Longlist Announced for Man Booker Prize

Longlist for Man Booker Prize for Fiction Announced
On July 28, the judges announced the longlist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. A total of 132 books, 11 of which were called in by the judges, were considered for the 'Man Booker Dozen' longlist of 13 books.

The longlist includes:

The Children's Book, A.S. Byatt (Chatto and Windus)
Summertime, J.M. Coetzee (Harvill Secker)
The Quickening Maze, Adam Foulds (Jonathan Cape)
How to Paint a Dead Man, Sarah Hall (Faber)
The Wilderness, Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape)
Me Cheeta, James Lever (Fourth Estate)
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate)
The Glass Room, Simon Mawer (Little, Brown)
Not Untrue & Not Unkind, Ed O'Loughlin (Penguin - Ireland)
Heliopolis, James Scudamore (Harvill Secker)
Brooklyn, Colm Toibin (Viking)
Love and Summer, William Trevor (Viking)
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters (Virago)
For more information, visit www.themanbookerprize.com

News Around the Net

Over 300 letters from Roald Dahl have been discovered, pushing his biography back a whole year.

A new study shows that reading reduces stress by 68%.

An update on what's going on with literature in translation in the U.S.

Borders employees have allegedly been "silenced."

Tolkein's heirs have filed suit against the makers of the new Hobbit film to have it stopped.

David Ulin, of the L.A. Times, is concerned by the big-brother-esque power wielded by Amazon.

Best-selling author E. Lynn Harris has died at age 54.

Novels within novels, the authors who write them, and the readers who wish they could read them.

Join the petition to have Ben & Jerry make library-themed ice cream, like Li-berry pie!

Public readings and self-censorship - where do you stand?

Some of P.D. Wodehouse's early writings have been uncovered!

Review of Mrs. Somebody Somebody by Tracy Winn

Review of Mrs. Somebody Somebody by Tracy Winn, Southern Methodist University Press, 2009.

By Jessica DeVoe Riley

Mrs. Somebody Somebody is a collection of short stories set in Lowell, Massachusetts, a town that was founded on the banks of the Merrimack River and made a name for itself as a mill town during the post-WWII era. Through the course of Mrs. Somebody Somebody’s nine stories, readers and characters alike witness the changing landscape of the city: the mills close down and give way to condos and malls, the working class comprised of Greek, Irish, and Polish immigrants moves up and a new, Latino immigrant working class takes their place, women and men clash over gender and equality, and people grow and some die – yet through it all, the Merrimack River flows strong alongside the Mile of Mills standing firm with its line of smokestacks, even long after smoke no longer rises from them.

The first story - the title story - sets the stage for the book. Readers meet Stella, an employee of Hub Hosiery Mill, who hopes her pretty face will help her achieve her dreams of being a bride, being a Mrs. Somebody Somebody. For Stella, being a bride means having an identity that sets her apart from everyone else, a goal not so different from others who flocked to her thriving mill town. Stella makes appearances throughout the other stories, enabling readers to experience the exact ‘somebody’ she becomes in their eyes, suggesting that goals can often be achieved, even if not in the manner intended.

Stella is only one of the characters who appears and reappears throughout the tales. Winn incorporates references throughout all of her stories to pivotal characters of single stories, giving readers the feel of what it might have been like to work in Lowell. Just as Stella in "Mrs. Somebody Somebody" knows nothing of Lucy at the beginning of the tale, then learns much more as the story progresses, so readers know nothing about the people of Lowell at the start of the book, then learn much more about them, both through their eyes and the eyes of others. The most prominently featured main characters are the Burroughs family, the descendants of the founder of Hub Mills, a family reminiscent of J.D. Salinger’s Glass family. After meeting the son of the founder in the first story, readers go on to read about the founder’s grandson, Charlie, Charlie’s wife, and their children, who all fall further and further away from their old money class with each riveting tale.

An important aspect of Winn’s stories is the focus on loyalty. While her stories span various lives and the changing landscape of Lowell, her characters prize loyalty above all else -- loyalty to one’s job, one’s country, one’s family, one’s home, and one’s identity. And when there is a rejection of loyalty, for better or worse, the decision is hard wrought and with consequences, as Helen hauntingly learns in "Copper Leaves Waiting:" “the house, like a map of her growing up, went wherever she looked.”

The Merrimack River is the physical counterpart to loyalty, a constant in ever-changing Lowell. Every person who looks to it sees, hears, smells, and feels something different – something tangible, something inescapable, something beautiful, or as Kaylene suggests in "Another Way to Make Cleopatra Cry," a force that can move time: “Maybe [my life] would be like a river, the Merrimack, winding around… and what happened from there would stretch out differently, get right, as we rolled forward.”

Mrs. Somebody Somebody is a treat for any reader who appreciates a well incorporated city setting. Lowell, Massachusetts is a character unto itself, simultaneously moving the characters along their life paths and changing its cityscape based on the choices of its characters. These characters on their different walks of life – upper and lower class, immigrants, blue collar, union boosters – congregate to tell the story of the life cycle of the American city, from the moment a town makes a name for itself on a map through the downfall of its industry and then on to the emergence of a new, conflicted identity that tries to retain the spirit of its old roots despite no longer having any real connection to them. Highly recommended.

Tracy Winn, who earned her MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers, is the recipient of grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Barbara Deming Memorial Trust, and the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Millay Colony. Her short stories have appeared in journals such as the Alaska Quarterly Review, The New Orleans Review, and Hayden’s Ferry Review. She lives near Boston, Massachusetts, with her husband and daughter, and works with Gaining Ground, an organic farm for hunger relief. Mrs. Somebody Somebody is her debut collection of stories. Check out her website here.

Website of the Week: Significant Objects

Check out a new experiment in story distribution at Significant Objects. Combining DIY with Rumplestiltskin-anything-can-be-spun-into-gold theory, the folks at SO are taking small, everyday objects that probably came from inside my great aunt's couch and giving them to authors as inspiration for short literary pieces. That in itself would be a dusty workshop exercise, but it doesn't stop there. The objects are then put up for sale on eBay, with the accompanying lit pieces as descriptions. The aggregate cost of the objects so far is listed on their website is $20.53, while the sales on eBay 'post-Significance' come to $329.33. That means on average the stories have increased the value of the object ten times. And you thought that literature wasn't worth anything in this culture.

