News Around the Net

Here's an advanced look at the fall favorites from BEA.

Pres. Obama and the First Lady will preside over the National Book Festival at the National Mall in the fall.

James King is the lucky winner of Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award, for $25,000 and a contract with Viking.

Alice Munro wins the Man Booker International Prize.

What do O'Connor, Ginsburg, and Sotomayer have in common? Nancy Drew.

A new way to gauge the health of a literature: neologisms.

What justifies a 1000-page tome?

Remains of the Day, the Musical.

Nine year old Spanish boy to have his first fanatasy novel published.

New information has come to light about Jane Austen's love life and it doesn't include Thomas Lefroy. What? You mean, Hollywood didn't give us the whole story?

For the highlights of Book Expo America, check this out.

The Best Bookstore in Phoenix

I can’t keep the secret anymore.

Usually I hold the information about where I buy my books very close. You won’t be able to pry from me the locations of my favorite thrift stores or second-hand sales. They are sources that I guard like Woodward guarded Deep Throat.

But finally the guilt has become too much, and I want to shed my miserly ways. So I’m going to make up for it by giving away my crown jewel; I’m going to tell you what I believe is the best used bookstore in Phoenix, AZ. Now listen to me carefully, because you may not believe it at first: The best used bookstore in the Valley of the Sun is in the Arizona State University Textbook store on the Tempe Campus.

Go inside those big glass doors. Ignore the foam fingers, ballcaps, and mascot shot glasses. Go to your right. On the wall you will see six book bays (with three facing shelf units) with signs quietly announcing the the used book section. You won't need any help finding the good stuff. Good stuff like: T.C. Boyle’s Stories (for $8.95!), Echo Maker by Richard Powers ($7.95), Richard Ford’s short story collection Multitude of Sin ($6.95), which is also the price of Alice Munro’s View From Castle Rock. Now I know you’re thinking those prices are pretty typical for used quality paperbacks, but each of the above quotes refers to a good quality hardback copy that has been lovingly wrapped in Brodart. The paperback prices are so cheap I’m not even going to mention them for fear I won’t see any the next time I go.

Long-time resident bibiophiles might recognize here the handiwork of Scott Krause, the former proprietor of Reid’s, a small bookstore on Apache Blvd in Tempe that from ’96-’99 carried more bang per board foot than anywhere else. It was a sad thing when Reid's closed, and to see Scott’s discerning eye at work again quickens a book lover’s heart.

Though he still refers to it as a ‘side-project’, the title depth is awesome, the books are cheaper than cheap, and (and this is the real Scott Krause hallmark) their condition is excellent. If you want a copy to own, a copy to sit on your shelves and be enjoyed multiple times, this is the place to find it. The section relies on its own merits to produce sales, with no one hand selling the tomes. But Krause sees that as an advantage. “People should be rewarded for browsing,” he says. I couldn’t agree more.

So stop by. Now is the perfect time since most of the student body is away and the shelves are heavy with literary fruit waiting to be picked. Everything but that $7.95 hardback copy of Ann Beattie’s Park City. That’s one thing I’m not sharing.

The ASU bookstore (which is independent and not part of a textbook chain) is at the ASU Tempe Campus on Orange Mall between the Computing Commons and Physical Education building. Parking is free along Apache Boulevard. For an interactive map of the campus, click here.

Very Cool Job Posting!

Seeking: MARKETING DIRECTOR. Sarabande Books, an independent, nonprofit, literary press established in 1994, is seeking a Marketing Director/Development Assistant. We are looking for an individual with a strong commitment to contemporary poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction, as well as superior organizational and public relations skills. Minimum BA, MFA, and /or experience desirable. Candidates must be self-starters and highly attentive to details and deadlines.

Job responsibilities include marketing and publicity for each of ten annual titles, attendance at three annual book conferences, and twice yearly visits to NYC book reviewers. Some fundraising activity is also involved, depending upon need: assisting Editor-in-Chief Sarah Gorham with letter campaigns, tracking donors, and two-to-three small local parties.

The position includes full-time salary, health, dental, and retirement benefits, private office equipped with a Mac, and ample marketing budget.

Sarabande's work atmosphere is busy, but friendly. Vacations are generous and staff turnover is extremely rare. Louisville is an affordable, culturally rich, medium-sized city.

Please send letter, resume, three phone references, and a list of your top fifteen favorite contemporary poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction titles, by June 15 to: Sarah Gorham, gorham(at)sarabandebooks.org (replace (at) with @)

Mario Benedetti Dies at Age 88

Mario Benedetti, one of Latin America's most prolific and respected writers, died last Sunday at the age of 88. The Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago wrote this week in the Madrid daily El País: “The work of Mario Benedetti, my friend and brother, is surprising in all its aspects, whether the varied extent of genres it touches, the density of its poetic expression or the extreme conceptual freedom it employs.” His best know novel, The Truce, tells the story of an aging widower in Montevideo, his romance with a woman half his age. The film version of the novel was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign film in 1975. For more about his life and work, see this article from the NYT.

A translation of Benedetti's story, "The Rain and the Fungi," appeared in the last issue of HFR (#43). Harry Morales, the translator of the story, wrote in an introduction:

Benedetti is one of Latin America’s most highly renowned and beloved authors who writes (especially) about everyday life in Montevideo. Using well-balanced and appropriate doses of humor and colloquialisms, he shows a deep and poignant insight into his characters’ inner world and captures the problems of the city dwellers, who while trapped in an impersonal world, are building a shell to protect themselves from authentic feelings. As Jean Franco stated in The Modern Culture of Latin America, many of Uruguay’s problems stem from its high level of literacy and large middle class. “Modern Uruguay is a country of clerks and civil servants, and the hazards that face them are not those of violence and oppression, but of smugness and the excessive concern for security.” Consequently, Benedetti’s works are often set among office workers and members of the middle class, and in many, “the characters’ low-key lives take on a tragic tinge simply because they are caught in the trap of routine.”

