Unusual Calls for Submissions

The Writer’s Travel Scholarship -- Win a Round Trip Ticket to Anywhere
This is is a short-form writing contest where the winner gets a round-trip ticket to anywhere in the world. Really. This is the fifth year of the contest. Previously, I've written the contest announcement from the edge of the Sahara desert in Mali, or the coast of Sri Lanka. This year, I am at home in San Francisco, but my gaze is always elsewhere. I'm lucky to have seen a lot of the world, and I'm writing about it. Are you writing too? Not about the remote places in the world,
perhaps, but about something that matters to you? If so, please enter the 2009 Writer’s Travel Scholarship. As usual, the prize is a round-trip ticket anywhere in the world. As usual, the basic rationale for the contest remains: I think travel is good. I think writing is good. I think it is important that writers travel. Naturally, I do see a lot of travel writing submissions, but I’d like to reiterate that this is not about travel writing: it’s about writers traveling. Anything is fair game, as long as it’s prose under 10,000 words. Fiction, non-fiction, memoir, porn, whatever… just make it a good read. Applications are open until midnight April 30th, 2009. The winner will be announced May 15th.

The Other Journal seeks submissions of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction for our upcoming issue on Beauty and Aesthetics.
Deadline has been extended from March 15 to April 10, 2009. We seek poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction that explore the beauty, especially its cultural and theological incarnations. As we navigate the many faces of beauty, we will explore the nature, function, and end of beauty. We expect this issue to address such questions as How is the body understood in Western culture? Why does beauty matter? And what does beauty have to do with issues of justice and reconciliation? All submissions should be sent via email to
(replace (at) with @)

"All punk poetry" issue: Chiron Review
The editors of CHIRON REVIEW are reading submissions for an "All Punk Poetry" issue to be published Dec. 2009. Poetry, fiction, b/w line art, comics/cartoons, photos, nonfiction, whatever should be sent via snailmail with self-addressed, stamped envelope for reply/return to: Chiron Review, Attn: PUNK, 522 E. South Ave., St. John, KS 67576. Name and complete mailing address should appear on every poem, story, etc. Deadline: Sept. 1, 2009. Material is copyrighted in author's/artist's name. Payment: one contributor's copy with 50% discount on additional copies.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS OF ORIGINAL POETRY
CHOPIN IN POETRY, Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Edited by Maja Trochimczyk. Forthcoming in March 2010 to honor the 200th Anniversary of Chopin’s Birth. Moonrise Press. SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: § Original poetry about any aspect of music and life of Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849), Polish pianist and composer; § Deadline – August 1, 2009 ; § Language – English; § Length – maximum 39 lines per poem, 3 poems; § Format – email (replace (at) with @) with the poem both in the body of the message and attachment in MS Word or rtf; § Address and contact information of the author included in the body of the message

Putting Our Heads Together Poetry Contest 2009.
Subject must be headache or Migraine related, but may be metaphoric or abstract. Form: Rhymed, free-verse, any form of poetry, but not prose. Poetry must be original and written by you. Submission of poetry written by someone else will result in disqualification. All poems must be unpublished work, never before published anywhere. Length: Maximum of 60 lines, no more than 80 characters per line (including spaces and punctuation). Number of entries: Please limit entries to no more than three poems per person. Age: Poems written by persons under 18 years of age must be submitted by a parent or legal guardian. "Family-friendly" language required. No profanity or other potentially offensive language. Deadline: Friday, April 17, 2009. Submissions received after this date will be deleted.here.

Haiku Project 2009
Online entry form ITO EN (North America), INC., the world's leading purveyor of green tea products and beverages, today announced its call-for-entries for"Haiku Project 2009." Inspired by the spirit of change in our country today, participants can enter a haiku around the themes of "Change," "Hope" and "Progress". The winning haiku will grace the bottles of ITO EN's award-winning tea line, TEAS' TEA, a naturally brewed ready-to-drink tea line that is rich in antioxidants and Vitamin C. To be eligible for the Haiku Project 2009, entrants must submit a haiku (a three lined poem in three metrical phrases with the number of syllables of 5 (first line), 7 (second line), and 5 (third or last line)) that reflects your vision of tomorrow based around Change, Hope and Progress, to (replace (at) with @). More information here.