Sonora Review's New Poetry Contest

We're pleased to announce that the first annual Sonora Review poetry contest will be judged by Caroline Bergvall. We honor work that displays innovative technique and a fine attention to craft. The winner of the contest will receive 500$ and publication in the Fall 57th issue of Sonora Review. All contest entrants will be sent a complimentary Fall issue. Entrants can submit 3 poems with a 10 page limit. Multiple submissions to the contest are accepted, but every set of three poems must be accompanied by the reading fee. All work will be considered for publication for the Fall issue. Entries will be screened blindly by Sonora Review staff. The top entries will be sent to Caroline Bergvall, whereupon she will choose the winning entry. The winner will be notified by email in October.

Get Plugged In

Maybe this is what you've been waiting for: a revolutionary voice that rises from the ashes of old media uniting the new realities of design and distribution without abandoning stories or the idea of literature as important. The savior you've prayed for, watching print publishing hemmorage and slowly slide off a cliff. It has finally arrived at Electric Literature, wearing a hospital gown and smoking a big cigar. And leering a little bit.

The mating between the faithful dog of literary tradition and the back alley mutt of New Media has finally happened, and oh how it howls. The web design is a hard clean slap in the face, especially to the staid, over-earnest camp over at McSweeney’s. Not a serif font to be had. I’ve been slowly working my way through the site, marveling all the while that this is a website for serious literature.

And when talking about how to read it, it’s easier to say how it isn’t available. Paperback, Kindle, iPhone application are all covered, and priced according to the media. Once you’re inside an issue, the stories you get are not the editor's friends or the guy who lives across the street. They are by authors like Michael Cunningham and Jim Shepard and grab you with the first line and don’t let go.

Which is what they are looking for, by the way. The submission guidelines are the real example of the how they are changing the mindset about literature and what it means. As follows from their website:

No Submission Fees
We pay writers, they don't pay us. We are proud to support writers who entrust us with their work.

No Contests
Every other month, we select five stories for publication. Each writer receives $1,000. This is a payment, not a prize. We value writing, we know how hard it is, and we believe writers are entitled to fair compensation.

No Cover Letters
We don't need to see your resume. All we care about is the story.

Grab Us
We are looking for work with a strong voice which hooks us in the first paragraph and doesn't let go until the final sentence.

They don’t want a cover letter. The first sentence flies in the face of Narrative Magazine, that other online experiment, and their reading fees. And look at their payment scale. A thousand dollars? And no contests. It’s no contest for me, either. I just found a voice that gives me hope for the future of literary magazines.

News Around the Net

Steve Almond and writing about our obsessions.

A look at the "gatekeepers" of African Literature.

Romance publishing is, apparently, the place to be!

The Seattle Book Fest may be making a comeback.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested in his own home. The arresting officer thought he was breaking into it.

Author of Angela's Ashes and 'Tis, Frank McCourt has died at the age of 78.

Kindle users were startled to find their of George Orwell e-books had been deleted without their knowledge.

Penguin Canada will be publishing a new installment to the Anne of Green Gables series, though somewhat "darker."

Can a classic children's story be age inappropriate?

Job: English - Creative Writing - Open Rank

The Department of English at Wheaton College invites applications for a tenure-track position in creative writing. Open rank. The ideal candidate would have both a specialization and a strong record of publication in creative non-fiction with a secondary specialization in fiction, poetry, or some area of literature. Evidence of successful teaching and an enthusiasm for teaching composition and general education literature are also important. Ph.D. or MFA required. Please see the College website for more information: http://www.wheaton.edu/welcome/about. Send letter of interest, resume, and names of references by November 13, 2009 to Dr. Sharon Coolidge, Chair; English Department; Wheaton College; Wheaton, IL 60187. Application forms will be sent to promising applicants. Wheaton College is a highly selective Evangelical Protestant Christian liberal arts college whose faculty affirm a Statement of Faith and the moral and lifestyle expectations of our Community Covenant. Wheaton College complies with federal and state guidelines of nondiscrimination in employment; women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Send letter of interest and curriculum vitae (unless otherwise stated) to:

Office of the Provost
Wheaton College
Wheaton, IL 60187

Applications will be mailed to promising candidates. See also the website.

Unusual Calls for Submissions

Moment Magazine is now accepting submissions for the 2009 Moment-Karma Short Fiction Contest.
Moment will award three prizes to outstanding works of unpublished short fiction with Jewish content. $1,000 plus possible publication; $500 plus possible publication; $250 plus possible publication. Winners may be invited to Washington DC or New York City for an awards ceremony. After the completion of the contest, Moment editors will review winning stories. Editors will contact winners if their stories are being considered for publication. Complete current information about guidelines etc. is updated on the website.

This Will Explain Everything: An open call to comic artists and illustrators.
The Edinburgh-based Forest Publishing is putting together a graphic novel anthology and we are looking for work from artists who combine words and images in various ways. This anthology is an imaginary encyclopedia: a compendium of knowledge that is true, half-true, false, absurd or very confusing. A reader will come away from this book intrigued, amazed, mystified, puzzled, perplexed, bewildered, bemused and befuddled but not necessarily informed. Your entry should explain something. It can be a piece of disinformation, speculation or thorough nonsense. It could be about how a tractor works, what heart burn really is, an explanation of long-distance running or zen. Facts are fine but, for this project, they are not the ultimate point. We're looking for unique points of view on a wide-range of objects and ideas. Technical specs: You can submit multipage strips, spreads or single-page images in colour or black and white. The format of the book will be 245mm x 168mm (portrait) with a bleed of 3mm. past the edge of the page on all sides. If your image reaches the edges of the page, don't put anything important in the bleed zone where it will get chopped off. If you intend to do a spread, please keep important things away from the centre of the image as there will be a deep gutter. (These specs aside, if you already have finished work in a different format, we might be able to fit it in anyway.) Submissions should be emailed as low resolution jpegs (make sure that any text is readable, though) to thiswillexplain(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @). Write `Submission' in the subject line. Alternatively, you can send us a good quality photocopy by regular mail. The address is: Magda Boreysza at Forest Publishing, 3 Bristo Place, Edinburgh EH1 1EY, United Kingdom. If your piece is selected we will ask you to send a high quality image file.