Benedetti's "The Rain and the Fungi" begins:

Sincerity? Be careful with that little word. For the moment, dear, it wasn’t this meeting of ours four hours ago. Do you remember what we said? The past doesn’t exist. Of course, it’s difficult to abolish it. But you recognize that it would have been lovely to remain with our image of today, you and me in that dark hallway, temporarily sheltered from the downpour, you and me looking at one another, you and me feeling that suddenly the miraculous present is circulating among us, you and me tacitly dedicating ourselves to the commitment of coming here, or to any room as sordid as this one, to repeat, as always with established hopes, the search for love.

Benedetti's work is impressive, and his death a great loss. Our condolences to his friends and family.

The "Saga of Skullduggery" Continues

Ruth Padel stepped down from her recent appointment as Oxford University's chair in poetry yesterday, after admitting she was behind the anonymous allegations of sexual impropriety against Derek Walcott, her main competitor for the post. The admission that she sent e-mail messages to reporters is, according to the New York Times, "a stunning turn in a saga of skullduggery that had opened a bitter schism in Britain’s literary world." Read the full article here.

In this article for The Telegraph, Michael Deacon laments this defeat of poetry by "gossip," citing the impropriety of a number of famous poets: Dylan Thomas' alcholism, T.S. Eliot's possible racism, Philip Larkin's love of pornography, Poe's 13-year-old wife, etc. etc. He goes on to say, "All of these men, our anonymous epistolary guardians might grudgingly concede, knew a thing or two about putting words together, chopping them into lines and all that carry-on. But not one of them, were they alive today, could hope to land the Oxford post; they just don’t meet the exacting moral standards set by people who conduct smear campaigns."

Yikes. A writer's art should speak for itself, of course. But shouldn't a teacher be held accountable for his behavior toward students?

Unusual Calls for Submissions

The Other Journal seeks submissions of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction for our upcoming issue on Race in America. Our deadline has been extended from May 15 to July 1, 2009. All submissions should be sent via email to submissions(at)theotherjournal.com (replace (at) with @) with "TOJ Submission" written in the subject line. Please indicate the genre of your submission in the subject line of your email and submit your work as Microsoft Word or rich text format documents. Submissions that are pasted directly into the text of an email rather than an attached document may not be considered. More info here.

Miranda Anthology Library: Kicking off the anthology series with the “The Sea."
Call for submissions: Miranda Literary Magazine is beginning a new phase in its print endeavor and would like to invite writers to submit to our anthology projects. Each project is based around a topic or a concept that will be the focus of the anthology. Submission should relate to the topic and in the end we are hoping for a collection of great writing on a given topic. We are also planning guest editors to work on the anthology. They will help with the selection of the work and write an introduction. Anthologies will be in print form, published through Skinny Toe Press – the creators of Miranda Literary Magazine. Our first anthology will be “The Sea.” We are looking for poetry, creative non-fiction, fiction, essays, interviews, book reviews, and other writing where the ocean plays a significant role. Send in your work of 8,000 or less to us with the words “Sea Anthology” in the subject line to submission(at)mirandamagazine.com (replace (at) with @) – Deadline for submissions will be June 30, 2009. The print version is slated for late August or early September. More here.

The Splinter Generation is currently accepting submissions from writers who were born between 1973 and 1993 for an ongoing online generational literary compilation. We are looking for the best poetry, creative nonfiction and fiction these writers have to offer. In particular, we’re
looking for work that captures what it is to be a member of our generation. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis, but the reading period will end on November 1. We have undertaken this project again because our generation — and literature in general — is facing a challenging moment in history. While the problems of the world may often seem insurmountable, we believe there is still power in literature. Please email submissions to splintergeneration(at)gmail.com with the genre (fiction, poetry or nonfiction) in the subject line. Specifications here.

The Robert Traver Fly-Fishing Writing award carries a $2,000 First Prize, from the John D. Voelker Foundation, sponsor of the award; a Second Place award of $750 will be included this year; Third Place is $250. The details—the winning 2009 Traver Award essay or story must be: "A distinguished original essay or work of short fiction that embodies an implicit love of fly-fishing, respect for the sport and the natural world in which it takes place, and high literary values." Send in a typed, double-space manuscript of no more than 3,500 words to Fly Rod&Reel, Robert Traver Award, PO Box 370, Camden, ME 04843. The winning story or essay will be published in the October/November 2009 issue of FR&R. The deadline is June 1, 2009. More here.

Open call for submissions for the Survivors of Domestic Abuse anthology. To be published in Fall ‘09
The goal of this relief anthology is to raise dollars in support of women’s shelters, women’s advocacy groups. The anthology will be published through a print-on-demand (POD) model using Lulu.com. This is not a paying or a qualifying professional market (i.a.w. SFWA standards for Qualifying Professional Markets. Authors retain all rights on material. Authors may remove their submission from the anthology at anytime by a written (emailed) request. By submitting to the anthology you are agreeing use of your work(s) for non-pecuniary (no one is making money off your work) purposes outside the donation to the various non-profit women’s shelters/advocacy groups. Submissions should be sent to: jkrichard(at)reliefanthology.com. (replace (at) with @). More here.

News Around the Net

Not only does Britain now have their first female Poet Laureate, Oxford now has their first female Professor of Poetry, Ruth Padel, ending a 301-year streak!

Scribd, the YouTube of literature, is now a e-self-publisher.

Jack Kerouac, fantasy baseball fanatic.

Five myths about the end of literature-as-we-know-it.

The Inferno meets the Information Age.

Someone is finally listening to the SF writers!