April is National Poetry Month!

Tomorrow, April 1st, we will begin the celebration of the National Poetry Month and the release of the 2009 poster. This year’s selected poster is created by renowned illustrator and graphic designer Paul Sahre. The Academy of American Poets will distribute about 200,000 free copies of Sahre’s poster to schools, libraries, and anyone who is interested in owning a copy. The poster features an image of T.S Elliot’s lines “Do I dare/ Disturb the Universe?” from his poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” written on the surface of a fogged window. Beyond the fogged window are blurred images of what appear to be trees. Sahre produces an image that inspires and invites thought and reflection on poetry. This is why we celebrate National Poetry month: we come together to commemorate and value poetry and its vital role in our lives.

You can view and order a copy of the 2009 National Poetry Month Poster at the poster gallery at Poets.org. You can also order copies of previous year’s selected posters. Explore for awhile, too, when you’re at the site and find out about more events. The Academy of American Poets invite you to become involved by offering opportunities, such as Poem In Your Pocket Day where, on April 30th, you carry around one of your favorite poems to share with family, friends, co-workers, teachers, classmates, or anyone else you feel would enjoy a poem. Happy National Poetry Month!

Small Presses - Big Successes

Our friend Sally Ball is quoted talking about the environment for the small presses on behalf of Fourway Books in this blog post from Oronte Churm on Small Press Month. The phenomenon of the success of the small presses even as the major corporate publishers continue to tank is a gratifying one. The mission of these presses is the closest to the idea that was the genesis of the great American publishers of the 20^th century: Publish what you like. Publishing what you think will feed your bottom line led to the crises that have plagued the corporate publishers in recent years, proving that even if you bought Random House, you didn’t buy the way it was run, which is would seem to me to be the reason you would want it in the first place. That the small presses are doing so well proves the point that readers read, but not just anything. We value the curative voice of a publisher who is not after our buck (though we will willingly part with it) but our minds.

On our minds right now are on Fourway's new slate of books. And also that in addition to the excellent poetry that we have come to expect, they have recently published their first work of short fiction.

Old School Publishing in the Age of Twitter

Peter Miller, the director of publicity for Bloomsbury and the proprietor of the bricks-and-mortar shop Freebird Books in Brooklyn, barely survived his panel discussion at SXSW. “New Think for Old Publishers” got lambasted by the audience through a simultaneous Twitter discussion, claiming (among other things), "complete existential jackoff, zero meat" as attendees waitied for the "new thinking" from New York publishing.

In a clearly wounded but also funny response for Publisher's Weekly, Miller created a "what not to do at SXSW" list for next year's panelists, which includes not allowing yourself to be seen without a laptop. More interesting though is Miller's post on the Freebird Books blog, which gives a more detailed play-by-play of the now infamous panel, and raises really interesting questions about the role and nature of publishing in a world that's becoming increasingly do-it-yourself.

As an aside, panel moderator and expert on new media, Clay Shirky, wrote this post on the fate of newspaper and magazine publishing the night before the panel. Also an interesting read.

Literary Magazines

I’ve been interested in the history of the literary magazine, and so I’ve been combing bibliographies for sources. To get a comprehensive overview, I’ve had to go back to 1978’s The Literary Magazine in America where I find this sentence:

“Little magazines have always functioned primarily for writers. Readers are desirable, sometimes even actively sought out, but the impulse behind most magazines is the writer-editor’s conviction that there are writers who are not being served by existing publications.”

This has been on my mind now for two days, because I think it is in a large sense how literary magazines still operate. That any given literary magazine exists at all pleases me. But do they need to remain little to accomplish their mission? Most enterprises grow over time, but the subscriptions for any lit mag top out at the thousands (And that is for the more well known magazines). It would seem to further the cause of writing, it would be a primary purpose of literature magazines to seek out, even ‘actively’ more readers.