Hawk & Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability Call For Submissions
Hawk & Handsaw wants to know what "creative sustainability" means to you. Send us your reflections and art. Tell us about your greatest triumphs and most frustrating failures. Challenge our definitions-and those held by our readers. We know that you know which way the wind blows. That a sustainable lifestyle can be as messy as it is meaningful-that it requires reflection, deep philosophical commitment and, more often than not, a good sense of humor. Hawk and Handsaw celebrates this kind of thinking. Each issue, we offer works from established and emerging artists and writers, as well as a broadly reaching account of what it means to be sustainably creative-and, of course, creatively sustainable. Hawk & Handsaw is published annually. Our reading period for the 2010 issue is 1 August- 1 November. We welcome text and images from every genre and are particularly interested in those works that challenge conventional notions both of artistic form and environmental sustainability. Please send submissions (Word, .jpeg, or .pdf files preferred) to hankandhandsaw(at)unity.edu (replace (at) with @). More here.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:
We are currently seeking submissions for an anthology of superhero poetry, tentatively titled "Between Saviors and Villains: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry Inspired by American Superheroes." Send 3-6 poems and a cover letter including your contact information, comments on how your poems are meant to explore the concept of superheroes, and a brief bio to superheropoetryanthology(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @). Please include all materials in one attached (.rtf) document. Simultaneous submissions are fine, as are poems previously published in magazines, chapbooks, and full-length poetry collections. Please note these credits in your bio. Questions? Please email us at superheropoetryanthology(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @). More here.

Website of the Week: The Best of the National Book Award

The National Book Award is celebrating 60 years. Until September 21, their blog will devote one page each day to a past fiction winner, including the book's original cover, comments from critics and writers, the list of other finalists, other important literary events that year, and links to relevant reading about the selected book. The blog began on July 7 with 1950's The Man With the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren.

The project is an interesting and informative history of American writing, but it's also fun to see the NBA staff try to sort itself out. The blog is honoring 77 books, which take into account the expanding and shrinking of the the scope of the prize over time. In 1983 for example, there were three fiction awards: Hardcover Fiction, Paperback Fiction and First Novel. These were won by Alice Walker for The Color Purple, Eudora Welty for The Collected Stories, and Gloria Naylor for The Women of Brewster Place, all of which are included on the blog. To help you sort out what was what and to see the awards that are not being mentioned, check out this list of winners at the website of the American Booksellers organization.

After the blog is finished with its review, we will all get to vote on one book for the The Best of the National Book Awards. Although the award is pretty much a rip off of the Best of the Booker that happened last year, I'm hopeful that a short story collection might win. There are six of them. Vote for your favorite, and you might win two tickets to the National Book Awards dinner, and get to hob-nob with today's literati. I promise to take you if I win, if you'll promise to take me.

Best of the Web 2009 Internet Invasion Day!

Dzanc Books' Best of the Web 2009 is exploding all over the internet today. Some of the authors in the anthology have written guest posts for a variety of literary blogs, including Keyhole Magazine, PANK, and The Short Review. For the full list of bloggers and where they're appearing in the blogosphere, go here. You can purchase the anthology, edited by Lee K. Abbot, directly from Dzanc for $18, or in a bundle with Best of the Web 2008 for $30. Or, if you're into the technology, you can read it online. Either way, check it out. There's a ton of great writing inside.

Good News for Recent Contributors!

Kevin Skiena, whose story "In-Flight Dramaturgy" appears in issue #44, has a story appearing in Gay City: Volume 2. The journal includes essays, poetry, fiction and graphic/comic art. Though Kevin hasn't seen it yet, his mom got her copy and said it was "too hardcore" to share with grandma.

Sharon Fain, whose poem "Feather River" appeared in issue #43, just won the 2009 Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize for Poetry. Her poem "Demeter in the Suburbs" was chosen from over 1,700 entries.

Congratulations to Kevin and Sharon!

Our Newest Issue Reviewed by New Pages

Check out this fantastic review of our latest issue, #44, written by Sima Rabinowitz at New Pages. We appreciate the very kind words! The site also features reviews of Monkeybicycle, Gulf Coast, Glimmer Train, Rattle, and many other lit journals you should read.

News Around the Net

A fun video urging you to go green by shopping at your local, independent bookstore: "Keep it Local."

Canadian SF giant, Phyllis Gotleib, has died at age 82 after a long and prolific career.

Charles N. Brown, co-founder and editor of SF journal Locus, has died at age 72.

The art of timing e-book releases.

DFW's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is being adapted to film, set for September and directed by John Krasinski of The Office.

Communities have often been built around writing and it was only a matter of time before this one started, unemployment blogs.

Boyd Morrison, an indie author for Kindle, has sold his first book to S&S.

Hemingway was a KGB spy. Nope, not kidding.

Hugh Hefner, of Playboy fame, has bought up the first serial rights to Nabokov's last novella, to be published by Knopf.

Think all the MJ literature came out a bit fast? Two Chinese authors churned out a bio in 48 hours!

Can't get enough of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? Your next fix will be Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

Believe it or not, even genre fiction has its undervalued artists.

Forks, WA vs. Twilighters

The Vatican has embraced Oscar Wilde. That was fast, it only took a century.

A handful of poets were asked which words they hate the most. What are yours?

Philip Pullman, of the His Dark Materials trilogy, refused to take the "insulting" pedophile test.

The Printer's Ball

The Printers’ Ball, founded by Poetry magazine with Chicago literary organizations, is an annual celebration of print culture, featuring thousands of free magazines, books, and broadsides; live readings and music; letterpress, offset, and paper-making demonstrations; and much more. This year’s Printer's Ball is hosted by Columbia College Chicago and the Center for Book & Paper Arts in the historic Ludington Building, former home to the American Book Company, on July 31 from 5:00 to 11:00 PM. As always, there is no fee to attend or participate in the Printers' Ball! More than 1,500 people attend, and over 150 literary organizations will showcase the various ways they bring print to life. Click here for a sneak peak of the event, and here to join in the festivities on Facebook.