Shakespeare's "secret" sonnets

How Ursula Le Guin saved a generation of imagination.

The alleged "Agatha Chritie serial killer" in Iran has been arrested.

BJ Hollars on Editing The New Anthology "You Must Be This Tall to Ride"

You Must Be This Tall To Ride is my attempt at adding a little credibility to the “coming of age” genre. Whenever I even bring up the phrase “coming of age” people stare at me as if they expect me to burst out a Jonas’ Brothers song or blab on and on about the most recent episode of The O.C. People forget that some of America’s greatest novels fit into this category as well: Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher In the Rye, The Bell Jar.

After months of reading, I compiled some of the best “coming of age” stories I could find; stories by Steve Almond, Aimee Bender, Dan Chaon, Stuart Dybek, Michael Martone, Antonya Nelson, Ben Percy, just to name a few. Then, I asked the writers to write a short essay explaining how his or her particular story was written. On top of that, I asked for a writing exercise.

Essentially I wanted the anthology to be a kind of “one-stop-shop” for all writers interested in all genres. Aside from “adding credibility to the genre,” the “coming of age” theme functions as a jumping off point, a little common ground for us to begin.

Thanks to the contributors, the book turned out great, and while some stories are published here for the first time, others were previously published in a wide range of publications from The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and The Pushcart Prize anthologies, among other places.

I went into this project wanting to attract the largest audience possible. While this particular anthology is great for the creative writing classroom, I also want it to serve as a resource for all students who are most likely “coming of age” themselves. I want the book to serve as a guide to writing, while simultaneously giving the complete text of stories and a “behind the scenes” look made available by the authors’ essays.

But I didn’t want the stories to end with the last page.

I’ve created an online literary magazine that will accept submissions for fiction and nonfiction related to the “coming of age” theme. It’s a bit risky, I’ll admit: in some ways, the genre is one big cliché waiting to explode. But what I’m interested in are those stories that transcend beyond common tropes—beyond the breakup, the losing of one’s virginity, the last football game of the season—in order to share something new and heartfelt with the reader.

Submission guidelines are available at our new website. We look forward to reading your work!

Why Do You Do It?

I’ve been rereading Jonathan Franzen’s essay “Why Bother?” in his collection How To Be Alone. I’d specifically picked it up again because I’ve been asking myself again why I want to write. Despite the increasing proliferation of MFA programs and conferences, it’s a profession that seems to promise obscurity and a second, ‘real’ job to most who attempt it. In fact, you could argue that MFAs and conferences have made a life in writing more difficult as everyone struggles to make their voice heard despite the ocean of people who call themselves writers. What’s one more drop in this sea? Why struggle forward in this calling when the future is so uncertain?

The answer for me may be partially in this essay. Franzen talks to Shirley Brice Heath, now of Brown University, about how people grow up to become readers. Heath says that for most people having one or more parents that read is enough to encourage a life-long passion for reading. But for others (the so-called social-isolate reader), the child feels himself different from everyone around him, so his/her conversations tend to be with the authors he or she reads. It suggests reading as a palliative (though not a curative) for the particular social condition of isolation. Heath also says that these kinds of readers usually grow up to become writers, because this type of communication is so important to them from a young age.

I grew up in a small town where everyone mostly worked with their hands, either as a farmer or a tool maker. There seemed to be no need for reading and writing; I might have just as easily been born with an extra head. I spent most of my time with books, and the connection was emphatic and could not easily be broken. My father used to drive the dirt roads at 50 mph, spewing gravel and dust in his wake, surging down hills and sliding around curves. I would be bouncing in the back seat, oblivious to anything else but the slow progression of hobbits toward Mordor. Neither my father nor my mother was literary-minded. But reading seemed to me as important as eating, and I often combined the two, linking sustenance with sustenance.

You cannot write for anyone but yourself. Once you close the door, it’s just you in there. But sometimes I think I could write for myself at 14, a hapless target walking through the hallways of my school, the streets of my town, the rooms of my home desperate for someone like me. I think I must still exist out there somewhere, maybe in Nebraska or Cleveland, that I’m still frustrated by how hard it is to communicate with the humans around me, but I love to read. The chance to talk to myself at that age, in that dire predicament, is part of why I want to write.

Except what do I say to myself? Many times I greet the blank page with dread. I think that after two decades I don’t have anything he needs to know, or if I do, I won’t be able to say it correctly. But I’m learning to try. I’ve met many writers in the past year, and the thing they seem to have in common is an elementary courage. The courage to face the typewriter or the computer day after day. The courage to make it something that has never been said before but something everyone will recognize. The courage to keep on when nothing seems to be working, the courage to take a stack of manuscript and put it in a mailbox, email it or hand it to someone and say: “Look at this. I made it.” I have borrowed this courage in small bits from these writers and sown it together into a coat that is ill-fitting but serves my need to go into the room and close the door.

Couple the will for a dialogue with your reader (who is really yourself) with the determination that creating and saying out of thin air aren’t going to be easy, and you have Inspiration for your Art. A reason to sit in the chair because you’ve found the way to the rich ore of what William Faulkner called “the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.” It won’t be obvious all the time, but at times your vocation will seize you and you will feel a rightness, a neat slotting of yourself into a gap in the world that needs filled. No workshop will give you that. No conference will give you that. It is yours alone. However, they will give you opportunities to meet others like you. Strange isolate beings, half-not-there, some vital part of them always gone fishing in fantasy’s watering hole, but willing perhaps to stay and talk to you about writing. To lecture a bit, commiserate, and buck you up. And then at some point you’ll see a mad light come into their eyes, and you’ll start to really listen up, because you know what you are about to hear is the big secret. They’re going to tell you why they do it.

Why do you do it? Reply to this post or email Aaron at acfalveyatasudotedu.