It would seem like if A writes a story published by B and B writes a story published by C and C writes a story published by A that not a whole lot is being done for writing in America. Of course, the big publishers might eventually swoop in if a story gets accolades. But is that the only way to the reading public at large? It would seem if the audience for literary magazines were bigger, more could be accomplished for literature and writing.

I know, I know. I’m going to hear a chorus of cries of “Budget!” but money is not the only way to get readers… And I am really eager to know everyone’s thoughts on the subject.

News Around the Net

Yes there is a prize for the Oddest Title of the Year, and the winner is...

John Cheever's 1988 letters to be released.

The Orwell Prize shortlist has been announced.

New York Public Library honors John Updike.

It seems Amazon can't please anyone. After stopping the ubiquitous use of Text-to-Speech at authors' insistence, disabilities groups are now demanding its return.

Nancy Eiesland, who theorized that God is disabled, had died at 44.

Sylvia Plath's son, Nicholas Hughes, dies at 47. Why the Plath legacy lives on.

For the love of coffee...and literature.

Website of the Week -- Creative Writing Prompts

Ideas for stories or poems don't always come as easily as we would like. Even if you know you have to write something, say for a class or to meet a deadline, sometimes you just sit at the computer, staring at the blank screen -- nothing is coming, the well is currently dry, come back later.

That's when Creative Writing Prompts can help! This is a fun, interactive site featuring an organized list of 329 numbers. Scroll over a number to make a prompt prop up! Some writers say free writing helps to get the juices flowing, so why not give it a try? Plus, you never know what you might see to start you jumping off in a new direction to land right in that story or poem you were trying to find.

Happy writing!

My POV on Points of View

Here is the code to open the door to one of the best open secrets in writing literature: 0-451-62872-1. That’s the ISBN (old school version) of Points of View, a teaching anthology of short fiction edited by James Moffett and Kenneth McElheny. Most anthologies are canonical in a robust but sometimes boring way or embarrassingly thematic. But Points of View is an anthology that will literally help you find your voice.

A quick question to emerging (and even some established writers) about how many different points of view are possible in a story will usually result in the invocation of the writer’s holy trinity: I, You, They; or rather: First, Second and Third person.

But Moffat’s and McElheny’s book shows that those three navigating stars are actually part of an entire galaxy stretching from one end of a writer’s sky to the other. There are 44 stories in this anthology, each written from a slightly different POV, proving that I, You, and They don’t even begin to cover it.

The books real genius may not only be the subject matter but the layout. The story starts with Interior Monologue (The story is ‘A Telephone Call’ by Dorothy Parker) and then gradually changes to Letter Narration, Diary Narration, Memoir, and so on until finally we reach the objective narration of the Shirley Jackson story ‘The Lottery’ and Eudora Welty’s ‘Powerhouse’, the last story in the collection. And if you are thinking that there is no difference between Diary Narration and Memoir that is just the reason for this anthology.

Just reading the book cover to cover is a joy, with standouts everywhere: Alice Munro, Louise Erdrich, T.C. Boyle, Raymond Carver. But the real joy is using this anthology to decide how exactly to approach the telling of a story, as in how it is told. It opens a writer’s mind to all the possible shadings of narrative voice so that he or she can begin to understand what are the advantages and the consequences of any given point of view.

Listing now in mass market paperback, with a list price of $8.99. Or used it’s even cheaper. It is bar none the biggest, best bang for your writing book buck on the market today. Get you own because I’m not loaning you mine.

Go-dinger On-going

This continues to amaze and bewilder us all. We are up to 43 reviews and counting. Maybe it's time to stop now. Can one gavel really do this much?