HFR staff can't be there, but our issues will be. If you're anywhere near Chicago, you won't want to miss this. We'd love to hear all about it!

We've Tweeted

If a little birdy hasn't already told you, HFR has officially joined Twitter. And we've Tweeted. Three times. We plan to Tweet a lot more once we get the hang of it, and it would encourage us immensely if you would follow us! Please go here to do that. Very soon we'll be Twittering writing prompts and subscription giveaways and all sorts of other things that really make sense to do on Twitter. We're hip, and we'll prove it.

Website of the Week - Sporcle

I have a confession to make: I'm obsessed with Sporcle. If I didn't have pressing professional obligations, I'm afraid I would spend my whole day on it, testing myself with quizzes related to "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme lyrics, album covers, celebrity mug shots and heteronyms (a word, that when pronounced two different ways, has two different meanings. Ex: conduct, like to conduct an orchestra or as in to be reprimanded for poor conduct). You may be wondering what this post is doing on a literary blog, so I'll tell you. This magical website has a whole section of literature-related quizzes! Think you can identify American and British authors based on book titles? In under five minutes? How about the Modern Library's 100 greatest books, or famous poets, or Shakespeare plays, or book titles given the opening or closing lines, or the sinners in Dante's Inferno? Even after repeated beatings to my literary self-esteem, I go back for more. Several times a day. I think you should, too.

Two Residencies

2011 Sandburg-Auden-Stein Residency
Intensive Learning Term poet-in-residence program, late April to mid May 15, 2011. From the early 1930s to the mid 1940s, Olivet College hosted some of the best-known writers of the time: Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Katherine Ann Porter, Carl Sandburg, Ford Madox Ford, W.H. Auden, and Gertrude Stein. In that tradition, Olivet has established an annual residency program for poets who are establishing a name for themselves in this new millennium. Previous Sandburg-Auden-Stein poets-in-residence are John Rybicki (2007) and Carol V. Davis (2008).

During the 2011 Intensive Learning Term, the Olivet College Humanities Department will offer its fifth poet-in-residence position. The Sandburg-Auden-Stein poet will live on or near campus and teach ENG 247: Poetry Writing. The Sandburg-Auden-Stein poet will also host two public events: a public reading of his or her work and a stand-alone talk/discussion on a subject of his or her choice (publishing poetry, beat poets, def poetry, etc.). An award of $3,100 (plus room and board) will be given to the 2011 poet. The Humanities Department faculty will evaluate the submissions and choose the winner. Poets who have published at least one book of poetry are eligible. Submissions are due on Sept. 10, 2009, and should include the following: five poems from your most recent book, a single page personal statement regarding, your poetics and teaching, a current résumé and two references. There is no entry fee. Please contact Kirk Hendershott-Kraetzer, Ph.D., Humanities Department chair, with your questions at (269) 749-7621 or khendershott-kraetzer@olivetcollege.edu. Electronic applications are strongly encouraged: .rtf, .doc, .docx formats accepted, .pdf preferred. Send to khendershott-kraetzer@olivetcollege.edu with “Residency application” indicated in the subject line. Application materials may be sent by regular mail to: Sandburg-Auden-Stein Residency / Humanities Department / Olivet College / 320 S. Main St. / Olivet, MI 49076. More here.

COCC Barber Library Seeks Scholar-in-Residence Applicants
Bend, Oregon. July 7, 2009. The Central Oregon Community College (COCC) Barber Library seeks applications for the fifth year of the Library Scholar-in-Residence Program. The appointment will continue the focus on creative writing with a Writer in Residence. The appointment begins September 1 and offers the selected scholar a shared office in the library, a computer and network use, and faculty level research access for up to one year. The library provides a stipend of $250 to the Scholar at the end of the spring term. The college and the library see this as an opportunity to support Central Oregon's vibrant cultural community on and off campus and help connect students, faculty and staff to these cultural opportunities. It's hoped that the provision of professional work space and research access will help the Scholar advance his or her creative project(s). Application Procedure: Submit the four items below to Mary Beth Hamilton, Library Administrative Assistant, College Library, COCC, 2600 NW College Way, Bend, OR 97701. Electronic submission is encouraged. Send to (replace (at) with @) and include "Scholar in Residence" in the subject line. Deadline is July 31. 1. Current resume including a list of publications and/or work in the writing/publishing field. 2. Brief biography. 3. Statement about a proposed work or sample of a work in pr ogress that the use of the office in the library and access to20resear ch resources would assist you in completing. 4. Statement of interest in encouraging creative writing by students and staff with a short sample of a few ideas you may have to offer opportunities and exposure to writing and literature. Additional information here. Additional details about the Library Scholar in Residence here.

Unusual Calls for Submissions

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. From 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 majat(at)verizon.net (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.

Publisher Seeks Submissions for 2010 MOTIF Anthology
MOTIF is an anthology series published annually by MotesBooks of Louisville, Ky. Volume 1: Writing By Ear featured 116 writers, including Patty Griffin, Silas House, Buddy & Julie Miller, Maurice Manning, Evie Shockley, Neela Vaswani, Frank X Walker and Pamela Duncan. Each volume in the MOTIF series focuses on a theme – for Volume 2 the theme is CHANCE. Submissions may be poems, short stories, song lyrics, short memoirs, essays, letters, creative nonfiction, or other forms. Combinations of forms are acceptable up to the limits described: Prose must be under 3,000 words. Send no more than three poems/lyrics. All genres will be considered as long as “chance” is referenced or illuminated in the works. Submissions may address the theme either directly or indirectly, but “chance” should figure significantly and
artfully in the piece. The definition or concept of “chance” can be interpreted in any way the writer sees fit, but could include ideas related to chaos, serendipity, mistake, the occasion for wonder, kismet, accident, fate, destiny, cause and effect, encounters, and/or predestination. Submit by email only. Send manuscript (Arial 12 pt., single-spaced) as a .doc or .rtf file (MS Word) to MOTIF(at)MotesBooks.com (replace (at) with @). IMPORTANT: Use "MOTIF Anthology" as the subject line. Include all author contact information (including phone, snail mail, and e-mail address) with each submission. Include a 50-60 word biographical note to appear in Contributor's section of the anthology in case of acceptance. Do not send previously published or simultaneously submitted material. Submission period closes September 1, 2009. More here.