The Future of the New England Review

The LA Times book blog, Jacket Copy, recently featured this post about the suddenly imperiled New England Review, which has been told by Middlebury college that it has until 2011 to become self-sustaining. Like many university-affiliated literary journals (including HFR), the university supplies office space, some salary money, and printing costs for the journal. With under 2,000 subscribers, the journal is not a money-making enterprise. But (and here I'll speak for HFR), a university-based journal provides other, less tangible revenue. Its existence enlivens the university's literary community. It supports the graduate and undergraduate communities by providing opportunities for editing and interning - real-world applications of what is taught in creative writing classrooms. It brings attention to the university, and its creative writing programs. It creates a relationship between the university and the larger community of readers and writers. It provides opportunities for dialogue, conversation and scholarship. It allows the university to give back to the larger world, supporting the work of emerging writers and artists. It creates jobs in the arts, a valuable enterprise for an institution that trains students in the arts.

According to the post, Boston University's Partisan Review and Duke's DoubleTake folded after support was withdrawn in recent years, and LSU's Southern Review is currently under threat as well.

Literary journals need your support: as writers, as readers, as supporters of education and the arts. Still not convinced? Try this blog post on for size: Ted Genoways of The Virginia Quarterly Review on the importance of literary journals and presses. Please consider making your voice heard by subscribing to your favorite journal, or with an email showing your support.

Million Writers Award

The finalists for the 2009 storySouth Million Writers Award have been announced, and the public vote for best online story of the year is now open. The award was created by Jason Sanford as a way to address the problem of various "best of" anthologies ignoring the work published by online-only journals. The top ten stories are:

"The Whale Hunter" by Steinur Bell (Agni)
"Intertropical Convergence Zone" by Nadia Bulkin (ChiZine)
"No Bullets in the House" by Geronimo Madrid (Drunken Boat)
"Fuckbuddy" by Roderic Crooks (Eyeshot)
"The Fisherman's Wife" by Jenny Williams (LitNImage)
"Every Earth is Fit for Burial" by Cyn Kitchen (Menda City Review)
"Interview With A Moron" by Elizabeth Stuckey-French (Narrative Magazine)
"The Tale of Junko and Sayuri" by Peter S. Beagle (OSC's Intergalactic Medicine Show)
"Grief Mongers" by Sefi Atta (Per Contra Fiction)
"Nine Sundays in a Row" by Kris Dikeman (Strange Horizons)

To read the stories, vote for your favorite, or find out more about the award, please go here. Voting is open through June 17. Happy reading!

Voting Open for Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

Amazon and Penguin have announced the three finalists in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Now, it’s up to Amazon.com customers to vote for the Grand Prize winner. The voting period is now open here now through this Thursday, May 21 at 11:59 PM EDT.

The 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Finalists are:

Ian Gibson, Victoria, British Columbia, for Stuff of Legends
The author, who works at a theater in British Columbia, developed the characters in this novel from a comic strip he created in 2003. Stuff of Legends is a comic fantasy about heroism and celebrity, where a 15-year-old boy’s fondest wish is granted and he is teamed with his idol, warrior hero Jordan the Red, to defeat villains, monsters and demonic armies.

James King, Wilton, Conn., for Bill Warrington’s Last Chance
A corporate communications specialist for the past 20 years, the author earned his master's degree in creative writing in 2008 as a way to achieve his lifelong goal of writing fiction. In the novel, Bill Warrington tries to reestablish ties with his estranged children after he is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. After several attempts at a reunion fail, he decides to kidnap his 15-year-old granddaughter, April, so that his children will be forced to talk to each other – and to him – as they attempt to “rescue” April.

Brandi Lynn Ryder, Napa, Calif., for In Malice, Quite Close
A Napa resident who grew up in the gold-mining town of Sonora, the author draws inspiration for her novel from her passions for Impressionist art and French culture. The novel opens in 1979 San Francisco, where an unlikely relationship forms between 15-year-old Karen, who longs to escape her abusive father, and wealthy art collector Tristan Mourault. Tristan gains Karen’s trust and she soon adopts a new identity as his daughter, sending the two on an extraordinary odyssey that spans 15 years and two coasts.

Find out more about the three finalists, read short excerpts of each manuscript, and see reviews from the expert panel (including Sue Monk Kidd and Sue Grafton) here.

100 Essential American Poems

Publishers Weekly interviews Leslie M. Pockell, the editor of the new anthology 100 Essential American Poems, just released by St. Martin's Press.

"I’m trying to show that our culture and traditions are to a great extent influenced and shaped by the poetry of the distant and recent past, and that this influence is continuous and consistent," Pockell says. Read the rest of the interview here.

New Around the Net

Amazon is now a (self)publisher.

Poetry slam at the White House.

Growing popularity of e-books may be causing an increase in literary piracy.

Derek Walcott has withdrawn from the race to be Oxford's next professor of poetry after allegations of sexual harassment.

There are too few great "gypsy" stories.

A list of the top ten "underground" books.

Dealing with Katrina through poetry, three years later.

The Publishing Triangle honors the best lesbian and gay fiction, nonfiction, and poetry published in 2008.

We've seen books turned into Tweets, now it's time for Tweets to be turned into a book.

SF writer Roger Zelazny's lost manuscript (a mystery) will finally be published.

A wonderful miscellany; "broads," writer rights, and literary beards. Click here for the original comment on the Orange Prize "for broads." Outraged yet?

NEA News!

According to Publisher's Weekly, The National Endowment for the Arts has selected Copper Canyon Press to be the U.S. publisher for its International Literary Exchange with China. The exchanges are designed help American houses publish and promote contemporary anthologies in translation. Copper Canyon will receive $117,000 to support the translation, publication and promotion of a bilingual anthology of work by about 35 Chinese poets born after 1945. The NEA launched the International Literary Exchanges in 2006 to promote the exchange of great world literature across borders. This initiative develops partnerships betweenthe Arts Endowment and foreign governments or their designees.