Phoenix Public Panels Poetry - Present your Person

Join us for a celebration of public art on Friday, April 3. At 7:00 PM the City of Phoenix will be dedicating the newest set of its 7th Avenue Streetscape Panels. These are light boxes that feature fine art and poetry, in a pedestrian friendly setting. The Project puts art in front of the people everyday, and only takes work that from writers who have not had a commission from the city before. This insures an emphasis on artists that may not have had their work displayed publically before, something that we here at HFR can get behind as we also try to bring the best of new works to the reading public. Poets will read their work at ten minute intervals until 8pm. We'll be there supporting two of our own: Sean Nevin, with work that will start its tenure at the outdoor gallery that night, and also Elizabyth Hiscox, who will be able to take her panel home in pride now that it has finished it's tenure.

This happening on a First Friday, the monthly celebration of art in downtown Phoenix, so there is sure to be a crowd. Come early, and support public art and poetry. We'll see you there.

In genre-al

I admit it, I wondered whether taking a poetry class would be a good idea. Even though the instructor had a great reputation, I write mostly prose, and the idea of many months devoted to writing something else, and picking up words in another way was...unsettling. Prose is what I’ve studied, and it’s where I feel like I know what I am doing. I plan on spending the rest of my life trying to write better sentences. But to write words but abandon the sentence? That seemed like running with the bulls or wing-walking: I’ve enjoyed other people doing it, but never thought to try it myself.

But the cross-training is proving beneficial. I think about nouns and verbs more, and less about prepositions and adverbs. My ability to use metaphor is stronger, and I have a deeper understanding of words for words sake.

I may not be alone. Crossing genres may be the new black in writing. The prototype from the 20^th century is the already dearly missed John Updike. In addition to his novels, his reputation as a short story writer was equally large, and he was known as an insightful critic and also wrote poetry. But cross-genre artists today are more in the vein of Neil Gaiman, (comic book writing, short stories, novels radio plays and screenplays) or like Miranda July (short-story, performance artist, filmmaker).

Writing is writing. We all work in words, so loosen up, read the sections in that literary journal you skipped. And then this week, try to get beyond the boundaries that you have with your writing. Make some comics, write a short film. Don’t get stuck in one genre. Then tell us what you did.

News Around the Net

At age 79, Ruth Rendell has written 70 novels!

42 years after being aired, Harlan Ellison is suing CBS-Paramount for failing to pay him for exploitation of his teleplay "City on the Edge of Forever."

Let the E-book Wars begin, Google and Sony versus Amazon.

The David Cohen Prize for Literature goes to the Irish poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney.

The International Prize for Arabic Fiction 2009 goes to Egyptian author Youssef Ziedan for his novel Beelzebub.

Author R.N. Morris experiments with the "Twitterisation" of his novel A Gentle Axe.

In the wake of the announcement that David Foster Wallace's final, incomplete novel will go to press, some wonder if such posthumous publications are not akin to professional grave robbing.

Inexplicably, the British Library has "misplaced" 9,000 books.

More literary honors and nominees.

Late-blooming poet Jane Mayhall has died at age 90.

Check out this gallery of updated illustrations of favorite children's classics.

Six new Shakespeare works "discovered."

A Writer's Summer at Stony Brook Southampton

From Carla Caglioti, the Associate Director of the Southampton Writers Conference:

I just wanted to let you we've got a really fun line up of workshops & events here in Southampton this summer. Our keynote speaker is Richard Ford and other luminaries will be milling about, plus we offer writing workshops with the following:

-Poetry with Billy Collins, Thomas Lux or Julie Sheehan
-Memoir/Creative nonfiction with Frank McCourt, Matthew Klam or Roger Rosenblatt
-Fiction/Novel with Melissa Bank, Ursula Hegi or Meg Wolitzer
-Playwriting with Marsha Norman, Emily Mann or Surprise Faculty (I can't tell you yet, but it's big)
-Writing for Children and Young Adults with Cindy Kane, Emma Walton Hamilton, Mitchell Kriegman, or Tor Seidler
-Illustration with Gahan Wilson
-Screenwriting with Andrew Bienen, Christina Lazaridi, Stephen Molton, Susan B. Landau, Peter Riegert, Frank Iglesias, Ken Friedman, Paula Brancato, or Carol Dysinger

If you or someone you know might benefit from studying with one of these amazing teachers, to say nothing of hitting the beach, direct them to our website & remind them to apply early. We have financial aid, but it tends to run out. You can download an application from on the website.