"Thanksgiving to Christmas ~ A Patchwork of Stories"
Deadline extended to July 31, 2009. Call for submissions for a new anthology of holiday stories ˆ fiction and memoir ˆ to be released in Fall 2009. Guidelines: All submissions must clearly reflect a Thanksgiving or Christmas theme. Topics might include childhood memories, family gatherings and traditions, humorous stories, holiday adventures, heartwarming moments, difficult times, war years, shopping, pageants and parades ˆ whatever might make for an interesting read. No more than 1500 words (fiction, memoir, essay). Double-spaced. Times New Roman font preferred. Send as an attachment with "Holiday Anthology" in the Subject line
Include a cover letter and a very brief bio note (no more than 75 words) in the body of the email
Please submit only previously unpublished work. E-mail submissions as attachments to: Dixon Hearne at dixonh(at)socal.rr.com (replace (at) with @). More here.

CYBER ALIENS PRESS
Deadline Aug. 1, 2009. Themed anthology to be printed Oct. 1, 2009 Featuring hilarious stories of the Wild West, Prairie Romance, etc. Also seeking cowboy poetry, silly works. Seeking poems, limericks, puns, etc. that must express one of the following American Wild West, Prairie Romance, Steampunk or a mixture of all three. Submissions open through Aug. 1, 2009. No late submissions will be accepted. Put "SUBMISSION: [TITLE]" in subject line, address all correspondence to The Editors. Pays complimentary copy of anthology. Contract
sent for review upon acceptance. Email submissions to sillywestern (at) gmail.com (replace at with @). More here.

Seeking original poems for the anthology, *Visiting Dr. Williams: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of William Carlos Williams* (forthcoming, University of Iowa Press, 2010). Foreign poems in translation welcome. See previous anthologies: *Visiting Emily* (2000), *Visiting Walt* (2003) and *Visiting Frost* (2005), all from the Univ. of Iowa Pr., for an idea of the kind of poems we are seeking—poems of homage, poems that parody, that argue with, that disagree with, that are in conversation with, that respond to, that are triggered by the life and work of William Carlos Williams. Author must be able to grant permission to publish poem—or to obtain permission to publish if right to publish is held by another. Please provide proper credit acknowledgment for previously published poems. Deadline: September 15, 2009.
Send poems, current contact information, brief bio note (<75 words) and SASE to: Thom Tammaro/Williams Anthology/2837 29th Street S./Moorhead, MN 56560. No electronic submissions.

A Poem in Honor of Bastille Day

God Over Paris
by Jesse Lee Kercheval

In the toilette at the top
of the Eiffel Tower, a cabinet--
a stall--in the men’s room
costs 50 cents, but the urinals
are free, so my son, four,
stands next to his father
& for the first time in his life,
pees standing up.

The line of men waiting to piss
is longer than for the elevator
or the bronze telescopes--
which charge three euros
to see Paris up close,
something, it seems to me,
we just paid to escape.

How to explain this sudden desire
to urinate, to hold
your penis in your hand
at the very top of a tower,
which, while too pointed to be a penis,
is--in its own iron way--
spectacularly endowed?

So like men, I think, to take joy
in the near impossible--
in flushing a urinal with water
that traveled 300 meters
straight up for the sole purpose
of carrying their urine,
triumphant, to the ground.

My son, leaving the warmth
of the men for the view,
looks at me with pity
knowing I lack the necessary equipment
to do what he has done.

Though this just morning, he saw
a gypsy woman peeing standing up

in the Bois de Bologne,
her feet spread, skirt hiked to her knees.
Her daughter called
to my son by name--
Had she heard me call him?
Had she read it in the stars?
Max, she said, I’m thirsty.
Give me a drink.

And though she spoke to him
in French, he understood
her need & gave her his warm Coca-cola--
bottle shaped like a tower--
& she drank it
without stopping, like a diver
desperate for air.

Now at the top of the Tour Eiffel,
it is raining, fat drops
fall from the bruise-colored sky--
Max points to a cloud.
Is that God’s butt? he asks.
Does He ever sit down?

Review of The Spider Sermons by Robert Krut

Review of The Spider Sermons by Robert Krut, BlazeVOX Books, 2009.

By Elizabyth Hiscox

This collection is some easy sermonizing. It’s zesty, utterly earnest at points, but worldwise and worthwhile. As Laurie Kutchins blurbs: “Robert Krut delivers a precipice city, a galactic (but not preachy) spider, a narrator who sometimes wears a sandwich board.” These poems spin a rock and roll lullaby for heavens that are under serious contemplation.

The universe Krut creates in The Spider Sermons is situated in the philosophical kitsch of a modern life. A close look at spiritualism, but with “Sympathy for the Devil on the jukebox to great effect.” The book opens with a Dylan [Bob] quote, there is Hendrix, quite a few radios tuned in and turned up, and a bit of the bad-boy gone reflective throughout. The literary type too: Johnson and Burkhard warrant notice and these homage poems don’t compromise Krut’s own slant:

Social Graces
-after Burkhard

I do not know what not
to do—
little yellow notebook of rules,
tip-toe topics,
gone missing, if I ever had it at all.
[…]
There is a secret I’m bound to
let slip, write on a sugar packet,
pass across the table.

The light bulb eye sockets of the waitress
shine white light in my glass,
saying I’m sorry, I’m sorry—
there’s a mosquito frozen
into one of ice cubes—
I’m really sorry.

The closing poem, “Hood Ornament Radio Signal,” serves as a kind of au revoir: a parting phrase that invites a return of sorts to the impulses of the collection:

I’m going to melt
a cross, a statue of the Buddha, and the arms of Vishnu
into a hood ornament of a naked woman with wings of fire,
set it on my car and follow it like a compass. […]

This sense of serious play– a smug wonder at the hard, amusing truths of humanity and eternity – is this collection’s greatest gift. The guidance systems we’ve been given are off and our collective naïveté is at once tragic, and a gut-buster.