President Obama announced yesterday (before he came to speak here for ASU's Commencement!) his intention to nominate Rocco Landesman to head the National Endowment for the Arts. Landesman is a theater owner and producer responsible for bringing shows like "Jersey Boys" and "Proof" to Broadway. He also produced Tony Kushner's "Angels in America." For more on the nomination, see this article from The Washington Post.

Open Book: New TV Show About Books Premiers Tomorrow

Open Book, says its website, is a new show about books, focusing on a single spot on Earth in each episode to introduce you to the writers and other storytellers-- musicians, actors, poets and more-- whose work reminds us we're all connected through the stories we have to tell and the communities we inhabit.

The first episode will feature writers, actors and musicians in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, including authors Ishmael Beah (A Long Way Gone), Jennifer Egan (The Keep) and Moustafa Bayoumi (How Does It Feel to Be a Problem), as well as actor Jeffrey Wright, poet Suheir Hammad (Def Jam Poetry) and others. The pilot will premiere nationally on LinkTV (DirectTV channel 375, Dish Network channel 9410) on May 13 at 11:30 p.m.. EST.

More from Publisher's Weekly.

Unusual Calls for Submissions

Skulls and Crossbones: Call for Submissions
A collection of short stories that features women pirates in any setting, any time period. Editors: Andi Marquette and R. G. Emanuelle. Publisher: Mindancer Press (Bedazzled Ink), print and ebook editions. Stipulations: No longer than 7000 words; no shorter than 4000 words. Will consider original and previously published stories. $35 per story, paid after contract is signed. Story rights revert back to authors 18 months after date of publication. Each contributor will receive one print copy as well as one ebook copy of the anthology. GLBTQ/heterosexual characters are welcome BUT EACH STORY MUST FEATURE A WOMAN PIRATE, either as the main character or the focus of the story (e.g. another sailor on the ship who hates the woman pirate and through his/her eyes, we observe the woman pirate). Again, the main character or the focus of the story MUST BE A WOMAN PIRATE. We will consider main characters that identify as transgendered (male to female), but that identity must figure prominently in the story as a driving force and/or something that speaks to the character’s experience as a woman pirate. Deadline for submissions is September 1, 2009. More here.

The 2009 New England Shakespeare Festival Sonnet Award
$500 First Prize; $250 Second Prize; $150 Third Prize; Judge: A.M. Juster. Winners will be published in the Raintown Review, and will have a video clip of a Shakespearean Actor reading their poems posted on the New England Shakespeare Festival website in Summer 2010. Winners will be announced on the New England Shakespeare Festival and Raintown Review websites by October 1, 2009. 1) Sonnets must be Shakespearean (i.e., consist of fourteen lines, follow the ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme, and be basically written in iambic pentameter with variations and substitutions permitted). 2) Submissions must be original and unpublished. 3) Writers may enter as many sonnets as they wish. 4) The entry fee is $3 per sonnet. Checks should be payable to "New England Shakespeare Festival." 5) Entries may be submitted using the Sonnet Contest Online Entry Form or via regular mail. If submitting by mail, send two copies of each poem. The author's name, address, telephone number and email, if available, should be typed on the upper left-hand corner of one poem. The other copy should include the poem, the title and the name of the contest only for anonymous judging. Please write "NESF Sonnet Contest" in the upper right-hand corner of each entry. 6) Entries sent by mail must be postmarked not later than August 1, 2009. More here.

Submission Call for SMOKE themed anthology. Poetry and Micro or Flash Fiction. Deadline October 31, 2009..
More details can be found at The Smoking Book blog. Editors: Joy Leftow and Roxanne Hoffman. Publisher: Poets Wear Prada. Poetry (any form or style) and Micro or Flash Fictions wanted for an anthology on SMOKE. Not just the black clouds rising from the five-alarm fire next door, or the billowing plumes of smoke warning us of a forest fire, or the emissions from smoke stacks, apartment house incinerators, and crematoriums, smoke rings rise from cigarettes, smoke pours out of headshops, pipe shops & cigar stores--see that purple haze rising over the fields of poppies and marijuana we just planted--we've used it to communicate via smoke signals and skywriting, to cover our tracks and disappear with and without mirrors, combat the enemy on and off the battlefield, kill bugs, flavor food, cure illness, declare peace treaties, and fragrance our homes. Got the idea? Release it onto the page.

Tattoo Highway, an online journal of prose, poetry and art, is now reading for TH/19: "Reflections/Refractions." Deadline June 15, 2009.
GENERAL GUIDELINES: Our tastes are eclectic. We like fresh, vivid language, and we like stories and poems that are actually about something -- that acknowledge a world beyond the writer's own psyche. If they have an edge, if they provoke us to think or make us laugh, so much the better. We strongly suggest reading a previous issue or two before submitting. While we particularly welcome poetry and short "screen-reader-friendly" prose or cross-genre pieces (+/- 1000 words), we do on occasion publish longer work. We encourage hypertext and new media (e.g., Flash .swf) submissions, also photographs and original graphics. More here.

City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Poems About Chicago
Edited by Ryan G. Van Cleave. One of the largest cities in North America, Chicago’s metropolitan area boasts 10 million residents, placing it in the world’s top 25 urban areas by population. A leader in transportation, telecommunications, and finance, Chicago is a city of great architectural significance, ethnic diversity, and cultural wealth. It’s also the birthplace of house music, the Poetry Slam, the skyscraper, chemotherapy, and improvisational comedy. As part of a commitment to lessen his own environmental impact, the editor requests all submissions be emailed (along with a 3 – 5 line bio) as .rtf or .doc attachments to: (replace (at) with @). (If you must send in hard copy, email and ask for a snail mail address). Payment will be in copies. Tentative publication date is early 2010 (by the University of Iowa Press). Previously published submissions are fine if you control the rights. The deadline for receiving submissions is May 15, 2009. (This deadline is extended from the original May 1st date--we need about another six to eight good poems to complete this project. Thanks.)