Website of the Week -- Fractured Atlas Blog

The Fractured Atlas blog is a "non-profit organization that serves a national community of artists and arts organizations. Our programs and services facilitate the creation of art by offering vital support to the artists who produce it. We help artists and arts organizations function more effectively as businesses by providing access to funding, healthcare, education, and more, all in a context that honors their individuality and independent spirit. By nurturing today's talented but underrepresented voices, we hope to foster a dynamic and diverse cultural landscape of tomorrow."

With grant application deadlines approaching, I would like to highlight "The Dos and Dont's of Grant Applications" post. If you are finishing up a grant or thinking about starting one, these tips may help!

“Best of the Net” Announces Winners for 2008

“Best of the Net” is an online anthology that seeks to compile the best work that has been published in online literary journals each year. As they say on their website: “This project works to promote the diverse and growing collection of voices that are choosing to publish their work online, a venue that still sees little respect from such yearly anthologies as the Pushcart and ‘Best American’ series. This collection will hopefully help to bring more respect to an innovative and continually expanding medium.”

HFR is very pleased to announce that three people affiliated with our journal have been selected as finalists!

* HFR associate editor Allyson Boggess -- "Citrus" from Eight Octaves Review

* HFR advisory board member Alberto Alvaro Rios -- "Arizona, The Sun, And What That's Like" from Narrative

* HFR Issue #42 contributor Sandra Beasley -- "Heretic" from Drunken Boat

Congratulations to all the “Best of the Net” contributors and finalists! Click here to read the work that made it into this year’s anthology.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Are you wearing green? Are you going out to your favorite bar, or getting together with friends? Whatever you're doing tonight (even if it's staying home), HFR wants to be part of your celebration So, in honor of Saint Patrick's Day, we pulled a poem from our archives for your reading pleasure.

Here is "clovers in winter" by Carol Briggs from Issue #21:

clovers in winter

marie who when she kicked that
carcass of a bird over the balcony because
she thought it could fly on its own like
patience that crawled under her shirt
and an unwanted hand that was cold
ice cream

kneaded her fists into balls but her screams
of i hate you were muffled in jello

pulled on her long hair so I could see
clovers woven into her braids for luck
and healing.

i said they didn't have four leaves
but she said it didn't matter anyways

i wanted to stand with her in the cold among glass trees
and shatter all the limbs.


Have a fun, safe Saint Patrick's Day everyone!

Another Exciting Contest: Free Verse Project

Do you write lines of your favorite poems on odd places or objects, such as on fogged up windows, on a fridge door spelled out in alphabet magnets, on people’s limbs or noses, then take photos of them? Well, maybe you would like to enter the Free Verse Project contest organized by the Academy of American Poets to celebrate National Poetry Month in April. What? Did you say that you don’t take photos of people's noses with poetry written on them? Enter anyway! Be creative and original. Let it show in your photos and through your selected poem. Why? Because you appreciate and love poetry and because, if your photo is selected as the winning art, you will win a copy of the newly featured Poem in Your Pocket anthology and receive a commemorative piece of jewelry designed by Jeanine Payer, San Francisco designer who engraves poetry on necklaces, earrings, and other jewelry and items. Imagine wearing a line of your favorite poetry around your neck. It certainly is something to cherish. Even if you don't want to enter, you can head on over to the Free Verse group page on Flickr to browse through the submissions. Submission deadline is April 15th. For more details about the contest, visit Poets.org.