Formal elements and the fingerprints of careful craft are shot straight through. The collection’s third poem is the heady sestina “A Thousand Pieces, Dancing” with sugar and neon to the sixth power. “Another Spider Song” slant rhymes its way: “There’s a sheet of burning ice/ and it’s moving up the coast./ Leaving ghosts in sight/ looking just like tainted frost.” And Krut pulls it off. These poetic footholds are valuable; the legacy they infuse in the collection. But, ultimately, the most affecting are those poems in this book that slip to the side. Fool one as freeform. Become the improvisation around the loose spine of language, as with “What Beckian Said” or “Tenth and Northside Arrival”: “[…]I don’t know—/ but my answer is this, and it is final: / I head to the jukebox, slip in a quarter,/”

There’s also a charm to the pieces that cast a sweetly outdated vision of the future as their laughably endearing touchstones. Why don’t more poets have the common sense to write poems like “Gravitypants Rocketboy” or “The Clumsy Love Robot”?

“I’ve been feeding my robot human hearts
in an effort to have him
understand the formula that posits
love is cumulative, not chronological.”

Digest the collection this way too. Read it out of order, sinking your teeth in, letting the poems build up and accumulate on your chin, in your belly, in your arteries, and in your muscle memory as you read aloud. Broken into four sections there’s symmetry and a resonance in the structure of the book and the deploying of the poems, but the chronological approach doesn’t do them justice. Abandoning the cover-to-cover on this one let Krut’s particular style rise to the surface: the quirky mixed with the questing.

And it is that aforementioned “cumulative” effect that is the real hook of this book. The flipside to the grit beneath the verse’s fingernails –the talk of tailpipes and objects of the everyday – is the caress of real affection and attention. A woman is in these pages, a deity too, and moments of daring that strike one as quiet truths: “It seems the less I believe in God, / the more biblical life around me becomes.//”

Robert Krut is the author of The Spider Sermons (BlazeVOX, 2009). His poetry has appeared in a wide variety of journals, including Blackbird, The Mid-American Review, Barrow Street, and more. His poem, "The Relativity Tree" appeared in HFR #32. In addition, his chapbook, Theory of the Walking Big Bang was released in 2007 by H-ngm-n Books. He teaches at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and lives in Los Angeles.

Thoughts on the Printed Word

This thoughtful, inspiring article from independent book publisher Eric Obenauf offers a hopeful forecast for the world of print, finally.

"The goal for book publishers, most simply put, should not be to undertake a virtual arms race of developing technology with both the Internet and media, or to try to compete on a bloated scale with music and film, or even to translate a work to conform to an undetermined potential future model. The mission for book publishers and print media at large should be to create a product that is irreplaceable and indispensible."

New Words to Commit to Memory Foam

Merriam-Webster has just released its list of words newly added to the dictionary. So, get learnin! If you've been creating a "sock puppet" or "waterboarding" before now, it's been unofficial. Anyone who can use three of them in a single sentence, gets a free back issue of HFR. Post 'em here!

Not Be Forgotten: Larry Levis

“Sometimes, remembering those days,
I watch a warm, dry wind bothering a whole line of elms
And maples along a street in this neighborhood until
They’re all moving at once, until I feel just like them,
Trembling & in unison. None of this matters now,
But I never felt alone all that year, & if I had sorrows,
I also had laughter, the affliction of angels and children.
Which can set a whole house on fire if you’d let it.”

The above is from the poem, “My Story In A Late Style Of Fire,” by Larry Levis (1946-1996). It's the poem that made me love Levis, and the book it's from, Winter Stars, is the book that made me want to be a poet. I didn’t just want to write like Levis, I wanted to be Levis, to see the world as he did, to feel what he felt, love like he loved, with passion and with attention to and for the details that can make a meaning for the living. I had my first poet/man crush. Other man crushes in the past included Flea, Johnny Cash, Dostoyevsky, Camus, and Kierkegaard.

Last semester I was a junior studying under the poet Norman Dubie, who was and still is one of my favorite poets, and I also knew he was Larry Levis’s old drinking buddy from his poem “A Genesis Text for Larry Levis Who Died Alone.” But what I didn’t know is what matters now. On the first day of class Dubie asked us to name our favorite poets. I said Larry. Dubie started talking. A great poet he was, he said, “He was the smartest poet I’ve met, ya know I used to be his teacher out at Iowa” (here, I am paraphrasing from memory). So there I was, a junior studying under the teacher who taught my favorite poet. Lucky? Destiny sounds better to me. If I wrote a good poem in class, Dubie would say, this is something Larry would have liked, or this reminds me of Levis, which would make me feel as if I had reached some subliminal point on the hierarchy of needs scale. To be studying under Dubie was too real for me, I believed in it, really; I could have believed in astrology at that point, the alignment of planets making things like this possible.

Levis’s best poems are exhibited in his last three works, Winter Stars, Widening Spell of The Leaves, and Elegy—which was published posthumously. I recommend starting out with Winter Stars; it is accessible, stunning, and less heart-wrenchingly exhaustive than the others are. Though Levis is largely unknown--due to his unexpected early death--his work has been highly respected by other established poets such as Charles Wright, Tony Hoagland, Philip Levine, David St. John, and many others. Hoagland has this to say about Levis’s work, “In comparison as a device whose goal is logical coherence, or persuasion, or concentration; rather, [Levis's] practice is to use image as a form of inquiry, as a kind of tentative, speculating finger poking into the unknown." So do yourself a favor, read and listen to some of his poetry here, and then go buy one of his books and find out why he is considered by many to be a forgotten god of the contemporary poets.

The Writer's Center Announces Fellowships for Emerging Writers

The Writer’s Center, metropolitan DC’s community gathering place for writers and readers, is currently accepting submissions for several competitive Emerging Writer Fellowships. Emerging Writer Fellows will be selected from applicants who have published up to 2 book-length works of prose and up to 3 book-length works of poetry. We welcome submissions from writers of any genre, background, or experience.

Emerging Writer Fellows will be featured at The Writer’s Center as part of their Emerging Writers Reading Series. The readings, held on Friday evenings, bring together writers in different genres with a backdrop of live music. The Writer’s Center book store will sell titles by the Emerging Writers throughout the season in which they appear in an effort to promote them and their work to a wide audience.