Call for Submissions
The Survivorʼs Review, a quarterly online journal encouraging the creative expression of cancer survivors, is seeking stories, essays and poems by those who are intimately familiar with the cancer journey. If you have written a piece that explores the heart of what it means to be a cancer survivor or care giver, please consider submitting your work to us at Submissions accepted at: www.survivorsreview.org. Our word count is flexible, but most of our features range from 100 to 1,000 words. Please visit our site and contact us with any questions. Submissions received by May 17, 2008 will be considered for publication in our next issue. Question: Who is a cancer survivor? Answer: Anyone living with a history of cancer from the moment of diagnosis through the remainder of life.

Missing Poet Craig Arnold Presumed Dead

This update from Find Craig Arnold. HFR sends its heartfelt condolences to Craig's family and friends. For more about Craig and his poetry, see the Poetry Foundation or his blog.

"Our dear friends and family,

Though Craig himself has not been recovered, the amazing expert trackers of 1SRG have been able to make themselves and us certain of what has become of Craig. His trail indicates that after sustaining a leg injury, Craig fell from a very high and very dangerous cliff and there is virtually no possibility that Craig could have survived that fall. Chris will pursue what he can about getting specialists to go down into the place we know Craig is so we can bring him home, but it is very, very dangerous and we are not yet completely certain what that will require. The only relief in this news is that we do know exactly what befell Craig, and we can be fairly certain that it was very quick, and that he did not wait or wonder or suffer.

I cannot express again the profound gratitude I feel to everyone who has loved and honored Craig with their goodwill, their immense efforts and energy, and their overwhelming generosity. I believe that where he is, Craig knows.

There will be further occasion to celebrate Craig, and when I know more I will post it.

For my part, I love Craig beyond the telling of it and will always love him as immeasurably, as enduringly, as steadfastly and as unconditionally as I do now and have done these past six years. In leaving our family Craig, in a manner absolutely characteristic of his own vast generosity and capacity to inspire, brought us all closer together than we perhaps have ever been. I feel his presence, loving and understanding and funny and deeply feeling, at all times. I hope you do, too.

With love,

Rebecca Lindenberg"

Website of the Week: The Millions

Where have I been this whole time? The Millions has been keeping a fantastic book and arts blog since 2003, and I've just this week joined the bandwagon. For those of use new to The Millions, they offer a handy "Notable Articles" section on their home page (scroll down, on the right), which is a fine introduction to what they do, and can keep a person busy for hours.

National Poetry Month may be over, but should you be feeling nostalgic, check out The Millions' National Poetry Month series, which features contemporary poets sharing their insights on all sorts of poetry-related topics. I especially enjoy Kazim Ali's post (former HFR contributor, all around wonderful guy!) - on why we need poetry now. Kazim makes a non-poet want to be a poet. His article is beautiful.

HFR # 44 Goes Forth Unto You

Our new issue (shown here, spread eagle) is hot off the press. If you don't have one, you're going to want to change that. Here's why:

1) A fantastic story from Holly Hall, an Arizona State undergrad with her first publication, but certainly not her last.

2) So much poetry! Oliver de la Paz. Ross Leckie. Sarah Vap. Troy Jollimore. Tons more.

3) An excerpted translation of Chus Pato's "While i write..." You'll want to get to know Pato's work. She just won the Premio de la Crítica Española (the National Spanish Poetry Prize) for poetry in Galician.

4) Christina Seely's photography from the Lux collection, which documents the artificial glow produced by major cities in the three brightest regions of the world. Here, on the cover: Kyoto, Japan.

5) A copy costs only $7.50. With postage! Email us at HFR@asu.edu for ordering details.

6) More fiction, more poetry, more translations, more photogaphy! Check out our website for some samples.

Esquire Contest Contested

Esquire has decided to take a break from hawking cologne, Grey Goose Vodka, and Scarlett Johansson to promote something else: Fiction. The magazine is having a fiction contest that is “open to all” and the prize is publication in the magazine plus $2,500. There are some eccentric rules, so make sure you check out the website before you get out your Macbook. I am crossing my fingers that a new voice wins the prize and breaks into the market for the first time. It doesn’t even have to be me.

Short story-philes will recall Esquire as the former home of the legendary editor Gordon Lish, responsible for some of the early publications of Richard Ford and Raymond Carver, just to name a couple. The magazine has not published fiction regularly recently, and it is a roll of the dice whether each issue will even contain a short story. While the contest and an announcement about a new online presence for fiction at Esquire.com appear to be lauding fiction, it seems to me that this is the prelude to moving fiction online and taking it out of the print magazine entirely.

Should we deride or celebrate? If it is stopping publication of fiction in its printed form but continuing to do so online, it is taking a different tack from say, the Atlantic when they stopped publishing short stories a few years ago. Esquire seems to be taking advantage of the infinite space of the net by stopping-but-not-stopping. In my mind, the question is whether fiction won or lost this round, and I’m not sure. Maybe lost in the short run if fiction disappears from the print version. But it could win in the long run if stories are on the web, where more and more people are turning when they want to read something.

Is online publication The New Ghetto or is it the Savior of us all? I’m interested in your thoughts. In the meantime, I expect you to be submitting your entries. Good Luck.

Best New Poets Open Competition

Best New Poets, an annual anthology of 50 emerging writers, is now accepting submissions for its open competition. See www.bestnewpoets.org for details. Submission deadline is midnight, June 1, 2009.