Gunning For the Prize

The Publishing Triangle, an association of gay men and lesbian women in publishing, has announced its finalists for the 21rst annual Triangle awards, and Hayden’s Ferry Review has two past contributors in the running for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, which honors the British poet Thom Gunn (1929–2004), who lived in San Francisco for much of his life. Gunn was the author of The Man with Night Sweats (1992) and many other acclaimed volumes. In its first four years, this award was known as the Triangle Award for Gay Poetry, and Mr. Gunn himself won the very first such award, in 2001, for his Boss Cupid.

Finalists for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry
Jericho Brown, Please, (New Issues)
Mark Doty, Fire to Fire (Harper)
Ely Shipley, Boy with Flowers (Barrow Street Press)

Jericho Brown was featured in Issue #41 with the poem “Track 3: Back Down Memory Lane.” Ely Shipley's poems, "Six" and "Roll of Dimes" from this book appeared in Issue #36. (Ely's book is also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award!) Congratulations, to both Ely and Jericho! The award winners will be announced on May 7, 2009. To see the finalists in the other categories, check out the Publishing Triangle website here.

If you have been a contributor to HFR and you've got news about your work, we want to hear about it! Email us at hfr@asu.edu so we can spread the good word.

News Around the Net

Clive Cussler loses in a big way.

Scribner has offered Audrey Niffenegger a $5 million advance for her second novel.

The Times finally unveils their Bestseller List for graphic novels.

George Orwell's love letters to be auctioned off.

David Kipen of the NEA vows to eat every page of Haper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird if all the residents of Kelleys Island in Ohio don't read it.

The NEA, now featuring read-ins!

Paule Marshall recounts her development as a writer.

How independent presses will keep publishing afloat during this depression.

The writer-in-residence, online

Rand's Atlas Shrugged is becoming popular again.

Darkly comic novelist James Purdy dies at 94.

Unusual Calls for Submissions

New Year! New Feature! New Day!
shaking like a mountain, THE online literary magazine about contemporary music continues to seek poetry, fiction,creative nonfiction and music-related visual art for upcoming issues. We're happy with every issue, of course, but the current number (Winter 2009)just might be our favorite. Tell us what you think in a nicely written email. We publish the best ones. At this time too, we'd like to announce a new feature: shaking approved music. Here's the idea: you have a band, you have an act, you release a CD, you make your stuff available in various formats here, there and everywhere___ tell us about it in your own words (of 250 in number, more or less). Talk about your current or newly
released projects and/or what makes your music tick. Yes! This is DIY music promotion in the form of creative nonfiction for the new millennium. Oh daddy!

OPEN CALL FROM PUDDING HOUSE PRESS: Love Poems and Other Messages for Bruce Springsteen
Springsteen's passionate listeners have been grateful for his music that address their causes and struggles for years. From movie producers/directors who've asked for something special to fit the themes of their films to the lyrics that come from Bruce's own conscious and the issues swelling from the times of our lives. Springsteen has created music and lyrics that help carry us through. Think of Philadelphia, The Wrestler, so many others. Bruce Springsteen has given and given to the difficulties. What else do you know about Bruce Springsteen? What if we give him a fine, slender, collection of poems written just for him, from the similar spirit he gives to so much that matters. Send poems in the body of an email only, one at a time (one poem per email) to: (replace (at) with @),
subject line: Springsteen poem.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: THE FREE ISSUE
TEA PARTY magazine seeks submissions of fiction, poetry, photography, visual art, comics, interviews, and feature articles for its upcoming issue #18, to be published in June 2009. Our theme for Issue #18 is THE FREE ISSUE. What does FREE mean to you? How does FREEspeak to our investment as individuals and as communities, and what meaning does remain FREE in our society at this particular point in history? What isn’tFREE but should be? What do you give away and what’s been given to you? What would you like to be FREE of? What’s considered FREE to the public? How do you spend your FREE time? Email works to (replace (at) with @) by Friday, March 20th, 2009.