Selected Fellows are invited to lead a special Saturday workshop at The Writer’s Center, with compensation commensurate with standard Writer’s Center provisions. Fellows receive an all-inclusive honorarium to help offset their travel costs in the amount of $250 or $500, depending on their place of departure.

Fellows for Fall 2009 include novelist Alexander Chee (Edinburgh), novelist Lisa Selin Davis (Belly), poet Suzanne Frischkorn (Lit Windowpane), poet Aaron Smith (Blue on Blue Ground), Canadian fiction writer Neal Smith (Bang Crunch), poet Srikanth Reddy (Facts for Visitors), and poet Nancy Krygowski (Velocity). Their events will be held in September, October, and December. See our events calendar for more information. Spring 2009 events will be held in February, March, and April/May.

To be considered, please send a letter of interest, a resume or CV that details publication history and familiarity facilitating group discussions, and a copy of your most recent book. Self-published or vanity press titles will not be accepted. A committee comprised of The Writer’s Center board members, staff, and members will evaluate submissions on behalf of our community of writers.

The deadline to submit is August 15, 2009. Applicants are encouraged to call Charles Jensen, Director, for more information at 301-654-8664.

The Writer’s Center, established in 1976, is one of the nation’s oldest and largest literary centers. We provide over 60 free public events and more than 200 writing workshops each year, sell one of the largest selections of literary magazines in our on-site bookstore, and publish Poet Lore, America’s oldest continually published poetry journal.

Website of the Week: Three Percent

Part of the University of Rochester and affiliated with its translation press Open Letter, Three Percent is a site devoted to what is new and valuable in translation. The name of the site comes from the fact that only three percent of all works published in America are works in translation, a staggeringly low amount in the University's opinion. The website's job is to advocate for translation of world literature and be guide to some of the best examples out there.

It's a good time to be looking at translation. Most American lit-heads were at least somewhat chastened when we were singled out last year - by no less than someone who helps choose the Nobel Prize - that Americans do not read enough of the rest of the world's literature. It does give you pause. Reading only Americans makes no more sense than only reading Texans or Pennsylvanians. Where would the short story be without Chekhov? Where would poetry be without Wislawa Szymborska ? Where would we be without Magic Realism? Scolding from the Nobel aside, there is a lot we may be missing. Give Three Percent a look, and make sure you're not coming out on the short end of the stick.

Review of DO-OVER! by Robin Hemley

Review of DO-OVER! by Robin Hemley, Little, Brown & Company, 2009.

By Jessica DeVoe Riley

“You’re going to know a lot about your life when you finish this.”

Imagine being given the chance to do over something from your past. How about two things? How about ten? Think you would learn something new about your life? Robin Hemley did.

At age forty-eight, Robin Hemley finds himself divorced and remarried, the father of three girls with one more child on the way, and the owner of one too many unresolved childhood memories. He decides that if he intends to be the kind of father he wants to be, then he must come to terms with those cringe-worthy memories. His approach is to shout “Do over!” with the bravado of his inner child. The end result is his book DO-OVER!, "In Which a forty-eight-year-old father of three returns to kindergarten, summer camp, the prom, and other embarrassments.” Hemley brings readers on an amusing tour of his life: reflections on the awkwardness of youth and his journey to confront those ghosts of his past.

While the book admittedly sounds a bit like the plot to Billy Madison, it is much more than repeating a few grades in school – Hemley returns to summer camp, joins a fraternity, and spends the night in his childhood home. Each chapter is dedicated to a single do-over, in which Hemley tells the memory of why this is a moment in time he would like to repeat, how the do-over experience goes, and what he learns from it to apply to his present life as a father and husband. It’s hard not to cheer along for Hemley. He writes with such endearing humor as he addresses the survival strategy that everyone knows but has trouble applying to their own lives: learn and move on from your mistakes. “Our whole lives we struggle with our personal sense of failure,” he writes. “To the outside world, our failures are strangers, but to us, they’re our closest intimates, closer than friends, children, spouses, parents; nourished from an early age, they may become so strong that they overcome us.”

In addition to a balanced blend of comedy, sarcasm, and sensitivity while delivering painful memories of flubbing lines, lacking confidence, or getting homesick while studying abroad, Hemley draws the reader in with descriptions of the supporters he encounters along the way. Hemley repeatedly references how most people he tells about his project are not only excited for him but often offer the moments they would like to do over. Even the sixth grade art teacher who introduced herself to Hemley saying, “I’m going to have a hard time taking this seriously,” winds up confiding in Hemley about her own past experiences with teachers, a conversation that leaves him “feeling as though I’ve made her a convert, though I’m not exactly sure to what.”

From his dream high school prom date talking of the current batch of high-schoolers (“Sometimes I forget that I’m not as young as they are because I feel their age still”) to toasting with friends in Japan (“To who we are!"), Hemley makes his strongest connection to readers by bringing everyone in on the agreement that the inner child still exists, and that everyone benefits by letting him out once in a while. With that imagination and exuberance for life, though, comes the childhood feelings of confusion or lack of confidence or fear. As adults we’ve (hopefully) become more capable of handling those feelings: “Sometimes I’m an observer. Sometimes I’m a participant. Sometimes I’m an oddity. But most of the time, I seem to fit in somehow, and these are the moments I relish, even when I’m playing the fool or basking in the imaginative worlds of childhood.”

Robin Hemley is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on DO-OVER!. He has published seven books, and his stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune, and many literary magazines and anthologies, including Hayden's Ferry Review (his story, "Mercy" appeared in issue #34). Robin received his MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop; he currently directs the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City, IA.

A Guide to Independent Bookstores

Marc Fitten is turning his book tour for his new book Valeria’s Last Stand, into an Indie extravaganza. Fitten is visiting 100 independent bookstores while on tour and then posting reviews of each store on his blog. So far he has worked his way through 25 of them, covering a large portion of New England and the South.

Some of the review language is chatty and slight (it’s good to know that Amherst Books ‘smells nice’ but that not really how I pick my bookstores), but it is a representation of some great independents gathered in one place. Good luck and godspeed, Marc, I’m a little envious of all the great stores you’re going to.

