts millions of readers while a 'successful' print poem might attract a hundred, I think the digital truly is the future of poetry."

Poetry :: Brianna Joelene Gionet

The beginning of Reincarnation by Brianna Jolene Gionet"

When my grandfather dies-
and comes back as a lion
I already know what he will smell like:


[Published in The Pacific Review]

Handbook for Writers in Prison

PEN’s Handbook for Writers in Prison features detailed guides on the art of writing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays as well as information on punctuation, cover letters, and a list of recommended magazines and journals that consider work for publication. This is an invaluable resource to any incarcerated writer. To date, PEN has distributed 20,000 copies of the Handbook and continues to receive requests.

If you or someone you know is currently incarcerated, you are eligible to order a FREE copy of the Handbook for Writers in Prison. Workshop instructors who would like to use the Handbook for Writers in Prison for classes are encouraged to purchase copies for only $5.

Tupelo Press / Crazyhorse Award Winner

Winner of the Tupelo Press / Crazyhorse Award The Forest of Sure Things by Megan Snyder-Camp is now available for purchase.

The 12th Annual Tupelo Press Award for a First or Second Book of Poetry is an open competition with a $3,000 prize. Submissions are accepted from anyone writing in the English language, whether living in the United States or abroad (translations are not eligible for this prize). Final judges will be the editors of Tupelo Press and the journal Crazyhorse. All entries must be postmarked or uploaded to the online Submission Manager between January 1 and April 15, 2011.

New Lit on the Block :: Tygerburning Literary Journal

Tygerburning Literary Journal is a print journal of poetry and poetics produced annually each spring by the MFA Program in Poetry at New England College in Henniker, NH. The journal seeks work that ranges from innovative to traditional lineages by emerging and established poets. Special features of each issue include a DVD presentation of cinepoetry, interdisciplinary works of new media, and spoken poetry performance.

There are a limited number of Issue #1 Journals with the DVD of Francesco Levato’s complete award winning cinepoetry selection, War Rug. Copies can be ordered through Marick Press.

Contributors for Issue #1: Kazim Ali, Nin Andrews, Lana Hechtman Ayers, Janet Barry, Tara Betts, Bhisham Bherwani, Sylva Boyadjian-Haddad, Martha Carlson-Bradley, Lee Ann Brown, Laynie Browne, Wendy Burk, Amanda Cobb, Joanna Penn Cooper, Melinda Curley, Stephan Delbos, Chard deNiord, Tenzin Dickyi, Karen Dietrich, Jonas Ellerstrom, Kathleen Fagley, Howard Faerstein, Patricia Fargnoli, Roberta Feins, Adam Fieled, Alice B. Fogel, Laura Davies Foley, Mary Gilliland, Mariela Griffor, James Harms, M.C. Jones, Ilya Kaminsky, Talia Katowicz, Anchia Kinard, Francesco Levato, Sara Lefsyk, Louise Landes Levi, Lesle Lewis, Barbara Lovenheim, Terry Lucas, Erica Lutzner, Mayra MacNeil, Tamara J, Madison, Eric Magrane, Kent Maynard, Tim Mayo, Mary McKeel, Stephen Paul Miler, Malena Morling, Nikoletta Nousiopoulis, Annemarie O’Connell, Ivy Page, Barbara Paparazzo, Alexandria Peary, Jane Lunin Perel, Douglas Piccinnini. Verandah Porche, Kyle Potvin, George Quasha, Steven Riel, Edith Sodergran, Leah Souffrant, Cinnamon Stuckey, K.A. Thayer, Matthew Ulland, Miguel Alejandro Valerio, Mark Watman, and Dorinda Wegener.

Submissions are being accepted for Issue #2 (Spring 2011), edited by James Harms, until December 15, 2010.

Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers Winners

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 November. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

First place: Kathryne Young [pictured], of Woodside, CA, wins $1200 for “Roadrunner.” Her story will be published in the Winter 2012 issue of Glimmer Train Stories, out in November 2011.

Second place: Jennifer Tomscha, of Ann Arbor, MI, wins $500 for “Sure Gravity.” Her story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train Stories, increasing her prize to $700.

Third place: Kate Rutledge Jaffe of Missoula, MT, wins $300 for “Talk About the Weather.”

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

Deadline soon approaching for Family Matters: October 31

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.) Click here for complete guidelines.

Powell's Books Offers Anne Rice Library Collection

Powell's Books of Portland, OR acquired and is offering for sale a collection of books from the personal library of legendary author Anne Rice. "Included in the collection are editions signed or annotated by Ms. Rice, and many have her library markings on the spines. The collection showcases her love of literature and writing and reveals a true intellectual curiosity — classic philosophy, the Brontes, biblical archaeology, and Louisiana history are just a few of the subject areas represented."

Chetnia Bilingual Issue on Chekhov

How can one understand what Chekhov is to Russian culture and Russian life? "Only by reading him," says Tamara Eidelman in the latest issue of Chtenia: Readings from Russia. The Fall 2010 issue is a bilingual focus on Chekhov, including a translation of writing from Ivan Bunin, Russia's first Nobel Laureate for literature (1933), and several of Chekhov's stories both in Russian and in English translation: A Horsey Name, A Foolish Frenchman, The Student, The Seagull (excerpt), The Man in a Case, Gooseberries, and About Love. The volume is completed with an essay by Sasha Chyorny, "Why Did Chekhov Quit This Earth So Soon?"