Fawlt magazine is now accepting submissions for its Apathy issue!
Each issue of the magazine focuses on a single, undesirable characteristic, exploring such issues as: who is affected by it, its impact on individuals, in which circumstance it can be especially bad (or actually good), and any other aspect of the flaw that that may be worth investigating. We're now actively taking submissions for our next issue: Apathy. DEADLINE: For Apathy: May 1, 2009. EMAIL: Please send to submissions to (replace (at) with @)

The Bechtel Prize
Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) awards the Bechtel Prize annually in recognition of an exemplary essay addressing important issues in the areas of creative writing education, literary studies, and/or the profession of writing. The deadline to receive submissions for the 2009 Bechtel Prize is 5:00 PM (Eastern), Tuesday, June 30, 2009.

Language and Migration
Platte Valley Review is publishing a special issue for Spring 2009 with focus on Language and Migration. Poetry, Prose, Photography, Artwork, Environmental and EcoCritical Essay with relative themes of language and migration are welcome as general submissions. The Platte Valley Review is edited by Allison Hedge Coke, Reynolds Chair. Deadline for this edition is April 1, 2009.

Twisted love anthology: Howl House Press
Howl House Press is here, and pleased to be posting our submission guidelines for our first anthology. So lofty are our hopes, we think it'll be an annual publication. Our goal is simple: to find the darkly marvelous and the painfully strange, and present it to as many appreciative readers and viewers as possible. That's it. Why? Because we do love the weird stuff. We will accept submissions until August 31, 2009. Please email howlhouse@gmail.com with additional questions.

Website of the Week -- Archetype

Even if your story's main character happens to be a cat or a rug, you're writing about a complicated consciousness different than your own. It becomes necessary then to know what makes your characters tick psychologically so your story can get a move-on. That's where Archetype: The Fiction Writer's Guide to Psychology can be of some help. This website has gathered information on psychology from a variety of sources into one convenient, easy-to-navigate website. Exploring a character with a mental disorder? Writing about a psychiatrist? Need some ideas for creating complexity? There are articles on various mental disorders, psychological jargon, well-known or intriguing experiments, and lots more. In addition to the psychology info, there are interesting writing resources and writing-help books available for browsing and purchase. This site is a resource worthy of a bookmark/favorite star!

Godinger's Crystal Gavel

We have been watching with interest an item for sale on Amazon.com. This crystal gavel from Godinger seems normal enough, in fact it seems downright blasé, like a Hummel figurine or commerative plate. But if you read the product reviews, you will notice something interesting about the properties of said gavel. Apparently it has all sorts of issues (and magical powers,). Sex, Death, Bronson Pinchot, the gavel has seen it all. Read every review. They are all worth it.

We at HFR applaud this adaptation of the commercial to the creative. With the economy teetering and book publishing tottering, it seems time for some DIY spirit to come to the writing world. So many think that being a writer has to do with fame. Really it is about the work, making something from words that didn’t exist before, whatever the format or style. The possibilities abound. If you are looking for more examples of extraordinary work in a mundane frame, make sure you check out the Best of Craigslist. In the meantime, visit the site and see and leave your own review. And read the others. Then see what you might be inspired to do that is similar. Writers write. All over. Please let us know here at HFR what you’ve done. We’ll be thinking on our own, and also keeping an eye on the gavel. According to the tags, it looks like this has been going on for about a week. We hope it keeps going (not that we contributed or anything).

Pushcart Prize Nominations!

Hayden’s Ferry Review is pleased to have content from Issue 42 nominated for the Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses (34th Edition). The Prize, established in 1976, is awarded to outstanding work in America’s small press and magazine community. If you missed Issue 42, it was a special themed issue on the Grotesque, and you can get a copy here (Or just subscribe and make sure you don't miss any more award winning content from us).