Entering poets cannot have published a book-length poetry collection by November 2009 (chapbooks do not affect your eligibility). Full eligibility requirements posted here. Entry fee: $3.50. Each entry can contain two poems. Selected poets receive five copies of the print anthology. This year's guest editor is Kim Addonizio.

In 2009, we're taking entries through ManuscriptHub. To create your submission:

1. Save your poems to new files that do not have your name or contact info in the text/header or in the file names. Save the files as either .rtf, .doc, .txt, or .pdf documents. Our system does not yet accept MS Word’s .docx file format, so use the “save as” feature to save to one of the above formats.

2. Then, go to http://www.manuscripthub.com and either login or create a new account.

3. Click on the blue icon that says “Your Manuscripts”

4. Click on the “Add a New Manuscript” link.

5. Click on the gray “Browse” button and attach the file with your poem in it. (This button may read “Attach” on some Web browsers.) Enter the title of your poem and click the gray “Upload” button. Repeat for your second poem. However, this does not complete your submission; you still need to direct it to our competition.

6. To do so, click on the blue “Submit Work” icon at the top of the screen.

7. Scroll down and click on the link that says “Best New Poets 2009”

8. Use the first drop down menu to select one of the manuscripts you just uploaded. Use the second drop down to select the other. Then click “Submit.” This step takes a little while to run … be patient.

9. Verify your submission and click “pay now” to go to the University of Virginia credit card gateway.

10. After paying, you can click on the blue “Submission Status” icon to double-check that your submission went through. It should be in an “Open” status. You can use this icon to check back and see if the work has been read. We plan to announce full results by the end of July 2009 or early August.

Contributor Spotlight: Christina Cook

I emerge from the Metro tunnels into the Godiva-dark air of Paris. I remember this moment in slow motion: golden statues, Rococo building facades, the Seine, the luxurious sound of French all around me . . . I hail a taxi and listen in exhausted pleasure to the cab driver’s Arabic dance music as he drives me to my hotel in the Sixteenth Arrondissement. The next morning, I rise earlier than the rest of this quiet Paris neighborhood, it seems, and after a croissant and coffee at my fin de siècle hotel, I head out to find a flower shop. I can find only one open at this hour, and it is so chic, so minimalist, that few flowers are actually on display. With some temerity, I ask the florist for a bouquet, and in a few minutes she emerges from her back room with a nosegay of antique-yellow roses wrapped in creamy paper.

Several blocks later, I am standing at a Deco glass and wood door that’s wedged between a colorful produce market and a Lebanese restaurant. I press the button beside the name “Bancquart,” and Marie-Claire greets me over the intercom before buzzing me in. The building’s foyer is laid with cool marble tiles and its walls are paneled in dark oak. I walk over to the tiny elevator, pull aside its metal accordion door, open its wooden door, shut each one in turn, then ride up to her floor. She is wearing a long skirt and a loose floral blouse. A triple-stranded choker, close-cropped red hair, and dark lipstick completes my first impression of this elegant internationally-acclaimed poet, novelist, and scholar. After thanking me for the flowers and introducing me to her husband, the renown composer Alain Bancquart, she ushers me into her study, where tall narrow windows overlook a courtyard below and light beige cloth-bound books line one entire wall. Though she is walking with discomfort, she insists I take her upholstered desk chair, while she sits down on a metal chair with a thin brown corduroy cushion. We spend the morning engaged in a conversation that marks out new avenues of thought which will lead me outside the map of my familiar into landscapes beyond my native language and cultural perspective.

I first came across Marie-Claire Bancquart’s poems in a book my mother had given me for my 30th birthday, Elles: A Bilingual Anthology of French Poetry by Women, edited and translated by Martin Sorrell. I had recently finished my MA in English Literature and even more recently given birth to my second child. This book was my constant companion during the many nights I spent nursing my newborn. Marie-Claire’s poems struck a deep chord with me as I swam through that nocturnal dream-state of sleep deprivation into which graduate school, teaching, and early motherhood had launched me. Her poems were understated, and in this way generous to the reader. Some of them explored mythology and religion, which were particular interests of mine. At the time I first read these poems, I distinguished myth from religion, but have since come to understand the two as parallel, myths simply being, in the words of noted mythologist Joseph Campbell, “other people’s religions.” When I mentioned this quote of Campbell’s to Marie-Claire in her study that morning, she said, “You, who are a believer, think that you are in a mythology like any other mythology, and see one side’s beliefs and the other’s as equally respectable. It is different from being Christian in the strict sense of the term, and I see very well where your thoughts are. The difference between your thoughts and mine are that I think all these mythologies must be known and respected because myth was the manner in which people tried to explain their destiny, but I do not participate in mythology. I look at it from the outside.”

I am still a participant, albeit with a conscious awareness of the mythological structure of the belief system to which I subscribe. I read widely about world religions and ancient mythologies, and am fascinated by the rich variety of metaphorical manifestations of the nearly universal human desire for a connection to some notion of the sacred. This fascination is foundational for my own poetry, but had always been connected to the idea that “the sacred” involved a divine spirit. After delving more deeply into Marie-Claire’s poetry, I came across references she made to “the sacred” and became aware of a strong sense of it in her work—but this sacred clearly had nothing to do with divinity. So I sent her an email asking what the word meant to her. She responded, “For me, the ‘sacred’ refers, without any meaning of transcendence, to the sense of that which is at the origins of nature and life, and which appears to us in its force, without our being able to explain it. But the poet feels it and tries to express it, with words which do not refer to divinities, nor to philosophical concepts.”