Job Posting: Assistant Professor in Creative Writing - Fiction

Institution: Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
Location: Shippensburg, PA
Category: Faculty - Liberal Arts - English and Literature
Type: Full Time
Tenure-track assistant professor in Creative Writing, Fiction, full-time appointment beginning August 2010. MFA or PhD from an accredited institution required by time of appointment. Candidates must have a demonstrated commitment to undergraduate education, a strong record of publications in fiction, and evidence of academic service. Twelve-hour course load each semester may include creative writing, general education (writing and literature), and literature courses in the major, with course reduction available for advising the student literary magazine. The committee will request writing samples from selected candidates and may meet with these candidates at MLA. On-campus interviews for finalists will include a demonstration of teaching effectiveness and a brief fiction reading.

Submit letter of interest, curriculum vitae, undergraduate and graduate transcripts (unofficial for application, official prior to interview), and contact information for three references to:

Richard Zumkhawala-Cook, Chair
Creative Writing Search Committee
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
1871 Old Main Drive, DHC 113
Shippensburg PA 17257

Review of applications begins November 2, 2009. For more information about the Department of English and Shippensburg University, see www.ship.edu/~english.

Evidence of a commitment to understanding diverse populations will be required as part of the on-campus interview. Offers of employment are contingent upon successful completion of a criminal background check. All candidates must furnish proof of eligibility to work in the U.S. upon appointment. Shippensburg University is committed to equal employment opportunity. Individuals from traditionally underrepresented populations are encouraged to apply.

A Look at Independent Presses

David Milofsky of the Denver Post is doing a pretty cool thing this summer: he's focusing his monthly columns on books coming out of independent and university presses. His June column took a look around at some of the best new books for summer reading. Having discovered that "where alternative presses are concerned our communal cup is overflowing," he decided to continue what he started in June. His new July column focuses on the books coming out of Coffee House and Graywolf presses.

In a time where the big houses are closing their doors to some of the most talented literary writers, the small presses are increasingly where to look for the most exciting and innovative fiction and poetry. Thanks to Milofsky for giving them some attention!

Happy July 4th!

Going through the HFR archive, I had some trouble finding an appropriate Independence Day poem. Our contributors don't like to talk about independence, or freedom or - even - apple pie. I suppose fireworks are kind of heavy handed for a poem? Fine. And I guess "Declaration of Independence" doesn't rhyme with a lot of stuff. So here's what we've got: a poster celebrating Summer from Silver Buckle Press, which appeared in issue #25. And a poem from issue #31 which strikes me as very American, contains an explosion, and is called "Consitution," though is not about the document. Enjoy! And have a wonderful holiday.

Constitution
By Caki Wilkinson

I have an Uncle Hugh
who shot his car.

It had something to do
with the carburetor,
and the seventh or eighth time
it steamed and smoked
instead of purred and sped,
he pulled his rifle
from the coat closet
and popped the gas tank
into a balloon of fire.

I asked my mother
did he feel bad
and she said
when a man's got a temper
he never feels bad, and
Uncle Hugh's like Daddy--
he'd shoot down
the big dipper
if he thought it sprung a leak.

I worry about that.

Some days
when the garage door
sticks
and the dog
pees on the newspaper
instead of retrieving it,
I watch a single, blue vein
rise
and throb
across my father's forehead
and I think of Uncle Hugh,
the way he stood there
with his mess of fire,
the way his family filed out
to the front porch,
squinting through all that
orange light,
and the way Uncle Hugh
never made a sound,
wiped his sweaty cheek,
picked his back tooth.

News Around the Net

Despite the current climate in the industry, Jessica Stockton is opening a new independent bookstore in Brooklyn.

Alice Hoffman's lesson on when to tweet and when not to tweet.

The journal of a controversial film.

The results are in on the Salinger spin-off, and it's a resounding "no."

In the wake of Iran's recent elections, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis will get its encore.

James Frey is working on a new YA novel involving aliens. Insert your favorite quip about Frey's fake memoir here.

Here's a list of the Best Worst Opening Lines award nominees. Bulwer-Lytton triple dog dares you to top them!

What comes after Tolkien?

The Open Library is attempting to make a single web page for every single book in the world.

Much more than Satisfactory

In response to this post about Abe's Penny, a postcard literary magazine, we received another batch of low-postage wonderfulness from our friend and former HFR contributor Isaac Cates at Satisfactory Comics. I enjoyed the episode of "Stepan Crick and the Chart of the Possible" (also know as Satisfactory Comics #8). There's a half-decent amount of Herge's TinTin and the Goscinny/Uderzo Asterix in here, which is amazing given its small format. It's a real relief to see the European influence when it seems like most artists are looking to the explosion of popularity of Japanese manga for artistic cues. I have no problem with manga, but the European tradition of comics is rich as well. If you're interested in receiving your own dose of postcard comics, you can actually order this issue and two others for only $5 postpaid.


Satisfactory Comics also has a great blog. One of the best features is "Doodle Penance" where they analyze their site statistics and draw something based on what they find. Check out Kirby Kachina from their most recent post. All luck to to Isaac and his co-creator Mike Wenthe, and thanks for the read.

Website of the Week - Awful Library Books

If you’re a dedicated student of literature and are sometimes worried that everyone’s reading nonfiction and political books and whether fiction and poetry might have any staying power anymore, check out the site Awful Library Books. Two librarians have dedicated the site to items actually sitting on library shelves “so old, obsolete, awful or just plain stupid that we are horrified that people might be actually checking these items out and depending on the information.” Reading it makes a refreshing case for the timelessness of good literature. I would rather wade through all of Anthony Trollope and G.K. Chesterton than have to read the pictured book at left.

Novelists in particular write about their times in a very encompassing way, and readers who peruse John Updike or Jane Austen will find the times more feelingly rendered than a reference book of the era. If the writing is good there is a chance that literature becomes more significant as it ages. You can't say the same for nonfiction.

Which leads us to some very funny titles. I had to ask Beth to help me make up my mind on which title to display in this post. The best choices were between the cell-phone book above, one on the Soviet Union, and a guide book to the return of Halley's Comet (published in 1985 for it's last appearance.) I think we picked this cellular maven for her smart and capable demeanor. Although the guy from the Soviet Union had a really nice hat.

Thanks to the intrepid Olive Reader at Harper Perennial for being the first to post on this.