We here at HFR are proud to have the following authors and works nominated:

Regan Huff, "Lowenfeld World Technique"
Toni Thomas, "The World’s Hypnotic Aerial Heart Gloating"
Carrie Shipers, "Four Ways to Lose a Father"
Benjamin Vogt, "Little Deep Creek - Oklahoma, 1984"

The Pushcart Prize matters because it comes from within the small press community where ground-breaking and cutting edge fiction is being published every day. Forget what the New York Times is telling you, forget that bloated display at the front of that chain bookstore, forget that tiny blurb in Entertainment Weekly that it puts in to try and give itself artistic cachet. Turn your attention to the little magazines and the small presses that care about content over dollars. The Pushcart Prize is a great way to see what is new and great in the writing world and we look forward to reading it, no matter who is in it (though we are pulling for our excellent poets to make it in). See you with your copy in November.

News Around the Net

Here's a list of the titles most people lie about reading.

A glimpse into the letters of Samuel Beckett.

Horton Foote, the Pulitzer Prize and two time Academy Award winner, one for adapting To Kill a Mockingbird for the screen, has died at the age of 92.

Tobias Wolff wins the Story Prize for Our Story Begins.

Yet another Edgar Allen Poe letter has been published, this time asking for both forgiveness for drinking too much and for more money.

Apparently there's one expo not cutting back this year. WonderCon shows that fantasy is going stong in this economy!

More on the Dubai censorship issue.

Finally! An independent bookseller that's NOT closing its doors!

David Foster Wallace's final unfinished novel to be published by Little, Brown. The Guardian has second thoughts on our need for more from our idols.

Barnes & Noble is finally bending--they've bought Fictionwise, an e-boook retailer.

What Colm Toibin and some writers think about living by their pen.

Now, believe it or not, is the time for publishing because "staying in" has become the new "going out."

Website of the Week -- WOW!

Women on Writing (Wow!) is a wonderful information-based website for writers. As can be expected, some website content is geared towards women, but there is plenty of general writing articles to interest everyone. There is a lot of information on this website (check out the Articles tab), but the coolest thing is their e-zine, published monthly. The e-zines cover all sorts of topics like writing children’s books, finding time to write, and breaking boundaries in your work. Issues contain much of the content you would expect to see in any print publication – letter from the editor, featured articles, columns, etc. The website is easy to navigate and read, providing potential hours of enjoyment.

New David Foster Wallace Work

According to the Associated Press, a long, unfinished novel by David Foster Wallace is scheduled for a posthumous release next year. The Pale King will be excerpted in the edition of the New Yorker coming out on Monday. According to publisher Little, Brown, Wallace had been working on the book for years, leaving behind "a substantial portion" of it. About a tax man named David Wallace who starts a new job at an IRS tax-return processing center in Illinois in the mid 1980s, the book will clock in at "several thousand" words and will, according to LB, feature CliffNotes-like addendum--notes and outlines among other things--to "help readers understand" the work.

Michael Pietsch, LB publisher and Wallace's editor, said the book is "as ambitious as anything [Wallace] ever did" and marks his "effort to weave a novel out of life's dark matter: boredom, banality, the 'irrelevant complexity’ of everyday life."

The upcoming Sonora Review (for which DFW was once fiction editor) Double Issue (55/56) will also feature a David Foster Wallace tribute. The David Foster Wallace tribute includes one of DFW’s uncollected stories, "Solomon Silverfish," and essays and reflections from Sven Birkerts, Tom Bissell, Charles Bock, Marshall Boswell, Greg Carlisle, Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, Ken Kalfus, Glenn Kenny, Lee Martin, Michael Martone, Rick Moody interviewing Michael Pietsch, and art and prose from Karen Green. They're currently accepting preorders via paypal and ordering now will guarantee you’re one of the first people to get yours.

To preorder your copy, head to their Facebook page, scroll over the “Send Money” bar along the top, click on “Send Money Online,” and then enter “sonorarevieworders@gmail.com” as the Recipent (or “To” field.) Send $18 dollars, which includes 15 for the issue and 3 for shipping and handling. If you’re ordering internationally, please add 10 for shipping; if you have questions about rates please don’t be afraid to ask. Tick the “Goods” box. You should receive a confirmation email from paypal once the payment is complete; for now, consider that your confirmation of purchase.