Marie-Claire’s atheistic view of the sacred has, ironically, sharpened my own theistic view of it. While mine is nevertheless infused with ideas of transcendence and soul, I have under her influence gained a stronger sense of the physical interrelatedness of all things, and a firmer belief that this interrelation is at the very core of life’s—and death’s—meaning. I have gained a sense of what lies beneath mythological/theological iconography and metaphor but has more often than not only been expressed in language circumscribed by myth and religion. This was not merely the result of her poetry influencing mine. Rather, it was the alchemy enacted by translating her poetry (in my brain or fist-sized heart? in my irreducible soul or the ink I shed on the paper?)

In her keynote address at an American Literary Translator’s conference a few years ago, Canadian novelist Antonine Maillet said that the translator must get to where the writer of the original text started from in order to begin translating: she must, like the original writer, begin where there was no text, and write the same text in her own language that the original writer wrote in his. For me, this means writing poems from Marie-Claire’s atheistic perspective. This means trying to think like she thought in order to find the same words in my own language that her French words were expressing, and not only that, but the same diction, the same elliptical use of grammar, the same tone and voice. And so I began grounding my translations in her landscape, where the quotidian and the mythical are equal bearers of meaning, and exploring the physical, concrete aspects of a world rife with the myths of many cultures. I began to seek intersections where these cultures cross, and interstices where they leave openings for poets to fill. In doing this, I began to see how her poetry actually expressed the sacred, stripped of its mythological and theological trappings. Working with her poems this closely posed fundamental challenges to my own beliefs—always a good exercise—which in turn brought my own poetry out of its comfort zone. And it was at this point, halfway through my MFA, that a seismic shift occurred in my poetry: I began to demand more of it because I had, in my own way, experienced the writing of poetry from Marie-Claire’s perspective: I had tried to think her thoughts and write her words and in so doing, I saw how my own poetry was limited by traditional, even if prosodic, use of the single language in which I wrote, and the cultural perspective tied to that use of language. I began to see poetic structure as operating the same way mythological structure does: not as an end in itself, but rather as a semantic framework which the reader (or translator) is invited to move through, according to his or her unique life-experience and word-view, in order to arrive at an individualized meaning—and the more expansive the world-view, the more inclusive of the intricacies of other languages, the deeper the individualized meaning.

Joseph Campbell has said that it is up to the poets to reinvent ancient myths and invent new myths in ways which can speak to people living in contemporary society and help them create meaning in their everyday lives. By both respecting and reinventing traditional mythological figures, and by illuminating the concrete aspects of everyday life experience, Marie-Claire Bancquart has fulfilled Campbell’s call, and continues to do so with every book of poetry she writes.

Christina Cook holds an MFA from Vermont College and an MA from the University of Cincinnati. Her poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in a number of journals, including, most recently, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Sojourn: A Journal of the Arts. She has had a translation nominated for an AWP Intro Prize and another finished as a finalist for the Willis Barnestone Translation Prize. Christina lives and writes in New Hampshire. Her translation of a selection of Marie-Claire Bancquart's poems is forthcoming in Issue #44.

News Around the Net

Carol Ann Duffy is named Britain's first female Poet Laureate.

Why book reviews go bad.

American poet Craig Arnold is missing in Japan.

The New England Independent Booksellers Association has announced this year's winners of the New England Book Award.

If you weren't able to make it, here are some highlights of the LA Times Festival of Books!

John Mitchell, novelist, dies at 76.

"Literary" eating as compared to normal eating...where do you stand?

Every writer's on-again-off-again best friend and worst enemy, the reference library.

The revival of the exclamation point!!

On "creative writing"

By the way, last week was Harper Lee's (To Kill a Mockingbird) birthday. She's 83 years young!

Grand Prize Winner of The Ultimate Silly Submission (of DOOM!) Contest!

The title of Grand Prize Winner of The Ultimate Silly Submission (of DOOM!) Contest goes to Sari Cunningham! Congratulations Sari!

Thanks again to all who submitted to the contest! It was a lot of fun to read these submissions, and I hope those who submitted had fun writing them. More contests are on the way so keep an eye on the blog!

***

Dear Poetry Editor,


I like to think of my poetry as fungus, sprouting out of the dank and fertile soil of my imagination. You could say my writing exhibits saprophytic (unless you are a mycologist I suggest you look that word up) tendencies, in that my poems feed off of the already dead and rotting carcasses of the published endeavors of others. I give new life to stale words. I am an environmentalist and take recycling poetry seriously.


You may call me a plagiarist. I don’t care. I agonize for hours over adding or subtracting a comma. I am a martyr to my cause. You should know, however, that I am not your average plagiarist, common as the champignon Agaricus bisporus. In fact, I only plagiarize plagiarists, never the original authors. I am comfortably twice removed from all primary poets, and am as secure in my relationship to them as I would be kissing my second cousin. The real misfits are the original plagiarists- those depraved beasts with their tongues stuck halfway down the throats of their first cousins. I’m not that sort of devil. I devour those parasites with relish.


Bearing this in mind, I would like you to accept for publication the five poems I am sending for your immediate gratification. Your guidelines suggest submitting only four, so I am sure you will be thrilled to see an author with enough gumption to put in a little extra effort. Enclosed please find “Shrooms”, “Moral Mushrooms”, “What Kind of Fungi are These”, “In the Mycologist’s Summer” and “Mold Cellar”. My penchant for all things fungal should be apparent by now.


I almost forgot to mention that I have been extensively published by the International Library of Poetry, and have received praise from everyone who sits at my coffee table and admires the anthologies (only $49.95 apiece) my poems have appeared in.


Sincerely,


Amanita ocreata aka Destroying Angel


P.S. Please do not be alarmed when you find mushrooms germinating in your desk drawer. I have, I confess, inoculated my letter to you with innocuous spores. They are fascinating organisms, aren’t they?